Colombia cancels flights returning migrants from US, cites mistreatment.
On May 11, the pandemic public health emergency will end and with it, the use of
Title 42. While the Trump administration launched Title 42 as a “temporary” measure to supposedly prevent the spread of COVID-19, it was used instead as a blunt enforcement tool to expel migrants, including families, children and legitimate asylum seekers from the United States. Sadly, Title 42 will leave much human suffering in its wake, and yet, it has not strengthened our asylum system or border management.
Latinos, like all Americans, expect that our government will effectively manage our borders and thoroughly vet those who seek to enter as refugees, to join family or for work. Our community does not support open borders, nor do we tolerate seeing children in danger, families separated and detained or people suffering. We want a functioning immigration system that is humane, efficient and secure.
The federal government has taken some constructive steps that help ease the strain on the border. The Biden administration has moved to restore public and private partnerships to stimulate investments, job growth and community stability in Central America. Such regional cooperation gets in front of what drives people to leave their countries in the first place. We also support the administration’s parole program, which allows migrants from certain countries to come legally to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons.
This eases the amount of vetting that happens on our southern border; it’s also far safer for people to come with a visa than a smuggler. These efforts still fall short, however, of addressing our border challenges, much less when Title 42 ends. Aware of this, the Biden administration proposed an asylum rule that would encourage people to seek refuge closer to home and to enter the U.S. at our southern border with an appointment using a smartphone app.
UnidosUS. supports such efforts to help refugees avoid the dangerous journey north
or to enter the U.S. in a legal and orderly manner, we strongly oppose the asylum rule.
The heart of our objections to the Biden asylum policy is that what the administration
touts as incentives will in fact significantly limit access to asylum.
The rule, paired with the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to swiftly expel migrants under Title 8 and to deploy 1,500 troops on the border, will result in denying refuge to the most vulnerable migrants, including families with children.
It’s also unclear if the incentives will work. Ongoing monitoring is needed to ensure meaningful access to asylum in transit countries and vigorous improvements of the CBP One app are critical, given its reported and significant problems. In the end, refugees will be returned to life-threatening danger in their home countries, and this is the asylum rule’s fatal flaw.
While there are no quick fixes to the humanitarian challenges on our southern border — thanks to restrictionists in Congress who have obstructed bipartisan immigration reform for decades — there are solutions. The Menendez Plan, proposed by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) offers pragmatic and forward-looking solutions to manage migration and refugees in the Americas and secure our borders.
Instead of severely limiting asylum access, the administration should invest deeper
in hemispheric cooperation and further expand avenues for humanitarian migration.
We also need to strengthen our asylum processes, which require an integrated system of multi-agency reception facilities, legal services and representation, trained adjudicators and well-resourced court proceedings that timely move asylum cases forward while protecting due process.
For this, the government needs the resources.
We call on Congress to fund the above-mentioned solutions to restore fairness to the asylum process, improve humanitarian conditions at the border and ensure communities have the resources they need to welcome newcomers. Doing so will provide a path forward for members of Congress serious about addressing the dire humanitarian situation on the border and hold accountable anti-immigrant lawmakers who just want to take selfies here.
President Biden took office after campaigning on a pledge to use more humane immigration policies than his predecessor. Creating incentives to reduce irregular migration, investing in border resources to respond to humanitarian migration and increasing funding for legal services and community-based organizations that support asylum seekers is the right approach and consistent with his promises.
‘A storm is coming’ (msn.com)
Pence blasts Biden on border policy ahead of Title 42 expiration:
Related video: Migrants wait at border as Title 42’s end looms.
Editor’s note: This piece was updated on May 4 at 1:54 p.m.
Janet Murguía is president and CEO at UnidosUS.
Nearly 200 mass shootings in the US in 2023
The incident is the 191st mass shooting in the U.S. this year, defined as at least 4 victims hit by gunfire, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks shootings. The White House was aware of the incident and in contact with local officials, Dickens said. Over 11,500 Mass Shooting Victims So Far, 2023 (msn.com)
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Thousands of firearms surrendered in New York in one day.
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shooting at Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub
Woman accused of hiding suspected gunman who killed 5 in Texas arrested
Troops won’t help migrants nor stem flow of asylum-seekers to the border.
U.S. Congress gears up for immigration overhaul as Title 42 ends (msn.com)
Top Biden aide: Immigration laws “need to be updated” (msn.com)
Border Patrol releasing majority of detained migrants (msn.com)
Grace Hauck |Jeanine Santucci
USA TODAY
Police: 1 dead, 4 injured after shooting in Atlanta hospital; suspect apprehended.
The 24-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting one woman and injuring four others inside a waiting room at a hospital in Atlanta before carjacking a vehicle and fleeing the scene was apprehended Wednesday evening after an hours-long search, police said.
The Atlanta Police Department confirmed the suspect, Deion Patterson, was apprehended in Cobb County. He was booked at Fulton County Jail and faces one charge of murder and four counts of aggravated assault, jail records show. Police received a call of shots fired on the 11th floor of Northside Hospital’s Midtown location just after noon Wednesday, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said in a news conference.
Patterson had an appointment at the facility and started shooting
in the waiting area, Atlanta Deputy Chief of Investigations Charles Hampton said.
He exited the building after only a couple minutes and went on foot to a nearby gas station, where he commandeered a pickup truck that had been left unattended and
left the area, Hampton said. Law enforcement later located the truck. Hampton
said after the arrest that the handgun Patterson used was recovered.
The hours-long investigation, which officials said was at times chaotic:
Included tips from community members and information given by Patterson’s family members. Cobb County Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer said license plate-surveillance cameras and other technology was instrumental in the search. Several law enforcement agencies were involved, including Atlanta and Cobb County police, the FBI and U.S.
The Secret Service was involved in the search, Schierbaum said.
Police had lifted a shelter-in-place advisory for midtown Atlanta earlier Wednesday afternoon but advised community members to avoid the area and remain alert.
“We’ve had a successful end to a traumatic day. Today is a day that we can go home
and rest easy that the individual that caused harm in our community is under arrest,”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said.
Nikita Rapoport, who attends Savannah College of Art and Design, told USA TODAY
he lives in the apartment building across from the hospital and was told to stay inside
after the shooting. “I expected Midtown to be safe. It’s one of the reasons why I chose
this building,” he said. “Apparently it’s not.”
Woman killed in the shooting was a CDC employee.
The woman killed in the shooting was identified by the Fulton County medical examiner’s office as Amy St. Pierre; She was an employee with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spokesperson Benjamin Haynes confirmed to USA TODAY. According to a public LinkedIn profile, Amy St. Pierre worked as a public health adviser for the CDC.
“CDC is deeply saddened by the unexpected loss of a colleague killed today in the
Midtown Atlanta shooting. Our hearts are with her family, friends, and colleagues
as they remember her and grieve this tragic loss,” Haynes said in a statement.
Suspect spotted in Cobb County after shooting.
Officials in Cobb County said the suspect was believed to have been in Cobb County
about 10 miles away soon after the shooting. “We actually went back and did discover
that the vehicle had entered Cobb County,” Cobb County Sgt. Wayne Delk said at
a press conference.
Delk said the suspect was seen at about 12:30 p.m. on a surveillance camera but Cobb County police didn’t review the footage until about 2:30 p.m. There had been no other sightings of him since then, Delk said, adding that the carjacked vehicle had been recovered by Atlanta Police Department.
Three of four injured victims in critical condition
One woman, 39, died at the scene, The four injured women – ages 71, 56, 39 and 25 –
were taken to a Grady Memorial Hospital, which is close to Northside Hospital’s Midtown location, Schierbaum said. Three of the four injured women were in critical condition from gunshot wounds, and one was stable, said Robert Jansen, chief medical officer at Grady Health System, in an afternoon news conference.
The most seriously injured patient was still in the operating room late Wednesday, he said. He declined to share details about the patients’ wounds. It was not immediately clear if the victims were patients or staff, Schierbaum said. Jansen said the hospital issued a call for a mass casualty event and had multiple surgeons and trauma staff in the trauma bay within minutes, anticipating up to 12 patients. Northside Hospital said it would be closed on Thursday, and all appointments were canceled.
Emergency vehicles arrive on West Peachtree in Atlanta May 3, 2023.
Police arrest suspect in fatal mass shooting at Atlanta medical center (msn.com)
Police say that they are investigating an “active shooter situation” in a building in
Atlanta’s Midtown neighborhood and that multiple people had been injured.
Atlanta schools cleared to release students Several Atlanta Public Schools
were locked down after the shooting. By Wednesday afternoon, the district announced
it had received the green light from law enforcement to release students from all schools.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we have dispatched officers at every school for today’s dismissal,” the district said in a statement, telling parents and guardians to expect transportation delays.
Who is Deion Patterson, the man charged in Midtown Atlanta’s mass shooting?
The shooting suspect entered the U.S. Coast Guard in 2018 and was discharged from active duty in January, according to a statement from the branch, which said it is working closely with law enforcement in the investigation. “The Coast Guard is aware of the tragic incident in Atlanta allegedly involving Mr. Deion Patterson. Our deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families,” the Coast Guard said.
Patterson’s mother, Minyone Patterson, police said had accompanied her son to the medical office, told The Associated Press by phone that her son had “some mental instability going on” from medication he received from the Veterans Affairs health system that he began taking on Friday. She said her son had wanted Ativan to deal with anxiety and depression but that the VA wouldn’t give it to him because they said it would be “too addicting.” She’s a nurse and said she told them he would only have taken the proper dosage “because he listened to me in every way.”
“Those families, those families,” she said, starting to sob. “They’re hurting because they wouldn’t give my son his damn Ativan. Those families lost loved ones because he had
a mental break because they wouldn’t listen to me.” She ended the call without saying what medication her son had been taking. Warnock: ‘None of us are safe’ Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said on the Senate floor Wednesday that his two children’s schools
were placed on lockdown as police searched for the suspect.
“They are there. I’m here, hoping and praying that they are safe.
The truth is none of us is safe,” Warnock said. ‘Frightening trend’ Deadly assaults on
US medical workers on the rise. Warnock called on lawmakers to act on gun violence and condemned gun lobbyists. He said it was “deeply upsetting” that the shooting happened in a medical building where health care workers and first responders working to keep people safe. “This happened in a medical facility where people are trying to find healing,” he said.
Business closing in 2023:
Story by Luke Gentile @ Washington Examiner
Twitter CEO Elon Musk decried downtown San Francisco
as “post-apocalyptic” on Thursday as more businesses flee the crime-infested city.
“So many stores shuttered in downtown SF,” Musk tweeted. “Feels post-apocalyptic.”
GREG GUTFELD: Crime-ridden cities all have one thing in common (msn.com)
NORDSTROM CLOSES SAN FRANCISCO LOCATIONS DUE TO ‘DYNAMICS’ OF AREA:
Musk, who operates Twitter from the company’s San Francisco headquarters, made the comment in response to a thread regarding the closure of Nordstrom’s two locations in the city. The San Francisco Centre and Market Street Rack locations will close their doors in the coming months, according to a memo from Chief Stores Officer Jamie Nordstrom to employees.
“We’ve spent more than 35 years serving customers in downtown San Francisco,
building relationships with them and investing in the local community,” the memo read.
“But as many of you know, the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”
The owner of the Westfield Mall, where the stores are located, said closings such as Nordstrom’s are symbolic of “the deteriorating situation in Downtown San Francisco.”
“[Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield] has actively engaged with city leaders for many years to express our serious concerns, which are shared by our customers and retailers,” a mall spokesperson said. “We have urged the city to find solutions to the key issues and lack of enforcement again.”
The shutting down of Nordstrom’s San Francisco locations comes on the heels of Whole Foods’s closure on Market Street and skyrocketing incidents involving vagrants, violence, and drug use across the city, according to a report.
Original Location: Elon Musk declares San Francisco ‘post-apocalyptic’ as crime closes major stores
Tags: Elon Musk, News, Crime, San Francisco, Business
Original Author: Luke Gentile