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Texas Sheriff Investigating Migrant Flights To Martha’s Vineyard

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By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 20, 2022

A San Antonio-area sheriff is investigating two flights out of his county last week, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed responsibility for.

A Texas sheriff on Monday opened an investigation into two flights of migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but did not say what laws may have been broken in putting 48 Venezuelans on private planes last week from San Antonio.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, an elected Democrat, railed against the flights that took off in his city as political posturing. But he said investigators had so far only spoken to attorneys representing some of the migrants and did not name any potential suspects who might face charges.

He also did not mention DeSantis in a news conference that appeared to mark the first time a law enforcement official has said they would look into the flights.

“I believe there is some criminal activity involved here,” Salazar said. “But at present we are trying to keep an open mind and we are going to investigate to find out what exact laws were broken if that does turn out to be the case.”

Related StoryMore Migrants Arrive In D.C. As White House Slams Republican GovernorsMore Migrants Arrive In D.C. As White House Slams Republican Governors

DeSantis’ office responded with a statement that said the migrants had been given more options to succeed in Massachusetts.

“Immigrants have been more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves,’” DeSantis spokesperson Taryn Fenske said. “Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them, as we expected.”

The Venezuelan migrants who were flown to the wealthy Massachusetts island from San Antonio on Wednesday said they were told they were going to Boston. Julio Henriquez, an attorney who met with several migrants, said they “had no idea of where they were going or where they were.”

He said a Latina woman approached migrants at a city-run shelter in San Antonio and put them up at a nearby La Quinta Inn, where she visited daily with food and gift cards. She promised jobs and three months of housing in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, according to Henriquez.

Salazar said the migrants had been “preyed upon” and “hoodwinked.”

Some Democrats have urged the Justice Department to investigate the flights, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose district includes San Antonio.

A federal investigation might be complicated, however. It’s not clear whether anyone boarded buses or planes unwillingly, or that their civil rights were violated. The rights of asylum seekers arriving to the U.S. are also more limited because they are not citizens. The Constitution, though, does protect them from discrimination based on race or national origin and from improper treatment by the government.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: TRENDING Tagged With: Associated Press, Boston, Buses, California, Democrats, Discrimination, Flights, Florida, Food, Gavin Newsom, Government, Housing, Jobs, Justice Department, Law, Massachusetts, National, New York, Philadelphia, Race, Ron DeSantis, San Antonio, Texas, Washington, York

More Migrants Arrive In D.C. As White House Slams Republican Governors

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By Newsy Staff

and Associated Press
September 17, 2022

More than 50 migrants were bused to the home of Vice President Kamala Harris, while New York officials expected at least six more buses to arrive.

Another wave of migrants arrived at the nation’s capital and New York City on Saturday as the White House continues to criticize Republican governors in Texas, Florida and Arizona for what it calls a “political stunt.”

More than 50 migrants were bused to the home of Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday while New York officials expected at least six more buses to arrive by the end of the day.

Related StoryFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis Sends Migrants To Massachusetts By PlaneFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis Sends Migrants To Massachusetts By Plane

The White House hammered the Republican governors of Texas and Florida for arranging for the transport of migrants to Democratic strongholds in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in recent months.

But the latest surprise moves – which included two flights to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday paid for by Florida – reached a new level of political theater that critics derided as inhumane.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the flights to Martha’s Vineyard were part of an effort to “transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”

President Joe Biden criticized the move, saying “Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke to reporters Friday as the migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard were being moved to housing on a military base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

“These are the kinds of tactics we see from smugglers in places like Mexico and Guatemala,” Jean-Pierre said. “And for what? A photo-op. Because these governors care about creating political theater, then creating actual solutions to help folks who are fleeing communism, to help children, to help families.”

Massachusetts is planning to activate as many as 125 National Guard members to assist.

In New York, Mayor Eric Adams says shelters are at their breaking point due to the influx of migrants.

In total, there have been nearly two million encounters along the southern border this year, which is already over 200,000 more than last year.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: POLITICS, TRENDING, US Tagged With: Arizona, Associated Press, Breaking, Buses, Chicago, Children, Communism, Eric Adams, Flights, Florida, Guatemala, Housing, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Massachusetts, Mexico, Military, National, New York, New York City, PAID, Politics, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, Texas, Theater, Transport, Washington, York

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Sends Migrants To Massachusetts By Plane

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Republican governors sent more migrants to Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis took part in the latest tactic Republican governors have employed to push back on what they view as President Biden and Congressional democrats’ inaction on the migrant crisis. DeSantis sent two charter planes Wednesday carrying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard — a popular vacation spot off the coast of Massachusetts.

“The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they all of a sudden go berserk and they’re so upset this was happening,” DeSantis said.

The planes, which were carrying roughly 50 migrants including children, arrived around 3pm with no warning, according to local officials. 

Earlier this summer, Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas began sending buses full of migrants apprehended at the southern border to Washington D.C., often with no warning. 

“In any one sector in the state of Texas, we have more than 5,000 people coming across that sector every single day,” Abbott said.

Related Story129 More Migrants Arrive In New York City From Texas129 More Migrants Arrive In New York City From Texas

On Thursday, two buses carrying migrants also arrived at the U.S. Naval Observatory — the vice president’s official residence in Washington D.C. Those buses came from Del Rio, Texas.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public health emergency last week in order to redirect more resources to support the thousands of migrants who have arrived in the nation’s capital from Texas and Arizona. And just last month, Texas Gov. Abbott began sending migrants to New York and Chicago as welll. 

Illinois governor JB Pritzker issued a disaster proclamation and has tapped the state’s national guard to help handle the hundreds of migrants being sent from Texas. 

“Let me be clear: while other states may be treating these vulnerable families as pawns, here in Illinois, we are treating them as people and when a person comes urgently seeking help here in Illinois we offer them a helping hand,” Pritzker said.

Nearly a dozen busloads of immigrants have arrived in recent weeks in Chicago, with some migrants being relocated by the state to hotels in the suburbs — angering local mayors. 

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called on the Biden administration to provide more federal assistance in light of Texas’ action. 

“Governor Abbott’s racist and xenophobic practices of expulsion have only amplified the challenges many of these migrants have experienced on their journey to find a safe place,” Lightfoot said.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: POLITICS, TRENDING, US Tagged With: Arizona, Buses, Chicago, Children, Florida, Greg Abbott, Health, Hotels, Illinois, Light, Massachusetts, Mayors, National, New York, New York City, Ron DeSantis, State, Summer, Texas, Washington, York

U.S. Moved Online, Worked From Home More Often As Pandemic Raged

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New data offers the first reliable glimpse of life in the U.S. during the COVID-19 era, as the 1-year estimates from a 2020 survey were unusable.

During the first two years of the pandemic, the number of people working from home in the United States tripled, home values grew and the percentage of people who spent more than a third of their income on rent went up, according to survey results released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Providing the most detailed data to date on how life changed in the U.S. under COVID-19, the bureau’s American Community Survey 1-year estimates for 2021 showed that the share of unmarried couples living together rose, Americans became more wired and the percentage of people who identify as multiracial grew significantly. And in changes that seemed to directly reflect how the pandemic upended people’s choices, fewer people moved, preschool enrollment dropped and commuters using public transportation was cut in half.

Related StoryCensus Data Shows America Is More Racially DiverseCensus Data Shows America Is More Racially Diverse

The data release offers the first reliable glimpse of life in the U.S. during the COVID-19 era, as the 1-year estimates from the 2020 survey were deemed unusable because of problems getting people to answer during the early months of the pandemic. That left a one-year data gap during a time when the pandemic forced major changes in the way people live their lives.

The survey typically relies on responses from 3.5 million households to provide 11 billion estimates each year about commuting times, internet access, family life, income, education levels, disabilities, military service and employment. The estimates help inform how to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending.

Response rates significantly improved from 2020 to 2021, “so we are confident about the data for this year,” said Mark Asiala, the survey’s chief of statistical design.

While the percentage of married-couple households stayed stable over the two years at around 47%, the percent of households with unwed couples cohabiting rose to 7.2% in 2021 from 6.6% in 2019. Contrary to pop culture images of multigenerational family members moving in together during the pandemic, the average household size actually contracted from 2.6 to 2.5 people.

People also stayed put. More than 87% of those surveyed were living in their same house a year ago in 2021, compared to 86% in 2019. America became more wired as people became more reliant on remote learning and working from home. Households with a computer rose, from 92.9% in 2019 to 95% in 2021, and internet subscription services grew from 86% to 90% of households.

The jump in people who identify as multiracial — from 3.4% in 2019 to 12.6% in 2021 — and a decline in people identifying as white alone — from 72% to 61.2% — coincided with Census Bureau changes in coding race and Hispanic origin responses. Those adjustments were intended to capture more detailed write-in answers from participants. The period between surveys also overlapped with social justice protests following the killing of George Floyd, who was Black, by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020 as well as attacks against Asian Americans. Experts say this likely lead some multiracial people who previously might have identified as a single race to instead embrace all of their background.

“The pattern is strong evidence of shifting self-identity. This is not new,” said Paul Ong, a professor emeritus of urban planning and Asian American Studies at UCLA. “Other research has shown that racial or ethnic identity can change even over a short time period. For many, it is contextual and situational. This is particularly true for individuals with multiracial background.”

Related StoryCensus: Federal Relief Programs Kept People Out Of Poverty In 2020Census: Federal Relief Programs Kept People Out Of Poverty In 2020

The estimates show the pandemic-related impact of closed theaters, shuttered theme parks and restaurants with limited seating on workers in arts, entertainment and accommodation businesses. Their numbers declined from 9.7% to 8.2% of the workforce, while other industries stayed comparatively stable. Those who were self-employed inched up to 6.1% from 5.8%.

Housing demand grew over the two years, as the percent of vacant homes dropped from 12.1% to 10.3%. The median value of homes rose from $240,500 to $281,400. The percent of people whose gross rent exceeded more than 30% of their income went from 48.5% to 51%. Historically, renters are considered rent-burdened if they pay more than that.

“Lack of housing that folks can afford relative to the wages they are paid is a continually growing crisis,” said Allison Plyer, chief demographer at The Data Center in New Orleans.

Commutes to work dropped from 27.6 minutes to 25.6 minutes, as the percent of people working from home during a period of return-to-office starts and stops went from 5.7% in 2019 to almost 18% in 2021. Almost half of workers in the District of Columbia worked from home, the highest rate in the nation, while Mississippi had the lowest rate at 6.3% Over the two years, the percent of workers nationwide using public transportation to get to work went from 5% to 2.5%, as fears rose of catching the virus on buses and subways.

“Work and commuting are central to American life, so the widespread adoption of working from home is a defining feature of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Michael Burrows, a Census Bureau statistician. “With the number of people who primarily work from home tripling over just a two-year period, the pandemic has very strongly impacted the commuting landscape in the United States.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: TRENDING Tagged With: Adoption, Associated Press, Buses, Census, Census Bureau, Commuting, COVID-19, Culture, Design, Disabilities, Education, Family, George Floyd, Home Values, Homes, Housing, Income, Industries, Internet, Military, Minneapolis, Mississippi, Moving, New Orleans, PAID, Pay, Police, Poverty, Race, remote learning, Research, Restaurants, Subways, Theme parks, Transportation, United States, urban planning, Wages, Working from home

Steve Bannon Charged With Money Laundering In Border Wall Scheme

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By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 8, 2022

Trump’s former White House strategist faces money laundering and conspiracy charges for duping donors in the “We Build The Wall” project.

Former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon surrendered Thursday to face state money laundering and conspiracy charges in New York alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.

Prosecutors say that while Bannon promised donors all the money they gave would go to building the wall, he was involved in funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to two other people involved in the scheme. The indictment didn’t identify those people by name, but the details match those of Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in April.

Bannon’s state-level charges in New York stem from the same alleged conduct as an attempted federal prosecution that ended abruptly, before trial, when Trump pardoned Bannon on his last day in office. Manhattan prosecutors also charged WeBuildTheWall, Inc., a nonprofit entity that Bannon and others allegedly used to solicit donations.

Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses. In Bannon’s case, any double jeopardy argument would likely fall flat because his federal case didn’t involve an acquittal or conviction.

Bannon, 68, arrived at the Manhattan district attorney’s office shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday.

“This is an irony,” Bannon told reporters as he entered the building.

“On the very day the mayor of this city has a delegation down on the border, they are persecuting people here, that try to stop them at the border,” he said, referring to a recent trip by New York City officials to Texas.

“This is all about 60 days from the day,” he said, referring to the upcoming national election in November.

In an earlier, written statement, Bannon accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of pursing “phony charges” against him ahead of the midterm election, saying the Democratic prosecutor targeted him because Bannon and his radio show are popular among Trump’s Republican supporters.

Bannon said federal prosecutors “did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election,” referring to his arrest months before Trump’s reelection loss. “This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”

In 2020, federal agents pulled Bannon from a luxury yacht off the Connecticut coast and arrested him on charges he pocketed more than $1 million in wall donations. Prosecutors alleged thousands of investors were tricked into thinking all of their donations would go toward the border wall project, although Bannon instead paid a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself.

Related Story129 More Migrants Arrive In New York City From Texas129 More Migrants Arrive In New York City From Texas

The states of Texas and Arizona recently began busing asylum-seekers to New York and Washington D.C. in an attempt to ratchet up political pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration to stop people from crossing into their states from Mexico. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently dispatched a fact-finding team to Texas, partly to find out whether migrants were getting on the buses voluntarily.

While the wall Bannon’s group proposed was to be built on the U.S. southern border, more than 1,000 miles from the Big Apple, Manhattan prosecutors have jurisdiction to pursue charges against Bannon because some donors to the effort lived in New York.

Federal prosecutors, in the trial of a former Bannon co-defendant, noted that some residents of the New York City area had donated to the wall-building project. One witness that testified was an official with the charities bureau of the New York attorney general’s office who said that a charity backing the wall project had filed paperwork to accept donations in the state. The attorney general’s office is also involved in Bannon’s state criminal case.

Bannon, who had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, was dropped from the federal case when Trump pardoned him.

Kolfage and Badolato had been scheduled to be sentenced this week, but that was recently postponed to December. A third defendant’s trial ended in a mistrial in June after jurors said they could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Related StorySteve Bannon Convicted Of Contempt Charges In Jan. 6 CaseSteve Bannon Convicted Of Contempt Charges In Jan. 6 Case

In another case not covered by Trump’s pardon, Bannon was convicted in July on contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces up to two years in federal prison.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: POLITICS, TRENDING, US Tagged With: Apple, Arizona, Associated Press, Buses, Charities, Connecticut, Eric Adams, Mexico, Money, Money Laundering, National, New York, New York City, PAID, Radio, State, Steve Bannon, Texas, Washington, York

Why Are School Buses Yellow?

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The history of why school buses are yellow.

There used to be no rules for school transportation. 

Kids went to school in horse-drawn wagons and some districts had red white and blue buses, to instill patriotism.  

That changed with this guy: Frank Cyr.  

He was a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University. 

In 1939 he put together a conference focused on the school bus. 

He brought together teachers and transportation experts, engineers and, yes — paint specialists. 

They came up with 42 pages worth of school bus regulations, among them: a yellow hue. 

They decided on yellow because black letters were the easiest to see with a yellow background, and yellow stood out even in bad weather. 

In fact, the color is now officially known as “national school bus glossy yellow.” 

Federal law does not require all school buses to follow this practice, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does list it among its recommendations. 

Every day, 480,0000 school buses drive kids to school across the U.S.  

They go in different directions, and drop off at different schools, but you can always count on that yellow color being the same. 

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: TRENDING Tagged With: Buses, Color, Columbia University, History, Law, Letters, National, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, safety, Schools, Transportation, Weather

Woman Describes Frequent Sex With R. Kelly Before She Was 18

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Jane — the pseudonym for the woman central to R. Kelly’s trial — said she was 15 when they first had intercourse. Kelly would have been around 30.

A woman who has been central to R. Kelly’s legal troubles for more than two decades testified Thursday that the R&B singer had sex with her “hundreds” of times before she turned 18 years old, starting when she was 15.

Jane — the pseudonym for the now 37-year-old woman at Kelly’s trial on child pornography and obstruction of justice charges — told jurors that in the late 1990s when she was 13, she asked the Grammy award-winning singer to be her godfather because she saw him as an inspiration and mentor.

She said within weeks, Kelly would call her and say sexual things. She said he first touched her breasts and other parts of her body when she was around 14 at a Chicago recording studio, and that around that time, he “started penetration” at his home at his North Side Chicago home. She told jurors she was 15 when they first had intercourse. Kelly, 55, would have been around 30 years old at the time.

Asked by a prosecutor how she would know what to do sexually, Jane answered, “He would tell me what to do.” Asked how many times they had sex before she turned 18, she answered quietly: “Uncountable times. … Hundreds.”

Kelly, who is serving a 30-year prison sentence for his conviction in a New York this year on federal charges alleging he used his fame to sexually abuse fans, is standing trial in his hometown of Chicago on several other federal charges. Among the most serious is conspiracy to obstruct justice by allegedly rigging a 2008 trial on state child pornography charges stemming from a purported video of him and Jane having sex when she was underage. Among other things, prosecutors say Kelly paid off and threatened Jane to ensure that she didn’t testify at that trial. She didn’t, and he was ultimately acquitted.

Kelly is also standing trial on charges of producing child pornography and enticing minors for sex.

Unlike at the 2008 trial, Jane cooperated with prosecutors leading up to the current trial and is a pivotal witness.

Speaking softly and tentatively when she first took the stand Thursday, Jane described her upbringing in a musical family in a Chicago suburb, including that she was home-schooled because she was in a touring musical group that she joined when she was about 12.

Jane first met Kelly in the late 1990s when she was in junior high school. She had tagged along to Kelly’s Chicago recording studio with her aunt, a professional singer who worked with Kelly. Soon after that meeting, Jane told her parents that Kelly was going to be her godfather.

Prosecutors have said Kelly shot the video of Jane in a log cabin-themed room at his North Side Chicago home between 1998 and 2000. In it, the girl is heard calling the man “daddy.” Federal prosecutors say that she and Kelly had sex hundreds of times over the years in his homes, recording studios and tour buses.

Kelly, who rose from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a star singer, songwriter and producer, knew a conviction in 2008 would effectively end his life as he knew it, and so prosecutors say he conspired to fix that trial.

According to prosecutors, Kelly told the parents and Jane to leave Chicago, paying for them to travel to the Bahamas and Cancun, Mexico. When they returned, prosecutors say Kelly sought to isolate Jane, moving her around to different hotels. When called before a state grand jury looking into the video, Jane, her father and mother denied it was her in it.

Tears streamed down his faced on June 13, 2008, when he was acquitted on all counts of child pornography. Some of the jurors told reporters after the trial that they weren’t convinced that the female in the video was who state prosecutors said she was.

Before the 2008 trial, Kelly carried a duffle bag full of sex tapes everywhere he went for years, but some tapes later went missing, according to court filings. In the 2000s, bootleg copies of some videos appeared on street corners throughout the U.S.

In the early 2000s, the aunt showed the parents a copy of a video she said depicted their daughter having sex with Kelly. When they confronted Kelly, he told them, “You’re with me or against me,” a government filing says.

The parents took it as a threat.

Kelly, who has denied any wrongdoing, has been trailed for decades by complaints and allegations about his sexual behavior. The scrutiny intensified after the #MeToo era and the 2019 six-part documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.”

Kelly also faces four counts of enticement of minors for sex — one each for four other accusers. They, too, are expected to testify.

Prosecutors told jurors that the evidence includes at least three videos showing Kelly having sex with underage girls.

Two Kelly associates, Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, are co-defendants. McDavid is accused of helping Kelly fix the 2008 trial, while Brown is charged with receiving child pornography. Like Kelly, they also have denied wrongdoing.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: TRENDING Tagged With: Associated Press, Bahamas, Buses, Chicago, Child Pornography, Documentary, Family, Government, Homes, Hotels, Mexico, Moving, New York, PAID, Pornography, Poverty, R&B, Sex, State, travel, York

129 More Migrants Arrive In New York City From Texas

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The New York City mayor’s office says 129 people arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal Wednesday looking for asylum in the U.S.

Dozens of migrants continue to arrive in Washington D.C. and New York City by bus, being shipped from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott as a protest to what he has called President Joe Biden’s “irresponsible open border policies.” 

Visibly exhausted, dozens of migrants — adults, children, babies — waited for help at a bus station in midtown Manhattan after the three-day, hundreds-of-miles-long trip.

Most of them are from Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Haiti or West Africa.

Pedro Gutierrez is one of the thousands. He arrived in Manhattan last week. He says it took him almost two months to make it to the U.S.-Mexico border after he left Venezuela. He described crossing a jungle where he feared for his life, witnessing death, abuse and robberies to migrants.

Gutierrez planned for Miami, Florida to be his destination, but authorities in Texas told him he was going to get the help in New York to travel to south Florida.

A week later, however, he’s still in New York.

Manuel Castro, commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, says the mayor is concerned about the treatment migrants are receiving on these long trips.

“Gov. Abbott is weaponizing the situation, and he’s using human beings to make a political statement,” Castro said. “We were learning that there’s armed security on these buses. Apparently, the state of Texas has hired a private security firm. People need to be treated with dignity, with humanity.”

Castro says the Texas governor’s move is meant to keep migrants from hopping off the buses before they arrive in New York.

The New York City mayor accuses the Texas authorities of forcing migrants into the “Big Apple” when in some cases their final destination is another state.

“They’re asked to sign these documents under duress that say that they want to come to New York and that they waive certain rights, and people don’t know exactly what they’re signing off,” Castro said.

In Texas, the governor’s office says the migrants are traveling to New York voluntarily. However, Gov. Abbott also recently announced he was busing migrants from the Mexican border to New York City in what he calls a response to the Biden administration’s open border policies overwhelming Texas communities. The migrants are receiving food, clothing, medical care and legal assistance.

“It’s very devastating to see small kids making long journeys to the border and then from the border to be bused this way, very troubling,” said Alexander Rapaport, executive director of Masbia Relief Team. “Some people came without any shoes, just barefoot.”

The migrants released from federal custody after they crossed the border were able to avoid deportation — for now. They are given paperwork allowing them to remain in the U.S. and ordering them to appear before a judge to make their case for asylum.

Castro told Newsy they have assembled a group of immigration lawyers ready to assist the migrants. 

Some of them have upcoming court appearances in other states and were brought to New York City instead, so if they decide they want to remain in the state, they have to change their court dates. But for those who will continue their journey, local organizations are offering financial support to purchase their travel tickets.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: POLITICS, TRENDING, US Tagged With: Africa, Apple, Buses, Children, Colombia, Communities, Cuba, Deportation, Florida, Food, Greg Abbott, Haiti, Miami, New York, New York City, Protest, State, Texas, travel, Venezuela, Washington, York

R. Kelly Accuser To Give Key Testimony On Trial-Fixing Charge

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A woman, who was 14 when R. Kelly was said to have produced a video of them having sex, will testify in his latest trial.

R. Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago that starts Monday is in many ways a do-over of his 2008 state child pornography trial, at which jurors acquitted the singer on charges that he produced a video of himself when he was around 30 having sex with a girl no older than 14.

There’s one big difference: This time, prosecutors say, she will testify.

Kelly goes into Chicago federal court already sentenced by a New York federal judge to 30-year prison term for a 2021 conviction on charges he parlayed his fame to sexually abuse other young fans.

Among the most serious charges the Grammy Award winner faces at his federal trial is conspiracy to obstruct justice by rigging the 2008 trial, including by paying off and threatening the girl to ensure she did not testify.

Testimony by the woman, now in her 30s and referred to in filings only as “Minor 1,” will be pivotal. The charges against Kelly also include four counts of the enticement of minors for sex — one count each for four other accusers. All are also slated to testify.

Even just one or two convictions in Chicago could add decades to Kelly’s New York sentence, which he is appealing. With the New York sentence alone, Kelly will be around 80 before qualifying for early release.

Prosecutors at the federal trial plan to play the same VHS tape that was “Exhibit No. 1″ at the 2008 trial. While it was the only video in evidence 14 years ago, at least three other videos will be entered into evidence at the federal trial.

Prosecutors say Kelly shot the video of Minor 1 in a log cabin-themed room at his North Side Chicago home between 1998 and 2000 when she was as young as 13. In it, the girl is heard calling the man “daddy.” Federal prosecutors say that she and Kelly had sex hundreds of times over the years in his homes, recording studios and tour buses.

Before the 2008 trial, Kelly carried a duffle bag full of sex tapes everywhere he went for years, but some tapes later went missing, according to court filings. In the 2000s, bootleg copies of some videos appeared on street corners across the U.S.

Kelly, who rose from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a star singer, songwriter and producer, knew a conviction in 2008 would effectively end his life as he knew it.

On June 13, 2008, Kelly shut his eyes tight and bowed his head as jurors returned from deliberations. As a court official read the jury’s decision and it became clear Kelly would be acquitted on all counts, tears streamed down his cheeks and he said over and over, “Thank you, Jesus.”

Two Kelly associates, Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, are co-defendants in Chicago. McDavid is accused of helping Kelly fix the 2008 trial, while Brown is charged with receiving child pornography. Like Kelly, they have also denied any wrongdoing.

Double jeopardy rules bar the prosecution of someone for the same crimes they were acquitted of earlier. But that shouldn’t apply to the Chicago federal trial because prosecutors are alleging different crimes related to Minor 1, including obstruction of justice for fixing the 2008 trial.

Minor 1 first met Kelly in the late 1990s when she was in junior high school. She had tagged along to Kelly’s Chicago recording studio with her aunt, a professional singer working with Kelly’s music. Soon after that meeting, Minor 1 told her parents Kelly was going to be her godfather.

In the early 2000s, the aunt showed the parents a copy of a video she said depicted their daughter having sex with Kelly. When they confronted Kelly, he told them, “You’re with me or against me,” a government filing says.

The parents took it as a threat.

“Minor 1’s mother did not want to go up against Kelly’s power, money, and influence by not following what he said,” the filing adds.

Kelly told the parents and Minor 1 they had to leave Chicago, paying for them to travel to the Bahamas and Cancun, Mexico. When they returned, prosecutors say Kelly sought to isolate Minor 1, moving her around to different hotels.

When called before a state grand jury looking into the video, Minor 1, her father and mother denied it was her in it. Prosecutors say an attorney for Kelly sat in on their testimony and reported back to Kelly what they said.

Prosecutors from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office chose to push ahead with charges and to take the case to trial in 2008 despite what they knew was a major hurdle: their inability to call the girl in the video to testify.

Any confidence Kelly may have had of beating similar charges a second time were likely dashed when he learned Minor 1 was now cooperating the government. With more resources, federal prosecutors also boast conviction rates of more than 90% compared to around 65% for their state counterparts.

In 2008, his lawyers argued the man in the VHS video who appeared very much to be Kelly was not Kelly. They showed jurors that Kelly has a large mole on his back, then played excerpts of the video in which no mole was visible on the man.

One of Kelly’s attorneys, Sam Adam Jr., told jurors during closings that no mole on the man’s back meant one thing: “It ain’t him. And if it ain’t him, you can’t convict.”

Some 2008 jurors told reporters after the trial that they weren’t convinced the female in the video was who state prosecutors said she was.

That shouldn’t be an issue at the Chicago federal trial. Prosecutors say both the girl and her parents will testify.

What defense Kelly’s legal team will present this time isn’t clear.

The defense is likely to say Kelly’s accusers are misrepresenting the facts. Kelly was more blunt in a 2019 interview with Gayle King of “CBS This Morning,” saying about the women: “All of them are lying.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: TRENDING Tagged With: Associated Press, Bahamas, Buses, CBS, Chicago, Child Pornography, Government, Homes, Hotels, Lying, Mexico, Money, Moving, Music, New York, Pornography, Poverty, Sex, State, travel, Women, York

The Biden Administration To End ‘Remain In Mexico’ Border Policy

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President Biden and his administration are ending the “Remain in Mexico” border policy, that the Trump administration started.

Since 2019 migrants trying to win asylum in the U.S. have waited out their cases in Mexico, under the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols.  

The policy, instituted during the Trump administration, included about 70,000 migrants, who critics say were sitting ducks in dangerous drug cartel-dominated Mexican border cities. 

The Biden administration sought to do away with the policy when it assumed control. But lawsuits by Republican-controlled states, namely Texas and Missouri, blocked winding down the policy until the Supreme Court sided with the White House in July.  

The U.S. government is still expelling the vast majority of migrants who cross the southwest border illegally under the pandemic-related public health order called Title 42.  

From October of 2021 until June, the Department of Homeland Security says it has recorded almost 1.75 million encounters with migrants along the southwest border. Many of those are repeat attempts to gain entry into the U.S.  

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has spent billions along the border, deploying state police and the National Guard to try to enforce immigration laws at a state level.  

He’s also ordered the busing of some migrants, those who are allowed to stay after crossing into the U.S. under humanitarian exemptions.  

They are coming from cities like Del Rio or Eagle Pass, Texas, which have scant infrastructure to cope with migrant relief, to places like New York and Washington D.C.  

Reports show that in May and June the state spent more than a million dollars sending thousands of migrants out of Texas to, “bring the border to Biden.” 

KXA in Dallas reported that the trips amounted to $1,400 per person. 

An immigrant rights advocate in Washington says the idea behind the busing is mean-spirited and in reality has the opposite effect the governor intended.

Abel Nuñez is the executive director at Central American Research Center in D.C.

“It’s a political stunt. It’s a cruel political stunt because he’s basically weaponizing, you know, immigrants and aiming them at,” said Nuñuz. “The immigrants in the buses, when they realize, you know, that they’re kind of political pawns, on sort of a larger argument. They may not be happy about that, but they’re happy that they’re closer to their final destination.”

: newsy.com

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Filed Under: POLITICS, TRENDING, US Tagged With: Biden administration, Buses, Cities, Dallas, Government, Greg Abbott, Health, Infrastructure, Mexico, Missouri, National, New York, Police, Policy, Research, State, Texas, Trump administration, Washington, York

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