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    N.Y.C. Helped Migrant Accused of Killing Laken Riley Move to Georgia, Witness Says

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    In other testimony, law enforcement witnesses placed the suspect, José Ibarra, at the scene of Ms. Riley’s killing, mainly through cellphone and GPS tracking data.Details of how the Venezuelan migrant charged with killing Laken Riley ended up in Athens, Ga., came into sharper focus on Monday, the second day of a trial that is being closely followed by supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.The migrant, José Ibarra, was apprehended by the Border Patrol when he entered the country illegally in 2022 near El Paso. Like many migrants, he was released with temporary permission to stay in the country, and he headed to New York.A former roommate of Mr. Ibarra’s testified that she met Mr. Ibarra last year in New York City and traveled with him to Athens in September 2023 after Mr. Ibarra’s brother told them they could find jobs there.They lived for a while with Mr. Ibarra’s wife and mother-in-law at a Crowne Plaza hotel in Queens that had been converted to a migrant shelter, the roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, said. And for a few weeks, she added, she and Mr. Ibarra lived in a car parked on the street by the hotel.Ms. Flores-Bello said that Mr. Ibarra’s brother Diego had constantly called him in New York, telling him to move to Athens because there were good work opportunities.Laken Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia.Augusta University, via Associated PressWe 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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      Days After Border Closes for Most Migrants, Manageable Crowds but More Anxiety

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      On a hot and humid morning in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, less than a mile from the Rio Grande, one question seemed to linger in the minds of hundreds of people who had arrived Saturday at a shelter for migrants.When would they be able to cross into the United States?The answer remained elusive. At least 1,100 men, women and children, a majority of them from Central America and Venezuela, had arrived at Senda de Vida, a sprawling respite center consisting of makeshift tents and temporary wooden rooms, with hopes of reaching the United States. Instead, many felt stuck in limbo after President Biden signed an executive order that prevents migrants from seeking asylum along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge.The order effectively closed the U.S. border for nearly all asylum seekers as of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday.Jorge Gomez, 34, from Honduras, rested on Saturday near the U.S.-Mexico border.Paul Ratje for The New York TimesThe full effect of the new rule was difficult to assess three days after Mr. Biden’s announcement, but, as of Saturday, the number of migrants massing at the border showed signs of stabilizing, at least for now, compared with previous years, as many migrants appeared to be heeding the warning that they would be turned away, said Héctor Silva de Luna, a pastor who runs the shelter.During the height of the migration crisis, he welcomed more than 7,000 people, he said. Many now appear to be waiting in the interior of Mexico, in cities like Monterrey and Mexico City, to see what happens. But the migrants at the border like the ones at Mr. de Luna’s shelter are “the ones that will pay the price,” he said, because they are being rejected.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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      Will Hurd Announces 2024 Presidential Election Bid

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      Mr. Hurd, a moderate who represented a large swing district for three terms, called Donald J. Trump a “lawless, selfish, failed politician.”Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman who was part of a diminishing bloc of Republican moderates in the House and was the only Black member of his caucus when he left office in 2021, announced his candidacy for president on Thursday with a video message that attacked the G.O.P. front-runner, Donald J. Trump. “If we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump, who lost the House, the Senate and the White House, we all know Joe Biden will win again,” he said, referring to Republican losses in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, in addition to Mr. Trump’s own defeat in 2020.Mr. Hurd, 45, represented the 23rd District for three terms before deciding not to run for re-election in 2020, when a host of G.O.P. moderates in Congress chose to retire instead of appearing on a ticket led by President Trump.His district was larger than some states, extending from El Paso to San Antonio along the southwestern border.Mr. Hurd, who also made an appearance on “CBS Mornings,” emphasized in his video that Republicans needed to nominate a forward-looking candidate who could unite the party and country.”I’ll give us the common-sense leadership America so desperately needs,” he said. A formidable gantlet awaits Mr. Hurd, a long-shot candidate in a crowded G.O.P. presidential field. To qualify for the party’s first debate in August, candidates are required to muster support of at least 1 percent in multiple national polls recognized by the Republican National Committee. There are also fund-raising thresholds, including a minimum of 40,000 unique donors to individual campaigns.Before entering politics, Mr. Hurd was an undercover officer for the C.I.A. and his tenure of nearly a decade with the agency included work in Afghanistan.In Congress, he developed a reputation for working across the aisle and drew attention in 2017 when he car-pooled from Texas to Washington with Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat and House colleague.While Mr. Hurd largely toed the Republican line, he was also known for bucking Mr. Trump. During his final term in the House, Mr. Hurd voted more than one-third of the time against Mr. Trump’s positions. Mr. Hurd was a particularly strident critic of the president’s push to build a wall along the entire southern border, a cause célèbre for Mr. Trump that he ran on in 2016. In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Hurd called Mr. Trump’s border wall initiative a “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.”It was not the first time that Mr. Hurd had spoken so bluntly in opposition to a piece of Mr. Trump’s agenda.When Mr. Trump signed an executive order in January 2017 blocking citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, one of the first acts of his presidency, Mr. Hurd condemned it, saying the policy “endangers the lives of thousands of American men and women in our military, diplomatic corps and intelligence services.”And when Mr. Trump attacked four freshman Democratic congresswomen of color in 2019, Mr. Hurd denounced the president and criticized the direction of the Republican Party.“The party is not growing in some of the largest parts of our country,” he said in a June 2019 speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative L.G.B.T.Q. group. “Why is that? I’ll tell you.”“Don’t be a racist,” Mr. Hurd continued, according to The Washington Blade. “Don’t be a misogynist, right? Don’t be a homophobe. These are real basic things that we all should learn when we were in kindergarten.”But while Mr. Hurd broke with Mr. Trump on some notable occasions, he also dismayed Mr. Trump’s critics when he voted in lock step with House Republicans against impeaching Mr. Trump the first time in December 2019. Mr. Trump was impeached in a party-line vote by the House for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but acquitted by the Senate. More

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      Beto O’Rourke Sidelined With Bacterial Infection Amid Texas Run

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      The Democrat, who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, said that although his symptoms had improved, he would be resting at home on doctors’ orders.Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is running to unseat Greg Abbott in the tightening race for Texas governor, said on Sunday that he would be sidelined from campaigning because of a bacterial infection.Mr. O’Rourke, 49, said on Twitter that he had gone to Methodist Hospital, in San Antonio, after feeling ill on Friday.“While my symptoms have improved, I will be resting at home in El Paso in accordance with the doctors’ recommendations,” he said. “I am sorry to have had to postpone events because of this, but promise to be back on the road with you as soon as I am able.”Mr. O’Rourke on Friday postponed a weekend of campaign stops in the Coastal Bend region of Texas after falling ill and had also left early from a book signing in San Antonio that afternoon, according to The Caller Times, a newspaper in Corpus Christi. A campaign spokesman said that Mr. O’Rourke did not have Covid-19 and did not provide more details, the newspaper reported.In his statement on Sunday, Mr. O’Rourke did not say when he expected to be back on the trail.His uphill candidacy, an attempt to wrest the Texas governor’s mansion from Republican control for the first time since Ann Richards’s underdog win in 1990, has relied heavily on traveling the state and meeting Republican voters, even inviting protesters to his events.“I can’t win this with Democrats alone,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a recent interview with The New York Times after an event in Texarkana.A poll earlier this month from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler found that Mr. Abbott, who is seeking his third term, was leading Mr. O’Rourke by 7 percentage points. More

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      Can Beto O’Rourke Pull a Stacey Abrams?

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      Beto O’Rourke came close to unseating Senator Ted Cruz in 2018 and fell far from winning the presidency in 2020. Now the former El Paso congressman has turned his attention back home. He’s been a key organizer and fund-raiser in the fight against Republicans’ efforts to restrict voting rights in the state, including their recent passage of S.B.1. He’s also rumored to be considering a run for Texas governor in 2022 — a race he describes as crucial given “the deep damage and chaos and incompetence that is connected to Greg Abbott,” the incumbent.But can O’Rourke pull a Stacey Abrams and help flip his state blue? And if he decides to run, can he do what she previously couldn’t: win a governor’s seat?[You can listen to this episode of “Sway” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]In this conversation, Kara Swisher presses O’Rourke on why he’s being so coy about a potential run and how dragging his feet may box out other Democratic contenders. They dig into some of those rumored contenders — specifically, the actor Matthew McConaughey. They also speak about the connection between Republican legislative moves to curb voting rights with S.B.1 and to restrict abortion with S.B.8 — and what it will take for Democrats to overcome these hurdles and actually win in Texas.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThoughts? Email us at sway@nytimes.com.“Sway” is produced by Nayeema Raza, Blakeney Schick, Matt Kwong, Daphne Chen and Caitlin O’Keefe, and edited by Nayeema Raza; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; mixing by Carole Sabouraud and Sonia Herrero; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Liriel Higa. More

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      Lillian Blancas, Candidate for a Texas Judgeship, Dies of Covid-19

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLillian Blancas, Candidate for a Texas Judgeship, Dies of Covid-19Ms. Blancas, a widely respected lawyer, died six days before a runoff election in El Paso but remained on the ballot and was expected to win. She was 47.Lillian E. Blancas’s plan was to work as a prosecutor, public defender and private lawyer before winning a judgeship. Credit…via Blancas familyDec. 10, 2020, 3:33 p.m. ETThis obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Lillian E. Blancas, a widely respected lawyer in El Paso, always wanted to be a judge. She was expected to achieve her goal on Saturday in a runoff election, in which she was the favorite.Ms. Blancas died at a hospital in the city on Monday. She was 47. The cause was Covid-19, her brother Moises Blancas said.Ms. Blancas, was an assistant district attorney and public defender for nearly a decade before she opened her own law firm in 2019, came in first in a field of three on Nov. 3 in the race for an open seat in El Paso’s municipal court. Because she did not win a majority of the votes, the race went to an automatic runoff.Her death came too late to remove her name from the ballot. If she wins, the City Council would appoint a replacement.Ms. Blancas was known as much for her tireless work on the part of indigent defendants as she was for her wit and charm, inside and outside the courtroom.Among her many friends, who called her Lila, was her opponent in the runoff, Enrique A. Holguin, who met her in 2013 when he joined the district attorney’s office. She helped mentor him, and later took care of his dog when he went on trips.“She was a straight shooter, very professional, but always polite,” Mr. Holguin said. “When we were on opposite sides of a case, we never locked horns.”Lillian Elena Blancas was born in El Paso on May 2, 1973 to Victor Blancas and Maria Elena (Montelongo) Blancas, immigrants from Mexico who met while working at a meatpacking plant in El Paso. Her father later became a plumber, while her mother stayed at home to raise the children.In addition to her brother Moises, she is survived by her mother, another brother, Victor, and a sister, Gabby. Her father died in 2014.Neither of her parents went to college, and it was important to them that their children received a good education. All four siblings graduated from college; Lillian received a degree in political science from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2002.Rather than go directly to law school, she spent several years teaching middle school science in El Paso. “The kids just flocked to her, because she had this no-holds-barred personality,” said Christina Klaes, a fellow teacher and friend.Ms. Blancas left teaching in 2006 and graduated three years later from the Texas Tech University School of Law. She quickly joined the El Paso district attorney’s office. It was part of her plan: gain experience as a prosecutor, switch to being a public defender, hang out her own shingle and run for a judicial seat.As a public defender, she handled capital murder cases, and defended poor, often very young clients, said Heather Hall, a lawyer in the public defender’s office. In her spare time, Ms. Blancas mentored lawyers who wanted to work with clients who were indigent or had mental-health issues.“Lila had this silver tongue as a lawyer,” said Amanda Enriquez, a lawyer and friend, “but she was full of empathy and compassion.”Ms. Blancas tested positive for Covid on Halloween; three days later, she won 40 percent of the vote in the election, sending her and Mr. Holguin to a runoff. The disease kept her from actively campaigning. She entered the hospital twice before being sent to intensive care, where she died.El Paso County has been hit hard by the pandemic, recording 10,813 total cases per 100,000 residents as of Wednesday, more than twice the statewide rate, while the city’s intensive care units were running at 97 percent capacity.After the election, Mr. Holguin, her opponent, texted her his congratulations. “You’re going to have a head start, because I have Covid,” Mr. Holguin said she responded.“I was ready to lose this election,” he said, “but I wasn’t ready to lose a friend.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More