Author: Colleen Long

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s taking a wait-and-see approach on his threat to close the southern border as soon as this week. His administration is grappling with a surge of Central American migrants trying to enter the U.S., and Trump said last week he’d seal the border in the coming days…

PALM BEACH, Fla. • Taking drastic action over illegal immigration, President Donald Trump moved Saturday to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, whose citizens are fleeing north and overwhelming U.S. resources at the southern border. The State Department notified Congress that it would look to suspend 2017 and 2018 payments to the…

SAN DIEGO • The U.S. government kept a database on journalists, activists, organizers and “instigators” during an investigation into last year’s migrant caravan, infuriating civil liberties and media groups who called it a blatant violation of free speech rights. U.S. Customs and Border Protection compiled information that contained passport photos, date of birth, suspected role…

WASHINGTON • The number of migrant families crossing the southwest border is again breaking records, and the crush is overwhelming border agents and straining facilities, officials said Tuesday. More than 76,000 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last month, more than double the number from the same period last year. Most were families coming in ever-increasingly…

WASHINGTON • Thousands more migrant children may have been split from their families than the Trump administration previously reported, in part because officials were stepping up family separations long before the border policy that prompted international outrage last spring, a government watchdog said Thursday. It’s unclear just how many family separations occurred at the U.S.-Mexico…

WASHINGTON • People seeking asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico will no longer be released in the United States and will instead be forced to wait in Mexico under a policy announced Thursday that marks one of the most significant moves by President Donald Trump to reshape the immigration system. The measure is an…

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to sign an order next week that could lead to the large-scale detention of migrants crossing the southern border and bar anyone caught crossing illegally from claiming asylum — two legally dubious proposals that mark his latest election-season barrage against illegal immigration. “This is an…