Mexico leader says he talked with Trump about migrants, jobs

12/13/2018 – The Washington Post

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he spoke by telephone Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump about migration and job creation.

The issue came to the fore last month when a caravan of about 7,000 migrants arrived in the border city of Tijuana and some attempted to enter the United States.

“In respectful and friendly terms, we spoke about the migration issue and the possibility of implementing a joint program of development and job creation in Central America and our country,” Lopez Obrador wrote in his Twitter account.

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Trump administration asks top court to restore asylum order

12/12/2018 – Reuters

REUTERS/Loren Elliott

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to let his order barring asylum for immigrants who enter the United States illegally take effect even as litigation over the matter proceeds.

The U.S. Justice Department asked the court to lift a temporary restraining order against the asylum rules issued by San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar. Trump has taken a hard line toward legal and illegal immigration since taking office last year.

Citing what he called an overwhelmed immigration system, Trump issued a proclamation on Nov. 9 that authorities process asylum claims only for migrants crossing the southern U.S. border at an official port of entry. Tigar blocked the rules on Nov. 19, drawing Trump’s ire.

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Trump administration official defends tear gas use at Mexico border

12/11/2018 – Reuters

REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo

By Yeganeh Ttorbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The firing of tear gas canisters by U.S. border agents toward migrants in Mexico near a border crossing last month followed regulations, a senior Trump administration official said in testimony to Congress on Tuesday.

On Nov. 25, U.S. border agents fired tear gas to disperse a group of migrants near the U.S.-Mexico border crossing separating Tijuana from San Diego when some rushed through fencing into the United States.

A day after the incident, Mexico’s foreign ministry presented a diplomatic note to the U.S. government calling for “a full investigation” into what it described as non-lethal weapons directed toward Mexican territory.

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Trump Says Military to Build Border Wall If Congress Won’t Fund

12/11/2018 – Bloomberg

Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra/Bloomberg
Politics

By Terrence Dopp

President Donald Trump lashed out at Democrats on border security ahead of a meeting with the party’s congressional leaders aimed at avoiding a partial government shutdown, threatening to order the military to build his border wall if lawmakers don’t fund it.

“If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall,” Trump said in a stream of Twitter messages Tuesday.

Trump is meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House on Tuesday, as lawmakers and the administration negotiate spending legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown after Dec 21.

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Mexico to invest $30 billion to boost growth, stem migration, foreign minister says

12/11/2018 – Reuters

AP PHOTOS: Migrants in Tijuana Trickling Over and Under Wall

12/10/2018 – The New York Times

By the Associated Press

TIJUANA, Mexico — A steady trickle of Central American migrants have been finding ways to climb over, tunnel under or slip through the U.S. border wall to plant their feet on U.S. soil and ask for asylum.

In recent weeks, Honduran migrant Joel Mendez fed his 8-month-old son, Daniel, before handing him over to his partner, Yesenia Martinez, who had crawled through a hole in the rain-softened soil under the wall.

A group of young people hoisted themselves over the wall to San Ysidro, California, hoping that their ticket to a better life was finally within reach. One migrant offered a hand to help the others jumping down onto U.S. territory.

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Federal appeals court rules against another immigration crackdown attempt

12/04/2018 – Politico

Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images

By Josh Gerstein

A federal appeals court has struck down a portion of federal law that makes it a crime to encourage foreigners to enter or reside in the United States illegally.

The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that the provision violates the First Amendment by covering speech that is constitutionally protected.

Judge A. Wallace Tashima said the statute appeared to apply to statements amounting to “pure advocacy on a hotly debated issue in our society.”

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