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#united kingdom#uk-based egyptian national ahmed ebid#north africa#migrants#migrant smuggling#europe#italy#smuggler jailed for 25 years
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Coyotes Are Smuggling Migrants Out of the United States
A growing number of illegal migrants are smuggling themselves out of the United States to avoid the legal penalties of government deportations, according to multiple witnesses.
āIāve been a journalist for more than 25 years, but I never thought I would see this ā āpaquetes de retorno'āĀ said Alfredo Corchado, an American journalist in Texas and Mexico and an executive editor at the Puente News Collaborative.
On March 26 he toldĀ an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations:
[Coyotes] areĀ now offering packages where [migrant] people can go back home ā¦. [If] you want to go home, or you want to go back to Honduras, or maybe you donāt want to go back to Honduras because itās too dangerous. [Or] you donāt want to go to Guatemala, but maybe you want to go to Costa Rica, and so theyāre offering these [smuggling] packages where you can just go back home. Not all of them are taking it, I mean, many [are].
If migrants are deported by the United States government, they are separated from their families and detained in crowded jails, sometimes for many weeks. Once legally deported, migrants cannot visit for 10 years or longer, even when their relatives remain in the United States. They also lose possessions and easy access to their bank accounts.
Haitians āare self-deporting right now because they donāt want the worst thing ⦠because [the government] does send them back to Haiti immediately,ā Jeff Lamour, an American businessman in Albertville, Alabama, told Breitbart News on Friday.
Many Haitians have moved to Albertville for jobs once held by Americans in the chicken slaughterhouses. They got work permits from Bidenās deputies but are now losing them to Trumpās pro-American policies.
Lamour added:
This [self-deporting] industry with the coyotes, it has become a multi-million dollar industry over here now. You got those guys that are going from Indiana, from Alabama, in those vans where theyāre smuggling people to New Mexico, to border states. Theyāre making a ton of money. If they go deposit money at the bank, itās going to raise a red flag. You know, I had a gentleman a couple days ago trying to buy a car with cash, straight cash. He just donāt know what to do with it because he has a lot of cash from the shuttle industry.
Smugglers ācharge them $10,000 per head because a lot of people that are working are saving their money,ā Lamour toldĀ told 1819News.com. āA lot of people are going back to Chile,ā where they were living before Biden opened the border.
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BRUSSELS (AP) ā Abdesalem Lassoued had been denied residency in four European countries by the time he chased two Swedish men into a building in Brussels this week and gunned them down at close range with a semiautomatic rifle.
The 45-year-old Tunisian arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa in a smugglerās boat in 2011. He spent jail time in Sweden and was refused entry to Norway. At one point Italy flagged him as a security threat. Two years ago, Belgium rejected his asylum claim and he disappeared off the map.
Until Monday night, that is, when he killed the two Swedes, wounded a third and forced the lockdown of more than 35,000 people in a soccer stadium where they had gathered to watch Belgium play Sweden. In a video posted online, he claimed to be inspired by the Islamic State group.
Within days he has become the new face of the European Unionās campaign to toughen border controls, rapidly deport people and allow the police and security agencies to exchange information more efficiently.
āItās important that those individuals that could be a security threat to our citizens, to our Union, have to be returned forcefully, immediately,ā EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told reporters on Thursday, as EU interior ministers met in Luxembourg.
Only around one in four people whose asylum applications are denied ever leave or are deported from the 27-nation bloc. Often the countries they come from, including Tunisia, are reluctant to take them back.
With EU countries constantly bickering over how to manage migration ā their differences lie at the heart of one of the blocās biggest political crises ā the European Commission has sought to outsource the challenge.
The EUās executive branch has helped to seal deals with Turkey and Tunisia to persuade these countries to stop people from the Middle East or Africa ā not to mention their own nationals ā from trying to enter Europe, as they did in large numbers in 2015.
About 25 countries that people leave or transit to get to Europe are of concern. Egypt is the next country on the list. The commission is already helping to locate and pay for new boats for the Egyptian coastguard.
Belgiumās top migration official, Nicole de Moor, said that countries refusing to take back their nationals must be made to cooperate.
āThe terrorist that committed an attack in Brussels on Monday had asked for asylum in four different European countries, and every time he was rejected because he did not qualify for protection,ā de Moor said.
The EU does have coercive tools at its disposal. The commission has used visas as a lever, making it harder, more time-consuming and costly for the citizens of migration source countries to gain entry to Europeās ID check-free zone ā the 27-country space known as the Schengen area.
Thanks to this, Johansson said, the EU now has āmuch better cooperationā on deportation with Iraq, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Senegal.
The shooter Lassouedās case was also marked by other failures. He applied for asylum in Belgium in 2019. His application was rejected a year later, and a deportation order was issued in 2021. Officials said this week that he couldnāt be found, as they had no address for him.
Within a few hours, admittedly with public help, prosecutors conceded, the authorities had discovered where he lived. He was shot dead by police at a cafƩ nearby the following morning when they tried to arrest him.
āIt turns out that the individual had been convicted and had served time in a Swedish prison, which was unknown to our police and judiciary,ā Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told reporters.
āWe need to improve the information exchange on these kinds of things. The man apparently arrived in Italy in 2011 (and) wandered around Europe for 12 years,ā she said. Migration services and the police must share information, she said, āto ensure that this cannot happen.ā
The clamor for tougher laws and better intelligence sharing are fresh, but the problem is not new. Lassouedās case resembles that of another Tunisian man, Anis Amri, who drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016, killing 12 people and injuring 56 others.
German authorities tried to deport Amri after his asylum application was rejected but were unable to because he lacked valid identity papers. Tunisia had denied that he was a citizen.
On Tuesday, after leading security talks throughout the night while the hunt for Lassoued went on, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo loosened his tie from around his collar as he answered a reporterās thorny question about the failings of Belgiumās police, justice and migration services.
āAn order to leave the territory must become more binding that it is now,ā De Croo conceded. āWe have to respect the decisions that we take.ā
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CJ current events 12jun25
Takes a special kind of stupid to be a Cali legislator
California is still wrestling with its affordability crisis and has a gas priceĀ catastropheĀ hanging over theĀ stateāsĀ future. CaliforniaĀ Democrats, meanwhile, are focused on letting murderers out of jail early. The California State SenateĀ votedĀ 24-11 to pass the āYouth Rehabilitation and Opportunity Act.ā That whitewashed title is for a bill that would allow convicted murderers who were sentenced to life without parole to receive parole, so long as they committed murder between the ages of 18 and 25. In other words, grown adults 25 and under will be treated like children by the criminal justice system in California, even if they are cold-blooded murderers.***
You can be 24-years-old, murder a busload of school kids, and still be paroled. Kill one legislator, and the stupid parole law doesn't apply to you.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/3431226/california-democrats-think-25-year-old-murderers-arent-bad/
***
Maryland Dad/Human Trafficker
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 gang member who was deported to El Salvador after an administrative error, has returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting illegal immigrants within the U.S., Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday. "Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice," Bondi told reporters during a news conference that aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform. "On May 21, a grand jury in the middle district of Tennessee returned a sealed indictment, charging Abrego Garcia of alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling. "We want to thank [El Salvador] President [Nayib] Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country." If Abrego Garcia is convicted, Bondi said after his sentence is completed, "we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador." The indictment alleged Abrego Garcia, 29, participated in a yearslong conspiracy to haul illegal immigrants, including suspected members of MS-13, from Texas to the interior of the country. The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade and involved the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens, including some children, from Mexico and Central America. "They found this was his full-time job; not a contractor," Bondi said. "He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people ⦠MS-13 gang members, violent gang terrorist organization members throughout our country. "Thousands of illegal aliens were smuggled. This is especially disturbing because Abrego Garcia is also alleged with transporting minor children. The defendant traded the innocence of minor children for profit." Bondi said the grand jury linked Abrego Garcia to the same smuggling ring in which at least 54 migrants died, and 100 others were injured in 2021 after a tractor trailer overturned in Mexico. She also accused him of trafficking firearms and narcotics throughout the country "on multiple occasions."***
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/kilmar-abrego-garcia-federal-indictment-el-salvador/2025/06/06/id/1213929
Good news: when weepy soy-boys from Congress visit Kilmar, they'll have a much shorter trip.
***
That's different
A former federal prisoner pardoned during President Donald Trump's first term for drug trafficking crimes has been picked to be deputy director of the Bureau of Prisons. Joshua J. Smith, a Tennessee businessman whose nonprofit Fourth Purpose Foundation focuses on inmate advocacy and rehabilitation, will become the first former federal inmate to be a Bureau of Prisons employee at any level,Ā NBC NewsĀ reported Friday. "Josh brings to this role something our agency has never had before at this level, a perspective shaped by lived experience, proven innovation and national impact," Prisons Director William Marshall III told staff Thursday in a memo, according to NBC News. Marshall, a former prison commissioner in West Virginia, was sworn in as director in April. Neither his position nor Smith's require Senate confirmation.***
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/joshua-j-smith-bureau-of-prisons-donald-trump/2025/06/06/id/1213967
***
Sad that down to 902 allegations is progress
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released their latest report on clergy abuse and safeguarding efforts, noting a significant decline in new allegations of sexual abuse by clergy over the past year. TheĀ 2024 Annual Report, covering July 2023 through June 2024, tracked 902 allegations from 855 individuals ā down by more than 400 from the previous audit cycle, according to theĀ USCCB. Most of the alleged abusers were not in active ministry at the time the claims were made, according to the report. Data compiled by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found that over 80% of the 97 identified alleged offenders were already deceased, laicized, or removed from ministry. Eleven were permanently removed over the past year, four were suspended pending investigation, and one remained in active ministry during the investigation. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the USCCB, acknowledged the progress but stressed that the Church cannot become complacent.Ā āDespite our progress, the evil of abuse continues to exist,ā he wrote in a preface to the report. āIt is a relentless adversary that demands our ongoing vigilance and initiative-taking measures.āĀ ***
According to Archbishop Broglio, the Church is in the midst of a āsignificant cultural shift.ā āThis shift is characterized by an increased emphasis on transparency, accountability, and victim-survivor support,ā he wrote. āWe are instilling improvements, learning from our mistakes, in how we address and prevent abuse, and making sure that the voices of the victim-survivors are heard, respected, and acted upon.ā The USCCB also shared that 195 of the 196 dioceses and eparchies in the US took part in the audit. Four were found to be out of compliance. One was found to be lacking both a training program and background checks for volunteers. Another diocese had no functioning review board, and one diocese declined to participate in the process altogether.
https://catholicvote.org/us-bishops-2024-abuse-audit-fewer-allegations-ongoing-reforms
***
Hey, guys, let's see if we can find an unexplained tragedy and make it worse!
HARRISBURG ā Two sets of Pennsylvania parents face felony charges after police say their infants died in unsafe sleep positions. While experts and family advocates say young babies should sleep on their backs without anything in the crib, simply failing to follow the recommendations shouldnāt amount to a crime. In both cases, brought in the past six months, law enforcement say the parents knowingly put their children at risk. Parents from Lebanon County are accused of putting their son to sleep on his stomach with a pillow in the crib (the mother told PennLive she put her son on his back, but that he had learned how to roll over). A mother from Luzerne County, meanwhile, was charged after police say she let her daughter sleep face down in a U-shaped pillow. Law enforcement argued in charging documents that the parents should have known better. They cited signedĀ acknowledgementsĀ created as part of a 2010Ā lawĀ the state legislature passed to educate parents about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The law requires hospitals, birthing centers, and health care practitioners to provide educational materials, then ask the parents to certify they received them. The statement is voluntary, and there is a box noting if parents refused to sign.*** Neither expert was available to comment, but other people dedicated to educating parents and preventing SIDS deaths oppose bringing criminal charges against grieving parents and note that there is no law against stomach sleeping. āTo charge them criminally is a crime, because they have already suffered the worst loss,ā said Nancy Maruyama, the executive director of Sudden Infant Death Services of Illinois, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about safe-sleep practices and provides support to families who have experienced the loss of an infant.***
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2025/06/pennsylvania-infant-sleep-death-criminal-charges/
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)Ā is the abrupt and unexplained death of an infant less than 1-year old. Despite investigation (review of clinical history, investigation of the death, and a complete autopsy), no evidence supports a specific single cause of death.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560807/
***
If you don't want to play nice....
President Donald Trump is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom after a second day of clashes between hundreds of protesters and federal immigration authorities in riot gear. Confrontations broke out on Saturday near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles, where federal agents were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office nearby. Agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls, and protesters hurled rocks and cement at Border Patrol vehicles. Smoke wafted from small piles of burning refuse in the streets. Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, including in LA's fashion district and at a Home Depot, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed past 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement. The White House announced that Trump would deploy the Guard to āaddress the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.ā It wasn't clear when the troops would arrive.***
https://www.newsmax.com/headline/immigration-raids-los-angeles/2025/06/08/id/1214022
Robert Peel's first principle is for police "To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment."
***
Palm Springs weirdo had a friend!
A Washington state man was arrested on a federal criminal complaint alleging he provided material support to the Palm Springs fertility clinic bomber by shipping and paying for significant quantities of ammonium nitrate ā an explosive precursor ā prior to the suicidal terror attack last month. Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, of Kent, was arrested last night shortly after his flight from Poland arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Park is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists and made his initial court appearance today in the Eastern District of New York. āThis defendant is charged with facilitating the horrific attack on a fertility center in California. Bringing chaos and violence to a facility that exists to help women and mothers is a particularly cruel, disgusting crime that strikes at the very heart of our shared humanity,ā said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. āWe are grateful to our partners in Poland who helped get this man back to America and we will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.ā*** Ā Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, of Twentynine Palms, California, drove a car containing a bomb to a fertility clinic in Palm Springs on May 17. Bartkus detonated the bomb, killing himself, injuring numerous victims, destroying the fertility clinicās building, and damaging surrounding buildings and areas. Bartkusās attack was motivated by his pro-mortalism, anti-natalism, and anti-pro-life ideology, which is the belief that individuals should not be born without their consent and that non-existence is best. Park ā who shares Bartkusās extremist views ā shipped large quantities of explosive precursor materials to Bartkus, including approximately 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate. Days before the Palm Springs bombing, Park paid for an additional 90 pounds (40.8 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate that was shipped to Bartkus. Park sent the first shipments of approximately 180 pounds (81.7 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus shortly before traveling to Bartkusās residence, where he stayed with Bartkus from Jan. 25 to Feb. 8. Three days before Park arrived at Bartkusās house, records from an AI chat application show that Bartkus researched how to make powerful explosions using ammonium nitrate and fuel. During his stay at Bartkusās residence, Park and Bartkus spent time in Bartkusās room as well as in a detached garage ārunning experiments,ā according to the affidavit. This was the same garage where law enforcement, during a search after the May 17 bombing, located significant amounts of chemicals commonly used in the construction of homemade bombs. Four days after Bartkus conducted the suicide bombing, Park flew to Europe. On May 30, Park was detained in Poland and later was ordered deported to the United States.Ā ***
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/washington-state-man-arrested-federal-charges-alleging-he-provided-material-support-palm
***
Canada justice insanity
How Race Is Quietly Reshaping Canadaās Justice System A firearms case wasĀ tossed outĀ on April 29 after a judge ruled that a Toronto-area police officer, Constable Anand Gandhi, racially profiled a black driver during a 2023 traffic stopāpart of what she called a āsystemic and intractable problemā within the force. Here are the facts: Gandhi, who is brown, stopped the driver after his vehicle was flagged for a suspended license and pending drug charges. Though the driver was cooperative, Gandhi handcuffed him, called for backup, detained him for 90 minutes, and ordered a search that uncovered a loaded firearm considered illegal hidden under a mat. Earlier that same day, Gandhi had stopped a female driver with a suspended license and simply issued her a ticket. Charges were brought against the driver for an illegal weapon but the person who wound up being chastised by the judge was Gandhi, the police officer,Ā who is originally from India. Justice Renu Mandhane, the former head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, ruled that his search was unlawful and a violation of the driverās rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But she didnāt stop there. She noted in her ruling that, the officer ārelied on stereotypes about black people being more prone to criminality,ā and āthat as a black man, the accused would have experienced the situation as potentially dangerousā and thus did āeverything in his power not to escalate the situation or ātriggerā the officer into using force.ā Whatās extraordinary is that while Mandhane found no direct evidence of racial profiling and accepted that Gandhi didnāt believe he was treating the driver differently due to race, she concluded that nevertheless there was āample circumstantial evidenceā that the officer was influenced by āunconscious racial biasesā and that race played a role in how the driver was treated. The presence of a loaded firearm was irrelevant; what mattered was that another person wasnāt detained. In 2023,Ā I reportedĀ about how race-based reasoning in sentencing in Canada is reshaping Canadian criminal law and shifting how courts view offenders, not solely as perpetrators, but as victims of systemic injustice. It is impossible to overstate the implication this has on the rule of law in Canada, where judges are increasingly weighing perceived systemic racism more heavily than the actual offenses.***
https://www.thefp.com/p/this-week-in-canada-pilots-lgbtq-measles
Is it possible that the Constable Gandhi searched the black driver b/c he had drug charges pending, but not the female b/c she had no drug charges, just a suspended license?
This is like the Ron White joke about being stopped for DUI while driving on a sidewalk. That's profiling, and that's wrong.
***
LA riots news
At least 2,000 anti-ICE protesters took over a major highway in downtown Los Angeles while rioters lit self-driving cars on fire Sunday as the LAPD chief admitted that his officers āare overwhelmedā by the violence and vandalism onĀ the third day of demonstrationsĀ in the city. The massive crowd moved onto the 101 Freeway, blocking traffic around 4 p.m. local time, according to the LAPD. The protesters blocked both lanes of the freeway, bringing traffic to a standstill as authorities in riot gear created a line beneath a bridge to prevent them from moving forward, the LAPD Central Division wrote on X.*** The freeway was reopened to car traffic a little more than an hour later. But it was shut yet again around 7:30 p.m. after rioters began hurling objects onto the southbound lanes and damaging police cars, the LAPD said. Elsewhere, rioters vandalized unoccupied, driverless Waymo taxis ā graffitiing them, breaking their windows and setting at least five on fire, NBC Los Angeles reported.*** One group allegedly hurled fireworks at officers, while another looted businesses near 6th and Broadway, according to police. āWe are overwhelmed,ā LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said, according to NBC Los Angeles. āTonight, we had individuals out there shooting commercial-grade fireworks at our officers. That can kill you.ā Some protesters started lobbing glass bottles and even pieces of concrete broken off bollard posts at officers trying to control the crowd, while others tried to dissuade participants from further agitating the police. At least 27 people were arrested Sunday, according to an 8 p.m. update from the LAPD, which designated all of downtown an āunlawful assembly areaā after the growing violence.***
https://nypost.com/2025/06/08/us-news/2000-la-anti-ice-rioters-takeover-101-freeway-downtown-as-self-driving-cars-lit-on-fire-in-chaotic-scene/
Important to recognize that 2,000 rioters in a city of 3,878,704 amount to .05% of the population.
***
Babylon Bee is there for the Maryland Dad
[parody]
***
LA riots
LOS ANGELES ā About three hours into the third day of the immigration protests in downtown Los Angeles, a dozen or so protesters started breaking up large rocks lining the gap between the street and an off-ramp and hurling them onto the 101 Freeway below. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) had closed the southbound side after protesters had tried to seize it. Police cars and SUVs were parked there, and they were getting pummeled by the rocks. As one officer drove away, a rock smashed the police carās windshield. (You can watch some of this scene in a video byĀ The Free Pressās Austyn JeffsĀ here.) This went on for at least an hour. I didnāt see anyone get arrested. When one of the rock-throwing protesters saw me taking pictures, he ordered me to delete the ones that showed anyone who was unmasked. āWeāll fuck you up,ā he threatened. I deleted them; he gave me a fist bump. Rocks werenāt the only projectiles. I saw protesters tossing commercial-grade fireworks at the police, which sounded like bombs. Between the fireworks and the flash-bangs, there was a concussive explosion about once a minute.***
***
Sen Fetterman gets it
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., scolded fellow Democrats for refusing to condemn the violent demonstrations in Los Angeles. Protests began Friday after federal immigration authorities arrested more than 40 people across the city. On Sunday, crowds blocked a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire as police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang grenades. "I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration ā but this is not that," FettermanĀ posted Monday night on X. "This is anarchy and true chaos. "My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement."***
https://www.newsmax.com/us/john-fetterman-democrats-los-angeles/2025/06/10/id/1214284
***
Good!
TheĀ FBIĀ has identified a man who was seen throwing cinder blocks atĀ Immigration and Customs EnforcementĀ vehicles during the riots in Los Angeles over the weekend.Ā *** āThe FBI has identified him,ā Bondi added. āBill Essayli, our incredible U.S. attorney out there, working with ATF, DEA, and the FBI, have been doing a remarkable job. That guy has just been identified, and they are doing a search warrant on his house as we speak.ā āHis name is [Elpidio] Reyes,ā Bondi continued. āHe is going to be on the āMost Wantedā list.ā VideoĀ of the suspect throwing cinder blocks at ICE SUVs urgently driving down a Southern California road went viral on social media over the weekend. He stood on an island in the middle of the street, wearing a motorcycle helmet, and threw rocks at the vehicles. Many of the rocks shattered windshields upon contact. Others cheered on as he kept hitting the cars and causing damage.***
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3436440/suspect-threw-cinderblocks-ice-vehicles

***
Any surprise the CCP loves UMich? Go Blue Bioweapons!
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the U.S. at the Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. āThe guidelines for importing biological materials into the U.S. for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,ā said John Nowak, who leads field operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The scientist was interviewed and arrested Sunday after arriving on a flight from China, where she is pursuing an advanced degree at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. She planned to spend a year completing a project at the University of Michigan. Her shipments, including an envelope stuffed inside a book, were intercepted last year and earlier this year and opened by authorities, the FBI said.***
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/michigan-lab-chinese/2025/06/09/id/1214236
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LA riots tweeting

Hm, why don't you go back to a socialist country?
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Kentucky competing with Floriduh
A Kentucky man with a bizarre history of animal-related incidents is back in trouble with the law ā this time for releasing a raccoon into a crowded business as a form of revenge. Jonathan Mason, 40, also known to locals as āCowboy Cody,ā was arrested on the night ofĀ June 6, 2025, after allegedly letting a raccoon loose insideĀ The Big Apple Grill and BarĀ inĀ Murray, Kentucky, according to a Facebook post by the Murray Police Department and eyewitnesses. According toĀ bartender Mary Hafner, Mason had been banned from the bar previously, but showed up that night already intoxicated. When she politely asked him to leave, he agreed at first ā only to return moments later holding a raccoon. āHe had trapped it earlier on his farm and was carrying it around,ā Hafner toldĀ The New York Post. āIāve seen some crazy stuff, but nothing like this.ā She said the raccoon appeared frightened as it waddled into the restaurant full of customers. One employee tried to grab it by the tail and ended up gettingĀ bitten, which led toĀ rabies shots. Hafner eventually managed to wrap the animal in a towel and safely carry it outside. āIām a Kentucky girl,ā she said. āI had no problem catching him.ā This isnāt Masonās first brush with the law involving animals.***
https://quirkl.net/news/us/kentucky-man-arrested-after-releasing-raccoon-into-bar-his-third-animal-related-incident/
***
Saudi excelling in Floriduh
CLEARWATER, Fla.Ā -Ā A man faces charges afterĀ Pinellas CountyĀ deputies say he called 911 claiming security at a club "took" $300 from him ā money he used in an attempt to pay an employee for sex. The backstory: According to an arrest affidavit filed by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Sultan Alnofaie, 21, called 911 from the OZ Gentlemen's Club near Clearwater shortly after midnight on Sunday, June 8. Deputies say Alnofaie told dispatchers to "come take him to jail," then explained that he paid a worker at the club for sex, but did not receive "services." Staff at the club told deputies that Alnofaie had asked for a private room along with sex from a staff member, and called 911 when his request was denied. Investigators also noted that Alnofaie appeared intoxicated and smelled of alcohol as they arrested him on a charge of misuse of wireless 911 system.***
https://www.fox13news.com/news/man-pays-sex-florida-club-calls-911-complain-about-not-receiving-services-pcso
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Just wanted to teach sex ed
AnĀ Oregon high school teacherĀ is behind bars after an undercover sting operation led to authorities charging him with online sex crimes against children.Ā Oscar Armando Ramirez, 36, allegedly hadĀ sexually explicit conversationsĀ with who he believed was a 13-year-old girl while working as a local high school teacher, according to the Portland Police Bureau.Ā However, Ramirez was actually talking to anĀ undercover police officerĀ posing as a child in a sting operation targeting online predators, authorities said.Ā "The chatting continued for four days and included lewd sexual conversations about acts that Ramirez wanted to do with her," the Portland Police Bureau said inĀ a statement. "In the conversations with [Bothell Police Detective Mike Garcia], Ramirez agreed to meet with her and made arrangements to meet when her parents would not be home."***
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The Timeline Project
This is an attempt to sort out the timeline of these books. It is very long.
1992: Eskander locks himself away. Wolfe is born same year or year after. (Smoke and Iron, Annis says Eskander has been locked up for 40 years, Eskander says he locked himself up because he used too much power in an escape attempt ābefore the child was born.ā)
2024: Jessās brother Liam dies. (Ink and Bone says Jess was 9 when this happened, Liam 17)
2025: 10 year old Jess encounters the ink-licker
Summer 2029: Wolfe invents printing press and is arrested. (Paper and Fire, Wolfe states this happened 3 years ago)
Summer 2030: Wolfe released from prison. (Ink and Bone, Santi says Wolfe was in prison for a year)
Letās say August (could be anywhere from May-September, considering weather) 2031: Jess takes Library entrance test. Weather is warm and sunny.
Next day train leaves for Alexandria.
Gets to Spain 1 day later.
Remaining duration of train ride unspecified: another day or two?
First lesson morning after arriving in Alexandria.
After one week of classes, Dario steals Jessās clothes, Khalila asks about Iron Tower.
Next day, Dario loses Codex.
September 2031 (Morgan says she left Oxford a month ago, so if class started in August, she would be arriving in September)
Unspecified time later, Jess gets letter from parents, steals book.
Next day, some students start getting extra classes, Jess uses translation tags.
Next day, still no extra classes for Jess, postulants bicker and play chess.
Next day, Morgan arrives, confiscation training, restraint test.
Next day, whole class lottery, students who didnāt draw tiles dismissed.
3 days later, Thomas first mentions press, class disarms Burner traps.
December 2031 (editing to shift this here, on rereading, Morganās arrival doesnāt seem quite as late as I had it before, Jess observes fall weather in France, and we need to make the start of Paper and Fire close to one year after the start of Ink and Bone):Ā
Some time later? Unspecified. Jess catches Morgan doing Obscurist things, tells her about his family.
Next morning, class sent to Oxford.
In Oxford for one day? Winter weather (freezing rain) in Oxford.
Jess spends one day unconscious after being stabbed.
Two more days in Welsh camp.
Next day they drive to London, get on train.
Train crashes that night.
Next morning, Thomas shows them chess automaton (that got there fast - translation?)
Six days in France. Morgan arrested on sixth night.
January 2032
Travel back to Alexandria takes a week or two (according to Google maps, could be longer).
That night, Thomas arrested.
Next morning class graduates.
Total time for Ink and Bone: around 1 week to get to Alexandria, approximately two weeks actually accounted for in Alexandria, 1 day in Oxford, around two-three weeks to get back to Alexandria. Unspecified time gap makes things difficult. Probably reasonable to assume itās a full semester. Based on weather descriptions in England (edited to add: and France) and time spans given, Iām going to say the main events of the book take place from summer/early fall of 2031 to winter of 2031.
July 2032: Paper and Fire begins 6 months after Ink and Bone. Jess has just spent weeks looking for a book with proof that Thomas is alive. In terms of weather, scorching heat is mentioned, so possibly summer. Letās be generous with time estimates and say Ink and Bone ended early January this is mid-July. Not quite 7 months, but a bit more than exactly 6.
Next day, training exercise and confrontation with Wolfe and Santi.
Next day, Jess visits Dario and Khalila at Lighthouse, plots with Glain.
August 2032: To make this work with Ash and Quill, letās say late enough in August that it will be September by the time they get to Philadelphia.
Unspecified number of days pass. Research and scheming happen, Dario and Jess go to tomb of Alexander the Great, fights sphinx.
Middle of next night, Jess and Glain summoned to High Commander, Jess goes to find Brendan.
3 days later, Dario asks Scholar Prakesh to help.
Next day, Scholar Prakesh is killed. Jess goes first looking for Brendan, then to Wolfe, mesmer gets Wolfeās memories back, Morgan escapes and meets Jess.
Next morning, Jess and Glain assigned to Santiās company, sent to Rome, fight Burners, meet Dario and Khalila.
That night, kids and Santi meet in atrium, Jess scouts tunnels.
Next morning, they rescue Thomas, Dario captured, rest translate to the Iron Tower
Next day, they find the Black Archives, Artifex shows up with Dario, Black Archives burned, Obscurist Magnus killed after translating the group to London, group meets Brightwell family, go to Serapeum, double crossing and backstabbing occur, group is sent to Philadelphia.
Total time for Paper and Fire: Approximately two weeks. Might be able to stretch that to a month if we interpret that unspecified number of days in Chapter 5 very generously. Itās literallyĀ ādays passedā, so hard to call it too much more than a week or two. Edit: We are going to have to interpret that unspecified time gap VERY generously. At least this makes Darioās impatience a bit more logical. There is no other way for this to work with the next book starting in the fall and no time in between. I really, really wish that 6 months wasnāt so clearly and repeatedly stated.
September 2032: Group translates into Philadelphia, put in prison.Ā Season is specifically named as fall in Chapter 2.
Next day, Thomas and Jess meet with Beck, bombardment happens, Santi severely burned, Jess and Thomas visit workshop.
Next day, Santi moved to doctorās house, Jess and Dario go shopping and scouting.
Unspecified time gap working on press. Chapter 3 ends with shopping, 4 picks up with press 1/3 done. Doesnāt seem to be very long, possibly same day. Students scheme, visit Wolfe and Santi at the doctorās house and scheme more.
Next day, Jess and Thomas work on press, Morgan and Glain figure out how to make a Codex.
Next day, Glain shows Jess evidence Burners attacked jail, more work on press, Wolfe and Santi visit workshop.
Late that night/early next morning, Morgan makes Codex, Jess contacts Brendan, plans are made, Jess and Thomas demonstrate press, violence happens, group escapes with doctor and a few refugees, Library destroys Philadelphia.
Unspecified time gap while Jess is unconscious. Jess wakes up, talks to lots of people, plans are made, Jess visits Morgan, gets drugged by doctor.
Jess wakes up halfway through next day, party splits from doctor and refugees, encounters Khalilaās cousin, attacked by automaton lions, reprogram lions, board Anitās ship.
Unspecified time gap on ship. (8-15 days if weāre being historically accurate for a steamship, thanks @thegreatlibraryfangirl)
October 2032
Arrive at the Brightwell castle, awkward family interactions occur, Dario tells Jess about Feast of Greater Burning in 30 days, awkward dinner, Brendan tips Jess off about fatherās scheming. Jess sees Morganās messed up power. Season is late fall, almost winter.
Next day, suspicious Glain is suspicious, Jess and Thomas work on press, Wolfe joins them, Jess almost robs his mother.
Unspecified time gap. Ray of Apollo is done, press is done. Press will be shown to Callum next day. That night, Jess, Brendan, Anit scheme, Jess tells Morgan.
Two days later, press is demonstrated, strategic betrayal occurs: Jess, Morgan, Wolfe translated to Alexandria, everyone else put on a ship.
Total time for Ash and Quill: Around 1 week in Philadelphia. A couple days in the High Garda camp and traveling. Two weeks approximately on ship. A week or so at the castle in England? Total time: 1 month? Maybe another week or two, at most. Time until Feast of Greater Burning: 20-26 days depending on time at castle.
October 2032
Jess: Chapter 1 begins with Jess in jail 5 days after arriving in Alexandria. It is the anniversary of Liamās death. Jess āwas now older than Liam had ever lived to beā. If Jess turned 17 near the beginning of Ink and Bone, heās 18 here, and this line works well. If heās still 17, heās talking about being older by as little as a few hours. Weather was rainy in England when Liam dies, warm and sunny in Alexandria.
Jess negotiates with Archivist, moved to monitored apartment.
Next day, Spanish ambassador visits Jess, Jess gets message from Morgan in Blank.
Chapter 12 picks up afterĀ āa few long daysā. Jessās apartment is searched, Jess is taken to Archivist for questioning, hypnotized by Elsinore Quest on the way to think he really is Brendan, gets sent to raid smugglerās house. Goes home, takes a 2-hour nap, wakes up and remembers heās Jess.
Early the next morning, Jess goes to the Colosseum, sees automaton workshop, including dragon being built, saves Archivist from assassination attempt.
Unspecified time gap. Must be same day as Chapter 21. Chapter 25 begins with Jess sending messages to smugglers. He discovers Burners have press, tells Spanish messenger he thinks executions will be moved up, raids Burner house with High Garda and finds press, sees dragon, taken to Archivist to meet up with Brendan and Wolfe, rescued by Santiās soldiers, party reunites, Jess runs off with Brendan, goes to Red Ibrahim,Ā Anit kills Red Ibrahim.
Chapter 34 begins right after Chapter 28. Anit brings Jess and Brendan to smugglers, plans to attack Feast of Greater Burning.
Khalila: Chapter 3 begins with Khalila, Glain, Thomas, Dario, and Santi on the ship heading for Alexandria. Bit of googling says the trip from England to Alexandria would be 1-2 weeks depending on speed, weather. The weather is stormy, so probably more like two weeks. Theyāre probably about halfway there when the chapter begins since theyāre near Spain. Very cold weather. Khalila mentionsĀ āweāve already been delayedā.Ā Letās say weāre starting 1 week after Ash and Quill here.
Khalila gets details of plan from Dario, plots with Santi.
Probably same day, possible time gap here just because it isnāt specified that itās the same day, Khalila talks to Anit. That night, sailors try and fail to kill Glain.
Late that night/early next morning, Khalila wakes up, finds everyone in Santiās room. Theyāre off the coast of Portugal near the Strait of Gibraltar, less than a day before theyāre past Cadiz. Thomas, Glain and Khalila make weapons, group takes Anit hostage and seizes ship.
Unspecified time gap. Chapter 16 begins with Khalila in Cadiz writing letters to dead sailorsā families. Dario complains about how long theyāve been waiting, could be hours or days since he says it takes the king hours to get there from Madrid. King comes to take them to Madrid, they detour to Cadiz Serapeum. Rainy weather, warmer than it was on the ship but still cold. Khalila gets into the Serapeum, negotiates with Scholar Murasaki.
Unspecified time gap. Chapter 29 picks up shortly after Jess and Brendan run off in Chapter 28, still same day as 21 and 25. Khalila, Dario, and Glain go to the Lighthouse with letters from Wolfe to recruit Scholars. Dario is captured.
Wolfe: Chapter 7 begins the day Wolfe is put back in jail. Heās pretty much out of his mind at first, so we may be able to play with the timeline (was he messed up enough to miss that he was there longer than a day before pulling himself together? Says heĀ āhad gone a little madā, but itās his POV, and heād downplay it).
Second day, Wolfe discovers Khalilaās brother is in the cell next to his, starts mapping prison, encounters Troll, who Zara has sent as a spy.
Unknown time gap. Wolfe wakes up at night to find the Artifex outside his cell. Artifex threatens to torture Santi if Wolfe doesnāt kill himself in 3 days. Is Artifex expecting Anitās ship in 3 days? That would place Chapter 8 somewhere after Chapter 6.
Unspecified time gap. In chapter 20, Wolfe has his fellow prisoners organized, but mental health is getting worse. Mysterious Qualls appearance happens.
Next morning, Khalilaās father about to be taken for questioning, Wolfe volunteers to go instead, plans toĀ ālieā that Brendan is Jess.Ā
Chapter 31 picks up right after Khalila, Glain, and Dario leave. Wolfe, Santi and Zara talk tactics, Wolfe and Santi talk about prison and make suicide pact, Khalila and Glain come back without Dario.
Morgan: Chapter 9 picks up right after Morgan gets to Alexandria. She is taken to the Iron Tower. In her first 4 days there, she tries and fails to escape her room, sends a message to Jess (does he receive this first one? Probably not?).
After 5 days, she meets with Gregory, is drugged.
Next day, Morgan wakes up, meets Annis, messes with wards to turn off listening scripts, goes to work copying scripts and sneaks message to Jess, Gregory kills an Obscurist to threaten her.
Chapter 22 picks up weeks after Chapter 11. Morgan figures out sheās being drugged, Annis uses mesmer skills to get cooks to stop drugging Morgan. They get crystals, Morgan links the crystals, needs to kill part of the garden for power.
Probably same day, but unspecified, so possible time gap. Morgan and Annis go to air-circulation hub, throw crystal to Eskander, talk him into meeting them. He gets their collars off.
Unspecified time gap. Probably not long, might be same day as Chapter 24. Chapter 32 begins with Morgan and Annis looking for information. Morgan uses Scribes to find what Eskander needs, Eskander fixes Morganās power problems.
Next morning,Ā Gregory drugs Morgan to bring her to Feast of Greater Burning.
November 2032 (has to go into November here somewhere, no idea exactly where):Ā
Feast of Greater Burning: All happens in one day. Thomas makes Rays of Apollo, Thomas, Glain, Khalila and Wolfe kill dragon, everyone runs into the trap in the Colosseum, Morgan and Dario thrown in after them, Obscurists show up with Eskander, Morgan kills Gregory, Zara kills Brendan, Archivist and Curia run away, elections happen.
Total time for Smoke and Iron: 3-4 weeks. Jessās chapters have about a week actually accounted for, plus some unspecified gaps. Khalilaās only got a couple days accounted for, lots of gaps. Wolfeās the same. Morgan gives us the most reliable time estimates with her time gap specified as weeks. As of the end of Ash and QuillĀ we had around 3-4 weeks until the Feast of Greater Burning, so this fits with that timeline. Chronological order would be Wolfeās first two chapters, then Morganās, then Jess, then Khalila, probably Jess again, then Khalila again, then everything else happens over the course of a couple days leading up to the Feast of Greater Burning.
Total series time: Somewhere around September 2031-November 2032. All months and seasons are guesstimates based on weather descriptions. A little over a year. Could be as little as under a year or as much as a year and a half depending on where you want to say Ink and Bone begins.Ā
Character ages: Jess is 16 at the beginning and could be as old as 18 in Smoke and Iron if he turns 17 during Ink and Bone, before the presumably long time gap there. Letās say he has a late September/early October birthday. Morgan is 16 in Ink and Bone, between 17 and 18 in Smoke and IronĀ depending on when her birthday is. Wolfe, again, depending on exact birth date, is around 38-39 in Ink and Bone, 40 in Smoke and Iron.Ā If the estimate of his age inĀ āStormcrowā is accurate, and depending on exact birth date, Santi is 38-40 in Ink and Bone, 40-41 in Smoke and Iron.Ā No other charactersā ages are specifically stated.
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āPeople Actively Hate Usā: Inside the Border Patrolās Morale Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/us/border-patrol-culture.html
Excellent article looking at what the Trump administration immigration policies are having on the men and women inside Customs and Border Protection (HINT:Not Good)
āPeople Actively Hate Usā: Inside the Border Patrolās Morale Crisis
Overwhelmed by desperate migrants and criticized for mistreating the people in their care, many agents have grown defensive, insular and bitter.
By Manny Fernandez, Miriam Jordan, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Caitlin Dickerson Photographs by Kendrick Brinson | Published Sept. 15, 2019UpdatedĀ 6:26 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 15, 2019 |
One Border Patrol agent in Tucson said he had been called a āselloutā and a ākid killer.ā In El Paso, an agent said he and his colleagues in uniform had avoided eating lunch together except at certain āBP friendlyā restaurants because āthereās always the possibility of them spitting in your food.ā An agent in Arizona quit last year out of frustration. āCaging people for a nonviolent activity,ā he said, āstarted to eat away at me.ā
For decades, the Border Patrol was a largely invisible security force. Along the southwestern border, its work was dusty and lonely. Between adrenaline-fueled chases, the shells of sunflower seeds piled up outside the windows of their idling pickup trucks. Agents called their slow-motion specialty ālaying inā ā hiding in the desert and brush for hours, to wait and watch, and watch and wait.
Two years ago, when President Trump entered the White House with a pledge to close the door on illegal immigration, all that changed. The nearly 20,000 agents of the Border Patrol became the leading edge of one of the most aggressive immigration crackdowns ever imposed in the United States.
No longer were they a quasi-military organization tasked primarily with intercepting drug runners and chasing smugglers. Their new focus was to block and detain hundreds of thousands of migrant families fleeing violence and extreme poverty ā herding people into tents and cages, seizing children and sending their parents to jail, trying to spot those too sick to survive in the densely packed processing facilities along the border.
Ten migrants have died since September in the custody of the Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection.
In recent months, the extreme overcrowding on the border has begun to ease, with migrants turned away and made to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed. Last week, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to close the door further, at least for now, by requiring migrants from countries outside Mexico to show they have already been denied refuge in another country before applying for asylum.
The Border Patrol, whose agents have gone from having one of the most obscure jobs in law enforcement to one of the most hated, is suffering a crisis in both mission and morale. Earlier this year, the disclosure of aĀ private Facebook groupĀ where agents posted sexist and callous references to migrants and the politicians who support them reinforced the perception that agents often view the vulnerable people in their care with frustration and contempt.
Interviews with 25 current and former agents in Texas, California and Arizona ā some conducted on the condition of anonymity so the agents could speak more candidly ā paint a portrait of an agency in a political and operational quagmire. Overwhelmed through the spring and early summer by desperate migrants, many agents have grown defensive, insular and bitter.
The president of the agentsā union said he had received death threats. An agent in South Texas said some colleagues he knew were looking for other federal law enforcement jobs. One agent in El Paso told a retired agent he was so disgusted by scandals in which the Border Patrol has been accused of neglecting or mistreating migrants that he wanted the motto emblazoned on its green-and-white vehicles ā āHonor Firstā ā scratched off.
āTo have gone from where people didnāt know much about us to where people actively hate us, itās difficult,ā said Chris Harris, who was an agent for 21 years and a Border Patrol union official until he retired in June 2018. āThereās no doubt morale has been poor in the past, and itās abysmal now. I know a lot of guys just want to leave.ā
EDUARDO JACOBO, AN AGENT IN CALIFORNIAāS EL CENTRO SECTOR:
The difference between doing the job now and when I started is like night and day. Before, it was a rush of adrenaline when you caught people with drugs. You were doing more police stuff. Now itās humanitarian work. If you ask anybody about being in Border Patrol, theyāre playing a movie scene in their head, jumping into a burning building and saving people. Now, it means taking care of kids and giving them baby formula.
By and large, the agency has been a willing enforcer of the Trump administrationās harshest immigration policies. In videos released last year, Border Patrol agents could be seenĀ destroying water jugsĀ left in a section of the Arizona desert where large numbers of migrants have been found dead.
Some of those who worked at the agency in earlier years said that it had changed over the past decade, and that an attitude of contempt toward migrants ā the view that they are opportunists who brought on their own troubles and are undeserving of a warm welcome ā is now the rule, not the exception.
āThe intense criticism that is being directed at the Border Patrol is necessary and important because I do think that thereās a culture of cruelty or callousness,ā said Francisco CantĆŗ, a former agent who is the author of āThe Line Becomes a River,ā a memoir about his time in the agency from 2008 to 2012. āThereās a lack of oversight. There is a lot of impunity.ā
The Border Patrol was established in 1924. Early agents were recruited from the Texas Rangers and local sheriffās offices. They focused largely on Prohibition-era whiskey bootleggers, often supplying their own horses and saddles. Though horseback units still exist, the culture of the agency bears little resemblance to its past.
It has become a sprawling arm of Customs and Border Protection, the countryās largest federal law enforcement agency, which is responsible for 7,000 miles of Americaās northern and southern borders, 95,000 miles of shoreline and 328 ports of entry. On a practical level, the Border Patrolās hubs along the Mexican border, known as sectors, operate in some ways as fiefs.
In border cities, sector chiefs become household names, delivering annual State of the Border speeches. In the 1990s, an El Paso sector chief, Silvestre Reyes, used his popularity to win a seat in Congress.
In El Paso and other border communities, becoming an agent has long been viewed as a ticket to the middle class. A starting agent with a high school diploma and no experience can expect to earn $55,800, including overtime, climbing to $100,000 in as few as four years.
But given the long, solitary work, often in punishing heat and far-flung locations, and a growing workload, the agency has had difficulty recruiting: It remains about 1,800 agents short of its earlier hiring targets.
Some trace the increasing bitterness and frustration among agents to 2014, when large numbers of migrant families, as well as unaccompanied children, began arriving at the border. Many agents said they werenāt given the money or infrastructure to handle the emerging crisis. Desperate mothers and sick children had to be herded into fenced enclosures because there was nowhere else to put them.
Some agents blamed migrant parents for bringing their children into the mess. Their anger began building under President Barack Obama. Then, with Mr. Trumpās election, it found a voice in the White House.
Mr. Trump āsaid it to us, he said it in public, āIām going to consider you guys, the union, the subject-matter experts on how we secure the border,āā said Mr. Harris, the former agent and Border Patrol union official from Southern California who retired last year. āWe had never heard that from anyone before.ā
The private Facebook group, which was created in 2016 and had more than 9,000 members, became a forum for agents to vent about the increasingly thankless nature of their jobs and the failure of successive administrations to fully secure the border.
Some agents who were members of the group said the tone of the posts shifted after Mr. Trumpās election, becoming raunchier and more politically tinged. A post mocked the death of a 16-year-old migrant while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Tex., with an image reading āOh well.ā A member used an expletive to propose throwing burritos at two Latina congresswomen.
AN AGENT IN SOUTH TEXAS:
What really pisses me off is that the agency knew about this group for a while. Those stories are true. There were patrol agents in charge on there. They knew it was wrong.
Most agents interviewed said a minority of those in the Facebook group were responsible for the most offensive posts.
BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL, THE AGENTSā UNION:
We have been pointed at with this broad brush and there are certain segments trying to make this out that all agents are bad and āHereās the proof, look at these Facebook posts,ā when really the vast majority of our agents are very good people.
In some ways, though, the posts reflected a culture that was long apparent in parts of the agency. For years, the Border Patrol has quietly tolerated racist terminology. Some agents refer to migrants as āwets,ā a shortened version of āwetbacks.ā Others call them ātoncs.ā
Jenn Budd, a former agent of six years who is now an outspoken critic, said a supervisor at her Border Patrol station in California had explained the term ātoncā to her: āHe said, āItās the sound a flashlight makes when you hit a migrant in the head with it.āā
Josh Childress, a former agent in Arizona who quit in 2018 because the job had begun to wear him down, said the Facebook posts hinted at a deeper, darker problem in the agencyās culture. āThe jokes are not the problem,ā he said. āTreating people as if they arenāt people is the problem.ā
Calexico, Calif., 120 miles east of San Diego in Southern Californiaās agrarian Imperial Valley, offers a glimpse of the relationship between a border community and the agents. Hemmed in by rugged mountains, desolate desert and the Colorado River, the valley has an economy that revolves around seasonal farm jobs and government work. Temperatures top 110 degrees during the parched summer months.
About 800 Border Patrol agents work in the vast El Centro Sector, which runs about 70 miles across the Valley. They patrol on bikes and in their white vehicles in Calexico, whose downtown sits up against the rust-colored bollards that separate the United States and Mexico.
When Mr. Trump visited the city in April to tout 2.3 miles of a new border barrier ā a row of 30-foot-tall, slender steel slats with pointed edges ā Angel Esparza organized a binational unity march that drew 200 people. But he said the march was to protest Mr. Trump, not the Border Patrol.
Mr. Esparza has featured Border Patrol agents on the covers of two issues of Mi Calexico, a magazine that he produces and distributes sporadically in this town of 40,000.
āThe Border Patrol agents are part of the community,ā he said.
NATALIA NUNEZ, A COLLEGE STUDENT IN CALEXICO, CALIF.
Being in the Border Patrol is a normal thing around here. I have three cousins who are agents. I have friends whose parents are agents. They arenāt supposed to talk about it. I wonder how they can sleep at night if they have to lock up kids in cages like animals.
David Kim, the El Centro Sectorās assistant chief patrol agent, is the son of a South Korean immigrant who worked for the Postal Service. He has been with the Border Patrol since 2000.
Asked about the agencyās relationship with the community, he recalled the government shutdown that began in December 2018, when Mr. Trump was locked in a standoff with Congress over funding for an expanded border wall. Border Patrol agents, who were working without pay, were offered food vouchers by restaurants. Jujitsu academies and gyms offered free passes. Mr. Kimās chiropractor waived his co-pay.
Mr. Kim, seated in the sector headquarters building, went silent for about a minute as he talked about it. Tears rolled down his face. āThe community,ā he said finally, āstepped up for the Border Patrol when we were furloughed.ā
But with the fraught atmosphere across the country over immigration policy, hostility can emerge even within agentsā own families.
BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL:
I just had a relative four days ago send me one of the nastiest emails Iāve ever had in my life. How bad of people we are. How taxpayer dollars should not be used to abuse individuals.
Operating in communities that are often heavily Hispanic and quietly hostile to Mr. Trumpās immigration agenda, the Border Patrol has become more openly political than at any time in its history.
Agents have nurtured a strong loyalty to the president, whom many of them see as the first chief executive who is serious about border security. The union endorsed Mr. Trump in 2016, a move that gave the Border Patrol a line of communication to the White House but has also created friction in Democrat-dominated border communities.
A 10-YEAR VETERAN AGENT IN SOUTH TEXAS:
I have personally not come across any agents that do not like Trumpās positions on border security, on immigration. Hispanic, Latino, black, white ā it doesnāt matter the origin of the agents, they all have a strong border-security mentality. So they love what Trump brings to the table. What they hate, what is detrimental, is the complete opposite feeling from the Democratic side.
Democratic lawmakersĀ flocked to the Texas borderĀ throughout the spring, many holding news conferences to criticize theĀ filthy, crowded conditionsĀ in which migrants, including children, were being held ā some with unchanged diapers, little access to showers and little or no hot food.
Agents said they had done the best they could ā some bought toys for the children in their care ā but were overwhelmed by the number of new arrivals.
AN AGENT IN THE EL PASO SECTOR:
āOh, that kidās cuteā turned into, āOh, thereās another one, thereās another one.ā Weāve done more for these aliens than these senators and congressmen that come down here. They make this big scene but then the next day they get on a plane to go back home. They didnāt take any of them with them, right? Theyāre going home to their running water, to their nice, comfortable bed, and meantime, weāre here dealing with them.
The Border Patrolās culture is unabashedly self-reliant and male-dominated. Agents operate largely alone in the desert and brush, using neither body cameras nor dashboard cameras.
About 5 percent of agents are women. Some interviewed spoke highly of the agency and their male colleagues. Others described a culture in which women were demeaned, passed over for promotions and assaulted by co-workers. A supervisor in Chula Vista, Calif.,Ā pleaded guiltyĀ in 2015 to seven counts of video voyeurism, admitting that he had placed a camera in a drain in a womenās restroom.
In aĀ written accountĀ of her time at the agency, Ms. Budd described women being forced to perform oral sex on fellow agents and subjected to humiliating labels. āI never, ever met a female agent that was not targeted by the male agents,ā she said.
The job has taken a psychological toll on men and women alike.
From 2007 to 2018, more than 100 Customs and Border Protection employees, many of whom had worked as Border Patrol agents, killed themselves. Ross Davidson, who retired in 2017 after 21 years with the agency, said he was certain that stress from the job has been a factor.
āThe repetitive monotony of doing the same thing over and over and seeing no outcome, seeing no end to it and nothing changing,ā he said. āItās just going deeper and deeper, and getting worse and worse.ā
SERGIO TINOCO, AN AGENT IN THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY OF TEXAS:
Now, with all this rhetoric, I actually have to go home where I want to unwind, and hear my wife tell me the comments she was told, and my kids tell me the comments theyāre told. So at what point do I relax? The only time I relax is when my eyes are closed and Iām dead asleep.
Nicholas Kulish, Mitchell Ferman and Erin Coulehan contributed reporting.
#cbp#u.s. customs and border protection#u.s. immigration and customs enforcement#u.s. news#u.s. politics#trump scandals#trumpism#trump administration#president donald trump#against trump#trumpcamps#impeach trump#president trump#ice#ice raids#immigrants#immigration#immigration reform
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Sunday, October 10, 2021
Food prices continue to climb (CBS News) If you think you're paying more at the grocery store, you're not wrong. Wholesale prices are at record highs and some items are scarce. According to the Labor Department, wholesale prices jumped 8.3 percent from August of this year compared to August of 2020āthe biggest gain since the department started tracking those prices more than a decade ago. "We haven't seen anything yet," said SuperMarketGuru.Com editor and food industry analyst Phil Lembert. "Prices are going to continue to go up for a good year and a half." "The biggest increases we will see has to do with anything with animals," he said, "Whether it's eggs or milk or pork or beef." Northern California wildfires have decimated their feed supply. General supply chain issues like bottlenecks at the Port of Los Angeles and labor shortages are also to blame.
Climate: Anxiety and gloom among the young (The Week) A growing number of young people are suffering from āclimate anxiety,ā said Kate Yoder at Grist, and are sinking into a gloomy outlook about the future. With extreme heat, wildfires, droughts, storms, and flooding visible all over the globe, a recent global survey of 10,000 people ages 16 to 25 in 10 countries, including the U.S., detected āwidespread psychological distressā over climate change. Three-quarters of respondents to the poll called the future āfrightening,ā and 56 percent agreed with the claim that āhumanity is doomed.ā A startling 39 percent said that climate change has made them hesitant to have children. This ābirth strikeā isnāt primarily driven by fears of adding to humanityās carbon footprint, said Liza Featherstone at New Republic. Young people in both rich and poor nations ājust donāt want to inflict the climate crisis on their kids.ā Thatās āa sign of pain and distressāand a call for help.ā āWhat has happened to us?ā asked Rod Dreher at The American Conservative. Previous generations faced existential threats such as two world wars, the Depression, and the nuclear standoff of the Cold War, but they started families anyway. āWhat have we lost that the people of my fatherās generation, and older generations, had, that gave them resilience?ā The willingness of two-fifths of todayās young people to āsurrender hope in the futureā is evidence of a deep spiritual impoverishment.
The dilemma facing teen smugglers at the border (Washington Post) The U.S. Justice Department has a long-standing practice of not prosecuting Mexican minors for smuggling migrants to the United States, which has led some teens to specialize in the role. The Washington Post profiled one such smuggler, whose middle name is Antonio, and who had been caught 15 times. As his 18th birthdayāand with it, the possibility he could earn a U.S. jail sentence for smugglingāapproaches, Antonio is grappling with the choice of how to respond to recruitment efforts from a local cartel. The cartels that control migrant smuggling often work with teen smugglers before their 18th birthdays, then try to place them in roles such as drug traffickers or hit men when they reach adulthood. The local government in Matamoros, where Antonio lives, has started a program to try to draw teens away from smuggling by connecting them with a path to a high school diploma, jobs to replace smuggling income, and even a soccer team. But jobs in local auto plants earn around a dollar per hour, compared to some $1,000 per day smuggling migrants, the Post reported.
U.S. and Mexico revamp strained security cooperation (Washington Post) In a bid to mend their frayed security relationship, senior U.S. and Mexican officials met Friday to overhaul the Merida Initiative, a pact that has channeled billions of dollars in aid to Mexico but failed to curb massive drug trafficking and spiraling bloodshed. President AndrĆ©s Manuel López Obrador has repeatedly criticized the 13-year-old security accord, saying it promoted an ineffective āwar on drugs.ā But his aides say the longtime leftist saw few possibilities to renegotiate it with President Donald Trump, who had suggested sending the U.S. military to tackle Mexican drug violence. López Obrador regards President Bidenās drug policy, with its emphasis on treatment and prevention, as providing political space for a reset, they said. Homicides in Mexico are stuck at historically high rates, while deaths in the United States from fentanyl smuggled across the border have soared. āItās time for a comprehensive approach to our security cooperationā that emphasizes ānot only strengthening law enforcement, but also public health, the rule of law, inclusive economic opportunities,ā U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.
Brazilās inflation hits double digits, punishing the poor (AP) Itās something Brazilians have rarely seen in a quarter century, and the last time they did, in 2016, it helped set up a presidentās downfall: Double-digit inflation. Soaring prices for gas, meat, electricity and more have left millions of poor Brazilians struggling to make ends meet. Inflation in the 12 months through September reached 10.25%, according to data the national statistics agency released Friday. Francielle de Santana, 31, lives in Rio de Janeiroās Jardim Gramacho neighborhood beside a massive former landfill. With no running water or electricity, she salvages scrap to earn a living and can barely afford chicken. āWith ten reais ($1.80), we used to get a lot, but now we only get three or four pieces. For three or four people, thatās little,ā de Santana told The Associated Press outside her wooden shack.
Poland deepens rifts with European Union after rebuff over judicial rules (AP) Polandās top court ruled Thursday that its national laws can trump those of the European Union, intensifying a clash over democratic values and shaking the foundations of the 27-member blocās accepted legal order. The Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw ruled that parts of E.U. law were not compatible with the countryās constitution. They include an article that says that laws from Brussels have primacy over conflicting national legislation and another relating to the binding nature of decisions of the European Court of Justice. Those principles are essential to how the union functions legally, and raises questions as to how Poland can continue to be part of it without upholding them.
Three U.S. Embassy staff in Russia face expulsion over allegations of property theft (AP) Russia on Friday accused three U.S. Embassy employees of theft and demanded that they leave the country or face prosecution, exacerbating already tense relations. The Russian state-owned news agency Tass said the alleged theft occurred Sept. 18 and reported that the Interior Ministry estimated the value of the stolen items at just over $200. Moscowās move Friday comes days after NATO expelled eight Russian diplomats, accusing them of spying. It also follows Russiaās anger over a call by a group of U.S. senators Tuesday for the expulsions of 300 Russian diplomats. Russian officials said if that proposal were implemented, Russia would force the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. In April, Washington expelled 10 Russian diplomats and imposed more sanctions on several dozen Russian individuals and companies, saying they were associated with malign Russian activities.
Singapore expands quarantine-free travel, eyes COVID-19 ānew normalā (Reuters) Singapore is opening its borders to more countries for quarantine-free travel as the city-state seeks to rebuild its status as an international aviation hub, and prepares to reach a ānew normalā to live with COVID-19. From Oct. 19 fully vaccinated people from eight countries, including Britain, France, Spain and the United States, will be able to enter the island without quarantining if they pass their COVID-19 tests, the government said on Saturday. The announcement marks a major step in Singaporeās strategy to resume international links. The Southeast Asian nation, one of the worldās biggest travel and finance hubs, is home to Asian headquarters of thousands of global companies whose executives have long relied on Singaporeās connectivity.
Battle-hardened Taliban fighters enjoy a day off at amusement park (Reuters) Strolling casually with their machine guns in hand, hundreds of Taliban fighters enjoyed a rare day off with a visit to a popular waterside amusement park in Kabul. Fridayās day trip to the sandy shores of the capitalās Qargha reservoir was a welcome break for the fighters after months of conflict and weeks of security duty since the Taliban took power in mid-August. The fighters, who were all heavily armed at the park, sipped tea and bought snacks from stalls dotted along the shoreline. Some queued up to try the amusement park rides. Most of the fighters had never been to Kabul until the Taliban took control of the capital on Aug. 15, and some were eager to visit the amusement park before returning to their duties around the country. The Taliban waged a 20-year insurgency against a Western-backed government before returning to power in August after President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan. Most of its fighters have known little outside the insurgency.
The pandemic will spur the worldwide growth of private tutoring (Economist) Siina Karbin, a Finn living in Vienna, had never imagined paying someone to tutor her children. But then in early 2020 Austriaās schools closed because of covid-19. She and her husband struggled to help their seven-year-old son learn remotely while also doing their own jobs. Ms Karbin signed the boy up for one-to-one online tutoring provided by GoStudent, an Austrian startup, assuming he would do it for a few months. A year and a half later her son is back in school, and also still enjoying a weekly session with his tutor. He tells his mum he is keen to carry on with it. As a new school year gets under way in many countries, the harm caused by the months of closures is becoming ever clearer. In America primary-age pupils are on average five months behind where they would usually be in maths, and four months in reading, according to McKinsey, a consultancy. The damage is almost certainly worse in places such as India and Mexico, where the disruption to schooling has been greater. Even before the pandemic parents around the world were growing more willing to pay for extra lessons in the hope of boosting their childrenās education. The crisis will accelerate that trend. The after-hours industry, sometimes dubbed āshadow educationā, encompasses packed cram schools, one-to-one tutoring and paid online courses. Its providers range from moonlighting teachers to multinational firms. Business is biggest in East Asia: some 80% of South Koreaās primary-school children get extra lessons and 90% of Japanese children get private help at some point. Yet there are other hotspots. In Greece most school-leavers say they have taken private classes. In Egypt about one-third of children in the first years of school get extra lessons, rising to over four-fifths by the time they leave secondary school. Tutoring was once āvirtually unknownā in Scandinavia, says Soren Christensen of Aarhus University, but even there a small industry has now sprung up.
Men lost at sea 29 days say it āwas a nice breakā from reality (New York Post) The well-fed castaways of āGilliganās Islandā couldnāt have handled it better. Despite losing themselves at sea for nearly a month, two men from the Solomon Islands have returned from a harrowing rescue with a remarkably positive outlook. āIt was a nice break from everything,ā said Livae Nanjikana, who set out with friend Junior Qoloni from Mono Island on Sept. 3, The Guardian reported. āI had no idea what was going on while I was out there. I didnāt hear about Covid or anything else,ā said Nanjikana āI look forward to going back home but I guess it was a nice break from everything.ā
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āCigarette Smugglers Had 7,400Ā āSmokesā,ā Toronto Star. July 24, 1931. Page 02. ----- Companion Had Almost $100 Worth - Both Fined $150 and Costs ---- Two smugglers of American cigarettes, Vance Watts, and Fred A. Barnes, were convicted of breaches of the Customs Act and were each fined $150 and costs by Magistrate Jones in menās police court to-day.
āI found 7,400 cigarettes at Wattsā residence,ā testified A. Chevral, customs officer.Ā āWatts was quite frank about it, and admitted the smuggling.
āHe brought the cigarettes across the border by peddling them in a canoe over lakes in Eastern Ontario,ā Chevral described.
āHe is a returned soldier, married, and out of a job,ā claimed defence counsel.
Magistrate Jones consulted the Act and found that it provided a penalty of a fine of from $50 to $200 and imprisonment if necessary.
āWhat was the value of the cigarettes?ā his worship asked the customs official.
āAbout $143.ā
A fine of $150 and, in default, one monthās imprisonment, was imposed.
The cigarettes, of course, will be confiscated.
Barnes was found with only $79.80 worth of American cigarettes.
Barnes admitted his guilt and a similar fine was imposed.
āBoth of them peddle the cigarettes,ā stated the crown.
To the bench an official explained the duty on a carton of American cigarettes amounted to $2.35.
Fined For Assault Henry Males was convicted and fined $25 and costs for assaulting Louie Hoffberg on July 17, after Magistrate Jones had dismissed what he termed aĀ āperjury defence.ā
According to Louie Hoffberg, 76 McCaul St., he was stopped by accused at midday.
āHe asked me why I put him in jail for 30 days, and why I put him in jail by telling the judge that I hit him first,ā stated Hoffberg.Ā āThen he hit me and knocked out a tooth.ā
Complainant was subjected to a strenuous cross-examination by Murray Keyfetz, defence counsel, who endeavored to establish that HoffbergĀ āhad often been in trouble for intimidation,ā but he met indignant denials. The climax came when counsel asked if Hoffberg had been before Judge Coatsworth yesterday.
Complainant was aghast, and in an incredulous tone he demanded:Ā āWhat, me, before the judge? You must be crazy.ā
Then came a host of witnesses, all voluble but few of them agreeing on essential facts.
Likes Feel of Guns Raffio Emilo, alias E. Miglio, likes the feel of guns, he told court. He loved to feel the smooth, shiny barrels and to fondle the guns. Probably he dreamed of Buffalo Bill and other western celebrities.
His possession of two revolvers led him to court on a charge of carrying concealed weapons.
āHe had been warned about possessing the guns before,ā a police officer testified.
The guns were ordered confiscated.
āYou had better understand that a repetition of this offence might get you five years,ā warned the court.
#toronto#police court#smuggling cigarettes#smugglers#american cigarettes#revenue act#border crossings#smuggling#contraband#customs officer#fines or jail#assault#henry males#illegal possession of firearms#gun fetishist#italian immigration to canada#italian canadians#great depression in canada#crime and punishment in canada#history of crime and punishment in canada
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Crime Update....9 Nov..ā¦.(Govind Chouhan)
Machil Ops still on, this year 25-30 militants managed to infiltrate, 140 sneaked in last year: ADG BSF.
Police move offices resume functioning in winter capital, DGP chairs officers' meets at PHQ, ZPHQ Jammu; stresses for optimum utilization of resources for enhancing capabilities and capacities of different wings.
Army officer found dead under mysterious conditions in Rajouri.
Ceasefire Violence by Pakistan In Ramgarh Sector.
Terror hideout busted in Poonch, arms and ammunition recovered.
Live hand-grenade found in Samba, defused.
Udhampur Police rescued 23 Bovine animals in a different case, 01 Smuggler Arrested.
COVID-19: 9 deaths, 460 positive cases take J&K tally closer to ONE LAKH.
Machil encounter: Bodies of three militants retrieved, to undergo medico-legal formalities, say officials.
Chairperson PWWA inaugurates Diwali Mela at Jammu, Senior Police officers, PWWA members attended the inaugural function.
Thieves arrested by jhajjarkotli police.
Bovine smuggling bid foiled at jhajjarkotli.
One died due to poison case at rs pura.
Assault case at bakshi nagar, manwal, domana, sunderbani, pargwal.
Special mining check team attacked case of janipur, accused driver arrested.
Five aspirants arrested for carrying cell phones to exam centre in Rajouri.
Kulgam man dies in Anantnag jail after brief illness.
Police Ganderbal Arrested Bootlegger, Consignment Of 75 Bottles Of Illicit Liquor Recovered.
ACB produced chargesheet against Dr. Fayaz Ahmad Banday, the then Block Medical Officer Beerwah & others in misappropriation case.
Srinagar Police solves theft case, accused arrested.
Srinagar Police recovers kidnapped girl, accused arrested.
Treasury Officer Kreeri Suspended Over Alleged Embezzlement Charges.
Illicit timber, vehicle seized in Chadoora.
ABSCONDER ARRESTED BY DISTRICT POLICE SAMBA.
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Inside the Cell Where a Sick 16-Year-Old Boy Died in Border Patrol Care ā ProPublica

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as theyāre published.
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant, was seriously ill when immigration agents put him in a small South Texas holding cell with another sick boy on the afternoon of May 19.
A few hours earlier, a nurse practitioner at the Border Patrolās dangerously overcrowded processing center in McAllen had diagnosed him with the flu and measured his fever at 103 degrees. She said that he should be checked again in two hours and taken to the emergency room if his condition worsened.
None of that happened. Worried that Carlos might infect other migrants in the teeming McAllen facility, officials moved him to a cell for quarantine at a Border Patrol station in nearby Weslaco.
By the next morning, he was dead.
In a press release that day, Customs and Border Protectionās acting commissioner at the time, John Sanders, called Carlosā death a ātragic loss.ā The agency said that an agent had found Carlos āunresponsiveā after checking in on him. Sanders said the Border Patrol was ācommitted to the health, safety and humane treatment of those in our custody.ā
But the record shows that the Border Patrol fell far short of that standard with Carlos. ProPublica has obtained video that documents the 16-year-oldās last hours, and it shows that Border Patrol agents and health care workers at the Weslaco holding facility missed increasingly obvious signs that his condition was perilous.
The cellblock video shows Carlos writhing for at least 25 minutes on the floor and a concrete bench. It shows him staggering to the toilet and collapsing on the floor, where he remained in the same position for the next four and a half hours.
According to a āsubject activity logā maintained by the Border Patrol throughout Carlosā custody, an agent checked on him three times during the early morning hours in which he slipped from unconsciousness to death, but reported nothing alarming about the boy.
The video shows the only way CBP officials could have missed Carlosā crisis is that they werenāt looking. His agony was apparent, even in grainy black and white, making clear the agent charged with monitoring him failed to perform adequate checks, if he even checked at all. The coroner who performed an autopsy on Carlos said she was told the agent occasionally looked into the cell through the window.
The video makes clear that CBP, the Border Patrolās parent agency, inaccurately described how Carlosā body was discovered. Contrary to the agencyās press release, it was Carlosā cellmate who found him, not agents doing an early morning check. On the video, the cellmate can be seen waking up and groggily walking to the toilet, where Carlos was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He gestures for help at the cell door. Only then do agents enter the cell and discover that Carlos had died during the night.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security, which includes CBP, wouldnāt say whether the scenes recorded by the camera during Carlosā final hours were shown live on video monitors, as is the case in some Border Patrol facilities, and if they were, whether anyone had been assigned to watch the footage.
The video and other records reviewed by ProPublica document numerous missteps in the days leading up to Carlosā final hours on the floor of Cell 199. Independent medical experts pointed in particular to the decision to send a 16-year-old suffering from the flu to a holding cell rather than a hospital as a pivotal mistake.
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āWhy is a teenaged boy in a jail facility at all if he is sick with a transmissible illness? Why isnāt he at a hospital or at a home or clinic where he can get a warm bed, fluids, supervised attention and medical care? He is not a criminal,ā said Dr. Judy Melinek, a San Francisco-based forensic pathologist who reviewed records of Carlosā death at the request of ProPublica. āNo one should die this way: vomiting, with a fever and without the comfort of a caregiver.ā
A CBP spokesman declined to respond to a series of questions about Carlosā death, citing an ongoing internal investigation. āWhile we cannot discuss specific information or details of this investigation, we can tell you that the Department of Homeland Security and this agency are looking into all aspects of this case to ensure all procedures were followed,ā CBP spokesperson Matt Leas said.
CBP has refused to release the video and other records of Carlosā death to the public or Congress, citing the ongoing internal investigation. But using Texas open records laws, ProPublica obtained material from the Weslaco Police Department, which briefly investigated his death. The records included surveillance video, detainee logs and health records turned over to police by Border Patrol.
Interviews and documents illustrate how immigration and child welfare agencies, while grappling with surging migrant numbers, were unable to meet their own guidelines for processing and caring for children. With holding tanks that were never equipped to house migrants for more than a few hours, the Border Patrol was inundated with families and children. Shelters for children, offering beds and medical care, were already packed.
The agency held Carlos for six days, though the agency is supposed to transfer children within 72 hours.
Carlos was the sixth migrant child to die after being detained while entering the U.S. in less than a year. Some died of preexisting illnesses, but at least two others died of the flu diagnosed while in Border Patrol custody. Carlos was the only one to die at a Border Patrol station; the others were taken to medical facilities after falling ill. In the previous decade, not a single migrant child had died in custody.
Carlosā death prompted changes to require Border Patrol agents to enter the cells of ailing detainees at regular intervals to check on them and take temperatures, according to a source familiar with the fallout.
The DHS inspector general has been investigating the circumstances of Carlosā death but has not released any findings.
Sanders, the acting head of the agency, resigned soon after the incident. He recently faulted unprepared agencies and an unresponsive Congress for a tragedy that he said was both predictable and preventable.
The deaths of Carlos and other children under his watch continue to haunt him. āI believe the U.S. government could have done more,ā he said.
Carlosā Journey
Carlos left his remote village in central Guatemala in early May. San Jose del Rodeo, home to indigenous Maya, is set in a lush landscape, and the village is a collection of tin-roofed houses and smoky outdoor cooking fires. The valleys below provide most of what little work there is, on farms growing and harvesting corn, coffee beans and sugar cane.
Carlos, the second youngest of eight children, was a standout student at the village school. He was captain of the soccer team and excelled in playing instruments the school had bought by selling raffle tickets. āHe played percussion and the bombo and the lyre and the trumpet,ā said Jose Morales Pereira, who was Carlosā teacher. āHe always said, āProfessor, letās teach everyone else.ā He was my leader.ā
Bartoleme Hernandez, Carlosā father, worked when he could planting corn or clearing land. He wore cut up tires on his feet to save his shoes for Sundays. Money was so tight that Carlos sometimes came to school with no lunch and did weekend farm work and odd jobs to help out, his teacher said.
As children, Carlos and his friends made a game of pretending to cross the border. To reach their imaginary U.S., they scaled a fence, and Carlos always played the one who made it across. The kids used guava leaves as pretend money to send to family back home, recalled a childhood friend who described the game in a Facebook post.
Two dozen or more young friends had traveled to the U.S. before Carlos. Crossing the border typically cost migrants $5,000 to $10,000 for smugglers who offer safe passage through drug cartel territory. Some migrants take out loans to fund their travel; Carlos told his teacher he might work along the way to pay his fees. He had a brother already in the U.S., and he planned to find a construction job.
Starting late last year, smugglers ran express buses up through Mexico to meet demand. A family member said Carlos and his sister traveled by bus for much of their journey. At the Rio Grande on May 13, they wore life vests and crowded onto a rubber raft with a half-dozen others.
Their parents received a video that day ā later shared with the media ā showing them casting off into the river. The siblings landed near Hidalgo at the southern tip of Texas, part of a group of 70 that was immediately rounded up by border agents.
In custody, Carlos was separated from his adult sister, as required under the law. He was assigned an alien identification number ā A203665141 ā to help agencies track him. A Border Patrol agent at the warehouselike processing center in McAllen screened Carlos for illness or injury and found none.
Migrants were supposed to be held in CBP centers for no more than three days before being deported, moved to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers or released pending a hearing. Under a 2008 anti-trafficking law, children and teenagers crossing the border illegally without parents or guardian generally must be placed with the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours, except in the case of heavy influx. Then they must be moved out as quickly as possible.
But Carlos had arrived at the peak of the surge, with 144,000 migrants apprehended in May alone. With the overflow crowds, nothing was working as it should have been. HHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were backlogged in transferring children out of CBP custody. In a spot check soon after Carlos died, the DHS inspector general reported that a third of the 2,800 unaccompanied minors in CBP custody in the Rio Grande Valley had been there longer than 72 hours.
Authorities at first questioned whether Carlos was a minor and whether the woman he was traveling with was his sister, according to a CBP source with knowledge of the matter. It took agents 48 hours to determine he was a few weeks shy of his 17th birthday, and the confusion delayed the search for HHS shelter space.
The McAllen facility where Carlos arrived on May 13 was barely fit for habitation. The DHS inspector general visited Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol facilities about a month later, as the number of apprehensions had begun to decline, and found holding pens packed well beyond capacity and other appalling conditions. The inspector generalās urgent alert to management warned that the overcrowding posed āan immediate risk to the health and safetyā of both agents and detainees, including through the spread of infectious diseases.
Border Patrol centers were designed to temporarily hold migrants and were not set up for long-term detention, which typically includes medical staff to treat detainees who become ill. The agency had a handful of emergency medical technicians assigned to the centers. In late 2018, it had only 20 medical staffers working under contract along the 2,000-mile Mexican border to monitor the health needs of 50,000 apprehended migrants a month. CBP brought in medics from the Coast Guard and other federal agencies after two children died in custody in December and as the number of border crossers in custody began to approach 100,000 a month.
At the high point of the migrant surge in May, the Border Patrol had custody of 20,000 people a day; its definition of a crisis is 6,000 detainees.
As the surge escalated and Sanders and others pressed for help, the DHS shifted $47 million for additional medical staff to its contract provider, Loyal Source Government Services. (The company did not respond to requests for comment.)
Loyal Source increased its hiring, running a stream of job ads like one seeking EMTs for screenings at the Weslaco Border Patrol station, where Carlos died, that offered full-time, part-time, day, night and weekend shifts.
The prospect of flu outbreaks was a growing concern. The CBP had rejected a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it vaccinate migrants, saying such a program was impractical and complex. Amid the crowding, Border Patrol agents, trained in law enforcement, had reluctantly stepped into care-taking roles.
If Carlos had made it to an HHS shelter, he likely would have been vaccinated for the flu, a standard procedure in HHS shelters. But when HHS finally found a bed for him, the agency postponed his relocation because he had the flu and was not fit to travel.
Carlos had been detained in McAllen for six days when he reported feeling ill.
At 1 a.m. on May 19, he saw a nurse practitioner and complained of a headache and fever. Tests showed he had type A flu and a 103-degree fever. Nurse practitioner Irasema Gonzalez gave him ibuprofen and Tylenol and ordered Tamiflu, which is a standard treatment for flu symptoms.
Gonzalezās treatment report also said Carlos should āreturn to medical office in 2 hrs or soonerā and should be taken to an emergency room if his symptoms persisted or worsened. There is no record of further medical treatment over the next 19 hours in the records obtained by ProPublica. Gonzalez didnāt respond to an inquiry from ProPublica.
Carlos was not sent to an emergency room or other outside medical facility. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said basic monitoring of Carlos should have provided warnings that he was becoming seriously ill.
āFlu can progress rapidly, but itās not like a heart attack. Even when fast, it worsens over a period of hours. There should have been signs that indicated he needed to go to the hospital,ā Sharfstein said.
Instead, records show he was moved at midday to the smaller Weslaco station, where he could be isolated with other sick detainees.
At 8 p.m. that night, Carlos was given Tamiflu at the Weslaco station by Martha Garcia, a nurse practitioner. Her treatment report didnāt record a temperature or vital signs, leaving it unclear how thoroughly he had been examined. The report said Carlos had no medical complaints and was āin no acute distress.ā Garcia didnāt respond to an inquiry from ProPublica.
The Border Patrolās āsubject activity logā from early morning on May 20 shows that Carlos was given a hot meal just after midnight. It is unclear if he was able to keep down any food. Weslaco police reports say that was the last time Border Patrol agents saw him alive.
The video of Cell 199 provided to ProPublica by Weslaco police is split into two parts, the first showing more than 33 minutes beginning about 1:13 a.m. and the second showing 1 hour and 11 minutes beginning about 5:48 a.m. Weslaco Police Chief Joel Rivera said thatās how Border Patrol provided the video to his investigators. The investigation ended after the coroner and police found no foul play in Carlosā death.
CBP didnāt respond to questions about why the tape it provided has a four-hour gap that includes the hours when an agent reported doing welfare checks.
The time stamp on the video is inaccurate, but ProPublica was able to compare it with police and emergency medical service records to estimate that the first video begins at about 1:13 a.m., about an hour after Carlos was fed.
The beginning of the video shows Carlos on the toilet in the cell, partially obscured by a waist-high privacy wall. His cellmate, another ill boy who has not been identified, is asleep under Mylar blankets on a cement bench.
Carlos returns to the cement bench opposite his cellmate about six minutes into the video and shifts uncomfortably. He moves out of the cameraās view for a couple of minutes, apparently sitting or standing next to the cellās large window.
At about 1:24 a.m., Carlos topples forward and lands face-first on the concrete floor. He is wearing blue jeans and a disposable surgical mask. For the next 11 minutes, he is largely still. At about 1:35 a.m., he vomits blood on the floor and then stands and staggers to the toilet.
The tape shows him sitting on the toilet for about a minute before he slides onto the ground. He struggles for several more minutes and then stops moving at approximately 1:39 a.m. Police photos taken after his death show a large pool of blood around his head.
The second part of the video opens at about 5:48 a.m. Carlos can be seen in the same position as he was four hours earlier. He is on his back, his head by the toilet, and his legs stretching out before him, toes up. The Border Patrolās log documenting Carlosā detention for the evening notes three welfare checks during the gap in the video, at 2:02 a.m., 4:09 a.m. and 5:05 a.m. All three log entries were attributed to Agent Oscar Garza.
Garza couldnāt be reached for comment and CBP officials wouldnāt answer questions about the extent of the welfare checks. The pathologist who performed the autopsy, Dr. Norma Jean Farley, said in an interview that she had been told the agent looked through the window but didnāt go inside Cell 199. She said it wouldnāt be unusual for a feverish child to seek comfort by laying on a cool floor.
The CBPās policies on holding detained migrants are outlined in its National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention and Search, known as TEDS. The standards are vague about welfare check requirements, saying agents should physically check holding cells in a āregular and frequent manner, according to each operational officeās policies and procedures. Physical inspections must be recorded in the appropriate electronic system(s) of record as soon as practicable.ā
At about 6:05 a.m., the tape shows, Carlosā cellmate awakens and discovers him on the floor. After about a minute, he walks over to the cell door and gets the attention of a Border Patrol agent, identified in police reports as Edgar Reyes.
The agent comes in, shines a flashlight on Carlosā body and leaves. A few minutes later, a physician assistant, Alda Martinez, comes into the cell with a medicās kit and attempts one chest compression. She quickly concluded that Carlos was dead, police reports said. Other agents walk in, stepping on silver blankets strewn around the cell. Weslaco paramedics arrive at 6:47 a.m. and declare Carlos dead.
The Border Patrol press release describing these events said āHe was found un-responsive this morning during a welfare check.ā
The autopsy report did not address how long Carlos had been dead before his cellmate found him. His body had already begun to stiffen when Martinez attempted to revive him. The process of rigor mortis can be accelerated by the flu.
John Sanders had seen the crisis on the border coming as early as November 2018. Then serving as the CBPās chief operating officer, he had worked the numbers and realized that if projections about the migrant influx held true, agencies would be woefully short of shelter space for unaccompanied minors. An interagency task force monitoring the weather conditions and movements of people in Central America projected huge migrations in the coming months.
But the Trump administration agencies responsible for handling migrants, CBP and HHS, were at odds over the problemās severity. HHS shelters were then boarding about 15,000 children, but the HHS leadership believed beds would empty out quickly thanks to a policy change reluctantly implemented by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a long battle. ICE had made it less legally risky for migrant adults to come forward to pick up children in shelters by easing mandatory fingerprinting requirement implemented in April 2018. The December 2018 policy change had increased the number of children released from HHS custody.
Still the numbers kept growing. Buses and car caravans ferried groups of 100 or more migrants at a time to the border; 111 such groups arrived in the winter and spring, compared with 13 the previous year and just two in 2017. CBP told Congress the large groups overwhelmed border security and at the same time created diversions for drug smuggling.
The Trump administration asked Congress in January for $800 million to upgrade border facilities, but it approved about $414 million, including money for a new El Paso processing center to hold children and families, renovation funds for the McAllen processing center and about $192 million for āimproved medical care, transportation, and consumablesā for those in CBP custody, according to the joint statement issued when the bill was finalized. It soon became clear it wasnāt enough.
Sanders was among the administration officials who appealed to Congress for additional funding. He predicted that without more funding, children would not be safe.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, a California Democrat who chairs the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, blamed the Trump administration for conditions that led to the deaths of Carlos and other children.
āTheir deaths should never, ever have happened. Tragically, DHS was irresponsible in not having an adequate mass migration plan to keep migrants safe, ensure their humane treatment and address their health care needs,ā Roybal-Allard said. She also criticized HHS for failing to have āa plan to ensure it could quickly and safely take custody of unaccompanied children in CBP custody.ā
In April, with the border crisis deepening daily, Sanders was named acting CBP commissioner as his boss Kevin McAleenan moved up to become acting secretary of DHS. Those would prove just interim personnel shuffles by a White House determined to harden its border policies.
The fight for money became one of Sandersā top priorities. By May, as Carlos prepared to head north, the Trump administration made the case for $4.5 billion in emergency aid, with $2.9 billion to cover a shortfall in the program for unaccompanied minors. Democrats supported the humanitarian funding but many objected to $1.1 billion for additional immigrant detention spending.
Carlosā death highlighted the need for relief. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and McAleenan, making the case for the administrationās border funding request, described deteriorating conditions in a May 30 call with reporters:
āFour hundred children arrived in the last 24 hours alone. Four of those children this month have died transiting through Mexico into the United States ā two drowning in a river, both a 5-year-old and 10-month-old; and two teenage boys died of infections after receiving medical treatment in federal custody,ā McAleenan said. āYesterday, a single group of 1,036 families and unaccompanied children simply walked from JuĆ”rez, Mexico, into the United States illegally as a single group ā the largest group ever apprehended at the border.ā
Another month would pass before a majority in Congress agreed on the humanitarian funding.
A police investigation into Carlosā death began soon after his body was discovered, the case assigned to Det. Chris Ramirez of the Weslaco Police Department. There was no sign of foul play, and Ramirez noted that Carlos showed signs of a flulike illness. The Border Patrol turned over its surveillance video for review by police and the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy.
Dr. Norma Jean Farley served under contract with the county government. Her work on Carlosā case included reviewing the timeline presented in the cell video and examining photos of his body from the death scene. Her autopsy report listed the cause of death as Influenza A 2009 H1N1 respiratory infection complicated by bronchopneumonia, sepsis and an immune system disorder called hemophagocytosis.
Farley said in an interview that the video showed that no one entered Carlosā cell between 12:20 a.m., when he was fed, and around 6 a.m., when the cellmate knocked on the door to get an agentās attention.
Farley largely defended the Border Patrolās handling of the matter and questioned why Carlos did not do more to save himself.
āI was a little surprised that this kid, as sick as he was in the cell, never just knocked on the door as his roommate did, because as soon as the roommate did, they opened,ā Farley said. āI just donāt know why he didnāt knock on the door.ā
H1N1 flu has a typical incubation period of one to four days after exposure, and Carlos was in Border Patrol custody during that time. But Farley said she suspects Carlos may have had diarrhea caused by an immune disorder on his journey through Mexico, although there was no evidence of illness in his Border Patrol medical screening record.
āIām finding what these people that tend to come there, they donāt tell them that theyāre sick. And I donāt know if theyāre afraid to tell them theyāre sick because theyāll be quarantined. I donāt know what the issue is that they donāt. He finally did, but by the time heās telling them that heās sick, heās more sick than he knows,ā she said.
Questions remain about why Carlosā grave condition was not recognized by the nurse practitioners on May 19, or before, or during his hours at Weslaco. An agency spokeswoman said investigators are looking into āall aspects of a case to ensure proper care procedures were followed.ā
The Guatemalan government brought Carlosā body home to his village to wide television news coverage, its embassy calling on the U.S. to conduct a full investigation of his death. Thousands of mourners poured in from around the country to follow behind his casket, which was borne by soccer teammates down a long dirt road to the cemetery.
Pallbearers taped his royal blue No. 9 soccer jersey to the top of his casket as they laid it to rest. āMaybe in all of his life, the 16 years that he was in this life, maybe he didnāt do many things, but he did move us,ā said a speaker at his funeral. āHe touched hearts.ā
Carlosā grief-stricken parents questioned how their son could have died in U.S. custody. His father, in an interview with Telemundo, wondered: āHe left healthy. What happened to him?ā
Carlosā father, Bartolome Hernandez, said in a phone interview he will be glad to have answers from U.S. officials. āThey need to take better care of migrants,ā he said. āThe U.S. isnāt a place where they should be allowing anyone to die like that.ā
Pereira, Carlosā teacher, said that he believes the boy was abandoned in his cell. He had not seen the video but said āIf you have an animal thatās sick and youāve kept it in a room, every little while youāre going to go check on it, see if it has water, whether itās shivering. Thatās with an animal. And this was a human being.ā
In the months that have passed, lawyers at the Texas Civil Rights Project, a migrant advocacy group, have been in touch with Carlosā family and asked the CBP to preserve its records. They say that so far they have received little information about the death investigation.
Meanwhile, in Washington, moderate House Democrats joined Republicans in passing a bipartisan Senate bill sending $4.6 billion aid to the border on June 27. The impasse was broken a day after a heart-rending photograph went viral showing a drowned father and daughter lying face down on the banks of the Rio Grande.
The border situation has changed dramatically since Carlosā death. CBP now has 250 health staffers at its facilities across the Southwest, but Border Patrol cells have largely emptied out since July. The number of migrants crossing the border has declined sharply. The Trump administration has credited the decrease to more aggressive interdiction efforts by Mexico.
Adults and families crossing the border increasingly have been sent back to Mexico under the administrationās controversial Migrant Protection Protocols program, which sends them to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities while U.S. courts consider their immigration and asylum claims.
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The number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border was 2,800 in October, a quarter of what it was when Carlos arrived in May. Still, those who work with migrants on the ground say the numbers could swell again, and HHS is building out its shelter capacity from 15,000 beds to 20,000, with emergency influx facilities that can handle thousands more.
Questions about Carlosā death and whether agencies or individuals could have done more to prevent it have yet to be fully aired. CBP has not said when the DHS inspector generalās review will be completed. Congressional committees that voiced concern about the spate of child deaths have not had access to the Carlos cell videos, pending internal agency reviews.
The death of the 16-year-old, whose Facebook page showed a circle of teenage friends, reverberated beyond the small village of San Jose del Rodeo. Friends posted video of his funeral and a village wake on social media, with emotional tributes to him. Guatemalan immigrants outside New York City held a fundraiser to help support his family, one of the goals Carlos had in coming to the U.S.
John Sanders resigned soon after the incident, frustrated with what he characterized as unprepared agencies and an unresponsive Congress that allowed children in custody to suffer in harsh conditions.
āI really think the American government failed these people. The government failed people like Carlos,ā he said. āI was part of that system at a very high level, and Carlosā death will follow me for the rest of my life.ā
Jack Gillum and Benjamin Hardy contributed to this report.
Robert Moore has been a journalist at the U.S.-Mexico border for more than 30 years and is founder of the nonprofit news organization El Paso Matters.
Susan Schmidt is an investigative reporter who formerly worked for The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. She won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting at the Post in 2006 and was part of the Post team that won for national reporting in 2002.
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100 Shadowrun Campaign/Session Ideas
In one of my more daring attempts at running one-shots, I stumbled across a system called Shadowrun. While I was hesitant to try a system that blended science fiction and fantasy, it turned out to be a truly amazing system. A relatively new addition to the RPG community (released in May of 2007), Shadowrun blends the elements of these beloved genres and turns them into a system that allows you to be anything from a spellcaster to a hacker. However, with the blending of two polarized classes of tabletop, it can be difficult to come up with scenarios to play. Itās for this reason that Iāve compiled 100 session ideas that Iāve either field tested or one day hope to try myself. Enjoy!
1) You have been hired by the government to steal a āuniversal hacking moduleā from foreign soil. If youāre caught, thereās nothing they can do to protect you. Bring it back, and youāll be rich. The twist? The government wants the module, but doesnāt want to pay up.
2) A villainous Decker has been taking over the city via the Matrix. He also challenges the Runner community to try and stop him/her.
3) You have been approached by a wealthy and bizarre collector. Ā He says that for every exotic species you capture in the Wastes, heāll pay you handsomely. 4) As a war overseas rages on, families have been losing their sons and daughters. Some are confirmed dead, others are missing in action. The militaryās resources are stretched thin and the government canāt be bothered. Therefore, Runners have been called to bring these lost soldiers back home, no matter what the cost. 5) An underdog corporation ahs been struggling to make ends meet. With every success, thereās a bigger corporation thatās stampeding their fortune into the dirt. In light of this, you have been tasked with helping this company keep its resources and to battle Runners who work for the opposition. 6) After a grueling battle between the Police, Yakuza, and the Mob, Runners have been asked to act as mercenary forces to tip the scales and to help end the war. 7) A cloning facility has been repurposed from an organ farm to a military installation. This way, armies can be made cheaply and at impressive intervals. 8) Along the coast, there are cyber pirates that are cutting off trade to and form other countries. Their numbers are too numerous for the military, and Runners are asked to step in 9) A massive earthquake shatters the city and the masses who lived in docility and comfort must entrust their lives to Runners. You must defend them against looters, escaped criminals from jail, and out of control technology 10) You have been hired by a corporation that specializes in entertainment. Meany of its stars have been receiving death threats and producers have been notoriously difficult to work with. Provide security for the talent and āconvinceā the producers to see things the directorās way 11) Technomages are extremely Ā rare and mysterious people. No one is sure how they have the ability to interface with technology without any gear, but this hasnāt stopped the government from hunting down test subjects. Either aid in the hunt for Technomages, or help them escape. 12) You are a part time Runner, part time rock star. You work for the corporations and they supply you with enough Nuyen, drugs, and excess to last a lifetime. But one day, they deem you ātoo dangerous for public consumptionā and you try to figure out whatās gone awry. 13) The space program has been recently taking in Runners to explore new planets, moons, and asteroids. The reason being that many believe runners to be expendable. Time to prove them wrong. 14) You have been tasked with finding a lawyer thatās gone missing. His wife is especially keen to find him. She tags along, and you locate him. But it turns out sheās trying to kill her husband to kill a case. Sheāll also kill you to ensure there are no witnesses 15) The party is a platoon of soldiers from the last āDesert War.ā While you fight for your country (or paycheck) by day, you make your real living at night as the owner of nightclub owner, drug lord, or leader of a crime syndicate. Being a Runner is just how you eliminate the competition 16) Thereās a sniper claiming the lives of seemingly unrelated people across the city. That is until you see that each of them is carrying part of the formula for a new drug thatās going public. 17) A legendary Runner has asked for your help protecting him and his girlfriend until they get married in a month and retire. Is this an honest attempt at starting a new life, or is he saving up money for nefarious purposes? 18) As part of a deal between the police, you are to infiltrate a gang by joining their ranks. You are to locate their leader, and to turn him into the police. In exchange, all charges against you will be expunged. But the gang leader has been keeping his identity hidden for a reason: he/she is responsible for an infant son and they are trying to escape this life 19) Ā An Occult Investigator reaches out to the victims of a recent massacre. She finds that the golden boy/girl of the local police precinct is not only the one who stopped the massacre; sheās the one who started it. But why? 20) You try to get your own corporation off the ground with a new concept. Instead of hiring runners to do your dirty work and having a primary business, Running is your primary business 21) You have been tasked with repossessing high-priority items from āspecial cases.ā Some of these include war vets with stolen weapon prototypes, or rich kids who make a game of stealing cars. 22) Robotic Concubines have been reprogrammed to kill anyone who takes them up on their services. 23) Corrupt cops have been bought off to move criminals across the city with a police escort. You have been tasked with finding proof of this criminal enterprise and to add a little extra āscrew youā message to the cops participating 24) Criminals have been fighting for ownership of the airways above the city and on the outskirts for years. But now they are hiring Runners to claim them by force. The Six Syndicates are buying up anyone they can, and this means rivalries will come to resolution and friendships will be tested 25) A series of bodies have been turning up dead in the city. Only theyāre not dead, theyāve been burned to a crisp. But why? 26) Youāve been hired to bring in ship with a manifest of explosives. Only when you arrive, you see itās a liquefied alien that consumes whoever falls into its grasp down to the last cell (typically used in criminal execution). 27) Find and acquire the best street racing vehicle for the cityās most notorious gangster, street racer, and Runner 28) A culture of Robotic Humanoids have decided they want to escape their lives in the city. Police declare this to be an attack on the public and are mobilizing. Itās up to you to either help the Robotic Runaways or to aid the police in their capture 29) A public transport vehicle has been hijacked by a Runner with a terminal illness. You are to find a way to either board the vehicle and kill him or to find a way to calm him down so no innocents are killed 30) A Holo-Cube holds all the data on every Runner that has gone into Witness Protection in the last 50 years. It has been stolen, and the government wants it back. If it stays in the wrong hands, no Runner is safe 31) It turns out that your most trusted employer was only an informant for the police. He was hiring you with police funds so they could get you to go to jail on life sentences. Break out of police custody and make this man pay for betraying you 32) A drug dealer has left his Syndicate and has made off with 100 lbs of the latest drug theyāve been developing. The bounty is staggering and every Runner wants a piece 33) A series of hybrid creatures have escaped a research laboratory and every Runner in a 100 mile radius has been tasked with capturing them and returning them. They also have a hefty reward for each creature you capture. 34) A ship of death row inmates suddenly changes course and Runners are tasked with capturing or killing some of the most dangerous criminals in the country 35) Someone has discovered a way to assassinate targets in real life by using the Matrix. You have been hired to find who it is and kill them 36) After a Runner is killed, the entire mob has become the latest target for a legendary band of Runners called the Sinner Saints. But for a job this big, theyāll need some help. Enter the party 37) A Street Samurai has been collecting debts for the Yakuza. But when a young boyās mother is taken in to help pay for some of these debts, he pays you a massive amount of Nuyen to bring her back and to take the fight to the Yakuza 38) A Rigger has been using their technological prowess to create bots that steal data and destroy the source so he/she controls all of the data in the city 39) A Runner sends a message from the local jail saying that heāll/sheāll give his/her life savings to anyone that can help break out of prison and escape execution 40) Some Runners have been operating beyond their brief, stealing from their employers. 41) A local criminal racket has been capturing young men and women and selling them to smugglers. You investigate and find that theyāre being turned into mindless concubines through horrific surgical procedures. You are then tasked with taking the operation down 42) When traveling through a nearby town, itās rumored that thereās a street killer on the loose. Heās targeting powerful fighters (war vets, heroic cops, Enforcers), and now he sets his sight son your party 43) It turns out that local graffiti is actually code for where to let loose with bombing attacks. The local gangs are desperate to find out who it is, and you have been hired to do so. This is even if the bomber is within their organization 44) A group of Net Divers have abandoned their physical lives and opted to live a life of their own design. But over time, they convince others to do the same, and all the newcomers are ending up dead 45) Youāve gone as high up as you can in the Mob. But now that youāre one of their best Runners, the time has come to āmake your bones.ā Time to make a killing and to become a blood brother of the mafia. 46) You are called to the employ of a wealthy man who runs a small town life a feudal kingdom. Everyone pays tribute, or is killed. As Runners, you must either help this tyrant accomplish his goals, or help the townsfolk escape to a more civilized part of the world. 47) A series of murders are baffling the police, and so a bounty has been placed on this killer. Runners are searching everywhere to find him, but even Runners are getting clipped when they search for him 48) A tournament has been issued to see who should take up the most harrowing Run in years. The last man/woman standing gets the job 49) A scientist from Hong Kong has hired your team to escort him out of the city. Everyone is after him from the police to the mafia 50) A businessman has hired you to break two prisoners out of an aircraft set for a ādeath by exileā destination. Little do you know that he hopes youāll free his wife and son from a false charge 51) Robots all across the city have been reprogrammed to attack humans on sight and to cry out for freedom. Youāve been tasked with find out out where the signal is coming from and to take it down at the source 52) A mega corporation wants you to test out some new weapon prototypes on Raiders in the āBadlands.ā Some of them perform better than any gun on the market. Others explode when you pull the trigger 53) Death threats have reached the executives of a mega corporation. It starts with a woman falling from the sky to her death. They also say anyone who interferes with them will meet the same fate. Therefore, they hire your team 54) A factory has been using chemicals to turn people into obedient slaves. Itās up tot eh party to break the selves out of custody and to revert them back to their original stateā¦if possible. 55) A team of Mages have joined forces in order to protect their ill and much-respected matriarch out of jai. But theyāre short handed and need some Runners 56) A Street Shaman has been selling his wares peacefully for many years. But when he/she is picked up by police, he breaks out and is trying to escape the city 57) After crash landing en route to your next job, you land in a vast desert with only a handful of stones. Stepping in the sand even for a moment could mean being devoured by Sand Burrowers. You must repair your ship and defeat Raiders to either complete your job or to get back home 58) A crime lord has shut himself off from the rest of the world and some bounties have come up for his head that Runners canāt resist. Defeat his small army and bring the reclusive don inā¦alive 59) A mega corporation has resorted to using technology to engineer famine to communities that donāt pay their taxes or āsecurity feesā in full and on time. Youāve been hired to infiltrate one of these famine-inducing installations and blowing it sky high 60) A robot has been sold to Junkers in the furthest reaches of a canyon system outside the city. Youāve been hired to infiltrate the territory, kill the Raiders protecting the unit, and recollecting the robot 61) An Info Broker wants to meet you at his home in the middle of the wilderness. But Ā when he is shot down on his doorstep, you must hack his computer and escape with the information youāve gathered 62) One of the wealthiest men/women of your century has their massive high-tech crypt been infiltrated by grave robbers and hackers. Itās fallen to you to recover as much data as possible and resealing the crypt 63) A massive reptilian creature has broken out of its confinement cell and is attacking everyone in the facility. Youāve been called to subdue the creature by any means necessary 64) A wealthy cyborg has been under investigation by police for years. But when his/her most valued employees and family members go missing, youāre tasked with finding out why. Little do you know that he/she is trying to turn everyone into robots by force! 65) A casino-district has expanded so immensely that its taken the form of a prospering city-state. The only catch is that theyāre hiding thousands of slaves beneath the surface to create cheap energy 66) An AI makes contact with you, and it is shown in the data that itās a 150-year-old distress signal. You go down into the cityās catacombs and realize that years of sunlight deficiency and reliance on cheap drugs to prevent illnesses has turned these subterranean dwellers into mindless corpses of human beings 67) You meet at a nightclub, and it turns out that the job comes to you directly. Rival gangs have been at each otherās throats for years, and now Runners are being called in because thereās talk of a massive bomb in place to end the war once and for all. You need to find it if itās there, and deactivate it 68) You are tasked with taking ot the Barrens and capturing escapees from a local prison, alive if possible. The downside is that theyāre armed with heavy machine guns, desert vehicles, and jacked up on combat painkillers 69) You are asked to draw police attention for as long as possible so a member of the Senate can escape a prison with another group of Runners. The catch is that youāve been tasked with keeping the man alive. The other team has been hired to kill him 70) You are called to gather a stolen shipment for the Natural Resource Alliance. They claim it to be ration bars that are vital to the continuation of a desert colony. But it turns out the shipment is 200 slaves, all from different races. You must decide whether to deliver them and get paid or free them and be hunted 71) An entire hospital loses power and all of its life support patients die instantly. An Occult Investigator looks into it, and is possessed by every soul that died. She becomes an avatar hell bent on killing all of the physicians until the perpetrator gives themselves up 72) A recent breakthrough in bioware has crafted some of the most powerful soldiers in decades. Bulletproof, super strong, and crazed soldiers are to be used in warzones, but are first tested on Runners 73) A Mage sends a message, pleading that any Runners that come to help her husband and daughter will receive and untold fortune. You arrive at the location she specified, and she is killed in cold blood by a small army 74) A group of small time thieves graduate from rooftop burglary to penthouse safecracking. You apprehend them (or have a Mexican standoff with them), and itās revealed theyāre doing this because people are depending on them, not because theyāre greedy 75) A con man is taking the town by storm. With a smile, he can get anyone to do exactly as he wants. Yet for all his victories, the ground is shrinking under his feet. The police give you an offer to bring him in for some serious Nuyen. Meanwhile, he offers you an apprenticeship/partnership for getting him out of dodge 76) A master hacker has called you into their service to plant a ābugā in a strategic location in the cityās wiring for the Matrix. Little do you know itās a Master Control for the entire system, and he/she wonāt hesitate to bring the city into total anarchy 77) A massive airliner has been hijacked by an unknown force. Itās up to you to discover what it is and to make the aircraft land safely. The twist? Your client is on board 78) A cult of terminally ill humanoids turn to a vampire in desperation to extend their meager lifespans. In a matter of days, he has complete control of the cityās destitute 79) The Runners are asked to be the third party in a harrowing conflict. Help kill a investigation for criminals or help complete the investigation for the police. The twist? You to notice that people are dying on both sides before they even meet in combat. It seems that two master assassins are at play. The Runners are targets, and the root of the problem lies in these two killers hiding in plain sight 80) The police have had enough of the local biker gangs. These mobile maniacs have been attacking innocent people, dismantled cars they make crash, and give the police death threats daily. The authorities have tried everything, and now you have to take the fight to them 81) Thereās a mysterious client known as Shade. He only comes to certain Runners and offers the job a lifetime, payment to last five generations of your family to live in luxury. But the job is always so dangerous, not a single Runner has come back alive when they finish the job. Now heās hiring you 82) A serial murderer has been polluting TV for months with his horrible acts of violence. The bounty on his head is now set at 100,000 Nuyen. He then messages you privately, saying that heās the one that set the bounty. He wants you to come at him with everything youāve got. All your guns, gear, and the whole crew. Take him downā¦if you can 83) One of your most trusted contacts ahs fallen victim to a gambling debt. He/she has three days to before the debt has to be paid. If they donāt, their whole life and all their loved ones go up in flames. Itās up to you to help pay the debt, save your friend, or find another way 84) After a botched attempt at robbery, your crew must lose your pursuers and find a way to lay low. Your usual hangout has been destroyed, and all of your usual contacts are being interrogated or killed. Whatever was in that safe must have been valuable. But what is it? 85) A collector is hoping to scavenge what remains of an enemy military vessel from the last war. But as you delve into it (sunken submarine, downed aircraft, or broken-down artillery carrier), you find that it holds several systems to defend itself as well as a terrible secret 86) A Street Shaman has found a way to bind a summoned spirit to his/her power indefinitely. He/she performs the spell to bring down a massive and influential gang they were part of that left him/her for dead. You have been tasked with either stopping the ritual or contributing to the rampage 87) A boss from the Triad has fallen out of favor with the rest of the organization. His advanced age and suspicious release from an extensive jail sentence raises too many questions. After a botched attempt on his life, you are to find him and take him down 88) A government official has been kidnapped and taken to an aircraft heading toward Hong Kong. The military is fighting the aircraft in an attempt to buy Runners some time. Meanwhile, itās every crew for itself as you try to get the reward for bringing the official back before other Runners do 89) A friend or fellow Runner has been hit with a grievous wound during a job. He/she pleads that you get them medical attention, but the only available medical help is short handed. You need to break into pharmacies, hospitals, or black markets to bring your friend back from the brink of death. Youāll get a bad rep for stealing from such targets, but itās their only shot 90) While spending some leisure time in the Matrix, you sense that thereās a digital ghost glitching in and out of the code. You bring it to a tech-savvy friend (or you do it yourself), and find itās a disembodied astral presence thatās calling to be returned to their body. But you donāt even know where to start. Thereās just a lien of areas where the code keeps being sent and pulled under the digital tide 91) Crazed sorcerers of a bygone age are creeping up from the gutters of your city and are taking down āfalse magesā everywhere. Desperate, the arcane community calls for the help of Runners everywhere to protect them and to discover the source of this infestation 92) Youāve been working the prison circuit for some time now as a Runner. The pay is good, the benefits are better than most, but youāve been bored of late. Luckily, a prison break occurs and the escapees are gifted combatants. Is it too good to be true, or are you just glad to have some fun again? 93) A Runner believed to be long dead has suddenly come back with a vengeance. Heās stolen from the cityās most powerful mega corporation, assassinated a mob boss, and has performed a Datasteal fro 10 million Nuyen. Could it really be the same Runner from 50 years ago, or is it someone else? Either way, the corporations, mob, and government want answers 94) A Street Samurai known as the āDemon of Japanā has come into your territory. He has been killing government officials from his nation, and youāve been hired to kill him. But when he tells you his side of the story, it becomes clear that these men were the cruelest people imaginable and their governmental stations were granted as rewards for their horrible deeds. You must choose whether to get paid or get even with the government 95) Doc Wagon is an organization that has long dedicated itself to the well-being and medical care of Runners. So why are Runners turning up missing when they enter their care? 96) While in the middle of a job, you see that a child is at the mercy of six armed thugs. But it soon turns into a battle that the child is winning. The twist? Your job is dedicated to finding an assassin stationed in the ghetto. You think itās a man stationed in Apartment B6, but itās really the young boy. The man in the apartment is just his caretaker 97) After a gang of Raiders robs a food and munitions train, the Runners are tasked with taking them in. But when you meet them in the field, you see that they are affiliated with the Mad Marauders, a fiefdom of smugglers, thieves, and murders that put city dwelling criminals to shame 98) Some Runners are looking to get their start, and so they turn to a seasoned pro: you. Theyāre willing to pay handsomely for your aid, and theyāve even promised connections for future jobs if you pull through. Is it too good to be true, or is this really your chance to teach a new generation of Runners? 99) A local gang has taken to recruiting children. Theyāre easy to convince to join a life of crime, they get a slap on the wrist for most offenses, and they rarely leave the gangs they join. Their families want them back, and the gangs leaders want to keep them. Youāve been given an offer from both sides. Choose between either freeing the children, or having them on your side in the coming gang war 100) An entire organization of Runners is trying to build an empire by Runners and for Runners only. However, they need to pull off a job before this is possible. They will need to get governmental permission, a ton of Nuyen, and will have to take over the town of Beggarās End. Itās a tall order, but if accomplished, Runners will be in business for themselves, not just governments and crime syndicates.
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About Taliesin
Name: Ā Taliesin
Age: Ā 25 (may be verse dependent)
Gender: Ā Male
Hair Color: Ā Black
Eye Color: Ā Purple
Height: Ā 5'3"
Weight: Ā 110 pounds
Faceclaim: Luke Pasqualino
Sexual Preference: Ā Asexual (but not aromantic)
Alignment: Ā Chaotic Neutral
Background:
Note, this is a TL;DR version with the recurring events and details that are shared across verses. Taliesin has no main verse and details will change from one to the next. Ā Further elaboration can be found under verses.
Taliesin was an only child, raised by his two loving parents. Ā However when he was about 8 years of age, an illness swept his community and both died. Ā While others of the community were unable to properly take him in for any extended period of time due to their own circumstances, Taliesin could often find a sympathetic family friend whoād let him sleep on the couch or give him a meal at times. Ā He was also able to get some rudimentary education as well as a result. Ā However as he grew up, he found himself on the streets more and more and had fallen in with a group of smugglers. Ā Finding the pay good, he was quite happy to do this for some odd years.
This didnāt last as long as he would have liked. Ā One of his associates ratted on them to the authorities, resulting in Taliesin being caught during a rendezvous and forced to take the fall alone. Ā He spent a few months in jail before escaping and killing at least one guard in the process. Currently, heās on the run from the law and is plotting to take his revenge on his former associates who betrayed him.
Personality:
One thing I want to make very, very clear in this section, is that Taliesin will almost always act with his own best interests in mind. Ā This leads to him being a complete and utter asshole far more often than not. Ā Heās heavily motivated by money, and if the price is right he will do it, no matter how sadistic or depraved the job may be. Ā Considering he has a smuggling and thieving background, he tends to be rather stealthy and persuasive/deceptive rather than outright antagonistic and combative. Ā When faced with physical combat, he prefers to stay out of melee range and hit from some sort of distance and will use a variety of weapons, improvised ones not being uncommon. Ā While he doesnāt like being called a coward, the term is not an inaccurate description for him. Ā Also, while he may not say a whole lot, the words that are spoken tend to be rather sarcastic and biting.
Appearance:
Taliesin tends to be on whatās generally considered the smaller side, at about 5'3" and has a slight build. Ā He has long black hair that is shoulder length, purple eyes, and is often seen wearing dark clothes. Ā As an elf, he has long pointed ears with about seven piercings going along the top of each one. Ā These are not the only piercings he has, as there are two other rings in his left eyebrow.
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Sex Offenders, Dangerous Criminals Apprehended Crossing into U.S.
Border Patrol brokers alongside the southwest border with Mexico arrested a couple of intercourse offenders and different unhealthy criminals making an attempt to go into the U.S. illegally. The arrests got here all the way through a three-day length finishing on Monday. Agents assigned to the Del Rio Station apprehended a person who illegally crossed the border from MexicoĀ on August 25. The brokers transported the person to the Del Rio Station the place they performed a biometric background investigation. The brokers recognized the person as Francisco W. Rodriguez-Garcia, a 35-year-old Mexican nationwide, in line with data acquired from Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officers. Further investigation exposed a legal historical past and former deportation movements by way of immigration officers. A court docket in Garland, Texas, convicted Rodriguez-Garcia for criminal annoyed sexual attack of a kid below the age of 14 in 2005. After serving 9 years in a Texas jail, immigration officials deported him to Mexico in 2014. He now faces federal prosecution for unlawful re-entry after removing as an annoyed felon. If convicted at the rate belowĀ eight USC § 1326, he may just withstand 20 years in a federal detention center. āCriminals will keep trying to enter further into the United States and make their way into our communities,ā Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz stated in a written commentary. āThis is how our men and women of the Border Patrol keep our communities safe from predators like this.ā The following day, Laredo Sector brokers assigned to the Laredo North Station arrested a deadly gang member all the way through a foiled human smuggling try. The brokers assigned to the Interstate 35 Immigration Checkpoint seen a Ford pickup truck drawing near for inspection. A Ok-Nine agent alerted to the imaginable presence of gear or human shipment within the rear of the truck. The agent referred the driving force to a secondary inspection station, in line with Laredo Sector Border Patrol officers. During a secondary inspection, brokers discovered a person hiding in a locked toolbox. The brokers got rid of the person from the harmful hiding position the place he had no way of break out within the tournament of an coincidence or being deserted by way of the smuggler. The brokers interviewed the person and made up our minds him to be a Mexican nationwide illegally provide within the United States, officers reported. They arrested the migrant and the driving force on immigration and human smuggling violations. The brokers later carried out a background take a look at at the guy and found out heās a member of theĀ Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos gang. Agents seized the car and became each suspects over to Homeland Security Investigations, a department of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Also that day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials assigned to the Roma Port of Entry apprehended a person getting back from Mexico to the U.S. whoās sought after for an alleged intercourse crime in opposition to a kid in Edinburg, Texas. The brokers to begin with referred the person, 62-year-old Felix Jorge Reynoso Martinez, a criminal resident alien, to a secondary inspection station because of a imaginable remarkable warrant. The brokers fingerprinted the person and showed that Reynoso Martinez is sought after by way of the Edinburg Police Department in connection for an allegation of indecency with a kid involving sexual touch. The officials became the person over to Hidalgo County prison officers who will procedure the warrant. Elsewhere at the border, Tucson Sector Border Patrol brokers arrested a Honduran nationwide who illegally crossed the border on Monday close to Nogales, Arizona. During a background take a look at, the brokers realized court docket in Gwinnet County, Georgia, convicted 30-year-oldĀ Elvin Javier Maldonado-Gomez for statutory rape in 2013. After serving 5 years of a jail sentence, immigration officials got rid of him to Honduras. Maldonado-Gomez now faces federal criminal fees for unlawful re-entry after removing as a convicted intercourse culprit. He additionally may just withstand 20 years in jail if convicted. El Centro Sector Border Patrol brokers arrested a gang member and a convicted sexual predator all the way through the previous week as smartly. Agents assigned to the Calexico Station arrested a 38-year-old Mexican nationwide after he illegally crossed the border from Mexico at the morning of August 25, officers reported. A information take a look at recognized the person asĀ Francisco Mancedo-Vargas, a in the past deported convicted intercourse culprit. Immigration officials deported the Mexican nationwide on June 6. āHere we have a case of an illegal alien who was convicted of a heinous crime against a child and in less than two monthsā time tries to re-enter the United States illegally,ā El Centro Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Ryan J. Scudder stated in a written commentary. āMancedo, a convicted sexual predator was arrested by our agents and thanks to them, he will not be allowed to prey on other innocent children.ā Officials say heās the 20th intercourse culprit arrested by way of El Centro Sector Border Patrol brokers this yr. During the afternoon of August 24, El Centro Sector brokers assigned to the Calexico Station additionally stopped a member of the harmfulĀ SureƱo gang from effectively re-entering the U.S. Agents witnessed the person, a 35-year-old Mexican nationwide, illegally crossing the border 12 miles east of the Calexico Port of Entry, officers mentioned. During a background take a look at and immigration interview, the person confessed to being aĀ SureƱo gang member. Criminal information published court docket in California convicted the person for āShooting at an Inhabited Dwelling.ā The court docket sentenced the person to 10 years in state jail. Immigration officials got rid of him from the U.S. in 2014. The Mexican nationwide gang member is being held pending federal prosecution for unlawful re-entry after removing. In overall, Border Patrol brokers apprehended thee in the past deported males with convictions for sexual offenses in opposition to kids, one guy sought after for indecency with a kid together with sexual touch, and two unhealthy gang contributors all the way through a 3 day length.
Bob PriceĀ serves as affiliate editor and senior political information contributor for theĀ Breitbart Texas-Border workforce. He is an authentic member of the Breitbart Texas workforce. Follow him on TwitterĀ @BobPriceBBTXĀ andĀ Facebook.
from Moose Gazette https://ift.tt/2LeYIPo via moosegazette.net
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Inside Libyan detention āhellā where refugee burned himself alive | News
It has been practically three weeks since Abdulaziz, a 28-year-old Somali, doused himself in petrol earlier than burning himself to loss of life in Triq al Sikka migrant detention centre in Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Different detainees, who witnessed what occurred, stated he killed himself shortly after a go to from the United Nations Refugee Company (UNHCR), claiming officers had instructed him he had no likelihood of being evacuated from Libya.
Abdulaziz had been within the detention centre for 9 months, and felt utterly hopeless, they stated.Ā
āFirst he began in secret, then he was shouting, individuals have been operating, then it was already over,ā stated one detainee in regards to the suicide, including that others tried to avoid wasting him, however it was too late.
The UNHCR says the Somaliās loss of life had nothing to do with their go to, and Abdulaziz was scheduled for evacuation to Niger subsequent month, although it is not clear why he hadnāt been instructed about it.
Within the following days, refugees collected small quantities of cash, despatched from their households, to purchase espresso, biscuits, and candles, and rejoice his life.
Nevertheless, their ideas rapidly turned to who would possibly die subsequent.
1000ās of refugees and migrants are presently being held in indefinite detention by Libyaās Division for Combatting Unlawful Migration (DCIM). Many have been deported again to Libya after the boats they have been on, en path to Italy, have been intercepted by the EU-funded Libyan coastguard.Ā
Amongst them are individuals from Somalia, Eritrea, or Sudan; international locations at battle or dictatorships the place gross human rights abuses are happening.
They are saying they can not go dwelling, and needs to be evacuated to a protected nation.Ā
Of the centres in Libyaās capital, Tripoli, Triq al Sikka, which holds greater than 400 individuals, is frequently described by refugees and migrants as one of many worst, due to the degrees of neglect and abuse.
āIt is similar to hell,ā one former detainee stated. āAn abomination.ā
āDay and evening is identical for usā
Al Jazeera has spoken to 6 present and former detainees in Triq al Sikka. Some say theyāve stayed so long as a yr, whereas others escaped throughout latest clashes within the metropolis. Calls to DCIM went unanswered.
Detainees described spending day-after-day at the hours of darkness, with guards who will not go close to them, for concern of contracting illness. āDay and evening is identical for us,ā one man stated.
Previously few months, the scenario has reached a disaster level. For 3 weeks, detainees say these contaminated with tuberculosis have been given no treatment, after workers from the Worldwide Rescue Committee (IRC), which has offered medical care there since early September, turned fearful they have been contracting the illness.
The Lust for Libya: How a Nation was Torn Aside | The Massive Image
Now, they concern each male has it. One detainee described a person coughing blood beside him. āCould God assist him. Yesterday they took him to the entrance door however the guards stated there isnāt any physician. So the quantity (of sick individuals) might improve, except thereās a resolution. We live by the ability of God.ā
Thomas Garofalo, IRC Libya nation director, stated workers have been āoverwhelmed.āĀ
āWe had been working with the Nationwide Centre for Illness Management to doc and diagnose circumstances of TB, and we try to try this however the circumstances within the centre are simply not ample, that is the issue.ā
He stated IRC has identified 25 circumstances of TB in Sikka, and those that have been deemed contagious have been eliminated and remoted, however this course of was suspended final week after workers examined constructive for TB. Theyāre conscious the illness could now be spreading.
āThe issue is just not unmanageable, however Libya cannot or will not deal with it, and we want different international locations, on a humanitarian foundation, to supply assist and supply asylum if wanted, or at the very least to work with the Libyan authorities in order that we will have extra humane therapy of those individuals.ā
The format of the centre means greater than 200 males and older teenage boys are all crammed into one darkish corridor, with virtually 230 ladies and youngsters in one other, extra open, space. Sick individuals are saved with everybody else.
Detainees are primarily Eritreans and Somalis, thought there are additionally Ethiopians, Sudanese, Yemenis, Syrians and South Sudanese, they are saying.
Amongst them are roughly 30 married . Husbands and wives can meet and converse for about ten minutes every week, in accordance with detainees. āAt that second, the guards (stand) about one metre from you,ā one commented. āYou get afraid to the touch one another as a result of they do not love. The police do not prefer it.ā
Abdulaziz, the Somali man who killed himself, was married, and his spouse stays within the centre. There are additionally youngsters there, together with new child infants.
Others locked up are pining misplaced loves; one man instructed Al Jazeera of his girlfriend who died within the Sahara desert on the way in which to Libya.
Detainees stated that, in addition to TB, individuals frequently undergo from fevers, kidney issues, and numerous different illnesses.
Some are disabled from accidents acquired earlier on the migration route.
āIf I spend time extra right here it means Iām ready to die, as a result of the scenario could be very dangerous,ā one man stated.
Present and former detainees say there have been anyplace between seven to twenty deaths in Triq al Sikka this yr.Ā Ā Al Jazeera was unable to verify these deaths with any organisation working there.Ā
āOnce they die, (the guards) simply take the physique and that is it,ā stated one man, including if migrants did not maintain their very own remembrances or attempt to inform households, ānobody would do somethingā.
As proof of the tight maintain on data coming from the centre, telephones are strictly forbidden. Three former detainees stated theyād by no means ask guards to contact the household of somebody who died, for concern of being dropped at a small room and overwhelmed with metals or sticks, or disadvantaged of meals.Ā
When international guests come to Sikka, detainees stated injured or tortured individuals are hidden in the back of the corridor, put sitting between buses, or locked within the guardsā bogs. Three former detainees stated that UN workers all the time name earlier than they arrive, and guards warn detainees āshould you say one thing adverse about us we are going to torture youā.
A international journalist who visited Triq al Sikka final yr confirmed he witnessed beatings there, and that it āgave the impression to be a punishmentā.Ā
āLibyan guards donāt care about these individuals in any respect. That was clear to me throughout each place I visited. They actually did appear to contemplate these individuals like animals,ā he stated.Ā
In late August, heavy combating broke out in Tripoli, as rival militias vied for management of the capital. In the course of the clashes, a missile fell near Sikka, and within the chaos some detainees escaped. However others, together with these with wives and youngsters, thought it was higher to remain the place they have been moderately than danger being on the streets, the place they might be killed or kidnapped.
Although a ceasefire was reached, detainees say they nonetheless hear occasional combating. āEverybody has weapons and on a regular basis weāre listening to the sounds of weapons,ā one man stated.
In the course of the combating, medical groups monitoring TB circumstances misplaced observe of a few of these contaminated, in accordance with IRCās Garofalo. The sounds of warfare additionally added to the trauma suffered by individuals who have already been via torture by smugglers, extortion and abuse alongside the path to Libya and the frustration of being returned from the Mediterranean after they tried to flee.Ā
Trauma means some detainees have begun to speak to themselves, sleep in the bathroom, get indignant, or āplay with soiled issues,ā one detainee instructed Al Jazeera.
āYou already know jail could be very delicate for the thoughts. Whenever you keep a very long time with out something in jail itās important to grow to be loopy or die. This jail could be very, very onerous for human beings.āĀ
When requested what was the worst factor they noticed in Sikka, former detainees have been unanimous. They stated it was when guards promote detainees to smugglers.
āThese Libyans solely consider you as an trade,ā one stated.Ā
Accused of working with smugglers
Human rights teams, together with Amnesty Worldwide, have beforehand accused the Libyan authorities of working with smugglers.
Different detainees say they really feel their solely hope is to return to unlawful routes, although figures from September present just one in ten migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean from Libya are making it to Europe.
āI havenāt got hope to evacuate by UNHCR,ā an Eritrean stated. āI solely know that Iāll pay cash and check out once more to the ocean.ā
All detainees Al Jazeera spoke to stated they realise that spending all day in cramped quarters, with little vitamin and poor sanitation, could have well being implications that might stick with them for all times.
One man stated he feels his face and physique now look ten years older than his precise age, due to all he is been via.
āThis jail will get very soiled inside, there is not any place to stroll, so for 24 hours weāre sitting,ā he stated.
āDue to the scarcity of meals, clear water, no treatment and never sufficient sleeping house, itās extremely soiled with a nasty odor. We stayed a very long time with out recent air, daylight and no communication with our households and others,ā he added.
āI miss outdoors a lot.āĀ
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from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/inside-libyan-detention-hell-where-refugee-burned-himself-alive-news/
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