Federal Judge Emmit Sullivan has an obligation to rule on the case before him, says Judge Jeanine Pirro, host of ‘Justice.’
Judge Jeanine Pirro told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Wednesday that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan‘s decision to allow a third party to present arguments opposing the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn was “absolutely foreign.”
“The judge has an obligation to rule on the case before him,” Pirro told host Tucker Carlson. “It is not complicated. It is a motion to dismiss with one of the most fact-laden affidavit[s] … behind it to support the application to dismiss. It’s a ministerial move that this judge apparently doesn’t want to make.”
Earlier Wednesday, Sullivan appointed retired New York federal judge John Gleeson as an “amicus curiae,” or friend of the court. On Tuesday, Sullivan issued an order indicating he’ll soon accept “amicus” submissions in the case — drawing immediate scrutiny and a planned ethics complaint against Sullivan, who had previously refused to hear amicus briefs in the case.
“Now, they want to bring in the clowns,” the “Justice with Judge Jeanine” host told Carlson. “This morning, it was all the retired Watergate attorneys who want to come in and now we’re going to bring in someone else to tell the judge how to rule. He’s [Sullivan’s] been a judge for 30 years.”
Pirro called on for Sullivan to “recuse himself,” adding that he “should be embarrassed to put a robe on.”
“This judge doesn’t belong on that case,” Pirro said. “And now what he’s doing is he’s poisoning the 2020 election … He’s trying to destroy the whole thing so that [Attorney General William] Barr looks like the villain here.”
El exdiputado y excandidato presidencial Jorge Crespo Toral falleció a los 94 años, el pasado 6 de agosto.
Doctor en jurisprudencia, Crespo Toral fue un político que desempeñó diversas funciones públicas y defendió organizaciones sindicales.
En la década de los sesenta estuvo vinculado al movimiento político Acción Revolucionaria Nacionalista Ecuatoriana (ARNE). Fue elegido diputado a la Constituyente de 1966 y postulado como candidato presidencial por esa tienda política en 1968.
Contrajo matrimonio con Laura Romo Rivera, quien laboró por más de sesenta años en la Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana Benjamín Carrión, desde su fundación. Con ella tuvo a su hijo, Santiago. (I)
WASHINGTON — For more than 90 years, a huge concrete cross has dominated part of Bladensburg, Maryland, a Washington suburb. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will be asked to decide whether it should stay, raising a question that has vexed the justices for decades: What is the proper place for religion in American public life?
To its defenders, which include the state and the American Legion, the 40-foot-tall Peace Cross is a secular monument, a memorial to area war dead. To its detractors, it’s an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion invoking Christianity’s most potent symbol.
Completed in 1925, it was built to commemorate 49 servicemen who died in World War I. Their names are on a bronze plaque at the base. Private funds paid for the cross, but a state commission took it over in 1961 as well as the land it sits on, which is now in a busy traffic interchange.
In 2012, the American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit, claiming that its presence on public land violates the Constitution, amounting to a government establishment of religion. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia agreed, saying it could not ignore that “for thousands of years the Latin cross has represented Christianity.”
Private funds paid for the memorial, but a state commission took it over in 1961 as well as the land it sits on, which is now in a busy traffic interchange.Lawrence Hurley / Reuters file
Applying a test the Supreme Court has employed in the past to evaluate religious displays, the appeals court said a reasonable observer would conclude that the government “either places Christianity above other faiths, views being American and Christian as one in the same, or both.”
Monica Miller, the Humanist association’s senior counsel, says the cross was always intended to be a religious symbol, and its original planners wanted it to look like the cross of Calvary, described in the Bible as the place where Christ was crucified.
“The Latin cross is not embraced by non-Christians or used by them as a symbol of death or sacrifice,” she says. When the government prominently displays the cross as a war memorial, “it does more than just align the state with Christianity. It also callously discriminates against patriotic soldiers who are not Christian.”
The state parks commission defends the cross as a memorial designed to mirror the cross-shaped markers on the graves of American servicemen overseas. In the aftermath of World War I, the group says, crosses became the cultural symbol of the fallen, as depicted in one of the most famous poems of the war: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row.”
Local governments may display symbols associated with a particular religion to honor historical events or acknowledge the role of religious faith in society, said Neal Katyal, a Washington lawyer representing the parks commission, and they don’t threaten the values of religious neutrality. But requiring them to be torn down would promote a hostility to religion that the Constitution prohibits.
The American Legion also urges the court to abandon a test it has used for decades to determine whether government displays or expressions involving religious symbols would be seen by a reasonable person as a government endorsement of a particular religious faith.
“The test should be coercion,” Michael Carvin, a D.C. lawyer representing the patriotic group, said. “Has there been some tangible threat to liberty because of what the government is doing, such as outright proselytizing? That should be the question.”
A government’s use of religion in a passive display does not compel people to support or participate in any religion, he says, and a memorial honoring war dead “is precisely where one would expect to encounter religious imagery in a government display.”
The Trump administration agrees. Its friend of court brief says the Constitution’s ban on an establishment of religion does not prohibit the acknowledgement of religion in public life. “Passive displays generally fall on the permissible side of that line, because they typically do not compel religious belief.”
Past Supreme Court decisions on this question are widely considered to be a muddle of contradictions. The court has upheld opening legislative sessions with a prayer and has ruled against challenges to “In God We Trust” on currency or the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. But it also invalidated displays of The Ten Commandments in local courthouses.
A decision is expected by late June.
Pete Williams
Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.
Prosecutors argued Friday that financier Jeffrey Epstein should be denied bail while he awaits trial on sex trafficking charges involving underage girls, fearing that he will tamper with witnesses. The prosecutors submitted written arguments in advance of a bail hearing Monday, saying he faces “the very real possibility” of spending the rest of his life in prison and seems not to understand the gravity of his crimes.
“And any doubt that the defendant is unrepentant and unreformed was eliminated when law enforcement agents discovered hundreds or thousands of nude and seminude photographs of young females in his Manhattan mansion on the night of his arrest, more than a decade after he was first convicted of a sex crime involving a juvenile,” prosecutors wrote in their submission.
The filing came a day after defense lawyers told U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman that Epstein should be given bail and confined to his $77 million Manhattan mansion with electronic monitoring. Epstein was arrested Saturday after arriving at a New Jersey airport from Paris. Epstein pleaded not guilty Monday to charges alleging he recruited and abused dozens of underage girls at his mansions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, in the early 2000s.
“Against this backdrop of significant-and rapidly-expanding-evidence, serious charges, and the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence, the defendant proposes to be released on conditions that are woefully inadequate.. the defendant should be housed where he can be secured at all times: a federal correctional center,” prosecutors wrote.
Lawyer for Epstein’s alleged victims: There are “well in excess of 50”
They also said they were worried Epstein, 66, might try to derail his trial. They said Epstein recently paid $100,000 to one individual “named as a possible co-conspirator” in a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida 12 years ago.
They said the payment, along with $250,000 sent to another person who was a former employee and was named as a possible co-conspirator in the non-prosecution agreement, came after the Miami Herald last November began publishing a series of article describing the circumstances of his state court conviction in Florida in 2008 and the deal to avoid federal prosecution.
“This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him in light of the recently re-emerging allegations,” prosecutor said.
Epstein was arrested July 6 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and charged with child sex trafficking. According to an indictment, Epstein allegedly abused dozens of underage girls as young as 14 from at least 2002 to 2005. He faced similar charges in 2007 but took a plea deal in 2008 to avoid federal prosecution.
The deal was overseen by Alex Acosta, who at the time was the U.S. attorney in Florida’s Southern District. Earlier on Friday, Acosta stepped down from his post as Labor Secretary amid increasing scrutiny over how he handled the case. Acosta will leave the administration in seven days.
The Los Angeles Police Department posted a video on Facebook Tuesday showing a man punching two women and knocking them to the ground before fleeing the scene.
The incident took place Saturday at a hot dog stand in the city, the LAPD said. By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 80,000 times.
The suspect, identified as Arka Sangbarani Oroojian, turned himself in Tuesday night, LAPD said Wednesday. He was booked for assault with a deadly weapon and his bail was set at $90,000.
After the incident, one witness told CBS Los Angeles the women started the fight. “There are two sides to every story and those women started it,” said the witness, identified only as Stewart.
Stewart said the altercation started when the man got into a dispute with vendors about the price of a hot dog. He told KTLA the two women got involved, calling the man derogatory names and telling him to leave the vendors alone.
“They started punching on him first and once they punched on him first and jumped on his back, then he defended himself by counter-punching these women so the video only caught the second glimpse of the story,” Stewart said.
The father of one of the women said they were standing up for a street vendor that the man was hassling just before the fight began, KTLA reported.
The video shows witnesses watching the two women get punched. No one appeared to go after the man when he ran away.
Stewart said the lack of intervention was because “guys don’t want to get into it, fighting this guy and get charges pressed on them.”
(Reuters) – California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that he is ready to withdraw hundreds of the state’s National Guard troops from the U.S.-Mexico border, a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s stance that a national security crisis is unfolding there.
In his State of the State address on Tuesday, the newly elected Democratic governor will say that border crossings had fallen to their lowest since 1971 and California’s undocumented population had dropped to a more than 10-year low, spokesman Brian Ferguson said.
“The border ‘emergency’ is nothing more than a manufactured crisis — and CA’s National Guard will not be part of this political theater,” Newsom said on Twitter.
As a result, the governor would reassign about 360 California National Guard troops at the border to address the “real threats” faced by the state, including drug trafficking and wildfires, the spokesman said in an email.
Newsom’s office did not provide a timeline for the redeployments.
Newsom’s predecessor, Governor Jerry Brown, agreed to send the troops to the border last April after reaching agreement with the Trump administration that they would focus on fighting criminal gangs and smugglers, but not enforcing immigration laws.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham last week ordered most National Guard troops deployed at the state’s border with Mexico to withdraw, also rejecting the Republican president’s contention of a crisis.
Grisham, a Democrat, called Trump’s frequent declarations of an immigration crisis at the border a “charade.” The troops were deployed by her Republican predecessor, Susana Martinez, last year at Trump’s request.
Trump has deployed an extra 3,750 U.S. troops on the border this month.
Constantly pointing to threats from illegal immigrants, Trump has made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a priority of his presidency. But Democrats are seeking to thwart that, saying it is unnecessary and a waste of money.
Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to help build a wall led to a 35-day partial U.S. government shutdown that ended last month without the president getting wall funding. He agreed to reopen the government for three weeks to allow lawmakers time to find a compromise and avert another shutdown on Feb. 15.
Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frank McGurty and Grant McCool
This story was a collaboration between The New York Times and The El Paso Times.
CLINT, Tex. — Since the Border Patrol opened its station in Clint, Tex., in 2013, it was a fixture in this West Texas farm town. Separated from the surrounding cotton fields and cattle pastures by a razor-wire fence, the station stood on the town’s main road, near a feed store, the Good News Apostolic Church and La Indita Tortillería. Most people around Clint had little idea of what went on inside. Agents came and went in pickup trucks; buses pulled into the gates with the occasional load of children apprehended at the border, four miles south.
But inside the secretive site that is now on the front lines of the southwest border crisis, the men and women who work there were grappling with the stuff of nightmares.
Outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox were spreading among the hundreds of children who were being held in cramped cells, agents said. The stench of the children’s dirty clothing was so strong it spread to the agents’ own clothing — people in town would scrunch their noses when they left work. The children cried constantly. One girl seemed likely enough to try to kill herself that the agents made her sleep on a cot in front of them, so they could watch her as they were processing new arrivals.
A Migrant Jail
This story was a collaboration between The New York Times and The El Paso Times.
“It gets to a point where you start to become a robot,” said a veteran Border Patrol agent who has worked at the Clint station since it was built. He described following orders to take beds away from children to make more space in holding cells, part of a daily routine that he said had become “heartbreaking.”
The little-known Border Patrol facility at Clint has suddenly become the public face of the chaos on America’s southern border, after immigration lawyers began reporting on the children they saw — some of them as young as 5 months old — and the filthy, overcrowded conditions in which they were being held.
Overview
The main processing
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Portable toilets
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Border Patrol Station
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influx was at its peak.
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Portable toilets and
showers sat in an
adjacent yard.
Border Patrol Station
Clint, Texas
Tents housed
detainees when the
influx was at its peak.
Chain-link fencing inside a
warehouseseparated children
and adults by gender.
By The New York Times | Aerial image by Mario Tama/Getty Images
Border Patrol leaders, including Aaron Hull, the outspoken chief patrol agent of the agency’s El Paso Sector, have disputed descriptions of degrading conditions inside Clint and other migrant detention sites around El Paso, claiming that their facilities were rigorously and humanely managed even after a spate of deaths of migrant children in federal custody.
But a review of the operations of the Clint station, near El Paso’s eastern edge, shows that the agency’s leadership knew for months that some children had no beds to sleep on, no way to clean themselves and sometimes went hungry. Its own agents had raised the alarm, and found themselves having to accommodate even more new arrivals.
The accounts of what happened at Clint and at nearby border facilities are based on dozens of interviews by The New York Times and The El Paso Times of current and former Border Patrol agents and supervisors; lawyers, lawmakers and aides who visited the facility; and an immigrant father whose children were held there. The review also included sworn statements from those who spent time at El Paso border facilities, inspection reports and accounts from neighbors in Clint.
The conditions at Clint represent a conundrum not just for local officials, but for Congress, where lawmakers spent weeks battling over the terms of a $4.6 billion humanitarian aid package for facilities at the border. The lack of federal investment, some argue, is why the sites have been so strained. But the reports of squalor prompted several Democratic lawmakers to vote against the final bill, which did not have oversight and enforcement provisions.
By all accounts, the Border Patrol’s attempt to continue making room for new children at Clint even as it was unable to find space to send them to better-equipped facilities was a source of concern for many people who worked there.
“I can’t tell you the number of times I would talk to agents and they would get teary-eyed,” said one agent, a veteran of 13 years with Border Patrol who worked at Clint.
Mary E. González, a Democratic state lawmaker who toured the Clint station last week, said that Border Patrol agents told her they had repeatedly warned their superiors about the overcrowded facility, but that federal officials had taken no action.
“They said, ‘We were ringing the alarms, we were ringing the alarms, and nobody was listening to us’ — agents told me that,” Ms. González said. “I genuinely believe that the higher-ups made the Clint situation happen.”
A Forward Operating Base
Architects designed the Clint station as a type of forward base — replete with fueling stations, garages for all-terrain vehicles and horse stables — from which agents could go on forays along the border.
The station was never intended to hold more than about a hundred adult men, and it was designed with the idea that migrants would be detained for only a few hours of processing before being transferred to other locations.
Officials have allowed reporters and members of Congress on controlled tours of Clint, but prohibited them from bringing phones or cameras inside, and from entering certain areas. But through interviews with dozens of people with knowledge of the station — including lawyers, former detainees and staff members — The Times was able to model the main areas where children were held: the station’s central processing area, with its cinder-block cells; a converted loading area and yard; and a warehouse on the property.
Processing Center
Processing Center
Children and toddlers were held for days in cinder-block cells with a single toilet. Beds were removed to make space, so they slept on the floor. Many fell ill.
At one point, this cell held 46 children, more than double its capacity.
10 feet
Exit to loading area
Interview room
Nurses’ station
Command center
Processing CENTER
Sick children were quarantined and sometimes held in this padded cell with no toilet.
Clint border
patrol station
Processing Center
Children and toddlers were held for days in cinder-block cells. Beds were removed to make space, so they slept on the floor. Many fell ill.
At one point, this cell held 46 children, more than double its capacity.
Exit to loading area
Interview room
Nurses’ station
Command center
10 feet
Sick children were quarantined and sometimes held in this padded cell with no toilet.
Processing Center
Children and toddlers were held for days in cinder-block cells. Beds were removed to make space, so they slept on the floor. Many fell ill.
At one point, this cell held 46 children, more than double its capacity.
Exit to loading area
Command center
10 feet
Sick children were quarantined and sometimes held in this padded cell with no toilet.
Parts of the site resemble what might be seen at many government buildings. Photographs in the hallway celebrate the work of the Border Patrol, showing agents on horseback and in all-terrain vehicles. A conference room features high-backed chairs upholstered with faux leather.
But the sense of normalcy fades away the deeper one goes into the station. A detachment of Coast Guard personnel, sent to assist overworked agents, stock an ad hoc pantry with items like oatmeal and instant noodles. Monitors in blue shirts roam the station, hired through an outside contractor to supervise the detained children.
Beyond the pantry, a door leads to the site’s processing center, equipped with about 10 cells. One day this month, about 20 girls were crowded into one cell, so packed that some were sprawled on the floor. Toddlers could be seen in some cells, cared for by older children.
One of the cells functioned as a quarantine unit or “flu cell” for children with contagious diseases; employees have at times worn medical masks and gloves to protect themselves.
A part of the processing area was set aside for detained children to make phone calls to family members. Many broke into tears upon hearing the voices of loved ones, episodes so common that some agents merely shrugged in response.
Loading Area and Yard
LOADING AREA
And Yard
Loading Area and Yard
Older children slept in a converted loading area, with access to a fenced yard and a single basketball hoop for recreation.
Storage for food and toiletries.
Fan
Clint border
patrol station
Loading area
Three-bed bunk beds lined one wall.
Trailer with showers
Basketball hoop
Yard
Sleeping mats
Portable toilets
10 feet
Loading Area and Yard
Older children slept in a converted loading area, with access to a fenced yard and a single basketball hoop for recreation.
Storage for food and toiletries.
Fan
Loading area
Trailer with showers
Basketball hoop
Three-bed bunk beds lined one wall.
Yard
Sleeping mats
10 feet
Portable toilets
Loading Area and Yard
Older children slept in a converted loading area, with access to a fenced yard and a single basketball hoop for recreation.
Three-bed bunk beds lined one wall.
Storage for food and toiletries.
Fan
Trailer with showers
Sleeping mats
10 feet
Portable toilets
Basketball hoop
Clint is known for holding what agents call U.A.C.s, or unaccompanied alien children — children who cross the border alone or with relatives who are not their parents.
Three agents who work at Clint said they had seen unaccompanied children as young as 3 enter the facility, and lawyers who recently inspected the site as part of a lawsuit on migrant children’s rights said they saw children as young as 5 months old. An agent who has worked for Border Patrol for 13 years — and who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the situation — confirmed reports by immigration lawyers that agents have asked migrants who are teenagers to help care for the younger children.
“We have nine agents processing, two agents in charge of U.A.C. care and we have little ones that need their diapers changed, and we can’t do that,” the agent said. “We can’t carry them or change diapers. We do ask the older juveniles, the 16-year-olds or 17-year-olds, to help us out with that.”
Warehouse
Trailer with showers
Warehouse
A tin-roof building that is used to store patrol vehicles was converted to hold families. As many as 200 people slept on cots and on the floor when bunks were full.
A tarp shaded part of the yard.
10 feet
Officers’ table
A.C. unit
Portable toilets
Clint border
patrol station
Chain-link fencing inside separated children and adults by gender.
Fan
WarehousE
Warehouse
A tin-roof building that is used to store patrol vehicles was converted to hold families. As many as 200 people slept on cots and on the floor when bunks were full.
Trailer with showers
10 feet
Officers’ table
A.C. unit
Portable toilets
A tarp shaded part of the yard.
Chain-link fencing inside separated children and adults by gender.
Fan
Warehouse
A tin-roof building that is used to store patrol vehicles was converted to hold families. As many as 200 people slept on cots and on the floor when bunks were full.
Trailer with showers
10 feet
Officers’ table
A.C. unit
Portable toilets
A tarp shaded part of the yard.
Chain-link fencing inside separated children and adults by gender.
Fan
As immigration flows change, the scene inside Clint has shifted as well. The number of children in the site is thought to have peaked at more than 700 around April and May, and stood at nearly 250 two weeks ago. In an attempt to relieve overcrowding, agents took all the children out of Clint but then moved more than 100 back into the station just days later.
Unaccompanied boys are kept in a converted loading area that holds about 50 people. Until a few weeks ago, older boys were kept in a tent encampment outside.
Families, including adult parents, were also sent to Clint earlier this year, and Representative Will Hurd, a Republican whose Texas district includes Clint, said that 11 adult males “apprehended that morning” were also being held at the site when he visited on June 29.
Before the influx of migrants began to wane in recent weeks, the agents said they had kept the families in a warehouse normally used to house A.T.V.s. It was converted into two holding areas initially intended to house 50 people each.
A Chief Agent Under Fire
At least two Border Patrol agents at Clint said they had expressed concern about the conditions in the station to their superiors months ago. Even before that, senior Homeland Security officials in Washington had significant concerns about the El Paso Sector’s brash chief patrol agent and his oversight of the facility over the past year, when tighter security along other sections of the border prompted a steep rise in migrant crossings along the section that runs from New Mexico through West Texas.
The situation became so severe that in January, officials at Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, took the unusual move of ordering the sector chief, Mr. Hull, to come to headquarters in Washington for a face-to-face meeting. The officials were concerned that Mr. Hull, an agency veteran who speaks with a pronounced Texas twang, had moved too slowly to put safety measures in place after the deaths of migrant children, according to a Homeland Security official. After the meeting, Mr. Hull moved forward with the new procedures.
But tension has persisted between Mr. Hull and officials in Washington, particularly in recent months, as the number of migrants continued to increase at his facilities. The officials believe that Mr. Hull and Matthew Harris, the chief of the Clint station, have been slow to follow directives and communicate developments at the facilities in their sector, according to two Homeland Security officials.
Mr. Hull is seen as a hard-liner on immigration issues. He has often been heard saying that migrants exaggerate the problems they face in their home countries.
Officials at the border agency declined multiple interview requests.
Last month, the acting head of C.B.P., John Sanders, ordered an internal investigation into the Clint facility. The investigation — which is being conducted by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the department’s inspector general — has examined allegations of misconduct.
As part of the review, investigators have conducted interviews and watched hours of video footage to see how agents treated detainees. So far, investigators have found little evidence to substantiate allegations of misconduct. But they have found that the facility is several times over capacity and has horrendous conditions.
The uproar over the site is drawing scrutiny on Border Patrol facilities that are some of the least-regulated migrant detention centers in the United States.
That is in part because they are intended in most cases to hold migrants for no more than 72 hours, before they are turned over to better-equipped facilities operated by other government agencies with stricter regulations on, say, the number of toilets and showers required. But the 72-hour limit has been frequently breached during the current migrant surge; some children have been housed at Clint for weeks on end.
Lawyers who visited the Clint station described children in filthy clothes, often lacking diapers and with no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap, prompting people around the country to donate supplies that the Border Patrol turned away.
But Mr. Hull painted a far different picture of his need for supplies in April, when the numbers of children held in Clint were soaring. Mr. Hull told commissioners in Doña Ana County in Las Cruces, N.M., in April that his stations had more than enough supplies.
“Twenty years ago, we were lucky if we had juice and crackers for those in custody,” Mr. Hull said, as quoted in The Las Cruces Sun-News. “Now, our stations are looking more like Walmarts — with diapers and baby formula and all kinds of things, like food and snacks, that we aren’t resourced or staffed for and don’t have the space to hold.”
An Inspector Arrives
One day in April, a man from Washington arrived unannounced around midday at the Clint station. He introduced himself as Henry Moak, and told the agents inside that he was there to inspect the site in his role as Customs and Border Protection’s chief accountability officer.
The Clint station was far over capacity on the day of Mr. Moak’s visit, bulging with 291 children. Mr. Moak found evidence of a lice infestation; children also told him about going hungry and being forced to sleep on the floors.
One girl, a 14-year-old from El Salvador, had been in custody for 14 days in Clint, including a nine-day stretch in a nearby hospital during which Border Patrol agents accompanied her and kept her under surveillance. Mr. Moak did not specify in his report why the girl had been rushed to the hospital. When the girl returned to Clint, another child had taken her bed so she had to sleep on the floor.
Two sisters from Honduras, one 11 and the other 7, told Mr. Moak that they had to sleep on benches in the facility’s hold room, getting their own cot only when other children were transferred out. “The sisters told me they had not showered or brushed their teeth since arriving at Clint station,” Mr. Moak said in his report. Showers had been offered twice during the girls’ time in custody, but the girls were asleep each time, his review showed.
Mr. Moak in the end stated that Clint was in compliance with standards.
One of a team of lawyers who inspected the station in June, Warren Binford, director of the clinical law program at Willamette University in Oregon, said that in all her years of visiting detention and shelter facilities, she had never encountered conditions so bad — 351 children crammed into what she described as a prisonlike environment.
She looked at the roster, and was shocked to see more than 100 very young children listed. “My God, these are babies, I realized. They are keeping babies here,” she recalled.
One teenage mother from El Salvador said Border Patrol agents at the border had taken her medicine for her infant son, who had a fever.
“Did they throw away anything else?” Ms. Binford said she had asked her.
“Everything,” she replied. “They threw away my baby’s diapers, formula, bottle, baby food and clothes. They threw away everything.”
Once at Clint, she told Ms. Binford, the baby’s fever came back and she begged the agents for more medicine. “Who told you to come to America with your baby, anyway?” one of the agents told her, according to the young woman’s account to Ms. Binford.
Border Patrol agents have said they have adequate supplies at Clint for most of the migrants’ needs. The facility lacks a kitchen, they said, so the ramen, granola bars, instant oatmeal and burritos that serve as most of the sustenance for migrants has been the best they could do.
Children sometimes could be seen crying, said one Border Patrol agent, who has worked for seven years at the Clint facility, but it most often seemed to be because they missed their parents. “It’s never because they’re mistreated; it’s because they’re homesick,” she said.
A Father Finds His Sons
Not long after Mr. Moak signed off on the conditions inside Clint, a man named Ruben was desperately trying to find his sons, 11-year-old twins who both have epilepsy.
The boys had crossed the border together in early June with their adult sister. They were hoping to reunite with their parents who had come to the United States earlier from El Salvador in order to earn enough money to pay for the boys’ epilepsy medications. They require daily injections and a strict regimen of care to prevent the seizures they began having at age 5.
But the twins were separated at the border from their sister and sent to Clint.
The first time they spoke to Ruben on the phone, the two boys sobbed intensely and asked when they would be able to see their parents again.
“We don’t want to be here,” they told him.
Ruben asked that his last name and the names of his sons be withheld for fear of retaliation by the American government.
Only later did Ruben learn that the boys had been given at least some of their epilepsy medication, and neither one had had a seizure. But one boy reported breaking out in a skin rash, his face and arms turning red and flaky. Both had come down with fevers and said they had been sent temporarily to the “flu cell.”
“There is no one to take care of you there,” one told his father.
It took 13 days after the boys were detained to speak to their father over the phone. A lawyer who had entered the facility, Clara Long of Human Rights Watch, met the boys, tracked down their parents, and helped them make a call. The boys were stoic and quiet, she said, and shook her hand as if “trying to act like little adults” — until they spoke to their father. Then, they could answer only with one- or two-word answers, Ms. Long said, and were wiping tears from their faces.
Much of the overcrowding appears to have been relieved at Clint, and overall arrivals at the border are slowing, as new policies make migrants, mainly from Central America, return to Mexico after they request asylum, as the summer heat deters travelers and as Mexico’s crackdown on its southern border prevents many from entering.
A Border Patrol agent who has long worked in the El Paso area said agents had tried to make things as easy as possible for the children; some bought toys and sports equipment on their own to bring in. “Agents play board games and sports with them,” he said.
But the Border Patrol long “took great pride” in quickly processing migrant families, and making sure children did not remain in their rudimentary stations for longer than 72 hours, the agent said. Clint, he said, “is not a place for kids.”
In the surrounding town, many residents were puzzled and sad at the news of what was happening to children in the station on Alameda Avenue.
“I don’t know what the hell happened, but they’ve diverted from their original mission,” said Julián Molinar, 66, a retired postal deliveryman who lives in a house facing the station. He served in the Army in Europe as the Berlin Wall came down, he said, and was dismayed that there was now talk of building a border wall near his home. As for the Clint facility, he said, “children should not be held here.”
Dora H. Aguirre, Clint’s mayor, expressed sympathy for the agents, who are part of the community in Clint and neighboring El Paso. “They’re just trying to do their job as a federal agency,” she said. “They are trying to do the best they can.”
Ford’s earnings proved the automaker’s risky bets are paying off
For the last several years it seemed like Ford could do nothing right, but despite a steep decline in first-quarter profits, investors are turning upbeat on the second-largest…
In an unprecedented move, Columbus police showed body camera footage of the shooting by a Columbus police officer of a 16-year-old girl just hours after the incident.
The video shows an officer approaching a driveway with a group of young people standing there. In the video, it appears that the 16-year-old, identified now as Ma’Khia Bryant, who was moments later shot by police pushes or swings at a person who falls to the ground.
Ma’Khia then appears to swing a knife at a girl who is on the hood of a car, and the officer fires his weapon what sounds like four times, striking the girl.
Columbus police stressed that the Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into the case, but the city wanted to release the body camera to give the public more information.
President Trump said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should not testify before Congress, reversing course from his previous position that the decision is up to Attorney General William P. Barr.
“Bob Mueller should not testify,” Trump said in an afternoon tweet. “No redos for the Dems!”
….to testify. Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? There was no crime, except on the other side (incredibly not covered in the Report), and NO OBSTRUCTION. Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!
Trump also insisted that Mueller’s 448-page report found “no collusion” and “no obstruction,” overstating the conclusions of the nearly two-year investigation. A redacted version of the document has been released; congressional Democrats are battling with Barr to get the full report.
In the report, Mueller’s team wrote that while the investigation established that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from” information stolen in Russia-backed efforts, it “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Mueller also found 10 “episodes” of potential obstruction of justice but ultimately concluded that it was not his decision to determine whether Trump broke the law.
The House Judiciary Committee has been seeking to hear from Mueller amid disagreements about whether Barr mischaracterized the special counsel’s report in his congressional testimony and statements.
Trump’s Sunday tweet marks a shift from what he said Friday during an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Asked then whether Mueller should testify before Congress and whether he would like to see the special counsel do so, Trump replied, “I don’t know. That’s up to our attorney general, who I think has done a fantastic job.”
Barr said at a news conference last month — and reiterated during his testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee — that he has no objection to Mueller testifying.
Trump and House Democrats are locked in a battle over congressional oversight, with the president refusing to cooperate with multiple Capitol Hill investigations seeking witnesses, documents and his tax returns. The president has vowed to “fight all the subpoenas” from Democrats, sued to block compliance by accounting firms and banks, and instructed aides to ignore the repeated requests from Congress.
The tensions between the Trump administration and Congress could come to a head as early as this week, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said his panel will probably adopt a contempt citation against Barr unless he provides the full, unredacted Mueller report.
Democrats aren’t alone in seeking Mueller’s testimony. Early last month, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Douglas A. Collins (Ga.) urged Nadler to invite Mueller to testify, writing in a letter to the chairman, “If you seek both transparency and for the American public to learn the full contours of the Special Counsel’s investigation, public testimony from Special Counsel Mueller himself is undoubtedly the best way to accomplish this goal.”
In an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, Collins mentioned the letter and said of Mueller: “He’s the one that is the central figure here.”
Trump’s reversal on Mueller testifying came hours after a key member of the House Judiciary Committee said that the panel has proposed a date of May 15 for Mueller to testify but that no agreement has been reached yet.
Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) said Sunday morning during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” that a “tentative date has been set” for Mueller’s testimony. But he said in a later tweet that he had misspoken.
“Just to clarify: we are aiming to bring Mueller in on the 15th, but nothing has been agreed to yet,” Cicilline said in the tweet. “That’s the date the Committee has proposed, and we hope the Special Counsel will agree to it. Sorry for the confusion.”
A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.
In late March, Mueller wrote a letter to Barr voicing dissatisfaction that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of his investigation into the president “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his work.
Barr defended his handling of the case during a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week. He repeatedly denied accusations and insinuations by Democrats that he had lied or misrepresented anything.
“I wasn’t hiding the ball,” Barr told Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), who pressed the attorney general on whether he omitted key details of Mueller’s report from his initial account of the findings.
In his “Fox News Sunday” interview, Cicilline said the panel hopes Mueller will agree to testify.
“We think the American people have a right to hear directly from him,” he said.
Asked whether Mueller has agreed, Cicilline responded: “The representative for the special counsel has, but, obviously, until the date comes, we never have an absolute guarantee.”
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Mueller and former White House counsel Donald McGahn should testify.
“Barr’s testimony alone — designed to protect Trump — isn’t going to cut it. They will testify. The American people deserve the truth,” Schiff said.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to Trump with his own tweet.
“First @realDonaldTrump repeatedly tried to fire Mueller. Then he refused to be interviewed by Mueller. Now he’s trying to silence Mueller. For a man who constantly proclaims his innocence, @realDonaldTrump is acting awfully guilty. Mueller must testify publicly before Congress.”
Devlin Barrett and Shane Harris contributed to this report.
The new hard line taken by China in trade talks—surprising the White House and threatening to derail negotiations—came after Beijing interpreted recent statements and actions by President Trump as a sign the U.S. was ready to make concessions, said people familiar with the thinking of the Chinese side.
High-level negotiations are scheduled to resume Thursday in Washington, but the expectations and the stakes have changed significantly. A week ago, the assumption was that negotiators would be closing the deal. Now, they are…
“MURIENDO POR CRUZAR,” AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INCREASING NUMBER OF IMMIGRANT DEATHS ALONG THE BORDER, THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 AT 6 P.M./5 C
Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval present the Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production
Miami – July 31, 2014 –Telemundo presents “Muriendo por Cruzar”, a documentary that investigates why increasing numbers of immigrants are dying while trying to cross the US-Mexican border near the city of Falfurrias, Texas, this Sunday, August 3 at 6PM/5 C. The Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production, presented by Noticias Telemundo journalists Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval, reveals the obstacles immigrants face once they cross into US territory, including extreme weather conditions, as they try to evade the border patrol. “Muriendo por Cruzar” is part of Noticias Telemundo’s special coverage of the crisis on the border and immigration reform.
“‘Muriendo por Cruzar’” dares to ask questions that reveal the actual conditions undocumented immigrants face as they try to start a new life in the United States,” said Alina Falcón, Telemundo’s Executive Vice President for News and Alternative Programming. “Our collaboration with The Weather Channel was very productive. They have a unique expertise in covering the impact of weather on people’s lives, as we do in covering immigration reform and the border crisis. The result is a compelling documentary that exposes a harrowing reality.”
“Muriendo por Cruzar” is the first co-production by Telemundo and The Weather Channel. Both networks are part of NBCUniversal.
“MURIENDO POR CRUZAR,” AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INCREASING NUMBER OF IMMIGRANT DEATHS ALONG THE BORDER, THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 AT 6 P.M./5 C
Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval present the Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production
Miami – July 31, 2014 –Telemundo presents “Muriendo por Cruzar”, a documentary that investigates why increasing numbers of immigrants are dying while trying to cross the US-Mexican border near the city of Falfurrias, Texas, this Sunday, August 3 at 6PM/5 C. The Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production, presented by Noticias Telemundo journalists Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval, reveals the obstacles immigrants face once they cross into US territory, including extreme weather conditions, as they try to evade the border patrol. “Muriendo por Cruzar” is part of Noticias Telemundo’s special coverage of the crisis on the border and immigration reform.
“‘Muriendo por Cruzar’” dares to ask questions that reveal the actual conditions undocumented immigrants face as they try to start a new life in the United States,” said Alina Falcón, Telemundo’s Executive Vice President for News and Alternative Programming. “Our collaboration with The Weather Channel was very productive. They have a unique expertise in covering the impact of weather on people’s lives, as we do in covering immigration reform and the border crisis. The result is a compelling documentary that exposes a harrowing reality.”
“Muriendo por Cruzar” is the first co-production by Telemundo and The Weather Channel. Both networks are part of NBCUniversal.
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