US border deaths rise for family, child migrants

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Parents who cross illegally from Mexico to the United States with their children will not face prosecution for the time being because the government is running short of space to house them, officials said on Monday.

President Donald Trump’s administration has vowed to prosecute all adults who cross the border illegally, but its policy of separating immigrant children from parents met fierce international criticism so it is now trying to keep detained families together while the parents await trial.

A child from Guatamala arrives with dozens of women, men and their children, at a bus station following release from Customs and Border Protection in McAllen, Texas, June 23, 2018. /VCG Photo

That has created logistics problems of how to house those families, and the Customs and Border Protection agency is now not referring new cases for prosecution, CBP officials said.

The US government also said on Monday that the number of migrants dying from extreme heat on the US-Mexico border rose 55 percent in the past nine months after an increase in unaccompanied children and families trying to enter the United States illegally.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration was not dropping its policy of “zero-tolerance” of illegal immigration, but it needed a “temporary solution” until it can house migrant families.

“This will only last a short amount of time, because we’re going to run out of space, we’re going to run out of resources in order to keep people together. And we’re asking Congress to provide those resources and do their job,” Sanders told reporters.

US President Donald Trump delivers a keynote address during the Nevada Republican Party Convention at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, June 23, 2018. /VCG Photo

Trump faced a global outcry this month, including sharp criticism from some inside his Republican Party, over migrant children being separated from their parents.

He formally ended the policy of separating families last Wednesday, but the administration has yet to reunite more than 2,000 children with their parents and it is not clear how it will house thousands of families while parents are or to be prosecuted.

The US military has been asked to prepare to house up to 20,000 unaccompanied child migrants on its bases.

Trump lashed out on Monday at a Democratic congresswoman who urged Americans to confront members of Trump’s inner circle in public places as tensions rose over the Republican president’s hardline immigration policy.

The president retreated on Wednesday, ordering an end to the family separations at the US-Mexico border, but leaving his 2-month-old “zero tolerance” policy in place. That raised questions about where to house families detained at the border and how to process them speedily. The government has yet to reunite more than 2,000 children with their parents.

Democratic Representative Maxine Waters told a crowd in her home state of California on Sunday that a Virginia restaurant’s refusal on Friday to serve White House press secretary Sarah Sanders should be a model for resisting Trump.

Although Republicans control both chambers in Congress, disagreements between moderates and conservatives in the party over immigration matters have hit prospects for a speedy legislative fix to the border crisis.

A Mexican migrant child arranges freshly-washed clothing at the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, Mexico, June 22, 2018. /VCG Photo

Mark Meadows, leader of a conservative faction among Republicans in the House of Representatives, said on Monday he expected that an immigration bill being worked on by Republicans would fail.

A group of Republican and Democratic senators huddled late on Monday to see whether they might be able to come together on legislation establishing a protocol for treating immigrant families as their pleas for asylum or other protections from deportation are considered.

But after the meeting, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said “Nothing’s going to happen this week,” on legislation in the Senate.

With Congress out of session next week for the July 4 public holiday, that would mean the Senate could not debate a bill until at least the following week.

Political fight

Trump has expressed frustration at US immigration laws and reiterated on Monday that those people should be turned away at the border. Democrats have accused him of wanting to circumvent the US constitution’s guarantee of due process for those accused of crimes.

“We want a system where, when people come in illegally, they have to go out. And a nice simple system that works,” Trump told reporters.

Protesters against the Trump administration's border policies try to block a bus carrying migrant children out of a US Customs and Border Protection Detention Center in McAllen, Texas, June 23, 2018. /VCG Photo

The immigration crisis has triggered new political tension, and Trump lashed out at a Democratic congresswoman who had urged Americans to confront members of his inner circle in public places.

The lawmaker, Maxine Waters, told a crowd in her home state of California on Sunday that a Virginia restaurant’s refusal to serve White House press secretary Sarah Sanders should be a model for resisting Trump.

“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters said.

“And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents.”

Trump fired back on Monday, calling Waters “an extraordinarily low IQ person.”

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was confronted at a Mexican restaurant in Washington by protesters yelling: “Shame! Shame!”

House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for cooler heads on both sides.

“Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable,” she said. “As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea.”

(Cover: Undocumented immigrant families are released from detention at a bus depot in McAllen, Texas, US, June 25, 2018. /Reuters Photo )

Source(s): Reuters