Month: April 2018

A group of about 50 Central American migrants remain in limbo at a U.S. border crossing after U.S. border inspectors said the port of entry did not have enough space to accommodate them.

The migrants, who traveled in a caravan to try to seek asylum in the United States, awoke Monday near the border crossing facility in Tijuana, Mexico. On Sunday, the migrants were stopped from entering the San Ysidro facility because officials said it was at capacity.

It is not clear how long the migrants might need to wait to be seen by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials. Another 50 to 100 migrants camped in Tijuana say they also plan to try to cross the U.S. border and seek asylum.

Organizers of the caravan say they want the most vulnerable cases to cross the border first, including children under threat.

Many of the migrants are women and children. They are part of a group of several hundred people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who spent a month traveling in a caravan through Mexico.

The migrants walked Sunday to the El Chaparral pedestrian crossing wearing white arm bands to distinguish themselves from others at the busy border site.

Nicole Ramos, a lawyer working with the migrants, said they plan to tell border officials they are afraid to return to their home countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his administration have been tracking the caravan of migrants, calling it a threat to the United States, since it started March 25 in the Mexican city of Tapachula, near the Guatemala border.

Trump sent hundreds of National Guard troops to the border after railing against the migrants and pressuring Mexico to stop the caravan, going as far as to threaten the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico rejected the pressure from Trump. Instead, it gave the migrants a one-month transit pass to decide if they want to seek refuge in Mexico, go back home or keep moving toward the United States.

The weeks-long journey by the so-called caravan is an annual, organized trip aimed at drawing attention to the plight of destitute Central Americans. The tradition dates back to 2010.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said asylum claims will be resolved “efficiently and expeditiously.” But she warned that any asylum-seekers making false claims could be prosecuted, as could anyone who assists the migrants in doing so.

Asylum seekers must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution at home. The vast majority of those who apply for asylum in the United States are denied. Those who pass an initial “credible fear” screening are assigned a date in immigration court that is often months away.

Trump administration officials say many of those migrants skip their court dates and try to live illegally in the United States. Trump has urged Congress to change what he calls “catch and release laws” to prevent migrants from entering the country before their asylum cases have been heard.
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Attendees at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Dallas can carry their firearms — except during the forum where President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence speak Friday.

A White House official said Monday that Trump will attend Friday. Pence had already been slated to speak at Friday’s leadership forum,

The NRA has said on its website that due to Pence’s attendance, the U.S. Secret Service is responsible for security then. It’s standard for the Secret Service to bar firearms from being carried into places visited by the people they protect, regardless of state laws.

Some students at the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were killed in February criticized the NRA on social media for what they see as hypocrisy.

Guns were also banned during Trump’s appearance at the NRA’s annual meeting in Atlanta last year.

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump is assailing the White House correspondents’ annual dinner celebrating the country’s free speech guarantees after a comedian performing at the affair unleashed a string of barbed jokes aimed at Trump and his aides.

Trump skipped last Saturday’s black-tie event at a Washington hotel for the second year in a row in favor of holding a political rally with his supporters in Michigan. But since then, he has railed against one of his favorite targets — the journalists who cover his presidency on a daily basis.

This time, some of the reporters apologized for the acerbic humor of comedian Michelle Wolf, saying the jokes exceeded the unwritten boundaries of such political gatherings. But Trump took to Twitter Monday to declare the dinner “dead.”

Earlier, he said last year’s dinner was “a failure.”

In a 19-minute string of at times raunchy jokes, Wolf skewered Trump for his alleged 2006 affair with an adult film actress and a hush money payment to keep her quiet before the 2016 election.

She also minimized the size of Trump’s vast wealth, poked fun at the high turnover of his key appointments that has consumed the first 15 months of his presidency, and impugned his prowess in the bedroom.

But it was Wolf’s attack on the daily press briefings by Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders that drew the most post-dinner comment. Some reporters said Wolf crossed the lines of civility and apologized to Sanders afterward.

Sanders, seated on the dais a couple of chairs away from Wolf, sat unsmiling through the comedian’s biting humor aimed at her, but did not walk out as did a pair of husband-and-wife conservative Trump supporters offended by Wolf’s humor.

In one joke, the 32-year-old Wolf said of Sanders, “She burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye.”

In another, Wolf described Sanders as an “Uncle Tom, but for white women who disappoint other white women,” a derogatory term originating in a 19th century novel depicting an extremely loyal enslaved black man.

As the tumult over Wolf’s jokes mushroomed, Margaret Talev, a Bloomberg News White House correspondent who contracted Wolf for the dinner, issued a White House Correspondents’ Association statement.

The dinner, it said, “was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people. Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.”

As criticism mounted, Wolf defended her routine.

“All these jokes were about her despicable behavior,” the comedian said on Twitter.

And then Wolf posted a picture of herself, captioned, “Not in the spirit of the mission.”
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Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari is slated to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington Monday.

The two leaders are expected to discuss the threat of terrorism and economic growth in Africa’s most populous country of almost 200 million people.

Nigeria has been plagued by extremist group Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency nine years ago with the aim of creating an Islamic State. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and hundreds of school girls kidnapped, as the group gained notoriety and spread to neighboring countries, posing one of the most severe threats to West Africa’s Sahel region in recent years.

Last year, the Trump administration approved a $600 million sale of high-technology attack planes and equipment to support Nigerian military operations against Boko Haram and IS terrorists and to monitor drugs, weapons and human trafficking.

The deal was stalled under the Obama administration amid concerns of human rights violations in the West African country.

As Buhari faces re-election, he is expected to lobby the United States for further military support to fulfill his campaign promise of eradicating Boko Haram.

In addition to seeking greater security collaboration, Buhari and Trump also will “discuss ways to enhance the strategic partnership between the two countries and to advance shared priorities, such as promoting economic growth,” Nigerian presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said in a statement.

Buhari, along with South African president Jacob Zuma, was among the first African leaders that Trump spoke with on the phone upon taking office.

But relations between the two countries have faced challenges over the past year. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired just hours after his visit to Nigeria on the highest-level U.S. visit to Africa since Trump took office.

In January, Nigeria joined a list of outraged African countries demanding an explanation from the U.S. ambassador from Trump’s reported vulgar comments referring to African countries.

In December, Nigeria was among a group of United Nations countries who condemned Trump’s controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
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A mystery is brewing at the White House about what happened to the oak tree President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron planted there last week.

The sapling was a gift from Macron on the occasion of his state visit.

News photographers snapped away Monday as Trump and Macron shoveled dirt onto the tree during a ceremonial planting on the South Lawn. By the end of the week, the tree was gone from the lawn. A pale patch of grass was left in its place.

The White House hasn’t offered an explanation.

The oak sprouted at a World War I battle site that became part of U.S. Marine Corps legend.

About 2,000 U.S. troops died in the June 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood, fighting a German offensive.

 
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear Sunday that President Donald Trump plans to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal next month unless it is “fixed” to the U.S. liking.

Pompeo, in the Middle East on his first overseas trip as the top U.S. diplomat, said, “President Trump’s been pretty clear, this deal is very flawed. He’s directed the administration to try and fix it and if we can’t fix it he’s going to withdraw from the deal. It’s pretty straightforward.”

Speaking in Israel, he said that “unlike the past administration, President Trump has a comprehensive Iran strategy that is designed to counter the full array of threats emanating from Tehran.”

En route from Saudi Arabia to Israel, Pompeo told reporters that he had briefed Riyadh’s leaders on U.S. talks with European officials on efforts to end Iranian missile tests and combat Tehran’s military involvement in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in the Mideast. He said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have a “common challenge in Iran,” but that “there’s still some work to do” in crafting any changes to the 2015 nuclear deal or in creating a new pact.

For its part, Iran has said it has no intention of altering the deal it agreed to with Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia and the U.S. in any way or agreeing to a new nuclear pact.

Trump faces a May 12 deadline whether to reimpose economic sanctions against Iran, pulling the U.S. out of the deal agreed to by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Trump stands alone among the six signatories to the accord in threatening to abrogate it.

In Tel Aviv, Pompeo, after meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the U.S. remains “deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation of threats towards Israel and the region.”

Earlier, in Riyadh, the new secretary of state said, “Iran destabilizes this entire region. It supports proxy militias and terrorist groups. It is an arms dealer to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It supports the murderous Assad regime [in Syria] as well.”

Pompeo stressed the need for unity among Persian Gulf allies of the U.S. to show support for new sanctions against Iran unless new restrictions are imposed on Iran’s nuclear program.

In Saudi Arabia, Pompeo’s senior policy adviser, Brian Hook, who is accompanying Pompeo, called on European allies and other countries to impose sanctions on Iran to weaken its missile program.

“We are urging nations around the world to sanction any individuals and entities associated with Iran’s missile program, and it has also been a big part of discussions with Europeans,” Hook told reporters in Riyadh.

The three-day trip also includes a stop in Jordan.

In Brussels on Friday, Pompeo said he had discussed the nuclear deal with his NATO counterparts.

Pompeo is said to be more “hawkish” on the Iranian government than his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, who wanted the U.S. to stay in the Iran nuclear agreement.

Tillerson was abruptly fired by Trump last month, just hours after returning from a trip to Africa. Trump said he and Pompeo are much more “on the same wavelength” on Iran and other issues.

 
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that airstrikes on Syria, conducted by the U.S., Britain, and France on April 14, were a violation of international law and indicated that the Western powers were trying to destroy the peace process.

Lavrov, speaking after meeting in Moscow with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts, said such “attempts to … destabilize the situation” encourage the extremists in Syria to go on with their armed struggle.

Lavrov and his counterparts said they agreed that Syria’s territorial integrity should be preserved, while accusing the United States of plans to “reformat” the Middle East and divide Syria into parts.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif said there was no military solution to the Syrian crisis. He also said that Iran condemned the use of chemical weapons and hoped that the investigation of an alleged Syrian attack on its own people would uncover the truth. He also said anyone who supported Iraq when it used chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s had no right to criticize Syria today.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country, too, supported Syrian territorial integrity and, with allies Iran and Russia, hoped ultimately to find a political solution to the crisis. He said “some groups” had tried to undermine that work, and he urged all parties to contribute to the peace process instead.
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U.S. President Donald Trump called for the resignation Saturday of Democratic Senator Jon Tester for raising concerns about Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ronny Jackson, who withdrew his name from consideration on Thursday.

Jackson, who is the White House physician and a Navy Rear Admiral, dropped his bid Thursday to head the country’s second-largest federal agency as lawmakers probed allegations of professional misconduct and excessive drinking.

In a pair of tweets, Trump wrote the allegations “are proving false” and that Tester, who represents the western state of Montana, should step down.

Trump blamed Tester for the demise of Jackson’s nomination after Tester said Wednesday that 20 current and former members of the military familiar with Jackson’s office had told lawmakers that he drank on the job. They also said Jackson oversaw a toxic work environment and handed out drug prescriptions with little consideration of a patient’s medical background.

Jackson said if the allegations “had any merit, I would not have been selected, promoted and entrusted to serve in such a sensitive and important role as physician to three presidents over the past 12 years. Going into this process, I expected tough questions about how to best care for our veterans, but I did not expect to have to dignify baseless and anonymous attacks on my character and integrity.”

The White House presented documents to reporters from an administration official who claims they exonerate Jackson from the accusations of inappropriately dispensing medication and crashing a government vehicle after a Secret Service going away party.

Jackson was fast losing support in Congress.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers indefinitely postponed Jackson’s scheduled Wednesday confirmation hearing as they investigated the allegations.

Several news outlets reported that Jackson was known as the “candy man” for over-prescribing drug prescriptions, while CNN said that in one 2015 incident Jackson drunkenly banged on the hotel room door of a female employee in the middle of the night on an overseas trip. The U.S. Secret Service intervened to stop Jackson, according to the report, so then-President Barack Obama, sleeping in another hotel room, would not be awakened.

Jackson gained a degree of fame unusual for White House physicians earlier this year when he took questions from the White House press corps on national television, describing at length about Trump’s health after conducting the president’s physical exam.

Trump, the oldest first-term president in American history, was plagued at the time by questions about his physical health, weight and mental stability. But Jackson gave the president a top rating. “The president’s overall health is excellent,” Jackson declared at the time.

Trump unexpectedly picked Jackson to replace a holdover from the administration of former president Obama, David Shulkin, whom Trump fired. Several lawmakers have complained that the White House did not properly vet Jackson’s background before Trump announced Jackson’s appointment.
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President Donald Trump was betting on a big crowd and a friendly reception at a Saturday evening rally in Michigan – one of the states in the Upper Midwest that Hillary Clinton counted on in 2016 but saw slip away.

In fact, Trump was the first Republican presidential nominee to capture Michigan since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

“Look forward to being in the Great State of Michigan tonight,” Trump said in a tweet hours before the event in Washington Township, Michigan, which is about 40 miles north of Detroit.

He also tweeted: “Major business expansion and jobs pouring into your State. Auto companies expanding at record pace. Big crowd tonight, will be live on T.V.”

Also scheduled to air on cable television Saturday night was a Washington tradition that Trump says he’s happy to skip: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Trump said in a fundraising pitch from campaign that he had come up with something better than being stuck in a room “with a bunch of fake news liberals who hate me.”

He said he would rather spend the evening “with my favorite deplorables.”

During the 2016 campaign, Clinton drew laughs when she told supporters at a private fundraiser that half of Trump supporters could be lumped into a “basket of deplorables” – denouncing them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”

Clinton later did a partial rollback, said she had been “grossly generalistic” and regretted saying the label fit “half” of Trump’s supporters. But she didn’t back down from the general sentiment.

Trump soon had the video running in his campaign ads, and his supporters wore the “deplorable” label as a badge of honor.

Macomb County, the site of Trump’s rally, is among the predominantly white counties known as a base for “Reagan Democrats” – blue-collar voters who abandoned the Democratic Party for Ronald Reagan, but who can be intriguingly movable.

Democrat Barack Obama won the county twice in his White House runs, then Trump carried it by more than 11 percentage points.
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Former Democratic Gov. Philip Hoff, who’s credited with starting Vermont’s transition from one of the most Republican-entrenched states in the country to one of the most liberal, has died. He was 93.

Hoff, who became the first Democrat elected governor of Vermont in more than 100 years in 1962, died on Thursday, according to The Residence at Shelburne Bay, where he had been living.

“Phil Hoff forever changed the state of Vermont,” said Steve Terry, a former journalist who helped write a biography titled “Philip Hoff: How Red Turned Blue in the Green Mountain State.” ”His influence in the 1960s has molded and created the Vermont many of us know today.”

During his six years in office, Hoff helped start a process that evolved into the state’s environmental movement. He focused on reducing pollution and cleaning up the state’s rivers and streams.

He also emphasized education reform and helped revamp the state’s judicial system.

Hoff’s policies helped refocus state government on meeting the needs of residents, a philosophy embraced by his Republican successor, Deane C. Davis.

The office has alternated between Democratic and Republican governors since Hoff was elected.

At the mid-point of the 20th century, Vermont remained one of the most Republican states in the country. The state was dominated by a couple of political families, but Hoff shook up the staid Vermont political structure.

He became governor when the state was under a federal court mandate to reapportion the state House, where each of the state’s 241 cities and towns were represented by a single person, no matter the community’s population.

“The people of Vermont have clearly said that they don’t want to continue with the old ways, and if we fail to respond to forces at work in our society, we face a bleak future,” Hoff said at his 1963 inaugural address.

“I loved it any time he came into the office because there was a sense of vibrancy and life,” said U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who joined Hoff’s Burlington law firm after graduating from law school in 1964. Two years later, Hoff appointed Leahy as Chittenden County state’s attorney, a post he held for eight years, until his 1974 election to the U.S. Senate.

“I’d see the governor all the time,” Leahy said. “I was the star-struck young lawyer in his office. I’d see people staying in the halls, just waiting to say hi to him. We’d have meetings with him. It was exciting.”

Philip Henderson Hoff was born on June 29, 1924, in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. He took time off from Williams College to serve in the Navy during World War II and returned to Williams after the war. He graduated and went on to law school at Cornell University before moving to Burlington in 1951.

Hoff first ran for office in 1958 for a seat on the Burlington Board of Aldermen. He was defeated.

Two years later, he was elected to the Vermont House after running what Terry called “a minimalist campaign.” He had no campaign literature of his own and instead handed out brochures promoting the presidential candidacy of U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

After one term in the Legislature, Hoff won the race for governor in 1962 after he campaigned on the need for change and to end 100 years of one-party rule.

Hoff was briefly considered as a vice presidential candidate in 1968 but withdrew his name when it became clear his friend, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, was being considered. Hoff ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970, but lost to the incumbent GOP Sen. Winston Prouty.

Hoff returned to the Legislature in 1982 after being elected to the state Senate. He served three, two-year terms.
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