Mulvaney huddles with Senate Dems to discuss 'humanitarian crisis' at border

By MARIANNE LEVINE

04/10/2019 06:42 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/10/mulvaney-senate-border-1266988

The White House met with Senate Democrats to discuss possibly jump-starting talks to fix the situation at the southern border on Wednesday afternoon.

Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's acting chief of staff, huddled in a closed door meeting with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in Feinstein’s office.

After the meeting, Durbin told reporters the “situation at the border is challenging and we were talking about what could be done.” He said the discussions haven’t reached the point of talking about specific policy proposals and that they are at “the early stage of identifying the challenge.”

He added that the group hopes to meet again, but noted that Congress will be on recess soon.

Tester echoed Durbin’s remarks and said the group discussed “the possibility of working together to get something done” so that the “humanitarian crisis is less of a crisis.”

The meeting about immigration comes as Trump has come under fire for a purge of senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security, including the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Mulvaney declined to comment as he was leaving the meeting.

https://minnlawyer.com/2019/04/11/trump-administration-appeals-court-ruling-over-asylum-policy/

Trump administration appeals court ruling over asylum policy

By: The Associated Press April 11, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO — The Trump administration on Wednesday appealed a judge’s ruling that would block the government from returning asylum seekers to Mexico to await court hearings.

The one-sentence appeal filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not immediately ask to stop the lower court ruling from going into effect Friday.

Judge Richard Seeborg has given the government until the end of the week to ask for a stay of Monday’s ruling, in which he granted a request by civil liberties groups to halt the practice while their lawsuit moves forward.

The administration’s policy violated U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate dangers migrants face in Mexico, Seeborg said. He said a law cited by government officials did not apply to the 11 asylum seekers who sued.

The U.S. took the unprecedented action at the nation’s busiest border crossing — in San Diego — in response to growing numbers of families fleeing poverty and gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

About 1,000 migrants have been sent back to Mexico since the policy went into effect in January and was later expanded across the California border and to West Texas.

Families seeking asylum that typically would have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court were instead sent back to Mexico to await their hearings.

The administration had hoped the move would discourage weak asylum claims and help reduce an immigration court backlog of more than 800,000 cases.

Under the new policy, asylum seekers were not guaranteed interpreters or lawyers and couldn’t argue to a judge that they face the potential of persecution or torture in Mexico, the American Civil Liberties Union argued.

The San Francisco ruling came up Wednesday at a case in El Paso, Texas, where lawyers for a Salvadoran man who said he had been threatened in Mexico asked for permission to stay in the U.S. while his case proceeds.

A Homeland Security attorney assured the judge that the man would not be sent back to Mexico, even though the California court decision doesn’t take effect until Friday.

President Donald Trump had criticized the ruling as unfair. His administration has said it’s trying to cope with a crisis at the southern border.

While Border Patrol arrests, the most widely used gauge of illegal crossings, have risen sharply over the last year, they are relatively low in historical terms after hitting a 46-year low in 2017.

Hundreds in migrant caravan leave Honduras, beginning journey to U.S. southern border

Claudio Escalon, Associated Press Published 4:08 p.m. ET April 10, 2019 | Updated 4:18 p.m. ET April 10, 2019

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/04/10/migrant-caravan-honduras-heading-u-s-southern-border-san-pedro-sula/3427004002/

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras – Hundreds of Honduran migrants, many carrying young children, set out in a caravan for that country's border with Guatemala on Wednesday, hoping to reach the United States.

Some of those who gathered at the San Pedro Sula bus station said they can't support their families with what they can earn in Honduras and are seeking better opportunities.

Most boarded buses before dawn that would carry them to towns on the Guatemalan border. Others walked through the rain, some pushing strollers or carrying sleeping children in their arms.

Guatemalan immigration authorities said that their Honduran counterparts informed them that about 1,100 migrants were headed for their common border, mostly aboard buses to two crossing points. They said some were already crossing into Guatemala.

Nohemy Reyes, who waited at the bus station with one of her five children sleeping on floor beside her, said her country's economic straits are driving her north.

"The economic situation is very difficult," she said. But if she finds the U.S. border closed, she said, she will return to Honduras.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border before changing course and threatening tariffs on automobiles produced in Mexico if that country does not stop the flow of Central American migrants.

U.S. border facilities have been overwhelmed by the number of migrant families. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced this week that 53,000 parents and children were apprehended at the southern border in March.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned this week and was replaced by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan in an acting capacity.

Trump on Tuesday said he isn't planning on reinstating his controversial family separation policy. Last summer, more than 2,500 children were separated from their families before a judge ordered them reunited.

The caravans became a popular way of making the trek because the migrants find safety in numbers and save money by not hiring smugglers.

In late March, Mexico's interior secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero warned that the "mother of all caravans" was forming. It was not clear where her estimate of 20,000 migrants in the potential caravan came from, but she announced it after meeting with Nielsen in Miami.

That did not materialize, but Central American officials criticized the announcement, saying it could inspire migrants to merge into another caravan.

In March, the Trump administration notified Congress that it would seek to suspend direct aid payments to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, because they were not working. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended that decision in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, arguing that hundreds of millions of dollars had been ineffective.

Miguel Angel Reyes of San Juan Pueblo, Honduras, said his country's violent crime was one factor in his decision to leave, but mostly he was looking for a way to provide for his wife and four children.

"I'm going because the situation is really hard here in Honduras," said the field worker. "We can't take it anymore. There's a lot of suffering, no work."

>>6134982

>In late March, Mexico's interior secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero warned that the "mother of all caravans" was forming. It was not clear where her estimate of 20,000 migrants in the potential caravan came from, but she announced it after meeting with Nielsen in Miami.

>

>That did not materialize, but Central American officials criticized the announcement, saying it could inspire migrants to merge into another caravan.

**For those of us (lb) wondering about the 20,000.

>>6135186

A little more patience anon. It's coming.