Texas

Media Advisory: Charles Schwab Bank and FHLB Dallas to Present $16K to Fort Worth Nonprofit

FORT WORTH, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Charles Schwab Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) will award $16,000 in Partnership Grant Program (PGP) funds to Housing Opportunities of Fort Worth (HOFW) during a ceremonial check presentation at the HOFW offices in Fort Worth, Texas. The media is invited to attend.

HOFW helps low- to moderate-income families access and maintain affordable homeownership. The organization works with clients one-on-one to provide homebuyer education and loan counseling.

PGP awards provide 3:1 matches of member contributions to provide grants up to $12,000 per member to help promote and strengthen relationships between Community-based organizations (CBOs) and FHLB Dallas members. The PGP also complements the development activities fostered by FHLB Dallas’ Affordable Housing and Community Investment programs.


WHAT:				Check presentation for HOFW

WHEN:				2:30 p.m., Monday, October 3, 2022

WHO:				Andrea Glispie, Senior Manager, Community Development, Charles Schwab Bank
				David O’Brien Jr., Executive Director, HOFW
				Melanie Dill, Community and Economic Development Product Manager, FHLB Dallas

WHERE:				HOFW main office 1065 West Magnolia Avenue Fort Worth, TX, 76104

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U.S. Department of Energy Extends Fluor-led Savannah River Site Management and Operating Contract through September 2027

IRVING, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has extended the Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS) management and operating contract at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina. The extension includes 4 years with an additional 1-year option. The total reimbursable contract value is $12 billion for 5 years, and Fluor will book its 4-year, $4.5 billion portion in the third quarter.

SRNS will continue uninterrupted management and operations activities at the site.

“This extension represents the DOE’s confidence in our performance to help safeguard our nation’s security and deliver on the important mission at the site,” said Tom D’Agostino, group president of Fluor’s Mission Solutions business. “We are continually improving efficiencies to accelerate program objectives and lower costs while also delivering capital projects of every scale. Our success is the result of a constant focus on the safety and security of our workers and protecting the surrounding communities and the environment.”

Work performed at the Savannah River Site includes environmental management and the cleanup of legacy materials, facilities and waste remaining from the Cold War. The site also supports and maintains the nuclear weapons stockpile as well as processing and storing nuclear materials in support of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

About Fluor Corporation

Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) is building a better future by applying world-class expertise to solve its clients’ greatest challenges. Fluor’s 41,000 employees provide professional and technical solutions that deliver safe, well-executed, capital-efficient projects to clients around the world. Fluor had revenue of $12.4 billion in 2021 and is ranked 259 among the Fortune 500 companies. With headquarters in Irving, Texas, Fluor has provided engineering, procurement and construction services for more than 110 years. For more information, please visit www.fluor.com or follow Fluor on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

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U.S. Schools Will Now Carry Overdose Medication

Los Angeles public schools will stock campuses with the overdose reversal drug naloxone in the aftermath of a student’s death.

The nation’s second-largest school district will now start carrying a medication to reverse opioid overdoses.

It’s a terrifying sign of the times after seven teens overdosed, one of them dying on campus.

“Our system has been deeply impacted by the injury to some students and the death of at least one student as a result of an unacceptable level of availability of narcotics and opioids in our community,” said Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.

The LA Unified School District isn’t alone. Hartford, Connecticut schools started carrying naloxone after a seventh-grader died in January.

Schools near Vail, Colorado have also been carrying the medication as of this school year. The same goes for schools in parts of Oregon and Texas.

All over the country, there’s a rush to stock schools with a life-saver as more young high schoolers die taking fentanyl-laced drugs.

“They’re even packaging it in colored pills, presumably to make it attractive to a younger and younger group,” said Chief Greg Dull, at Excelsior Springs, Miss. Police Department.

In Kansas City Sarah Manser put up a billboard trying to get parents’ attention after her son died from fentanyl poisoning.

“He was kind, he called me mama. I miss that, you know,” said Manser. “If I can even stop one person from overdosing, I will definitely.”

In nearby Clay County, Missouri, detectives are trying desperately to stop the flow of pills into teen groups and schools.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my 24 years. Ever. So that’s the hard part. You know, I hate to say it but it’s almost triage, that’s the way we’re dealing with it right now,” said Michael Nelson, a detective at Clay County, Miss. Sheriffs’ Office.

The DEA is trying to raise awareness among parents and kids about dealers hawking pills on social media.

What might just seem like illegal painkillers, are laced with fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

“Your kid could be on social media or in their bedroom, where you think they’re safe, ordering an illicit pill that’s ultimately gonna lead to an overdose and to them being killed,” said Orville Greene, a special agent in charge at the Detroit Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

In schools the education is paying off.

Heather Guilkey is a Missouri school district administrator.

“We would have lost one of our students,” said Guilkey.

At a school near Kansas City, a nurse treated a students’ overdose only because a teacher knew what to look for.

“You hear about these things; you just don’t think it will happen in your school,” said Guilkey.

It’s proof that education works. It’s just a matter of stopping the drug’s flow.

That’s something that’s taxing law enforcement at the southern border.

“We’re finding packages floating in gas tanks and in drive shafts, we’re getting people carrying strapped to their body. Even inside human bodies,” said Michael Humphries, the Nogales Port director for U.S. Customs And Border Protection.

It’s frustrating law enforcement from California to Florida and everywhere in between. It’s coming down hard on the country’s kids and students who should be getting textbooks, not overdose treatments.

Source: newsy.com

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McCarthy Unveils House GOP’s Midterm Agenda In Pennsylvania

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy on Friday directly confronted President Joe Biden and the party in power, choosing battleground Pennsylvania to unveil a midterm election agenda with sweeping Trump-like promises despite the House GOP’s sometimes spotty record of delivering and governing in Congress.

McCarthy, who is poised to seize the speaker’s gavel if Republicans win control of the House in the fall, hopes to replicate the strategy former Speaker Newt Gingrich used to spark voter enthusiasm and sweep House control in a 1994 landslide.

The House GOP’s “Commitment to America” gives a nod to that earlier era but updates it for Trump, with economic, border security and social policies to rouse the former president’s deep well of supporters in often-forgotten regions like this rusty landscape outside Pittsburgh.

“What we’re going to roll out today is a ‘Commitment to America’ in Washington — not Washington, D.C., but Washington County, Pennsylvania,” McCarthy said at a manufacturing facility. “Because it’s about you, it’s not about us.”

On Friday, the House Republican leader stood with a cross-section of other lawmakers to roll out the GOP agenda, offering a portrait of party unity despite the uneasy coalition that makes up the House minority — and the Republican Party itself.

The GOP has shifted from its focus on small government, low taxes and individual freedoms to a more populist, nationalist and, at times, far-right party, essentially still led by Trump, who remains popular despite the deepening state and federal investigations against him.

Propelled by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” voters, the Republicans need to pick up just a few seats to win back control of the narrowly-split House, and replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But even so, McCarthy’s ability to lead the House is far from guaranteed.

While Republicans and Trump did pass tax cuts into law, the GOP’s last big campaign promise, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, collapsed in failure. A long line of Republican speakers, including Gingrich, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, have been forced from office or chose early retirement, often ground down by party infighting.

“House Republicans are really good at running people out of town,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Coalition, or CPAC.

McCarthy, first elected to office in 2006, is among the remaining political survivors of those House Republican battles, and he’s a new style of leader who has shown more ability to communicate than to legislate.

A key architect of the Republican “tea party” takeover in 2010, the California Republican personally recruited the newcomers to Congress — many who had never served in public office and are long gone. McCarthy was an early Trump endorser, and has remained close to the former president, relying on his high-profile endorsements to propel GOP candidates for Congress. He abandoned an earlier bid to become speaker when support from his colleagues drifted.

The “Commitment to America” reflects the strength of McCarthy’s abilities, but also his weaknesses. He spent more than a year pulling together the House GOP’s often warring factions — from the far-right MAGA to what’s left of the more centrist ranks — to produce a mostly agreed upon agenda.

But the one-page “commitment” preamble is succinct, essentially a pocket card, though it is expected to be filled in with the kind of detail that is needed to make laws.

“They talk about a lot of problems,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. “They don’t have a lot of solutions.”

In traveling to battleground Pennsylvania, a state where President Biden holds emotional ties from his early childhood, McCarthy intends to counter the president’s fiery Labor Day weekend speech, in which he warned of rising GOP extremism after the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, with a more upbeat message.

The event is billed as more of a conversation with the GOP leader and lawmakers rather than a stirring address in a uniquely contested state.

Along with as many as five House seats Republicans believe they can pick up in Pennsylvania in November, the state has one of the most watched Senate races, between Democrat John Fetterman and Trump-backed Mehmet Oz, that will help determine control of Congress. Top of the ticket is the seismic governor’s matchup between the GOP’s Doug Mastriano, who was seen outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, and Democrat Josh Shapiro.

“If you are a hardline, populist, and you really want anger, Kevin’s a little frustrating because he’s not going to be angry enough for you,” Gingrich said. “On the other hand, if what you want is to have your values implemented and passed in the legislation, he is a really good leader and organizer.”

Gingrich has been working with McCarthy and his team to craft the style and substance of the proposal. The former speaker, who has been asked by the Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack for an interview, was on hand Thursday in Washington, joining McCarthy as he unveiled the plans privately to House Republicans, who have been mixed on the approach.

Mostly, the GOP pocket card hits broad strokes — energy independence, security and an end to liberal social policies, particularly in schooling.

Conservative Republicans complain privately that McCarthy isn’t leaning hard enough into their priorities, as he tries to appeal to a broader swath of voters and hold the party together.

Many are eager to launch investigations into the Biden administration and the president’s family, with some calling for impeachment. Legislatively, some House Republicans want to fulfill the party’s commitment to banning abortion, supporting Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In a sign of the pressures ahead for McCarthy, dozens of House GOP lawmakers signed on to plans from Trump-aligned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to prevent many gender reassignment procedures for minors, celebrating the Georgian as courageous for taking such a hardline approach.

She and others were invited to join Friday’s event, as McCarthy seeks their backing.

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has advocated for withholding federal funds as leverage for policy priorities, the tactic that engineered past government shutdowns.

“Putting out like, you know, principles about, ‘Well, we’ll secure the border.’ I mean, okay, but what are we gonna do about it?” Roy said. “The end of the day, I want specific actionable items that’s going to show that we’re going to fight for the American people.”

It’s notable that McCarthy alone has proposed a plan if Republicans win control of the House chamber. In the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell has declined to put forward an agenda, preferring to simply run against President Biden and Democrats in the midterm election.

“Kevin’s done a very good job of being in position to become the speaker. And then the question is, what do you do with that? Schlapp said. “This helps as a road map.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Alex Jones Takes The Stand In Connecticut Defamation Trial

This is Jones’ second defamation trial in as many months for spreading false defamatory conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.

It was a testimony of fits and starts when Alex Jones took the stand Thursday in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Attorneys for both sides as well as Alex Jones were admonished by the judge. The judge dismissed the jury several times during testimony so she could handle disputes between opposing sides.

Plaintiff attorney Christopher Mattei: “I asked you whether you believe the FBI is a plaintiff in this case?”

Alex Jones: “Yes, I believe this is a deep state situation.”

While on the stand, the attorney representing those connected to the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy pressed Jones on everything from his company’s finances to derogatory comments he’s made about the trial on his show just this week.

“I’m talking to the people who went to that puppet courthouse and put Infowars stickers everywhere,” Jones said. “We commend you.”

JONES: “It’s peaceful protest when they burn down two million dollars, that’s good, but when conservatives put up stickers then we’re bad.”

More than a dozen family members of various Sandy Hook victims showed up to observe his testimony in Waterbury Superior Court Thursday.

While this is Jones’ first appearance in the Connecticut courtroom, he’s given multiple statements outside of court — calling the proceedings a sham.

JONES: “This is a travesty of justice, and this judge is a tyrant. This judge is ordering me to say that i’m guilty and to say that i’m a liar.”

Back in November of 2021, Judge Barbara Bellis, who is presiding over this case, entered a default judgment against Jones for “willful noncompliance” during the discovery phase of the trial.

“This callous disregard of their obligations to fully and fairly comply with discovery and court orders on its own merits a default against the Jones defendants,” Bellis said.

This is Jones’ second defamation trial in as many months for spreading false defamatory conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that killed more than two dozen people.

Over the last two weeks, jurors have heard powerful testimony from Connecticut parents who lost children during the shooting and endured harassment from Jones’ followers.

In August, a Texas jury awarded nearly $50 million to the family of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old who was killed during the Sandy Hook shooting, in a separate defamation case.

Source: newsy.com

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Mental Health America: Texas Ranks Last In Mental Health Care Access

Canutillo Independent School District and Kingsville Independent School District try to get a handle on mental health care for students in need.

The old saying is “everything is bigger in Texas” — including its problems.

Mental health ranks atop.

In the wake of the Uvalde massacre, conservative politicians are waving away talk of gun control and stressing that mental health is the real culprit. And in boastful Texas, mental health is a big problem.

Mental Health America ranks Texas dead last in access to mental health care. The Kaiser Family Health Foundation found that Texans suffer depression at higher-than-average rates.

In data released by the Texas Education Agency, more than half of Lone Star schools don’t have a psychologist or access to telehealth.

Texas has also opted out of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. In various studies, that amounts to tens of billions of dollars in federal funding, which could insure more than a million Texans and provide reimbursements for mental health professionals.

Canutillo Independent School District is north of El Paso, Texas. It’s like Uvalde, with a supermajority Hispanic population and a mental health desert. It’s chief concern is access for those services for its 6,200 students

“So, one of the things that is most important is social workers, counselors and prevention specialists working together,” social worker Rosario Olivera said.

The school district is Title I funded, meaning more than 40% of its students fall below the poverty line.

Administrators grappled with various problems across 10 schools, like how to get students access to medical care and in a pandemic, access to mental health and more counselors.

“We do the best we can do to service children of highest need,” Olivera continued. “However, it’s the same thing as with counselors. The ratio is very high.”

In Canutillo, it meant a pilot program of bringing in social workers and social work interns from the University of Texas El Paso.

“For every campus that has 350 students, you need one counselor. The majority of our campuses have 500 and above,” Canutillo Independent School District Director of Student Support Services Monica Reyes said.

Another glaring indicator in mental health access is poverty.

“This is typically what you’ll see: A mobile home with six or seven family members in it,” said Francisco Mendez with Familia Triunfadores.

In the colonias of San Elizario, access to mental health is a question of whether there are any therapists close by. But oftentimes, the answer is no.

“It’s really difficult for them,” Mendez said. “They’ll have to drive at least 35 miles to El Paso.”

In Kingsville, Texas, the schools have one mental health professional for more than 2,800 students.

Tracy Warren is a licensed school specialist psychologist, or LSSP. She’s an intern completing her doctorate. The challenge for Kingsville Independent School District is holding on to her and getting more people like her.

“We are trying to let everybody know how important mental health is and that if we don’t have the mental health foundation, the education is not going to take place,” Warren said.

She is the front line. The school district leans on nonprofits to help kids outside of class.

“There are a lot more anxious students this year than I’ve ever seen,” Warren continued. “We actually had a student that was at one of our campuses — he’s 4, going into Pre-K. First day of school, he stopped outside to count the police cars that he can see to ensure that he was safe before he came into school.”

The small school district’s leader, Superintendent Cissy Reynolds-Perez, says more mental health professionals and counselors need to be trained to work in rural schools.

“It’s very difficult because not everybody wants to come out to this area,” she said. “You know, you have your metropolitan areas, which I’m not saying it’s easier, but there are more resources there.”

At nearby Texas A&M Kingsville, the school has opened an institute for rural mental health.

Steve Bain is the director of the Rural Mental Health Institute. His goal is to create a mental health graduate student counselor pipeline direct to public schools.

“We have an opportunity now to reverse this trend of being last, or toward the last, in terms of accessibility of mental health services,” he said. “Only about 25% of students in K-12 who suffer from depression are getting mental health services. And depression has increased among our student population in the last five to eight years, significantly so.”

In Texas, licensed school specialty psychologists and social workers can be mental health caregivers to emotionally fraught kids, but there is a catch.

“Texas Education Agency has not recognized social workers as TEA employees yet, per se. We don’t have a specific job description, like teachers or counselors do,” Olivera said.

That means school districts miss out on funding and insurance reimbursements when social workers provide mental health care for kids.

Newsy’s mental health initiative “America’s Breakdown: Confronting Our Mental Health Crisis” brings you deeply personal and thoughtfully told stories on the state of mental health care in the U.S. Click here to learn more.

Source: newsy.com

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Alex Jones Set To Testify In Trial Over Sandy Hook Hoax Lies

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 22, 2022

A jury will decide how much money conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay to the families of victims after he was already found liable for damages.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones appeared in court Thursday in Connecticut as he and his lawyer try to limit damages he must pay for promoting the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.

More than a dozen family members of some of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting also showed up to observe his testimony in Waterbury Superior Court, which is about 20 miles away from Newtown.

Jones was expected to be the first witness called, but there was a delay as the court dealt with Wi-Fi issues in the courthouse.

Jones has been in Connecticut this week in preparation for his appearance. He held a news conference Wednesday outside the courthouse, bashing the proceedings — as he has on his Infowars show — as a “travesty of justice” and calling the judge a “tyrant.” He made similar comments on his way into the courthouse Thursday, indicating he may invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and not answer some questions.

“This is not really a trial,” he said. “This is a show trial, a literal kangaroo court.”

Several victims’ relatives, meanwhile, have given emotional testimony during the trial about being traumatized by people calling the shooting fake, including confrontations at their homes and in public, and messages including death and rape threats. The plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of the victims.

Judge Barbara Bellis last year found Jones liable by default for damages to plaintiffs without a trial, as punishment for what she called his repeated failures to turn over documents to their lawyers. The six-member jury only will be deciding how much Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, should pay the families for defaming them and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.

Bellis began the day going over with Jones the topics he cannot testify about — including free speech rights, the Sandy Hook families $73 million settlement earlier this year with gun maker Remington (the company made the Bushmaster rifle used to kill the victims at Sandy Hook) or the percentage of Jones’ shows that discussed Sandy Hook.

“This is not the appropriate forum for you to offer that testimony,” Bellis said. Jones indicated that he understood.

Bellis said in court on Wednesday that she was prepared to handle any incendiary testimony from Jones, with contempt of court proceedings if necessary.

Jones also was found liable by default in two similar lawsuits over the hoax lies in his hometown of Austin, Texas, where a jury in one of the trials ordered Jones last month to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed. A third trial in Texas is expected to begin near the end of the year.

When Jones faced the Texas jury last month and testified under oath, he toned down his rhetoric. He said he realized the hoax lies were irresponsible and the school shooting was “100% real.”

“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings,” testified Jones, who also acknowledged raising conspiracy claims about other mass tragedies, from the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings to the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, “and I’m sorry for that.”

Jones had portrayed the Sandy Hook shooting as staged by crisis actors as part of gun control efforts.

Testimony at the current trial also has focused on website analytics data run by Infowars employees showing how its sales of dietary supplements, food, clothing and other items spiked around the time Jones talked about the Sandy Hook shooting.

Evidence, including internal Infowars emails and depositions, also shows dissention within the company about pushing the hoax lies.

Jones’ lawyer Norman Pattis is arguing that any damages should be limited and accused the victims’ relatives of exaggerating the harm the lies caused them.

The relatives have testified that they continue to fear for their safety because of what the hoax believers have done and might do.

Jennifer Hensel, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle Richman was among the slain, testified Wednesday that she still monitors her surroundings, even checking the back seat of her car, for safety reasons. She said she is trying to shield her two children, ages 7 and 5, from the hoax lies. A juror cried during her testimony.

“They’re so young,” she said of her children. “Their innocence is so beautiful right now. And at some point there are a horde of people out there who could hurt them.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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How A Cameroonian Immigrant Was Granted Asylum In The U.S.

Many Cameroonians have had to flee their country due to ongoing violence threatening their lives. One man describes his journey.

On a Sunday morning at a church in Madison, Wisconsin, a Cameroonian immigrant feels at home despite being thousands of miles away from his loved ones.

Ngwa Augustine says he owes his life to this community, especially the two people sitting next to him: Toni and Mark Swandby.

“I feel loved. I feel loved and welcome,” said Augustine.

He calls them his American parents.

For nearly three years, they’ve been living under the same roof.

In late 2019, the Swanbys decided to open their house to this asylum seeker they had never met.

“I said, should we have some guy from Cameroon come and live with us?” said Toni Swandby. “He said ‘well, there’s no reason why we can’t. I mean, it’s just us. We got all this room.'”

Augustine had just been released by ICE from federal detention and needed a place to stay while his asylum case inched its way through the system.

After the incredible hardships he had experienced in his life, meeting the couple and getting a free bedroom was a huge relief.

“It was just magical. It was just something I can’t really explain. The happiness I felt at that time. There was hope,” said Augustine.

In Cameroon, Augustine says he was twice arrested and beaten by local authorities after he demanded more rights for the country’s Anglophone minority.

“I was tortured, we were being tortured every day. A lot of people died,” he said.

One day, after he passed out from the torture, guards dumped him on the street, thinking he was dead.

When word got out that he survived, Augustine fled without saying goodbye to his wife.

“I couldn’t see her because they were looking for me,” said Augustine.

He escaped north to Nigeria but felt unsafe because Cameroonians were getting arrested. So he flew to Ecuador, a country with lax visa rules. From there, he trekked for months across eight countries all the way to the U.S. border.

Despite restrictive Trump administration policies, Augustine was allowed to enter the U.S. in July 2019.

“I found myself in front of the Americans and I said ‘OK, hello, good, this is my name, I am a Cameroonian and I’m seeking political asylum,” he said.

He passed a credible fear screening, successfully arguing he faced real danger back in his home country and had a “significant possibility” he could win a full asylum hearing.

When he was transferred to a Wisconsin ICE jail, his life was changed by what he calls a miracle.

Maggie Morris, a University of Wisconsin law student, met Augustine in detention as part of a class with the immigrant justice clinic.

“I think my eyes immediately got teary. It’s not the kind of story you hear every day when you’re doing intakes,” said Morris.

Morris and her professor, Erin Barbato, instantly decided to represent Augustine for free — which was a game changer, as it’s extremely difficult to win asylum without representation.

Barbato says two factors helped Augustine’s case: he had been persecuted by his own government, due to his political opinions.

He checked the boxes to qualify for asylum under American law.

“And he had a very kind demeanor that would be welcoming for the students to work with,” said Barbato.

The students quickly got him out of detention on parole.

And Barbato asked a friend at the Midvale Community Lutheran Church if they could find him a place to stay. That connected him to the Swanbys.

Augustine won his asylum case in September 2021, two years and two months after he first stepped foot in the U.S.

Now he has one last goal: bringing his wife and his 5-year-old daughter here to his new home. He hasn’t seen them in four years.

But when it comes to the backlogged immigration system in the US., nothing is moving too swiftly.

So without a clear timeline, Augustine is waiting for the day his American family and his Cameroonian family can all be by his side, safely in the United States.

Source: newsy.com

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Migrants Sue Florida Governor Over Martha’s Vineyard Flights

By Maura Sirianni

and Associated Press
September 21, 2022

The lawsuit alleges that the migrants were told they were going to Boston or Washington, and were induced with perks like McDonald’s gift cards.

Venezuelan migrants flown from San Antonio, Texas, to the upscale Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard are suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his transportation secretary for engaging in a “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme” to relocate them.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, alleges that the migrants were told they were going to Boston or Washington, “which was completely false,” and were induced with perks such as $10 McDonald’s gift certificates.

“No human being should be used as a political pawn,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, which is seeking class-action status in the lawsuit filed on behalf of several migrants who were aboard last week’s flights and Alianza Americas, a network of advocacy groups.

“It is opportunistic that activists would use illegal immigrants for political theater,” said Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ communication director, in a statement late Tuesday.

The lawsuit, which also names Florida Transportation Secretary Jared W. Perdue as a defendant, alleges that migrants were induced to cross state lines under false pretenses, a line that some Democratic officials are using to urge a federal investigation.

On Monday, Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, opened an investigation into the flights, but the elected Democrat did not say what laws may have been broken. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose district includes San Antonio, have asked the Justice Department to begin a probe.

Guesswork was rampant among government officials, advocates and journalists Tuesday about DeSantis’ next move, consistent with the element of surprise that he and another Republican governor, Greg Abbott of Texas, have sought to achieve by busing and flying migrants across the country to Democratic strongholds with little or no notice.

Asked Tuesday about speculation that DeSantis may send migrants to his home state of Delaware, President Joe Biden said: “He should come visit. We have a beautiful shoreline.”

DeSantis declined to confirm speculation, based on flight-tracking software, that more migrants were on the move. He again defended his decision to fly about 50 Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard, saying their decisions were completely voluntary and, without evidence, that they were in awful condition when Florida got involved.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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