A U.S. federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from carrying out new immigration rules that would block asylum for people who did not enter the United States at a designated port of entry.

President Donald Trump issued the rule in a November 9 proclamation, saying it was necessary to deal with the expected arrival of thousands of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border who he said “appear to have no lawful basis for admission into our country.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups quickly filed a legal challenge and sought an injunction against the new rules while the case makes its way through the courts.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued his ruling late Monday, saying Congress has “clearly commanded” through the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) that anyone who arrives in the United States may apply for asylum no matter where they entered, and that Trump’s rule “irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress.”

He barred the government from carrying out the new rule for one month, setting the next hearing in the case for December 19.

Tigar said if allowed to go into effect, the rule would put asylum seekers “at increased risk of violence and other harms at the border, and many will be deprived of meritorious asylum claims.” He wrote that the government in its arguments “offers nothing in support of the new rule that outweighs the need to avoid these harms.”

About 3,000 migrants have arrived in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and more are expected to make there way there soon. They join what was already a large group waiting for their chance to seek asylum at the San Ysidro border crossing, the main port of entry to the U.S. city of San Diego.

U.S. authorities process about 100 asylum claims each day at San Ysidro, meaning wait times will be long.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and some of the thousands of troops Trump ordered to the border last month briefly shut down lanes at the San Ysidro port on Monday to set up additional barriers with concrete and concertina wire.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the measures were put in place after officials “were notified that a large number of caravan migrants were planning to rush the border in an attempt to gain illegal access to the U.S.”

​She further accused some of the migrants of “purposely causing disruptions at our border points of entry.”

“There is a legal and illegal way to enter the U.S. We have deployed additional forces to protect our border. We will enforce all our laws,” she said.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group that has been assisting the migrants, rejected Nielsen’s statements and said the lane closures were aimed at stoking “fury and impatience” by blocking U.S. citizens who had to wait to gain entry from Tijuana.

“Sec. Nielsen’s false comments about the Refugee Exodus are a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and demonize refugees fleeing government sponsored violence and displacement,” the group said.

There have been protests by hundreds of people in Tijuana who directed chants of “get out” and “go home” at the migrants.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum is among those taking a hard stance. He posted Monday on Twitter, “Human rights come with human duties,” and that migrants who do not respect citizens of Tijuana can expect to face the full weight of the law.

That echoes statements by Trump, who has called the Central Americans “criminals” and cast the caravans as an “invasion.”

Trump tweeted Sunday that the United States is “ill-prepared for this invasion and will not stand for it. They are causing crime and big problems in Mexico. Go home.”

But many of the migrants are puzzled by fears they are violent and criminals, saying they fled Honduras in hopes of asylum in the United States to escape violence and gangs.

Al Otro Lado, one of the groups that joined in filing the lawsuit against Trump’s asylum proclamation, said the only ones protesting the migrants in Tijuana “are the anti-immigrant crowd, some of whom came down from the U.S.”

The group said the migrants have been “waiting patiently” as they join the established line for who will get to seek asylum next.

“The exodus is not a security risk. It is a humanitarian crisis. We need food, blankets, diapers, etc., not border closures and barbed wire,” it wrote on Twitter.
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Immigrants have always been a vital part of the U.S. military. VOA’s Arzouma Kompaore has the story of an Air Force Captain from Cameroon who is using her career as a motivational speaker to help women find balance in their personal and professional lives.
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Three U.S. Democratic senators have sued to block President Donald Trump’s appointment of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, alleging the appointment was made to undermine the ongoing criminal investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia.

Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii filed the lawsuit Monday in a federal court in Washington.

The suit is the fourth legal challenge of Trump’s appointment of Whitaker, following the ouster earlier this month of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump had long disparaged for removing himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Before joining the Justice Department as Sessions’s chief of staff more than a year ago, Whitaker attacked the Mueller investigation in commentary on television network CNN, saying a replacement attorney general, such as he is now, could cut funding to the probe so that it “grinds almost to a halt.”

Whitaker has taken no public action against the investigation since Trump named him, for up to 210 days, as the country’s top law enforcement official, but also has made no statements on how he views the probe.Democratic lawmakers, along with some Republicans, have called for Whitaker to avow he would not curtail Mueller’s investigation while it is still underway and contended his appointment, as head of a Cabinet-level agency, was subject to Senate confirmation.

“President Trump is denying senators our constitutional obligation and opportunity to do our job: scrutinizing the nomination of our nation’s top law enforcement official,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “The reason is simple: Whitaker would never pass the advice and consent test.In selecting a so-called ‘constitutional nobody’ and thwarting every senator’s constitutional duty, Trump leaves us no choice but to seek recourse through the courts.”

Senator Whitehouse added that the “stakes are too high to allow the president to install an unconfirmed lackey to lead the Department of Justice, a lackey whose stated purpose, apparently, is undermining a major investigation into the president.Unless the courts intercede.”

He added that this “troubling move creates a plain road map for persistent and deliberate evasion by the executive branch of the Senate’s constitutionally mandated advice and consent. Indeed, this appointment appears planned to accomplish that goal.”

Justice pushes back

The Justice Department, for the second time in recent days, defended Whitaker’s appointment as legal.

“There are over 160 instances in American history in which non-Senate confirmed persons performed, on a temporary basis, the duties of a Senate-confirmed position,” a Justice Department spokeswoman said. “To suggest otherwise is to ignore centuries of practice and precedent.”

In an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday, Trump said he was unaware of Whitaker’s CNN commentary opposing the Mueller investigation before naming him to head the Justice Department, bypassing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whom Sessions had delegated to oversee the Mueller investigation.

Trump dismissed concerns about how Whitaker will deal with the Mueller investigation, but said that he, as president, would not intervene.

“It’s going to be up to him,” Trump said. “I think he’s very well aware politically. I think he’s astute politically. He’s a very smart person. A very respected person. He’s going to do what’s right. I really believe he’s going to do what’s right.”

Asked by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace whether he would overrule Whitaker if he decides to curtail the Mueller investigation, Trump replied, “I would not get involved.”

Trump has answered written questions from Mueller about his campaign’s connections with Russia during the run-up to the November 2016 voting, but told Wallace he “probably” won’t sit for an in-person interview with Mueller’s investigators.
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The U.S. and Western powers on Monday clashed with Russia and others over whether the global chemical weapons watchdog could start apportioning blame for poison gas and nerve agent attacks.

At a heated session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ annual conference, both sides bitterly fought over a June decision for the group to set up a new investigative team which could name the perpetrators of chemical attacks — a major change in the group’s rules.

Russia and China said the widely-backed June decision to allow the organization to identify those responsible should be reviewed to ensure it didn’t go beyond the OPCW mandate.

The U.S. ambassador to the watchdog, Kenneth Ward, complained that “a tsunami of chemical weapons” had been used this year, especially in Syria, an ally of Russia, and called Moscow’s attempts to undo the decision “pungent hypocrisy.”

Britain and its allies also have accused Moscow of using a Soviet-era nerve agent in an attempted assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury earlier this year. Russia denies the allegation.

Britain’s ambassador, Peter Wilson, said a Russia-Chinese proposal to review the decision “is clearly designed to obstruct and delay implementation” of the decision.

Russian envoy Alexander Shulgin said the new team would wield unlawful powers within the OPCW and on Monday called for an expert group to assess the viability of the decision, something the U.S. insisted would hamstring the development of the team. Wilson said that the Russian move would “undermine” plans to set up the team.

Last June, an 82-24 vote among OPCW members provided more than the necessary two-thirds majority to give the group the mandate to name the parties it found responsible for chemical attacks.

With Russia’s opposition on Monday, Ward said Russia and China made “an attempt to re-litigate what happened in June.” He said that both nations “are trying to turn back the clock of history.”

One allegation still being investigated by weapons inspectors is the suspected chemical attack in April in the Syrian town of Douma. An interim report said that weapons inspectors found “various chlorinated organic chemicals” at the site of the alleged Douma attack.

The OPCW made headlines last month when Dutch authorities revealed that they had foiled an alleged plot by Russian spies to hack into the organization’s Wi-Fi network using equipment stashed in the trunk of a rental car parked at a hotel next to the OPCW headquarters. Russia denied any wrongdoing.
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The United States closed off northbound traffic for several hours at the busiest border crossing with Mexico to install new security barriers on Monday, a day after hundreds of Tijuana residents protested against the presence of thousands of Central American migrants.

The U.S. also closed one of two pedestrian crossings at the San Ysidro crossing in a move apparently aimed at preventing any mass rush of migrants across the border.

The installation of movable, wire-topped barriers threatens to complicate life for Mexicans using San Ysidro, where about 110,000 people enter the U.S. every day in 40,000 vehicles.

Long lines backed up in Tijuana, where many people have to cross the border to work on the U.S. side.

Such inconveniences prompted by the arrival of the migrant caravan may have played a role in Sunday’s protests, when about 400 Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted “Out! Out!” referring to the migrant caravan that arrived in the border city last week.

Tensions have built as nearly 3,000 migrants from the caravan poured into Tijuana in recent days after more than a month on the road _ and with many more months likely ahead of them while they seek asylum in the U.S. The federal government estimates the number of migrants could soon swell to 10,000.

U.S. border inspectors are processing only about 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego. Asylum seekers register their names in a tattered notebook managed by migrants themselves that had more than 3,000 names even before the caravan arrived.

Some Tijuana residents supported the migrants, but others accused the migrants of being messy, ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana. They also complained about how the caravan forced its way into Mexico, calling it an “invasion.” And they voiced worries that their taxes might be spent to care for the group.

“We don’t want them in Tijuana,” protesters shouted.

Juana Rodriguez, a housewife, said the government needs to conduct background checks on the migrants to make sure they don’t have criminal records.

A block away, fewer than a dozen Tijuana residents stood with signs of support for the migrants. Keyla Zamarron, a 38-year-old teacher, said the protesters don’t represent her way of thinking as she held a sign saying: “Childhood has no borders.”

Most of the migrants who have reached Tijuana via caravan in recent days set out more than a month ago from Honduras, a country of 9 million people. Dozens of migrants in the caravan who have been interviewed by Associated Press reporters have said they left their country after death threats.

But the journey has been hard, and many have turned around.

Alden Rivera, the Honduran ambassador in Mexico,told the AP on Saturday that 1,800 Hondurans have returned to their country since the caravan first set out on Oct. 13, and that he hopes more will make that decision. “We want them to return to Honduras,” said Rivera.

The migrants’ expected long stay in Tijuana has raised concerns about the ability of the border city of more than 1.6 million people to handle the influx.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum has called the migrants’ arrival an “avalanche” that the city is ill-prepared to handle, calculating that they will be in Tijuana for at least six months as they wait to file asylum claims.Gastelum has appealed to the federal government for more assistance to cope with the influx.

Tijuana officials converted a municipal gymnasium and recreational complex into a shelter to keep migrants out of public spaces. The city’s privately run shelters have a maximum capacity of 700. The municipal complex can hold up to 3,000.

At the municipal shelter, Josue Caseres, 24, expressed dismay at the protests against the caravan. “We are fleeing violence,” said the entertainer from Santa Barbara, Honduras. “How can they think we are going to come here to be violent?”

Elsewhere on Sunday, a group of 200 migrants headed north from El Salvador, determined to also find safety in numbers to reach the U.S.

Edwin Alexander Gomez, 20, told AP in San Salvador that he wants to work construction in New York, where he hears the wages are better and the city is safer.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who sought to make the caravan a campaign issue in the midterm elections, used Twitter on Sunday to voice support for the mayor of Tijuana and try to discourage the migrants from seeking entry to the U.S.

Trump wrote that like Tijuana, “the U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it. They are causing crime and big problems in Mexico. Go home!”

He followed that tweet by writing: “Catch and Release is an obsolete term. It is now Catch and Detain. Illegal Immigrants trying to come into the U.S.A., often proudly flying the flag of their nation as they ask for U.S. Asylum, will be detained or turned away.”
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Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday he’s donating $1.8 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to boost financial aid for low- and middle-income students.

The Baltimore university said the contribution – the largest ever to any education institution in the U.S. – will allow Johns Hopkins to eliminate student loans in financial aid packages starting next fall. The university will instead offer scholarships that don’t have to be repaid.

University President Ronald Daniels said Bloomberg’s contribution will also let the institution permanently commit to “need-blind admissions,” or the principle of admitting the highest-achieving students, regardless of their ability to pay for their education.

“Hopkins has received a gift that is unprecedented and transformative,” he said in a statement, noting the prestigious school was founded in 1876 by a $7 million gift from Baltimore merchant Johns Hopkins that was, similarly, the largest gift of its kind at the time.  

By way of comparison, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Gates Millennium Scholars program in 1999 with a $1 billion commitment over 20 years. The Chronicle of Higher Education listed it as the largest private donation to a higher-education institution in the U.S. earlier this month.

Bloomberg said he expects the money will allow Hopkins to offer more generous scholarships and ease the debt burden for graduates.

“America is at its best when we reward people based on the quality of their work, not the size of their pocketbook,” he said in a statement. “Denying students entry to a college based on their ability to pay undermines equal opportunity.”

The 76-year-old founder of the global finances services and media company, Bloomberg L.P., is among the world’s richest people. He graduated from Hopkins in 1964, served as New York mayor from 2002 to 2013 and has for years weighed running for president, including in 2020.

 
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Confusion continues in Washington over what the Trump administration has concluded regarding the death of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi – and the implications for U.S.-Saudi relations. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, President Donald Trump has repeatedly deflected questions about the kingdom’s crown prince amid news reports the CIA believes Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing, last month in Turkey.
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Nearly halfway through his four-year term in the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump says he thinks of himself in the top rung of American presidents.

“I would give myself an A+,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. “Can I go higher than that?”

But the U.S. leader, in a White House interview taped Friday and aired Sunday, made a rare acknowledgement of an error in judgment, saying he should have gone last Monday to Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the country’s annual Veterans Day honoring those who have served in the U.S. armed forces or are currently serving in one of its military branches.

“In retrospect, I should have,” Trump told interviewer Chris Wallace. The U.S. leader, who has yet to visit U.S. troops in any war zones overseas, also said, “There are things that are being planned. I will be doing that.” He declined to say when such a visit might occur because of security concerns.

In the November 6 nationwide congressional and state elections, opposition Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years and captured key governor’s races in industrial states that were vital to Trump’s 2016 election as president. National political surveys show Americans disapprove of his White House performance by a 52.9 to 43.3 percent margin, according to an average of polls by Real Clear Politics.

But Trump took no blame for the losses because his name was not on the ballot, even though he told several political rallies ahead of the elections that voters ought to look at the voting that way, as a referendum on his policies and performance during the first 22 months of his presidency.

“I won the Senate and that’s historic, too,” Trump said. “That’s a tremendous victory.” Trump’s Republican party could add two seats to its current 51-49 majority bloc in the Senate, when two close contests are decided.

Trump said Republicans also “had a tremendous set of victories” by winning governorships in the southern states of Georgia and Florida and the midwestern state of Ohio, even as Democrats won governorships in other electoral battlegrounds, including the key midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin that had been held by Republicans.

As for the electoral losses, Trump said, “I didn’t run. My name wasn’t on the ballot. I had people that wouldn’t vote because I wasn’t on the ballot.”

Trump is already deep in planning for his 2020 re-election bid, while a long list of Democrats are considering whether to seek their party’s presidential nomination to oppose him.  

 
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