Customs and Border Protection (US)

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    Strong Winds Send U.S. Customs Blimp on a 600-Mile Trip Across Texas

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    Wind blasts dislodged the aircraft from its moorings in South Padre. The blimp drifted all the way to the Dallas area, where it crashed into power lines.Strong winds dislodged a U.S. Customs and Border Protection surveillance blimp in South Padre Island, Texas, this week, sending it on an unplanned journey of nearly 600 miles across the state until it crashed into power lines outside Dallas, the authorities said. The blimp, which was about 200 feet long, broke free from its tether just after 3 p.m. Monday during a “severe wind event,” the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations division said in a statement. Maximum wind gusts were around 30 miles per hour that day, slightly stronger than normal, said Ben Ellzey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville.Operators lost contact with the white blimp shortly after it became loose, according to the statement. The agency asked residents to report any sighting of it.According to the Air and Marine Operations division, Quinlan Texas Fire and Rescue found the blimp on Tuesday in Hunt County, about 30 miles east of Dallas.Chief Ryan Biggers of the South Hunt County Fire Rescue said he was puzzled when the department received a “weird” call about 6:40 a.m. Wednesday from Border Patrol seeking help with recovering the blimp. “I was kind of unsure what they meant,” Chief Biggers said.When he responded, he saw white material hanging over trees and power lines, as if a white tarp had been laid out, he said. “I couldn’t even tell it was a blimp,” Chief Biggers said.The balloon was too tangled for fire equipment, he said, adding that a heavy rotator wrecker was needed to lift the debris and what remained of the blimp off the power lines it had crashed into.Jake Cunningham, operations manager at Benson Bros. Wrecker Service, a professional towing company that was called in for assistance with recovering the blimp, said, “Fortunately, we are a little more experienced in some of the stranger calls.”Mr. Cunningham said that two operators had extracted the balloon using a 60-ton rotator, a crane with a long arm that spins, in a process that took about two hours. “It was a delicate situation,” he said.Chief Biggers, reflecting on the event, said, “I never received a call like that, and I doubt I ever will again.”The U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to offer additional comment. More details will be shared as they become available, the agency said.The Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment.The air and marine operations branch of Customs and Border Protection, which is responsible for stopping the illegal movement of people and cargo approaching the country’s borders, employs about 1,800 agents and other support personnel and has 240 aircraft and 300 marine vessels.U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses aerostat systems, also called blimps, to provide aerial surveillance at the border. The blimps are attached to the ground and can hover as high as 15,000 feet, with a search area of approximately 200 feet, according to the agency. They can weigh as much as 2,400 pounds. More

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      On Mexico’s Once-Packed Border, Few Migrants Remain

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      On the eve of President Trump’s deadline to impose tariffs on Mexico, one thing is hard to miss on the Mexican side of the border: The migrants are gone.In what were once some of the busiest sections along the border — Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Matamoros — shelters that used to overflow now hold just a few families. The parks, hotels and vacant buildings that once teemed with people from all over the world stand empty.And on the border itself, where migrants once slept in camps within feet of the 30-foot wall, only dust-caked clothes and shoes, rolled-up toothpaste tubes and water bottles remain.“All that is over,” said the Rev. William Morton, a missionary at a Ciudad Juárez cathedral that serves migrants free meals. “Nobody can cross.”Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced that Customs and Border Protection had apprehended only 200 people at the southern border the Saturday before — the lowest single-day number in over 15 years.Mr. Trump has credited his crackdown on illegal immigration for the plunging numbers, even as he has also announced he will send thousands more combat forces to the border to stop what he calls an invasion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Border Agents Made Decision to Confront Gunman in Uvalde, Report Finds

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      A report by the federal border agency on the school shooting in 2022 found that its agents lacked adequate training and authority to respond to active shooter situations.Amid two years of painful wrangling over the delayed police response to the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the role of the federal agents who finally breached the classrooms and killed the gunman has largely avoided scrutiny.The agents, from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, were seen as having saved the day by responding to the school and stepping in after a 77-minute delay.But a 203-page report released on Wednesday by the agency complicated that simple narrative, finding that the border agents had been just as confused and delayed as dozens of other state and local law enforcement agents inside the school by the chaotic and mostly leaderless response.The report, from the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, also offered the most detailed account yet of the tense and violent moments when federal agents finally entered the classrooms and the gunman burst from a closet and began firing at them.And despite the agents’ central role in confronting and killing the gunman, the report raised questions about whether the dozens who responded had the legal authority to do so. The agents were insufficiently trained in responding to active shooter situations, the report found.Its recommendations included that the agency take steps to better train its officers in active shooter responses, particularly to those in which breaching a door may be necessary, and to seek to clarify the law around how the agency interacts with state and local law enforcement during such events.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Transfers and Pay Cuts: Pregnant Officers Accuse Border Agency of Discrimination

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      Under a $45 million settlement, Customs and Border Protection agreed to adjust its policy around pregnancy. Some women say the agency has instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation.When Roberta Gabaldon was ready to share news of her pregnancy with her colleagues at Customs and Border Protection in 2015, she brought in pink and blue doughnuts with a sign that read: “Pink and blue. Pink and blue. Somebody’s pregnant, guess who?”But her palpable excitement, particularly after a miscarriage months earlier, quickly dissipated.“My boss came into my office and he’s like: ‘You have to leave. You have to get a note about your pregnancy, and you have to go on light duty,’” Ms. Gabaldon, an agriculture specialist in the El Paso office, recalled, describing how she was told she needed to be reassigned to a post with fewer responsibilities regardless of whether she or her doctor believed it was necessary.Her experience reflects that of hundreds of female employees at the agency who have filed suit against Customs and Border Protection, saying that since at least 2016, they were denied equal treatment once they disclosed they were expecting. No matter the physical demands of their jobs, many were transferred to another post, typically centered on administrative or secretarial work and usually unrelated to what skills they had developed in their existing roles. The policy, they say, hurt their opportunities for advancement, and others add that they weathered pay cuts because light duty meant no more overtime.But under a $45 million settlement reached on Monday, Customs and Border Protection agreed to adjust a practice that some employees say has instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation as women try to hide their pregnancies at work for as long as possible.The agreement, which is not final until the end of September, requires C.B.P. to draft a new policy for pregnant women, and lawyers representing the women will monitor the agency’s compliance for three years. C.B.P. will also be required to train all managers and supervisors about the rights of pregnant employees.C.B.P. declined to answer questions about its policy toward pregnant women as described in the lawsuit and in interviews, citing its practice of not commenting on pending litigation. The terms of the settlement agreement state that the agency does not admit wrongdoing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Shut the Border to Asylum Seekers. The Question Is Whether the Order Can Be Enforced.

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      There are still ways for people to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, particularly without any new resources to help guard the 2,000-mile frontier.As of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, the U.S. border with Mexico was shut down to nearly all migrants seeking asylum in the United States.The drastic action, the result of an executive order signed by President Biden, was designed to keep the border closed at least through Election Day and defuse one of the president’s biggest vulnerabilities in his campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.The question is how broadly it can be enforced, especially along a 2,000-mile border that does not have nearly the capacity to manage the number of people who want to enter the United States.As of Wednesday morning and into Thursday, the order appeared to be working, although it was still too early to make a real assessment. Migrants in the border towns of Mexicali and Ciudad Juárez were being turned away, and the word was spreading.In Mexicali, Guadalupe Olmos, a 33-year-old mother, said that when she heard about the new policy, she wept, and said it was now pointless to try to enter the United States. Last year, she said, gunmen shot up her car, killing her husband. She and her three children survived and have been trying to get out of Mexico.“It is not going to happen anymore,” Ms. Olmos said. “Yesterday, they told us that this is over.”Before the new restrictions went into effect, migrants would seek out border agents and surrender, knowing that anyone who stepped foot on U.S. soil could ask for asylum. Often, they would be released into the United States to wait, sometimes for years, for their cases to come up.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      San Diego Is Once Again a Top Migrant Entry Point

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      Asylum seekers from around the world are trying to enter the United States through California, and immigrant traffic there has reached its highest level in decades.From sunrise to sunset, the U.S. Border Patrol buses arrived every hour at a sunbaked parking lot in San Diego.Dozens of migrants stepped outside each time, many seeming to be confused about what was happening at this trolley hub on a recent weekend. There were no local officials to answer questions. No services. And few ways to reach their next destination in the United States.For the first time in 25 years, the San Diego region has become a top destination for migrants along the southern United States border, surpassing the number of illegal crossings at areas in Arizona and Texas for several weeks this year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.It has been a surprising turn for a border spot that was the focal point of the bitter national debate over immigration decades ago, before falling out of the spotlight as migrant flows shifted eastward. The recent surge in San Diego has been overwhelming enough that a government-funded welcome center exhausted its budget and had to close in February. Since then, the United States Border Patrol has bused migrants to a trolley center and sent them on their way.After being dropped off at the Iris Avenue Transit Center, many of the migrants head to the San Diego International Airport or find shelter provided by churches or nonprofit organizations in the San Diego area.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Expresses Regret for Calling an Undocumented Immigrant ‘an Illegal’

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      President Biden expressed regret on Saturday for using the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented immigrant who has been charged in the killing of a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia, agreeing with his progressive critics that it was an inappropriate term.Mr. Biden used the word during an unscripted colloquy with Republicans during his State of the Union address on Thursday night, and then came under fire from immigration supporters who consider the term dehumanizing. Among those who said he should not have used it were several congressional Democrats.“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal’; it’s ‘undocumented,’” Mr. Biden said on Saturday in an interview with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC, during which he addressed his disagreements with former President Donald J. Trump.“And look, when I spoke about the difference between Trump and me, one of the things I talked about in the border was his, the way he talks about ‘vermin,’ the way he talks about these people ‘polluting the blood,’ ” he said, adding, “I talked about what I’m not going to do. What I won’t do. I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect.”He continued: “Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing. We have to control the border and more orderly flow, but I don’t share his view at all.”Mr. Capehart asked if that meant he regretted using the word “illegal.”“Yes,” Mr. Biden answered.The president’s reply went further than when he was first asked about the matter by reporters on Friday. He did not explicitly take back the term at that point, noting that the immigrant charged in the murder in Georgia was “technically not supposed to be here.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Illegal Border Crossings Plummeted in January

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      The number of people crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico has dropped by 50 percent in the past month, authorities said on Tuesday, as President Biden comes under growing pressure from both parties over security at the border.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had encountered migrants between ports of entry 124,220 times in January, down from more than 249,000 the previous month.The figures do not change the fact that the number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels during the Biden administration, and crossings typically dip in January. Immigration trends are affected by weather patterns and other issues, making it difficult to draw conclusions from monthly numbers.But the drop in crossings was a glimmer of good news for the Biden administration as House Republicans impeached Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, on Tuesday on charges of willfully refusing to enforce border laws. (Their first attempt ended in defeat.)The figures also amounted to a respite for some large American cities grappling with the burden of sheltering migrants during the wintertime.In New York City, which is housing more than 65,000 migrants in hotels, shelters and tents, the number of migrants entering the city’s care over the last month plunged to about 1,600 per week, down 55 percent from 3,600 per week in December.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fact-Checking Claims That Senate Bill Allows 5,000 Unauthorized Immigrants a Day

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      Republican critics are misrepresenting one provision of a bipartisan deal to suggest that it permits 5,000 illegal crossings a day.Republican critics have quickly twisted one element of a bipartisan compromise bill unveiled on Sunday to misleadingly suggest that it permits 5,000 migrants to enter the country illegally every day.The legislation, which links additional funding in military aid for Ukraine with immigration policy, would more aggressively tamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico.The claim has become a popular talking point, reflecting broader pushback by Republicans who have seized on the border security provisions in the $118.3 billion bill and derided them as too lax.But the bill does not, in fact, authorize immigrants to cross the border illegally. Instead, among other provisions, it would give officials the authority to summarily remove migrants, with little recourse, after a certain number cross: an average of 5,000 encounters per day for a week, or 8,500 in a single day.Here’s a fact check.WHAT WAS SAID“The Biden/Schumer Open Border Bill allows 5,000 immigrants a day into our country.”— House Republicans in a social media post on Monday“Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients — a magnet for more illegal immigration.”— Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, in a social media post on SundayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More