When a woman gashed her leg in mountains inhabited by snakes and scorpions, she told Joel Úbeda to take her 5-year-old daughter. Úbeda refused to let the mother die, despite the advice of their smuggler and another migrant in a group of seven and helped carry her to safety by shining a mirror in sunlight to flag a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter near San Diego. 

The motorcycle mechanic, who used his house in Nicaragua as collateral for a $6,500 smuggling fee, says the worst day of his life was yet to come. 

Arrested after the encounter with U.S. agents, Úbeda learned two days later that he could not pursue asylum in the United States while living with a cousin in Miami. Instead, he would have to wait in the Mexican border city of Tijuana for hearings in U.S. immigration court under a Trump-era policy that will be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

President Joe Biden halted the “Remain in Mexico” policy his first day in office. A judge forced him to reinstate it in December, but barely 3,000 migrants were enrolled by the end of March, making little impact during a period when authorities stopped migrants about 700,000 times at the border. 

Úbeda, like many migrants at a Tijuana shelter, had never heard of the policy, officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols.” It was widely known under President Donald Trump, who enrolled about 70,000 migrants after launching it in 2019 and making it a centerpiece of efforts to deter asylum-seekers. 

“It’s a frightening experience,” Úbeda said after a telephone call with his mother to consider whether to return to Nicaragua to reunite with her, his wife and his daughter. He was perplexed that a vast majority of Nicaraguans are released in the U.S. to pursue asylum, including the woman he saved and her daughter. 

Nearly 2,200 asylum-seekers, or 73% of those enrolled through March, are from Nicaragua, with nearly all the rest from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. Yet even among Nicaraguans, the policy is small in scope. U.S. authorities stopped Nicaraguans more than 56,000 times from December to March. 

Criticisms of the policy are the same under Biden and Trump: Migrants are terrified in dangerous Mexican border cities, and it is extremely difficult to find lawyers from Mexico. 

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in an October order to end “Remain in Mexico,” reluctantly conceded that the policy caused a drop in weak asylum claims under Trump but said it did not justify the harms. 

Emil Cardenas, 27, said he bloodied his foot and drank his urine after running out of water on a three-day hike in mountains near San Diego with a smuggler who took a $10,000 installment toward his fee and stole his passport, phone and other identification. 

Cardenas hoped to live near his brother, a Catholic priest in New Jersey, while seeking asylum but waits at the Tijuana shelter for his first hearing in San Diego on May 18. He is disheartened to see others at the shelter on their third or fourth hearing. 

“One has to find a way to get across,” said Cardenas, a Colombian who had attempted twice to enter the U.S. “I’m thinking about what to do.” 

While waiting for hearings, men at the shelter are attached to smartphones — reading, watching videos and occasionally calling friends and family. A large television facing rows of tables and plastic chairs helps defeat boredom. 

Many have been robbed and assaulted in Mexico, making them too scared to leave the shelter. Some chat in small groups but most keep to themselves, lost in thought. 

Carlos Humberto Castellano, who repaired cellphones in Colombia and wants to join family in New York, cried for two days after being returned to Tijuana to wait for a court date in San Diego. It cost him about $6,500 to fly to Mexico and pay a smuggler to cross the border, leaving him in debt, he said. 

“I can’t leave (the shelter) because I don’t know what could happen,” said Castellano, 23, recalling that his smuggler took a photo of him. “Getting kidnapped is the fear.” 

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether the policy is discretionary and can be ended, as the Biden administration argues, or is the only way to comply with what Texas and Missouri say is a congressional command not to release the migrants in the United States. 

Without adequate detention facilities, the states argue the administration’s only option is to make migrants wait in Mexico for asylum hearings in the U.S. 

The two sides also disagree about whether the way the administration ended the policy complies with a federal law that compels agencies to follow certain rules and explain their actions. 

A ruling is expected shortly after the administration ends another key Trump-era border policy, lifting pandemic-related authority to expel migrants without a chance to seek asylum May 23. The decision to end Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, is being legally challenged by 22 states and faces growing division within Biden’s Democratic Party. 

Due to costs, logistics and strained diplomatic relations, Title 42 has been difficult to apply to some nationalities, including Nicaraguans, which explains why the administration has favored them for “Remain in Mexico.” 

The administration made some changes at Mexico’s behest, which may explain low enrollment. It pledged to try to resolve cases within six months and agreed to shoulder costs of shuttling migrants to and from the border in Mexico for hearings. 

As under Trump, finding a lawyer is a tall order. U.S. authorities give migrants a list of low- or no-cost attorneys but phone lines are overwhelmed. 

Judges warn migrants that immigration law is complicated and that they face longer odds without an attorney. Migrants respond that calls to attorneys go unanswered and they can’t afford typical fees. 

“I’ve seen lots of people in your situation who have found attorneys, often for free,” Judge Scott Simpson told a migrant this month in a San Diego courtroom before granting more time to hire one. 

Victor Cervera, 40, gave up on low-cost attorneys after his calls went unanswered. The Peruvian’s online search for those who take “Remain in Mexico” cases yielded one find — a Miami lawyer who charges $350 for an initial phone consultation. 

Nearly all migrants tell U.S. authorities they fear waiting in Mexico, entitling them to a phone interview with an asylum officer. About 15% are spared when the officer agrees their worries are well-founded, while others are excused for reasons deemed to make them vulnerable in Mexico, like gender or sexual orientation. 

Those sent back wonder why they were chosen when so many others are released in the U.S to pursue their claims. 

“It’s a raffle,” said Alvaro Galo, 34, a Nicaraguan man who cleans and cooks meals at the shelter to keep his mind busy. 
…

your ad here

A host of celebrities and comedy royalty will gather Sunday night at the Kennedy Center as comedian, talk show host and political influencer Jon Stewart receives the Mark Twain Prize for lifetime achievement in humor. 

Stewart, the 23rd recipient of the prize, will be honored by testimonials and skits from fellow comedians and previous Mark Twain recipients. Stewart himself spoke during Dave Chappelle’s Mark Twain ceremony in 2019. 

The 59-year-old Stewart — born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz — rose to prominence as a standup comic and host of multiple failed talk shows before taking over  Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” in 1999. His 16-year run as “Daily Show” host turned him into a cultural and political force as Stewart trained his satirical eye on both politics and an increasingly polarized national media. 

In perhaps his most iconic moment, Stewart went on CNN’s popular “Crossfire” debate show in 2004 and challenged the show’s entire premise of left-wing versus right-wing debate. Stewart told co-hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala they had a “responsibility to the public discourse” that they were cheapening with insincere political role-playing. 

Stewart’s appearance rocketed him to new levels of prominence and political relevance and may have sealed the fate of “Crossfire,” which was canceled three months later. 

Since retiring from “The Daily Show” in 2015, Stewart has become a vocal proponent of a number of social causes and one of the most prominent voices in support of health care for Sept. 11 first responders in New York City. He recently returned to television as host of “The Problem with Jon Stewart” on Apple TV+. 

When Stewart’s selection was announced in January, Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter hailed his body of work as “equal parts entertainment and truth.” 

Rutter said Stewart’s career “demonstrates that we all can make a difference in this world through humor, humanity, and patriotism.” 

This will be the first Mark Twain ceremony since Chappelle’s in 2019. The award skipped 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from that two-year break, the prize has been presented annually since 1998, with Richard Pryor receiving the first honors. 

Other recipients include Carol Burnett (the oldest recipient at age 80), Tina Fey (the youngest at age 40), Eddie Murphy, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin and Lily Tomlin. 2009 recipient Bill Cosby had his prize rescinded in 2018 amid multiple allegations of sexual assault. 
…

your ad here

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday and accepted his invitation to visit Israel in the coming months.

The White House said the two leaders discussed “shared regional and global security challenges, including the threat posed by Iran and its proxies.”

A statement said Biden “took note of ongoing efforts between Israeli and Palestinian officials to lower tensions and ensure a peaceful conclusion to the holy season of Ramadan.”

As past U.S. leaders have done, Biden “affirmed his unwavering support for Israel and its defense needs,” the White House said, including a $1 billion allocation to replenish Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome air defense system.
…

your ad here

Stymied in their calls for a renewed investigation into the killing of Emmett Till, relatives and activists are advocating another possible path toward accountability in Mississippi: They want authorities to launch a kidnapping prosecution against the woman who set off the lynching by accusing the Black Chicago teen of improper advances in 1955.

Carolyn Bryant Donham was named nearly 67 years ago in a warrant that accused her in Till’s abduction, even before his mangled body was found in a river, FBI records show, yet she was never arrested or brought to trial in a case that shocked the world for its brutality.

Authorities at the time said the woman had two young children and they did not want to bother her. Donham’s then-husband and another man were acquitted of murder.

Make no mistake: Relatives of Till still prefer a murder prosecution. But there is no evidence the kidnapping warrant was ever dismissed, so it could be used to arrest Donham and finally get her before a criminal court, said Jaribu Hill, an attorney working with the Till family.

“This warrant is a stepping stone toward that,” she said. “Because warrants do not expire, we want to see that warrant served on her.”

There are plenty of roadblocks. Witnesses have died in the decades since Till was lynched, and it’s unclear what happened to evidence collected by investigators. Even the location of the original warrant is a mystery. It could be in boxes of old courthouse records in Leflore County, Mississippi, where the abduction occurred.

A relative of Till said it’s long past time for someone to arrest Donham in Till’s kidnapping, if not for the slaying itself.

“Mississippi is not the Mississippi of 1955, but it seems to still carry some of that era of protecting the white woman,” said Deborah Watts, a distant cousin of Till who runs the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation.

Now in her late 80s and most recently living in Raleigh, North Carolina, Donham has not commented publicly on calls for her prosecution. She did not seem to know she had been named in an arrest warrant in Till’s abduction until decades later, said Dale Killinger, a retired FBI agent who questioned her more than 15 years ago.

“I think she didn’t recall it,” he said. “She acted surprised.”

The Justice Department closed its most recent investigation of the killing in December, when the agency said Donham had denied an author’s claim that she had recanted her claims about Till doing something improper to her in the store where she worked in the town of Money. The writer could not produce any recordings or transcripts to back up the allegation, authorities said.

Till relatives met in March with officials including District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, the lead prosecutor in Leflore County, but left unsatisfied, Watts said. “There doesn’t seem to be the determination or courage to do what needs to be done,” she said.

Richardson has been in office for about 15 years and was the first Black person to serve as president of the Mississippi Prosecutors Association. He did not return phone messages or emails seeking comment about a potential kidnapping case.

Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker whose documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” preceded a renewed Justice Department probe that ended without charges in 2007, said there’s enough evidence to prosecute Donham.

“If we’re saying we are a country of truth and justice, we must get truth and justice … no matter the age or gender of the person involved,'” said Beauchamp.

Stories about the events that led to Till’s killing have varied through the years, but the woman known at the time as Carolyn Bryant was always at the center of it, said author Devery Anderson, who obtained original FBI files on the case while researching his 2015 book “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement.”

Till was a 14-year-old from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi when he entered the store on Aug. 24, 1955; Donham, then 21, was working inside. A Till relative who was there at the time, Wheeler Parker, told The Associated Press that Till whistled at the woman. Donham testified that Till grabbed her.

Two nights later, Donham’s then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, showed up armed at the rural home of Till’s great-uncle, Mose Wright, looking for the youth.

Wright testified in 1955 that a person with a voice “lighter” than a man’s identified Till from inside a pickup truck and the abductors took him away. Other evidence in FBI files indicates that earlier that night, Donham told her husband that at least two other Black men were not the right person.

Authorities already had obtained warrants charging the two men and Donham with kidnapping before Till’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River, FBI files show, but police never arrested Donham.

“We aren’t going to bother the woman,” Leflore County Sheriff George Smith told reporters, “she’s got two small boys to take care of.”

Roy Bryant and Milam were quickly indicted on murder charges and they were acquitted by an all-white jury in Tallahatchie County about two weeks later.

Grand jurors in neighboring Leflore County refused to indict the men on kidnapping charges afterward, effectively ending the threat of prosecution for Roy Bryant and Milam. Both men have been dead for decades, leaving Donham as the lone survivor who was directly involved.

Killinger, the retired federal agent, said he saw neither the original warrant during his investigation nor any indication that it was ever canceled by a court, and it’s unclear whether it could be used today to arrest or try Donham. Even if authorities located the original paperwork with sworn statements detailing evidence, he said, courts need witnesses to testify.

“And it’s my understanding that all those people are dead,” Killinger said.
…

your ad here

An Air Force major general in Ohio has been convicted by a military judge of one of three specifications of abusive sexual contact in the first-ever military trial of an Air Force general. 

The charge faced by Maj. Gen. William Cooley during the weeklong court-martial at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio had three specifications, one alleging a forcible kiss and two alleging forcible touching in 2018. Cooley was convicted Saturday of the forcible kissing specification but acquitted of the other two. 

Officials said the verdict marks the first court-martial trial and conviction of a general officer in the Air Force’s 75-year history. 

A former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Cooley was charged with abusive sexual contact in an encounter with a woman who gave him a ride after a backyard barbecue in New Mexico nearly four years ago. Officials said the woman is a civilian who is not a Department of Defense employee. 

Cooley was to be sentenced Monday morning and could face as much as seven years in jail as well as loss of rank, pay and benefits. 

Cooley had the option of a trial by court member jurors or by a military judge, and chose to have the case heard by the judge. 

“Today marks the first time an Air Force general officer has been held responsible for his heinous actions,” the woman’s attorney Ryan Guilds, said in a statement, the Dayton Daily News reported. “… Hopefully, this will not be as difficult for the next survivor.” 

Cooley was fired from his research laboratory position in January 2020 after an Air Force investigation and has worked in an administrative job since then. A message seeking comment was left for his attorney Saturday. 

“This case clearly demonstrates the commitment of Air Force leaders to fully investigate the facts and hold airmen of any rank accountable for their actions when they fail to uphold Air Force standards,” Col. Eric Mejia, staff judge advocate for the Air Force Materiel Command, said in a statement. 
…

your ad here

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Iran on Saturday to release an American citizen he said has been held for years as a “political pawn,” as the nations inch toward restoration of a nuclear deal.

Emad Sharghi was sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges, Iranian media reported in January 2021, saying he was detained trying to flee the country.

Blinken said the Iranian American venture capitalist has been held for four years, and that the “family has waited anxiously for the Iranian government to release Emad.

“Like too many other families, their loved one has been treated as a political pawn,” the top U.S. diplomat said in a post on Twitter. “We call on Iran to stop this inhumane practice and release Emad.”

Robert Malley, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, said on Saturday that Sharghi was arrested exactly four years ago.

“He was cleared of all charges, but then convicted in absentia, rearrested, and has now spent over 500 days in Evin Prison,” Malley said. “Emad, the Namazis, and Morad Tahbaz must all be allowed to come home now.”

More than a dozen citizens of Western countries are being held in Iran, even after Tehran allowed two British citizens to return home last month after years of detention and another to leave prison.

Those who remain behind bars, under house arrest or unable to leave Iran face an agonizing wait to see if a possible deal on the Iranian nuclear program will help their prospects.

In 2015, Washington and five other world powers inked a landmark agreement with Tehran to rein in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the United States quit the deal in 2018 and reinstated economic sanctions against Tehran, which in response shrugged off restrictions imposed on its nuclear efforts. 

Months of negotiations in the Austrian capital Vienna aim to return Washington to the deal, including through the lifting of sanctions, and to ensure Tehran’s full compliance with its commitments.

Negotiators say they are close to a conclusion but have yet to finalize all points.
…

your ad here