Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva and other Democratic lawmakers are renewing calls to Customs and Border Protection to review its practices on dealing with migrant belongings.
A letter signed by more than two dozen lawmakers says CBP personnel are trashing and confiscating migrants’ personal belongings — including medications, religious garb and legal documents.
The letter says it’s the latest of repeated calls over the last two years about this issue. It also follows a government watchdog report earlier this year that found the agency lacked a clear policy for belongings and called for reforms. But despite those steps, migrants in Nogales continue to report having their belongings thrown away during processing.
Grijalva and other lawmakers say the agency should heed the recommendations laid out by the watchdog report to ensure policy is not open to interpretation and migrants understand how to get their belongings back.
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Thousands of refugees in the U.S. lost health coverage on Oct. 1 as new Medicaid eligibility rules took effect. In Arizona, unlike in most states, even children and pregnant women are being dropped. -
On Monday, dozens of agents swarmed a stretch of private land where the activists had been camped in and around a centuries-old cottonwood tree. Contractors tore down the tree and agents made multiple arrests. -
New research shows the ancient site is much older than previously thought. In fact, it’s now confirmed to be the oldest known scientifically dated geoglyph in the Americas, 2,000 years older than the first Pyramids built in Egypt. -
Protesters have been camped out in a plot of private ranch land in Lochiel for over two months now, trying to block wall construction as it neared a towering cottonwood tree that was the last of a grove slated for destruction to make way for two, parallel steel bollard walls. -
Ahmed Soliman has no ties to Equatorial Guinea. The 30-year-old man was born in Egypt and brought to the United States. when he was just 4 years old. He grew up in Phoenix. Now he’s believed to be in a hospital in the African nation.
