Author: Kristina Cooke
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Bill aims to increase penalties for child labor violations
WASHINGTON • Lawmakers Wednesday introduced a bipartisan bill that would raise penalties on employers who violate child labor laws, in the wake of reporting and federal investigations that found a growing number of companies employing underage migrant workers in dangerous factory settings. The bill, introduced in the House of Representatives, follows a similar Democrat-led effort…
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Biden under pressure as U.S.-Mexico border arrests reach record highs
WASHINGTON • U.S. authorities arrested 1.7 million migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border this fiscal year, the most ever recorded, according to a U.S. government source familiar with the numbers, underscoring the stark political and humanitarian challenges the Biden administration faces on immigration. The current numbers for the 2021 fiscal year, which began last October, topped…
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U.S. immigration agents to more narrowly target migrants for deportation
The U.S. government will narrow who immigration agents target for arrest and deportation, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Thursday, in a marked departure from the hard-line approach taken by then-U.S. President Donald Trump. New guidance issued on Thursday gives agents more discretion to make case-by-case decisions, Mayorkas said, focusing primarily on those…
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For asylum advocates, border expulsions strain faith in Biden
NEW YORK • Confused and tired-looking toddlers clung to their parents at Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Tuesday, among the 360 family members rapidly expelled from the U.S. over the past three days. These scenes came after U.S. border agents on horseback on Sunday used whip-like reins to block Haitian migrants wading across the Rio…
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Judge blocks expulsions of migrant families under Trump-era order
WASHINGTON • A U.S. district judge on Thursday blocked the expulsion of migrant families caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border under an order put in place by former President Donald Trump’s administration early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The order, invoking Title 42, was issued in March 2020 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,…
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Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam, sources say
An image distributed by Islamic State militants on social media on August 25, 2015, purports to show the destruction of a Roman-era temple in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Photo courtesy of Reuters/Social Media © Handout . / Reuters An image distributed by Islamic State militants on social media on August 25, 2015, purports…