Month: January 2020

People gathered in Tehran on Monday to mourn top general Qassem Soleimani, as his replacement vowed to take revenge for the U.S. airstrike that killed him, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to hit Iranian cultural site if Iran does retaliate.

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people and we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues that the House will vote this week on a war powers resolution “to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran.”

“It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days,” Pelosi wrote.

She called last week’s airstrike “provocative and disproportionate,” and said it endangered U.S. troops while escalating tensions with Iran.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Fox, “We’re now headed very close to the precipice of war,” adding “you just can’t go around and kill” world figures the U.S. opposes. “The president is not entitled to take us to war” without congressional authorization.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s Republican allies, said the president “did the right thing” and that his national security team is “doing a great job helping President Trump navigate Iranian provocations.”

Republican Congressman Mike Johnson also backed Trump, writing on Twitter, “Now we must remain united against Iranian aggression while praying and working for de-escalation.”

Trump tweeted Sunday that his social media posts “will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner.  Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”

Yale University law professor Oona Hathaway told VOA the president cannot notify Congress of his intent to go to war by tweet and said he would be breaking several laws.

“Any time the president involves the armed forces into hostilities, he must — at a minimum — notify Congress within 48 hours,” she said.

Hathaway added that a president is obligated to consult with Congress before putting the armed forces into any hostilities. She said a “disproportionate” response would break international law, which says any action taken in self-defense must be proportionate to the threat.

“That any of this has to be said suggests just how insane this situation has become,” Hathaway said, wondering where are the lawyers from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department.

Trump also told reporters Sunday he “may discuss” releasing the intelligence he used to justify ordering Soleimani’s death.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has so far refused to publicly share the evidence supporting the administration’s claim that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on U.S. forces and officials in the Middle East.

“There are simply things we cannot make public,” Pompeo told Fox News. “You’ve got to protect the sources providing the intelligence.”

Trump claimed Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Iraqis and Iranians, saying the longtime Iranian general “made the death of innocent people his sick passion” while helping to run a terror network that reached across the Middle East to Europe and the Americas.

Also Sunday, Iran said it is no longer limiting the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium — a virtual abandonment of the 2015 nuclear deal that had constrained its nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.

“Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion,” a government statement said.

Iraq’s Parliament to US Military: ‘Get Out’ video player.

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Iran did not make any explicit threats to build a nuclear weapon, something it has always denied it wants to do. It also said it will still cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran has been gradually stepping back from the commitments it made in the 2015 deal since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. The European signatories — Britain, France, and Germany — have been urging Iran not to pull out.

Iraq has filed an official complaint with the United Nations secretary-general and the Security Council over the missile strike against Soleimani, which was carried out on Iraqi soil.

…

Five people were killed and about 60 were injured on the Pennsylvania Turnpike early Sunday morning, when a loaded bus went out of control on a hill and rolled over, setting off a chain reaction that involved three tractor-trailers and a passenger car.

The injured victims, ranging from 7 to 67 years old, are all expected to survive, though two patients remain in critical condition, authorities and hospital officials said Sunday afternoon. The crash, which happened at 3:40 a.m. on a mountainous and rural stretch of the interstate about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh, shut down the highway in both directions for several hours before it reopened Sunday evening.

The bus, operated by a New Jersey-based company called Z & D Tours, was traveling from Rockaway, New Jersey, to Cincinnati, Ohio, Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Stephen Limani told reporters.

He said the bus was traveling downhill on a curve, careened up an embankment and rolled over. Two tractor-trailers then struck the bus. A third tractor-trailer then crashed into those trucks. A passenger car was also involved in the pileup.

Photos from the scene show a mangled collision of multiple vehicles including a smashed FedEx truck that left packages sprawled along the highway.

“It was kind of a chain-reaction crash,” Limani said.

FedEx did not provide any other details besides that they are cooperating with authorities. A message seeking comment was left Sunday with the bus company.

Limani would not identify those killed or say which vehicles they were traveling in.

“I haven’t personally witnessed a crash of this magnitude in 20 years,” Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo told WTAE, calling it the worst accident in his decades-long tenure with the turnpike. “It’s horrible.”

Excela Health Frick Hospital in Mount Pleasant said it treated 31 victims, transferring a child and three adults to other facilities.

Hospitals brought in teams of social workers and psychologists to deal with the mental trauma, said Mark Rubino, president of Forbes Hospital, which treated 11 victims.

“The people coming in were not only physically injured but they were traumatized from a mental standpoint as well,” he said. Most were covered in diesel fuel when they arrived. The hospital treated fractured bones, brain bleeds, contusions, abrasions and spinal injuries.

The victims included students and people returning from visiting family in New York City. Many traveling on the bus were from outside the United States, Limani said, some of whom do not speak English and who lost their luggage and passports in the wreckage.

The Tribune-Review reported Leticia Moreta arrived at a hospital about 11:30 a.m. to pick up her children — Jorge Moreta, 24, and Melanie Moreta, 16 — who were on the bus.

She said her children, returning from visiting their father in New York, were in stable condition.

“I was devastated,” she said.

Exactly what caused the crash remains unknown, and Limani said it could take weeks or months to determine. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to investigate.

Officials said it was too early to determine if weather was a factor in the crash.

Angela Maynard, a tractor-trailer driver from Kentucky, said the roads were wet from snow but not especially icy. Maynard was traveling eastbound on the turnpike when she came upon the crash site and called 911.

“It was horrible,” she told The Tribune-Review. She saw lots of smoke but no fire. She and her co-driver found one person trapped in their truck and another lying on the ground.

“I tried to keep him occupied, keep talking, until medical help arrived,” Maynard said. “He was in bad shape. He was floating in and out of consciousness.”

The crash left families terrified and scrambling.

“I was crying,” said Omeil Ellis, whose two brothers were on the bus. “I was like crazy crying. I’m still hurt.”

Ellis, from Irvington, New Jersey, told The Tribune-Review that his brothers were traveling to Ohio for work. He was planning to meet them a few days later. But both of his brothers, one of them 39 years old and one 17, were sent to hospitals.

“I’m just weak right now,” he said.

…

The Golden Globes are famously unpredictable, but a few sure things seem to be in store for Sunday’s awards: Streaming services will play a starring role; five-time host Ricky Gervais will snicker at his own jokes; and Brad Pitt is all but assured of taking home an award.

Plenty of question marks remain for the 77th Golden Globe Awards, though. Will Jennifer Lopez score her first Globe? Who will win best song in the face-off between Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Elton John? Just how many “Cats” jokes are too many?

Stars began arriving Sunday at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, ahead of the ceremony, which is due to start at 8 p.m. EST and be broadcast live on NBC. Among the standouts on the red carpet was, predictably, Billy Porter. The “Pose” star, who made such an impression at last year’s Oscars, arrived in a gleaming white suit with a long feather train that needed an assistant to carry it.

Whatever the cat drags in Sunday, the Golden Globes — Hollywood’s most freewheeling televised award show — should be entertaining. But they also might be unusually influential.

The roughly 90 voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have traditionally had little in common with the nearly 9,000 industry professionals that make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The HFPA is known for calculatingly packing its show with as much star power as possible, occasionally rewarding even the likes of “The Tourist” and “Burlesque.”

But the condensed time frame of this year’s award season brings the Globes and the Academy Awards closer. Balloting for Oscar nominations began Thursday and ballots are due on Tuesday. Voters will be watching.

Netflix comes into the Globes with a commanding 34 nods — 17 in film categories and 17 in television categories. Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” leads all movies with six nominations, including best film, drama. Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” with five, is up for the same category. The box-office smash “Joker” may be their stiffest competition.

The path is more certain for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” which is competing in the comedy or musical category. It could easily take home more trophies than any other movie, with possible wins for Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio — a 12-time Globes nominee and three-time winner — and Tarantino’s script. Tarantino is also up for best director, though he faces formidable competition in Scorsese and “Parasite” filmmaker Bong Joon Ho.

The dearth of nominations for female filmmakers has stoked more backlash than anything else at this year’s Globes. Only men were nominated for best director (just five women have ever been nominated in the category), and none of the 10 films up for best picture was directed by a woman, either.

Time’s Up, the activist group that debuted at the black-clad 2018 Globes, has been highly critical of the HFPA for the omission, calling it “unacceptable.”

Last year, eventual Oscar best picture winner “Green Book” took best comedy, while “Bohemian Rhapsody” unexpectedly won best drama. This year, one of the likely best picture nominees at the Academy Awards wasn’t eligible. Despite being an organization of foreign journalists, the HFPA doesn’t include foreign films in its top categories, thus ruling out the South Korean sensation “Parasite.”

On the TV side, series like “Fleabag,” “The Crown,” “Succession” and “Chernobyl” are among the favorites. The recently launched Apple TV Plus also joins its first major awards show with “The Morning Show,” including nominations for both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

The show will be watchable beyond the traditional NBC broadcast. With a cable or satellite TV login, the three-hour show can be streamed on NBC.com or on Hulu (with live TV), YouTube TV, Sling TV or PlayStation Vue. The official red carpet will be streamed on Facebook, beginning at 6 p.m. EST.

Last year’s telecast, hosted by Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh, held steady in TV ratings, averaging 18.6 million viewers. Along with the returning Gervais, scheduled presenters include Tiffany Haddish, Will Ferrell and last year’s best actress winner, Glenn Close.

Tom Hanks, also a nominee for his supporting turn as Fred Rogers in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” will receive the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. The Carol Burnett Award, a similar honorary award given for television accomplishment, will go to Ellen DeGeneres.

…

 The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said the U.S. military in the Middle East “will pay the price” in response to the death of a powerful Iranian commander in a U.S. strike.

During a televised speech on Sunday marking the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and several Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders on Friday in a U.S. drone-launched missile that targeted his convoy in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Hassan Nasrallah said responding to the killing of Soleimani was also the responsibility of Iran’s allies in the region.

“When the coffins of American soldiers and officers begin to be transported… to the United States, [U.S. President Donald] Trump and his administration will realize that they have really lost the region and will lose the [2020 U.S. presidential] elections” Nasrallah added.

The militant leader noted that U.S. civilians in the region “should not be touched.”

The Shi’ite Lebanese group is a close ally of Iran, receiving financial and military support from Tehran.

Iranian leaders, including Supreme leader Ali Khamenei, have vowed a “crushing response” to the killing of Soleimani who led Iran’s elite Quds Force.

Other Iranian-backed militia leaders in Iraq and Yemen have also pledged to retaliate against Soleimani’s death.

Potential attacks on Israel?

Considering Nasrallah’s speech on Sunday, experts said Hezbollah has a wide set of options that it could use for vengeance against the U.S. and its interests in Lebanon, Israel and the broader region.

Hezbollah “has a rocket arsenal of over a hundred and thirty rockets and mortars and a history of conducting attacks both against the U.S. and other targets within Lebanon and elsewhere,” said Thomas Abi-Hanna, a global security analyst at  Stratfor, an intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas.

“Potential attacks against U.S. interests, diplomatic personnel and others in Lebanon are one potential threat they could pose,” Abi-Hanna told VOA, adding that Hezbollah could also choose to launch attacks against neighboring Israel.

“Given the group’s animosity towards Israel and Israel’s close alliance with the U.S., they could attempt to strike either American or Israeli targets within Israel using that same set of rockets,” he said.  

Since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the two sides occasionally have exchanged attacks. In the wake of Syria’s civil war, Israel has also hit Hezbollah targets inside Syria, where the Lebanese group has been fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

On Saturday, Gholamali Abuhamzeh, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said Iran has identified 35 U.S. targets across the Middle East, including in Israel, which could potentially be attacked by Tehran and its proxy forces.

But Israeli security analyst Eli Nisan told the U.S.-funded Alhurra TV Sunday that Israel has taken all precautionary measures in this regard.

“Israeli intelligence and air force are ready to defend the country and will respond to any assault from Iran, Hezbollah or [the Palestinian] Islamic Jihad,” he said.  

Lebanon at risk

Other experts said that Nasrallah’s threats could be seen as a “declaration of war” against the United States and its allies.

“Using such a language by the head of the Hezbollah militia puts Lebanon at stake,” Lebanese affairs analyst Luqman Selim told Alhurra Sunday.

“What Nasrallah is doing is basically throwing Lebanon’s people and its institutions into an unpredictable labyrinth,” Selim said, noting that “Hezbollah is a non-state actor and its actions are not sanctioned by the will of the Lebanese people.”

Hezbollah was designated by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.

Ezel Sahinkaya contributed to this story from Washington.

…

Seven children and four women were among 14 civilians, killed when a roadside bomb blew up their bus in northwestern Burkina Faso, the government said.

“The provisional toll is 14 dead,” a statement said, adding that 19 more people were hurt, three of them seriously in Saturday’s blast.

The explosion happened in Sourou province near the Mali border as students returned to school after the Christmas holidays, a security source said.

“The vehicle hit a homemade bomb on the Toeni-Tougan road,” the source told AFP.

“The government strongly condemns this cowardly and barbaric act,” the statement said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but jihadist violence in Burkina Faso has been blamed on combatants linked to both al-Qaida and Islamic State groups.

Meanwhile, the army reported an assault against gendarmes at Inata in the north on Friday, saying “a dozen terrorists were neutralized.”

The deaths came the week after 35 people, most of them women, died in an attack on the northern city of Arbinda and seven Burkinabe troops were killed in a raid on their army base nearby.

Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen frequent jihadist attacks which have left hundreds of people dead since the start of 2015 when Islamist extremist violence began to spread across the Sahel region.

In a televised address on Tuesday President Roch Marc Christian Kabore insisted that “victory” against “terrorism” was assured.

The entire Sahel region is fighting a jihadist insurgency with help from Western countries, but has not managed to stem the bloodshed.

Five Sahel states — Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad — have joined forces to combat terrorism in the fragile region that lies between the Sahara and the Atlantic.

Increasingly deadly Islamist attacks in Burkina have killed more than 750 people since 2015, according to an AFP count, and forced 560,000 people from their homes, U.N. figures show.

…

Spain’s Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez failed on Sunday in a first attempt to get parliament’s backing to form a government, leaving him two days to secure support to end an eight-month political gridlock.

Sanchez has been acting prime minister since a first inconclusive election in April and November did not produce a conclusive result. He needed an absolute majority of at least 176 votes in his favor in the 350-seat house to be confirmed as prime minister but failed to get it.

He obtained 166 votes in favor and 165 against, with 18 abstentions, while one lawmaker did not attend.

On Tuesday, Sanchez will only need a simple majority – more “yes” than “no” votes. He is likely to get that after securing a commitment from the 13 lawmakers of Catalonia’s largest separatist party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), to abstain.

Earlier this week, Socialist Party leader Sanchez and Pablo Iglesias, head of the far-left party Unidas Podemos, restated their intention to form the first coalition government in Spain’s recent history.

The two parties together have 155 seats, short of a majority, so Sanchez is reliant on the votes of small regional parties.

In a sign of how close the race could be on Tuesday, a member from the small regional party Coalicion Canaria, Ana Oramas, voted against Sanchez instead of abstaining as her party had agreed on Friday.

During Sunday morning’s debate, Sanchez stressed that a Socialist-Podemos coalition would take a progressive approach.

Sanchez and Iglesias have said they will push for tax hikes on high-income earners and companies and also intend to roll back a labor reform passed by a previous conservative government.

The morning was marked by tension during the speech of Mertxe Aizpurua of pro-independence Basque party EH Bildu.

Aizpurua called the conservative and right wing parties People’s Party, Vox and Ciudadanos “Francoists”, a reference to late dictator Francisco Franco, and criticized the Constitution and King Felipe.
She was met with boos and shouts of “murderers”.

…

The Senate seems certain to keep President Donald Trump in office thanks to the overwhelming GOP support expected in his impeachment trial. But how that trial will proceed — and when it will begin — remains to be seen.

Democrats are pushing for the Senate to issue subpoenas for witnesses and documents, pointing to reports that they say have raised new questions about Trump’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.

Once the House transmits the articles of impeachment, decisions about how to conduct the trial will require 51 votes. With Republicans controlling the Senate 53-47, Democrats cannot force subpoenas on their own.

For now, Republicans are holding the line behind Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s position that they should start the trial and hear arguments from House prosecutors and Trump’s defense team before deciding what to do.

But small cracks in GOP unity have appeared, with two Republican senators criticizing McConnell’s pledge of “total coordination” with the White House during the impeachment trial.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by the GOP leader’s comments, adding that there should be distance between the White House and the Senate on how the trial is conducted. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, meanwhile, called the pledge by McConnell, R-Ky., inappropriate and said she is open to seeking testimony.

Democrats could find their own unity tested if and when the Senate reaches a final vote on the two House-approved impeachment charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

It would take 67 votes to convict Trump on either charge and remove him from office, a high bar unlikely to be reached. It’s also far from certain that all 47 Democrats will find Trump guilty.

Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama said he’s undecided on how he might vote and suggested he sees merits in the arguments both for and against conviction.

A look at senators to watch once the impeachment trial begins:

Murkowski

In her fourth term representing Alaska, Murkowski is considered a key Senate moderate. She has voted against GOP leadership on multiple occasions and opposed Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2018.

Murkowski told an Alaska TV station last month there should be distance between the White House and the GOP-controlled Senate in how the trial is conducted.

“To me it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process,” she said.

Murkowski says the Senate is being asked to cure deficiencies in the House impeachment effort, particularly when it comes to whether key witnesses should be brought forward to testify, including White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.

“How we will deal with witnesses remains to be seen,” she said, adding that House leaders should have gone to court if witnesses refused to appear before Congress.

Collins

The four-term senator said she is open to calling witnesses as part of the impeachment trial but calls it “premature” to decide who should be called until evidence is presented.

“It is inappropriate, in my judgment, for senators on either side of the aisle to prejudge the evidence before they have heard what is presented to us,” Collins told Maine Public Radio.

Senators take an oath to render impartial justice during impeachment — an oath lawmakers should take seriously, Collins said.

Collins, who is running for reelection and is considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable GOP senators, also faulted Democrats for saying Trump should be found guilty and removed from office. “There are senators on both sides of the aisle, who, to me, are not giving the appearance of and the reality of judging that’s in an impartial way,” she said.

Jones

Jones, a freshman seeking reelection in staunchly pro-Trump Alabama, is considered the Democrat most likely to side with Republicans in a Senate trial. In a Washington Post op-ed column, Jones said that for Americans to have confidence in the impeachment process, “the Senate must conduct a full, fair and complete trial with all relevant evidence regarding the president’s conduct.”

He said he fears that senators “are headed toward a trial that is not intended to find the whole truth. For the sake of the country, this must change.”

Unlike what happened during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, “Trump has blocked both the production of virtually all relevant documents and the testimony of witnesses who have firsthand knowledge of the facts,” Jones said. “The evidence we do have may be sufficient to make a judgment, but it is clearly incomplete,” he added.

Jones and other Democrats are seeking testimony from Mulvaney and other key White House officials to help fill in the gaps.

Mitt Romney, R-Utah.

Romney, a freshman senator and on-again, off-again Trump critic, has criticized Trump for his comments urging Ukraine and China to investigate Democrat Joe Biden, but has not spoken directly about he thinks impeachment should proceed.

Romney is overwhelmingly popular in a conservative state where Trump is not beloved, a status that gives Romney leverage to buck the president or at least speak out about rules and procedures of a Senate trial.

Cory Gardner, R-Colo.

Gardner, like Collins is a vulnerable senator up for reelection in a state where Trump is not popular. Gardner has criticized the House impeachment effort as overly partisan and fretted that it will sharply divide the country.

While Trump is under water in Colorado, a GOP strategist says Gardner and other Republicans could benefit from an energized GOP base if the Senate, as expected, acquits Trump of the two articles of impeachment approved by the House. An acquittal “may have a substantial impact on other races in Colorado, up to and including Sen. Cory Gardner’s re-election,” Ryan Lynch told Colorado Public Radio.

Martha McSally, R-Ariz.

McSally, who was appointed to her seat after losing a Senate bid in 2018, is another vulnerable Republican seeking election this fall. She calls impeachment a serious matter and said she hopes her constituents would want her to examine the facts without partisanship. The American people “want us to take a serious look at this and not have it be just partisan bickering going on,” she told The Arizona Republic.

Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

A three-term senator and former governor, Alexander is retiring next year. A moderate who’s respected by both parties as an old-school defender of Senate prerogatives, Alexander has called Trump’s conduct “inappropriate,” but says he views impeachment as a “mistake.”

An election, which “is just around the corner, is the right way to decide who should be president,” Alexander said last fall. “Impeachment has never removed a president. It will only divide the country further.”

…

Somali militant group al-Shabab says it attacked a military base used by U.S. and Kenyan military teams Sunday.

A cloud of black smoke could be seen rising from the military base in the coastal town of Lamu, along Kenya-Somalia border.  The base hosts Kenyan and American forces.

Lamu County Commissioner Irungu Macharia confirmed the attack and says the area is not yet secured.

“Between 4 and 5 there was that attack at that military base, that airstrip. Our officers engaged those intruders, and it has continued up to around 6. But now the situation has calmed down, but the area is not still secure for us to go to that place. But normalcy has returned, and our officers are on the ground,” he said.

In a statement, al-Shabab said it had taken control of part of the camp, and it has inflicted casualties in the attack.

Kenya Defense forces in a statement also said they fought off the attackers and four militants were killed.

The attack comes days after al-Shabab fighters killed three people on a passenger bus in Lamu County.

The area that borders Somalia has been under security operation in the last five years.

Al-Shabab has carried out wave attacks against Kenyan security forces and civilians in the coast and northeastern region.

…

Abdullah Abu Rahma has been arrested by Israeli soldiers eight times in the last 15 years, spending weeks or months in prison and paying tens of thousands of dollars in fines for organizing protests.

He’s among a growing number of Palestinians who have embraced non-violent means of protesting Israel’s military rule and expanding settlements, and who are increasingly finding those avenues of dissent blocked.

Israel says the Palestinians should address their grievances in peace talks. But negotiations ground to a halt more than a decade ago, and the current government’s position on core issues is rejected by the Palestinians and most of the international community.

More than 50 years after occupying the West Bank, Israel is still systematically denying Palestinians civil rights, including the right to gather, Human Rights Watch said in a report released last month. Israel has also stepped up its campaign against the Palestinian-led international boycott movement, and the United States and other countries have adopted legislation to suppress it.

Israel has also come down hard on Palestinian attempts to seek redress at the International Criminal Court. Last month, after a five-year preliminary investigation, the court said it was ready to open a full investigation pending a ruling on territorial jurisdiction. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the court’s decision “pure anti-Semitism.”

Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, said Israel has “all but declared Palestinian opposition to the systematic discrimination they face illegitimate.” Shakir himself was deported from Israel in November over his alleged support for the boycott movement.

If it succeeds in banning forms of peaceful advocacy, he says, Israel will have “effectively left Palestinians no choice but submission to a regime of systematic repression, or violence.”

For decades, the Palestinians were branded terrorists because of their armed struggle against Israel, which included suicide bombings and other attacks on civilians. At the height of the Second Intifada, the violent uprising in the early 2000s, and for years afterward, observers wondered why there was no “Palestinian Gandhi.”

One candidate for such a title might be Abu Rahma, who for several years organized weekly protests outside his West Bank village of Bilin against Israel’s controversial separation barrier. Israel says the barrier is needed for security, but would have cut off village residents from their land. The protesters eventually forced authorities to reroute the barrier following a court order.

The protests often saw Palestinian youths hurl rocks at Israeli security forces, who responded with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets. But Abu Rahma says he never threw stones and told others not to do so, partly out of concern they would hurt other protesters.

That didn’t keep him from being arrested.

Over the years he was charged with entering a closed military zone — referring to land outside the village — and hindering the work of soldiers, who were overseeing the construction of the fence.

“I don’t go to them, they come to us,” he said.

In 2009 he was charged with stockpiling weapons after he collected spent tear gas canisters fired by Israeli soldiers and put them on display. He later served a 16-month prison term after a military court convicted him of incitement and participation in illegal protests.

“There have been various, multiple charges of this kind, but not once have they accused me of striking a soldier or throwing a stone,” he told The Associated Press. In 2009, he was acquitted on the weapons possession charge and a charge of throwing stones.

Issa Amro, another prominent activist who has organized protests against Israeli settlements in the West Bank city of Hebron, faces 16 charges, including calling for disobedience and disrupting Israeli life — the lives of settlers.

He says he has been detained on 10 occasions this year alone, usually after being beaten by settlers.

“The soldiers never did anything to stop the attackers, but they arrested me every time a settler said I attacked him,” he said. As a Palestinian, he is governed by Israeli military law, while the Jewish settlers in Hebron enjoy full rights as Israeli citizens.

“Israeli authorities ban any political expression in the Palestinian territories,” Amro said. “They want us basically to accept the occupation, the discrimination, the land grab, the restrictions, and not to speak up against it.”

Human Rights Watch said Israel relies on sweeping military orders, many of which date back to the 1967 Mideast war, when it seized the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories the Palestinians want for their future state.

Civilians can be jailed for up to 10 years for attending political gatherings of more than 10 people or for displaying flags or political symbols without army approval, Human Rights Watch said. Military orders ban 411 organizations, including every major political movement, it added.

“After 52 years, Israel’s sweeping restrictions of the basic rights of Palestinians can no longer be justified by the exigencies of military occupation,” Shakir said. “Palestinians are entitled at minimum to the same rights Israel provides its own citizens.”

In response to questions about the Human Rights Watch report and the restrictions on protests, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the Palestinian leadership of seeking to “attack Israel in the international arena” rather than trying to end the conflict through negotiations.

Peace talks broke down after Netanyahu was elected in 2009. In September, he vowed to annex  large parts of the West Bank, a move that would almost certainly extinguish any remaining hope of creating a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, have also cracked down on dissent in recent years. The PA has detained hundreds of people, including Amro, who was jailed for a week in 2017 over a Facebook post. Hamas violently dispersed protests last March, arresting dozens of people.

In addition to protesting, many Palestinians have also rallied behind the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, a nonviolent campaign that claims to be modeled on the struggle against South African Apartheid.

The campaign has sparked a major backlash by Israeli authorities, who say its true aim is to delegitimize the state and eventually wipe it off the map.

BDS endorses the Palestinian claim of a right of return for the descendants of refugees who fled or were driven out of Israel in the 1948 war that attended its creation. If fully realized, that would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority state. Critics have also seized on statements from prominent BDS supporters to brand it as anti-Semitic, something organizers vehemently deny.

A 2017 law bars entry to foreigners who have called for economic boycotts of Israel or its settlements. Israel invoked the law when it deported Shakir and when it refused entry to U.S. congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib earlier this year.

In May, German lawmakers passed a resolution that denounced the boycott movement and described its methods as anti-Semitic. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution opposing the boycott movement in July.

At least 25 U.S. states have enacted laws aimed at suppressing the BDS movement, including Texas, which passed a law forcing state contractors to sign a pledge that they do not support the campaign. A federal judge blocked enforcement of the law in April, saying boycotts are a form of protected free speech.

Gerald Steinberg, who heads a pro-Israel group called NGO Monitor that campaigns against BDS, said its “demonization paints Israelis as blood-thirsty war criminals, land-thieves and child killers.”

“These accusations contribute to or are used to justify attacks against students and speakers on university campuses, harassment in other venues and in some cases, violent terror,” he said.

Abu Rahma and other activists reject such characterizations, saying their struggle is not against Israelis but against the occupation.

“I see how the occupation is an obstacle to everything,” he said. “The path that I am on, I have to continue. I have to struggle. It’s not easy.”

…

American pop singer Pink says she is donating $500,000 to help fight the deadly wildfires that have devastated parts of Australia.

“I am totally devastated watching what is happening in Australia right now with the horrific bushfires,” Pink tweeted Saturday to her 32.2 million Twitter followers. “I am pledging a donation of $500,000 directly to the local fire services that are battling so hard on the frontlines. My heart goes out to our friends and family in Oz.”

The death toll in the wildfire crisis is now up to 23 people. The fires are expected to be particularly fierce throughout the weekend.

The wildfires, which have been raging since September, have already burned about 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land and destroyed more than 1,500 homes.

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U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new coalition to secure evangelical voter support for his re-election, delivering a rally-style speech in front of thousands of cheering Christians in a Miami megachurch on Friday.
 
“We have God on our side,” Trump said at the King Jesus International Ministry, a predominantly Latino church that also goes by its Spanish name Ministerio Internacional El Rey Jesús.
 

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Evangelical Magazine Christianity Today: Trump Must Go

Christianity Today, a major evangelical Christian magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham says President Donald Trump should be removed from office

The ministry is one of the largest Hispanic churches in the United States. Trump’s rally there acknowledged the power of evangelical and Latino voting blocs as his campaign tries to shore up support ahead of the November presidential election. Evangelical voters made up a substantial part of Trump’s base in 2016 and could pave the way toward securing the president’s re-election in 2020.
 
The president hit familiar campaign themes, boasting about policies that further the evangelical agenda, including restricting abortions, appointing conservative judges and his recent executive order to extend Title VI protections to Jews. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in institutions receiving federal funding, including colleges and universities.  
 
Trump also announced that he will soon be taking action to “safeguard students and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools.”

Evangelicals for Trump
 
Politically, evangelicals are relatively homogeneous and unified as they consistently champion four causes: pro-life policies, confirmation of conservative judges to the federal judiciary, religious freedom mainly for Christians and pro-Israel policies, said Professor Quardricos Driskell, an adjunct professor of religion and politics at the George Washington University.
 
“These four single issues make this group the most active supporters of not only Trump but most conservative Republican voters,” Driskell added.
 

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Trump Portrays Himself as Defender of Faith for Evangelicals

He speaks to more than 5,000 Christians at a Miami megachurch, days after he was the subject of a scathing editorial in Christianity Today magazine that called for his removal from office

Yet, like any group, evangelicals are not monolithic. Driskell said that a distinction has to be made between evangelicals and white evangelicals –  with a tendency for more “comprehensive group-think” among white evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016 vs. black or Latino evangelicals.  
 
There are also evangelicals uneasy with both the president’s demeanor and policies. After online publication the Christian Post recently issued an editorial supporting Trump, editor Napp Nazworth resigned in protest.
 
“There is a large contingent of evangelicals who agree that our faith shouldn’t be associated with a president who separates immigrant children from their families, betrays our allies in Syria, inspires racists, and pays hush money to porn stars,” Nazworth said.
 
Into the fold
 
Trump has put effort into bringing evangelicals into the fold, including by appointing Paula White, a televangelist from Florida whom he calls a longtime friend and personal pastor, as head of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. White introduced Trump at the rally as “a man of God” and lead a prayer session for him.

The “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition launch is yet another effort to solidify backing for the president, even when there are signs of erosion of support, including the explosive December 19 Christianity Today editorial that argued for Trump to be removed from office.
 
“By branding all evangelicals as Trump supporters, the campaign is trying to force those in that demographic who do not fully agree with the president’s policies to be pulled along because it is better to vote for President Trump than a Democrat,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien who teaches presidential politics at the University of Texas at Austin.
 

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Evangelicals Fired Up But Also Conflicted Ahead of Midterms

White and Nonwhite Evangelicals at opposite ends of political spectrum

There was no shortage of Trump lines hitting on opposition Democrats, whom he accused of waging war on the faithful.
 
“Every Democratic candidate running for president is trying to punish religious believers and silence our churches,” Trump said to applause from the crowd, many of them sporting MAGA red caps and Trump campaign attire. “This election is about the survival of our nation,” he said.
 
Trump also singled out Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, describing them as anti-Semitic. “These people hate Israel. They hate Jewish people,” Trump said.
 
Critics accuse Trump of weaponizing religion. “Faith and belief are highly personal things that should never be utilized as a partisan tool for electoral advantage,” O’Brien said.
 
Ahead of the president’s remarks, Florida Democrats issued a letter signed by 12 Christian leaders from five Florida counties that appealed to the president: “We cannot stand idly by while you attempt to co-opt our religion for your political gain and claim support from our community.”

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US President Donald Trump said he ordered the Friday’s airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander in Iraq at Baghdad’s airport to prevent imminent attacks against Americans in the region. US analysts discuss the move and its impact on Iran, and US policies in the Middle East region. VOA’s Steve Hirsch has more from Washington

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Chad has ended a months-long mission fighting Boko Haram in neighboring Nigeria and withdrawn its 1,200-strong force across their common border, an army spokesman told AFP on Saturday.

“It’s our troops who went to aid Nigerian soldiers months ago returning home. They have finished their mission,” spokesman Colonel Azem Bermandoa told AFP. “None of our soldiers remains in Nigeria,” he added, without specifying whether they might be replaced following Friday’s pullout.

“Those who have come back will return to their sector at Lake Chad,” Bermandoa said.

However, Chad’s general chief of staff General Tahir Erda Tahiro said that if countries in the region which have contributed to a multinational anti-jihadist force were in agreement, more troops will likely be sent in.

“If the states around Lake Chad agree on a new mission there will surely be another contingent redeployed on the ground,” Tahiro told AFP.

Boko Haram began the insurrection in Nigeria a decade ago, leading to at least 35,000 deaths with violence spilling over into Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

A Boko Haram faction aligned with Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) jihadists is highly active around Lake Chad where the group has training bases on the Niger border and regularly carries out raids on military bases and regional security forces.

Last month saw 14 people killed with 13 more listed as missing after an attack on a fishing village in western Chad.

Countries in the region have banded together to fight Boko Haram and ISWAP with support from civilian defense committees leading to Chad contributing 1,200 troops.

Those troops have now pulled back across the border to be “deployed in the Lake Chad region to strengthen security along the border,” a senior local official told AFP.

Cameroon says it is battling an upsurge in Boko Haram attacks and, according to an Amnesty International report published last month 275 people, including 225 civilians, were killed there last year.  

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Fourteen civilians, including many schoolchildren, died Saturday when a roadside bomb blew up their bus in northwestern Burkina Faso, a security source told AFP.

Four people were seriously hurt in the blast in Sourou province near the Mali border, the source added, as children returned to school after holidays.

“The vehicle hit a homemade bomb on the Toeni-Tougan road,” a second security source said. “Most of the dead are schoolchildren.”

Meanwhile, the army reported an attack against gendarmes at Inata in the north on Friday, saying “a dozen terrorists were neutralized”.

Since 2015, increasingly deadly Islamist attacks in Burkina have killed more than 750 people according to an AFP count, and forced 560,000 people from their homes according to UN figures.

The entire Sahel region, especially Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, is fighting jihadist insurgency with help from Western countries, but has not managed to stem the bloodshed.

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Highlighting his record on religious liberty, President Donald Trump on Friday worked to energize a group of evangelical supporters who make up an influential piece of his political base that could prove vital in battleground states. 

Trump spoke to more than 5,000 Christians, including a large group of Latinos, at a Miami megachurch, just days after he was the subject of a scathing editorial in Christianity Today magazine that called for his removal from office. Thousands of the faithful lifted their hands and prayed over Trump as he began speaking and portrayed himself as a defender of faith. 

“We’re defending religion itself. A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith can not endure,“ said Trump, who also tried to paint his Democratic rivals for the 2020 election as threats to religious liberty. “We can’t let one of our radical left friends come in here because everything we’ve done will be gone in short order.” 

“The day I was sworn in, the federal government war’s on religion came to an abrupt end,” Trump declared. He later added: “We can smile because we’re winning by so much.” 

Points of emphasis

Although some of his address resembled his standard campaign speech, Trump cited his support for Israel, installation of federal judges, prison reform and a push to put prayer in public school. Those are issues his Republican re-election campaign believes could further jolt evangelical turnout that could help them secure wins in states like Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. 

Friday’s kickoff of “Evangelicals for Trump” will be followed in the weeks ahead by the launches of “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.“ It also came days after Trump and his wife went to an evangelical Christmas Eve service in West Palm Beach rather than the liberal Episcopalian church in which they were married and often attend holiday services. 

Advisers believe that emphasizing religious issues may also provide inroads with Latino voters, who have largely steered clear of supporting the president over issues like immigration. Deep into his speech, Trump touched on the issue by praising his border wall. His aides believe even a slight uptick with faith-focused Latinos could help Trump carry Florida again and provide some needed breathing room in states like Texas. 

The president made no mention of the editorial, which ran in a magazine founded by the late Reverend Billy Graham. 

‘Remember who you are’

“Remember who you are and whom you serve,” the editorial states. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.” 

Campaign officials said the Miami event was in the works well before the op-ed, and they trotted out several high-profile evangelical pastors to defend the president. 

“I think his record in the past three years is rock-solid in things that the faith community cares about him,“ said Jentezen Franklin, a pastor to a megachurch in Georgia. “We used to see politicians once every four years, but this one is totally different in constantly reaching out to the faith community, and we even get a chance to tell him when we disagree.“ 

The event came on the heels of a new poll showing that white evangelical Protestants stand noticeably apart from other religious people on how the government should act on two of the most politically divisive issues at play in the 2020 presidential election. 

Asked about significant restrictions on abortion — making it illegal except in cases of rape, incest or to threats to a mother’s life — 37% of all Americans responded in support, according to the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Those abortion limits drew 39% support from white mainline Protestants, 33% support from nonwhite Protestants and 45% support from Catholics, but 67% support from white evangelical Protestants. 

LGBTQ protections

A similar divide emerged over whether the government should bar discrimination against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in workplaces, housing or schools. About 6 in 10 Catholics, white mainline Protestants and nonwhite Protestants supported those protections, compared with about a third of white evangelical Protestants. 

White evangelicals were also more likely than members of other faiths to say religion should have at least some influence on policymaking. 

But Democrats have shown strong interest in connecting with voters of faith, even evangelicals whom Trump is often assumed to have locked down. And some religious leaders believe people of faith may be turned off by Trump’s personal conduct or record. 

“Friday’s rally is Trump’s desperate response to the realization that he is losing his primary voting bloc — faith voters. He knows he needs every last vote if he wants a shot at reelection, as losing just 5% of the faith voters ends his chances,” said the Reverend Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good. “In addition, he is trying to use this part of his base to give cover for his broken promises and immoral policies.” 

…

The IRGC was founded in 1979, shortly after the Islamic Revolution. The core task of its estimated 150,000 ground forces, navy and air units is to protect Iran’s Islamic system and revolutionary values. 

…

After Friday’s targeted killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, newsrooms struggled with the question: Had the United States just carried out an assassination? And should news stories about the killing use that term?

The AP Stylebook, considered a news industry bible, defines assassination as “the murder of a politically important or prominent individual by surprise attack.”

Although the United States and Iran have long been adversaries and engaged in a shadow war in the Middle East and elsewhere, the U.S. has never declared formal war on Iran. So the targeted killing of a high Iranian state and military official by a surprise attack was “clearly an assassination,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, an expert in international law and the laws of war at the University of Notre Dame School of Law.

Just as clearly, the Trump administration doesn’t agree.

Self-defense or not?

Though a statement issued by the Pentagon said the attack was specifically intended to kill Soleimani and that it was ordered “at the direction of the President,” it also characterized the killing as defensive, to protect U.S. military forces abroad, and stated that Soleimani was actively developing plans “to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” Subsequent statements by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump also characterized the killing as punishment of Soleimani for past blood on his hands.

O’Connell’s counter argument: Whether the killing is framed as part of an armed conflict between two states or as a police action intended to deter terrorism, it cannot be characterized as an act of self-defense because there was never a full-fledged and direct attack on the United States by Iran. The United States’ legal reason for being in Iraq is to deter the Islamic State group, not to fight against Iran, she noted, and the attacks against the U.S. by Iranian-backed militias in recent months have been intermittent and relatively limited.

‘‘Assassination is prohibited both in peacetime law as well as on the battlefield,” she said.

“We have really moved to a nearly lawless state,” she said. If the justification for a military response is self-defense, the response should be “necessary and proportionate.” But that would not justify individual targeted killings, she said.

Prohibited by law

The premeditated killing of a specific individual commander for what they have done on the battlefield or what they may do has been prohibited by the law of armed conflict dating from the Hague Conventions of 1907, and by a protocol of the Geneva Convention in 1949 saying “it is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by perfidy,” she added.

International war law aside, there also has been a U.S. executive order in place since 1976 forbidding the U.S. from carrying out political assassinations. The order came into being after revelations that the CIA had organized or sanctioned assassination attempts against foreign leaders including Fidel Castro.

The current version of the executive order states: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”

It does not however define what constitutes an assassination, and has been generally interpreted to mean an unlawful killing of a political leader in peacetime. For instance, during the “war on terror” since 9/11, the United States is believed to have conducted a number of secret drone strikes targeting individuals, such as the attack against al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in 2011 in Yemen.

Military leader

Soleimani, however, was a military leader. If he was leading forces against the United States, under the international laws of war as enunciated in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, he and his forces could be considered legitimate battle targets during any actual war or armed conflict, declared or undeclared.

The AP has mostly refrained from describing Soleimani’s death as an assassination, both because it would require that the news service decide that the act was a murder, and because the term is politically freighted.

Duke University Professor of Law Madeleine Morris, an expert on international criminal law, said the law is not terribly clear in this area.

She said that under the United Nations Charter, there is a clear right of self-defense in response to armed attacks. She noted that some might argue that the attacks the U.S. has experienced in this case do not meet at a threshold of gravity to justify this sort of targeted killing, while others would argue to the contrary that there is no explicit threshold — that if attacked a country has an absolute right to respond militarily.

“There is no obligation to kill a lot of people rather than a single person,” she said.

The question then would be whether the act of war was legal, allowed as self-defense, or would it be considered an illegal act of aggression? That would depend on the intelligence evidence offered by the United States and the imminence of any planned attack.

“The problem is that governments have good reason to make very little public in this situation, which makes it very difficult to evaluate the situation politically or legally,” she said.

…

Bundled against the cold, dozens of asylum seekers pushed back into Mexico by the United States tried Friday to get their bearings, still unsure of how they would travel some 350 miles to their court dates, subsist for months in this unfamiliar border city or return to their distant homelands.

On Thursday, the U.S. government expanded its so-called “Remain in Mexico” program to the border between this city and its sister Nogales, Arizona. A group of about 30 mostly Central American migrants were returned that day and another approximately 45 were sent Friday.

The migrants said no one had figured out how to round up money to leave Nogales yet.

The U.S. had sent some 56,000 asylum seekers back to await their cases in Mexico through November, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Making asylum seekers wait in Mexican border cities, many of which suffer from rampant crime, aims to discourage migrants. Previously many of them were released with monitoring bracelets to await their cases inside the U.S.

Nogales is the seventh border crossing to participate in the program and perhaps the most onerous yet for asylum seekers.

Central Americans who returned Thursday had court dates scheduled for late March in El Paso, Texas, hundreds of miles east. Other border points have courts just across the frontier or at least a significantly shorter distance away.

Lorenzo Gonzalez, a Guatemalan farmworker traveling with his wife and three children between the ages of 1 and 12, said he didn’t see how they could wait three months. He was ready to throw in the towel, but also didn’t know how they’d be able to return to Guatemala.

“We don’t understand why they didn’t send us to Guatemala to fight our case from there and not wait here,’ he said at a soup kitchen where his family had eaten Friday. “We’re worried here because we don’t know anyone, we don’t have any place to go. They gave us a shelter, but not more than three nights.”

The family spent Thursday night at a shelter nearly 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the border. In the morning, migrants there paid a nominal fee for a lift to the soup kitchen, which sits a short walk from the border crossing. In the afternoon, Mexico’s immigration agency shuttles them back to the shelter from the border. But workers at the independently run shelter said they can stay for only three nights.

“I want to go back (to Guatemala), but we don’t have money,” he said. He also didn’t have the 1,200 pesos ($63) for a bus ticket to Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, where his court date was scheduled for March 25. “I don’t know what to do.”

Even with money, the journey to Ciudad Juarez is far from secure. It entails crossing from territory controlled by the Sinaloa cartel to that of the rival Juarez cartel. Three women and six children, all dual nationals, were killed by Juarez cartel gunmen in November where those territories meet.

“We’re very worried by this situation,” said the Rev. Sean Carroll, executive director of the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, which provides the free meals to migrants. He said the returnees are at risk of assault, abuse, kidnapping and rape. “They’re vulnerable here. They’re going to be vulnerable en route. They’re going to be vulnerable in Ciudad Juarez.”

A report by the independent Human Rights First group, released in December, documented at least 636 public reports of violence against asylum-seekers returned to Mexico including rape, kidnapping and torture. The group said that was a steep increase over October, when it had identified 343 attacks, and noted the latest figure is surely an under-count because most crime victims don’t report.

Heberto Ramirez, another Guatemalan farmworker traveling with his 16-year-old son, said he had been in touch with his family since being sent back to Mexico and they asked him how he’d get home because there was no more money. Still, he didn’t see how they could wait more than three months at the border either. He had just a towel draped over a shirt to buffer against the cold that hovered just below freezing early Friday morning.

“We wanted to do something, maybe earn something that we don’t have, but it turns out we couldn’t,” Ramirez said. “Better we go back, continue living poorly.”

In a statement Thursday, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the Migrant Protection Protocols program has been “an extremely effective tool.”

“I am confident in the program’s continued success in adjudicating meritorious cases quickly and preventing fraudulent claims,“ Wolf wrote.

Gonzalez, wearing a hooded sweatshirt with nothing underneath, expressed concern for his family’s safety on the Mexican side of the border. His wife appeared nervous. They had been separated during five days in detention in Tucson and then loaded onto a bus Thursday with no information about what was happening, he said.

“They didn’t tell us where they were going to send us,” he said. “They simply put us on a bus and came to leave us here at the Nogales border.”

…