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CHILD EVACUEES — Per a letter from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, almost half of the 53,000 Afghan evacuees temporarily living on U.S. military bases are children, Nancy A. Youssef reports for The Wall Street Journal. However, the letter doesn't specify how many of those children are unaccompanied minors, Youssef notes, adding that "[s]everal hundred unaccompanied children were among evacuees at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, posing a challenge for base officials and aid workers there." U.S. officials say about 6,000 Afghan evacuees have been resettled across the U.S. so far. For this week’s new episode of Only in America, we spoke with Women of Welcome’s Bri Stensrud about the powerful work her community has done around Afghan resettlement. Here’s today’s collection of local stories:
‘MEAN-SPIRITED’ — The 10-point Republican "Joint Policy Framework on the Border Crisis," spearheaded by Texas Gov.
MPP FACILITIES — The Department of Homeland Security has officially started building court facilities in Laredo, Texas, in anticipation of reimplementing the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or "Remain in Mexico" policy, reports Sandra Sanchez of Border Report. While the Biden administration opposed restarting the program, "the Supreme Court in late August refused to block a lower federal court’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by Texas and Missouri," forcing the administration to reinstate MPP. Regardless, "[the] U.S. Government cannot unilaterally implement MPP without an independent decision by the GOM (government of Mexico) to accept individuals that the United States wishes to send to Mexico," wrote Blas Nuñez-Neto, DHS acting assistant secretary for border and immigration policy, in a court declaration. SEA ENCOUNTERS — The latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data reveals that agents stopped more migrants at sea in 2020 than during the previous three years, reports Andrea Castillo for The Los Angeles Times. "Encounters at sea are still substantially lower than those on land, but experts say the shift to maritime crossings — in response to restrictive border policies and the devastation from COVID-19 across the hemisphere — is amplifying the danger these migrants face as they seek to reach the United States." And since October 2020, agents have intercepted more than 330 marine vessels carrying 1,751 people in San Diego region alone, which has the fourth largest port in California. ‘TOO LONG’ — A Government Accountability Office report found that the backlog of applications for eligible immigrants to become citizens more than doubled between 2015 and 2020, per Laura Gómez Rodriguez at the Arizona Mirror. The total U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) backlog increased 85% during that time, with the agency citing the pandemic, application changes and other factors for the delay. "Now it’s time to become a citizen. It’s been many years and it’s necessary," said Phoenix resident Eleuterio Galindo, who has lived in the U.S. for two decades. Galindo applied for citizenship in June 2020 and his application has yet to be processed. "This is taking too long, and I need to travel outside of the country." At the time Galindo applied, there were 11,447 people in Arizona waiting for their citizenship applications to be processed. Thanks for reading, Ali |
