US National Guard troops will begin arriving along the border with Mexico on Aug. 1 to bolster security as the administration of US President Barack Obama tries to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, weapons and narcotics, officials said on Monday.
About 300 Customs and Border Protection agents and officers will also be sent to the border region, along with additional helicopters and other surveillance equipment, they said.
“The border is more resourced and more secure than it’s ever been, but the work continues and the challenge remains,” said Alan Bersin, commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency.
The Obama administration has pledged to send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the area for a year and to seek US$600 million for, among other things, 1,000 new border patrol agents and unmanned aerial detection systems.
Violence along the border has been escalating in recent years. Bersin said illegal crossings have begun to fall, while seizures of weapons and drugs have risen.
The largest share of the National Guard force — 524 troops — will go to Arizona, where state officials have complained bitterly about lack of security.
Legislators in Arizona have passed a strict law to try to crack down on illegal immigrants but the US Justice Department is challenging it on the grounds that immigration is a federal issue.
While welcoming the Obama administration’s measures, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said it did not “appear to be enough or tied to a strategy to comprehensively defeat the increasingly violent drug and alien smuggling cartels” operating in the desert border state.
“We need the implementation of a federal plan to achieve victory over these brutal cartels and the porous nature of our open border,” she said.
The Obama administration goes to federal court on Thursday to try to block Arizona’s new law, which requires state and local police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant.
The Justice Department is among plaintiffs including civil rights and advocacy groups that have filed seven separate lawsuits seeking to block the law from taking effect on July 29.
Arizona officials say the federal government has failed to address the problem of illegal immigration and the state had to pass its own law.
There are believed to be 10.8 million illegal immigrants in the US, a country of more than 300 million people.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was