Tag: mexico

100,000 migrants encountered on US-Mexico border

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Over the past 4 weeks, more than 100,000 migrants were encountered on the United States-Mexico border. According to CNN, this marks the highest level for the same time frame in five years.

On the southern border, a number of migrants got arrested causing alarm among officials as they scramble to provide resources for the increase in minors and families who are unlawfully crossing into the US.

The surge in migrants adds to a growing sense of emergency for the President Joe  Biden administration which has been seeking to unwind the Donald Trump administration’s immigration policies over that time.
“February was unprecedented compared to the last five years,” a Homeland Security official told CNN. Single adults make up the biggest portion of apprehensions, but the percentage of families and children jumped last month, according to the official.
Since April 2020, Customs and Border Protection has seen an increase in border encounters from the Western Hemisphere due to worsening economic conditions brought on by the pandemic and natural disasters in the region, according to the border agency.
Under the Joe Biden administration, unaccompanied children are exempt from the order and are allowed to remain in the United States pending immigration cases. Some families and others have also been allowed to remain in the United States due to changes in Mexican policy and case-by-case determinations.
A CBP spokesperson previously said, “The unique challenges of the pandemic require additional authorities, such as the CDC order known as Title 42, to allow DHS to effectively protect both the health and safety of migrants and our communities from the spread of COVID-19. The border is not open, and the vast majority of people are being returned under Title 42.”
According to a CNN report on Monday, a number of unaccompanied migrant children are in the United States Border Patrol facilities, which are akin to jail cells and not intended for kids.

Port Tampa bay drug trafficker sentenced to 22 years of prison

Tampa bay drug trafficker

TAMPA BAY, FLORIDA- According to reports, a Georgian woman who has been trafficking drugs from October 2018 to March 2019 has been sentenced to 22 years of prison. She along with two other Mexican citizens are involved in the case, according to Federal officials.

According to the reports released from the Department of Justice, the arrest, Yolanda Herrera of 42 have pleaded guilty in June 2020 and was sentenced by U.S District Judge Steven D. Merryday on Monday.

According to officials, Herrera helped organize the trafficking through the ship Leticia which traveled all the way from Altamira, Mexico, to Tampa. According to the court records 7 shipments of drugs were completed on the ship by Herrera along with two other Mexicans.

Upon investigating one of the shipments, the Home Land security officers have found the drugs in a suspicious shipment that looked like stone blocks. With abnormalities found in the blocks, the officers took steps to break them open where they found more than 110 pounds of methamphetamine and 6 pounds of heroin.

The drugs were transported from Tampa to a house in Atlanta on six rented trucks by Herrera. Herrera confessed that she was hired to coordinate and organize the transportation of these drugs from Mexico to Tampa to Georgia. Upon searching Herrera’s home, the agents found more of the same stone blocks.

With the two Mexicans who helped her having sentenced in 2020, one of their houses (Vazquez Morales’s), had more than $12,000 in cash, three firearms, four pounds of heroin, and the same stone blocks in possession.

In a prepared statement, Homeland Security Tampa Acting Special Agent in Charge, Kevin Sibley said, “Narcotics trafficking poses a deadly threat, bringing in dangerous and addictive drugs and related criminal activity to our communities. Our special agents are deeply committed to working with our law enforcement partners to disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking efforts in our communities.”