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By rail, road or on foot, migrants flow across Mexico towards US
Apizaco (Mexico) (AFP) - Greyssi Venegas devours her first meal in three days at a Mexican shelter near the railroad where migrants risk their lives clinging to freight trains on their grueling journey north to the United States. An unexpected pregnancy has complicated her already tortuous trip from Honduras by rail, road and on foot with her seven-year-old son Eduardo. "Yesterday I felt ill. I didn't want to eat. So I asked for a pregnancy test," said the 23-year-old, who has a cough and dark circles around her eyes from fatigue. Venegas scraped together around $100 for her second attempt to ...
AFP
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Cuba erects giant concrete flag in front of US embassy
Havana (AFP) - Cuba has erected a giant concrete flag in front of the US embassy in the capital Havana as hopes of an improvement in bilateral relations under the Joe Biden administration fade on the island nation. The 12-meter (40-foot) high flag is on a square that has been the site of many pro-government rallies, including some targeting the United States. Neither the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, Granma, nor the official state news website Cubadebate, which usually makes such announcements to great fanfare, mentioned the flag. State construction and maintenance company ...
AFP
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Roma, Texas: Border town at center of immigration wave
Roma (United States) (AFP) - Around midnight, Silvia hears the doorbell ring at her home in the small community of Roma, Texas, where she is a teacher. When she answers the door, she finds a young girl, soaked and begging for help. Silvia lives opposite a sandy path that sees hundreds of undocumented immigrants take their first steps into the United States after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico. The 11,000 inhabitants of this Rio Grande Valley border town and these undocumented immigrants have lived alongside each other for decades. There are mixed feelings among residents about the new ar...
AFP
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Border agents, traffickers and migrants mix on the busy Rio Grande
Roma-Los Saenz (United States) (AFP) - The sun has barely set when Mexican traffickers inflate their boat, load 15 migrants on board, yelling at the kids to stop crying, and then row in a frenzy across the Rio Grande, landing on US soil in just a few minutes. The same scene has been playing out almost daily for two months, sometimes right through the night. In the first half hour of darkness on Sunday, four inflatable boats with about 50 undocumented immigrants from Honduras and Guatemala arrived in Roma, Texas, almost simultaneously. US agents from the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) often co...
AFP
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Surge in young migrant border arrivals poses challenge for Biden
New York (AFP) - Thousands of minors without papers are arriving at the US border with Mexico, presenting President Joe Biden with a potentially major crisis in one of America's most politically sensitive regions. Biden took office promising an immigration policy more humane than that of Donald Trump, but some migrant advocacy groups say the new Democratic president's decisions are luring undocumented travelers in what amounts to a beacon effect. In line with a pandemic-rooted policy adopted by Trump, who cracked down on immigration both legal and illegal as part of his "America first" doctrin...
AFP
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Man arrested in Puerto Rico government chat scandal
Miami (AFP) - The FBI arrested a man Wednesday for allegedly trying to extort $300,000 from government officials in Puerto Rico to prevent the release of private messages that later pushed the island's governor to resign, authorities said. The governor, Ricardo Rossello, stepped down in 2019 after hundreds of pages of incendiary messages on the app Telegram were leaked. Sixto Jorge Diaz Colon, 52, faces federal charges including extortion and obstruction of justice for allegedly demanding government contracts in exchange for keeping secret the chats that sparked protests in the US Caribbean t...
AFP
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New migrant caravan leaves Honduras in pursuit of American dream
San Pedro Sula (Honduras) (AFP) - Some 3,000 people left Honduras on foot Friday in the latest migrant caravan hoping to find a welcome, and a better life, in the US under President-elect Joe Biden. Seeking to escape poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence and the aftermath of two devastating hurricanes, the migrants plan to walk thousands of kilometers through Central America. But they will have to overcome a rash of travel restrictions in Guatemala and Mexico long before they even make it to the American border. The quest is likely to end in heartbreak for many, with American authoriti...
AFP
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New migrant caravans leaving Honduras to pursue American dream
San Pedro Sula (Honduras) (AFP) - Hundreds of asylum seekers are forming new migrant caravans in Honduras, planning to walk thousands of kilometers through Central America to the United States via Guatemala and Mexico, in search of a better life under the new administration of President-elect Joe Biden. A first group of some 300 people set out at dawn on Thursday from San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras, headed for Corinto, on the border with Guatemala, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest. Traveling in small groups, some bearing the Honduran flag, most of the migrants wore...
AFP
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Astronaut on mission to win second Arizona Senate seat for Democrats
Phoenix (AFP) - From the International Space Station to Congress? Astronaut Mark Kelly is leading an unlikely political "mission" to win a second Senate seat for the Democrats in the traditionally conservative state of Arizona.Until recently, few would have thought it possible for the Democratic Party to make major inroads in this southwestern state with a long Republican tradition.But thanks to changing demographics and growing discontent with President Donald Trump among the state's moderate conservatives, Kelly believes he can win the upper-house seat while helping deliver Arizona's elector...
AFP