The Biden administration has instructed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help process the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving in the U.S. As of this weekend, some 4,200 children were being detained in overcrowded Border Patrol facilities, where some of them have reportedly been held for a week or longer, forced to sleep on the floor, unable to shower, and were not allowed to call their families to alert them of their whereabouts. BuzzFeed reports the Biden administration has opened a new temporary detention facility in Texas which will hold children until they’re placed in a government shelter or released to family members or sponsors. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who blamed the Biden administration for the increase of migrant children arriving to the U.S., is leading a group of Republican lawmakers to the southern border in Texas today.
In legislative news, the Democrat-controlled House is moving ahead with two major immigration bills this week which could create a pathway to citizenship for millions: the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.
Direct payments of $1,400 have started to hit bank accounts, days after President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill. Nearly 70 million U.S. residents have received at least one vaccine dose, with about 11% of the population fully vaccinated. Georgia has dropped the age of eligibility for vaccinations to 55. Millions more Californians are now eligible after the state expanded vaccine access for people with preexisting conditions and disabilities. Los Angeles is offering the vaccine to people living or working in congregate facilities including prisons and shelters for unhoused people. Republican voters have become one of the largest unvaccinated groups in the country. A recent poll found over 40% of Republicans said they would not get vaccinated, versus less than 15% of Democrats. Over the weekend, Dr. Anthony Fauci called on former President Trump, who was secretly inoculated before he left office, to encourage people to get vaccinated. As crowds of spring break revelers hit the beach in Florida and elsewhere, Dr. Fauci also warned, again, that rolling back public health measures too soon could lead to new outbreaks.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: “We’re not in the end zone yet. And that’s one of the issues, that when you plateau, there’s always the risk of a surge. That’s exactly what the Europeans have experienced.”
In Italy, three-quarters of the population are under a new lockdown after a 15% increase in cases was recorded last week. A more transmissible coronavirus variant, first identified in Britain, has been spreading throughout Italy. Meanwhile, a German health official has declared Germany’s third coronavirus wave has begun.
Brazil has surpassed India in COVID-19 cases, making it the second-hardest-hit country for both infections and deaths in the world, after the U.S.
More countries, including Ireland, Thailand and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are suspending or delaying use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of blood clots and one death in Denmark. No clear link between the vaccines and the blood clots has been demonstrated. The U.K. medicines regulator and the World Health Organization have said there is no reason to stop administering the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Burma’s military rulers have extended martial law after the deadliest day of political violence since the February 1 coup that toppled the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party. On Sunday, Burmese soldiers killed at least 38 people countrywide, with widespread reports of soldiers firing live ammunition into crowds of nonviolent protesters. A human rights group said at least 126 people have been killed and over 2,100 arrested since the coup. A parallel civilian government-in-exile is calling for a “revolution” to overthrow the military junta.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Biden administration has granted temporary protected status to Burmese people living in the U.S. for 18 months.
In Afghanistan, a car bomb in western Herat province killed at least eight people and injured over 50 Friday. Most of the victims were civilians. No party has claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in an effort to accelerate an agreement ending the decades-long conflict ahead of a proposed meeting in Turkey. The New York Times is reporting the U.S. has around 3,500 troops in Afghanistan, about 1,000 more than previously disclosed. Under a deal struck by the Trump administration, the U.S. is set to withdraw its military by May 1, though it’s not yet clear if Biden will follow through with that timeline.
Kosovo has formally opened its embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the third country — after Guatemala and the United States — to move its embassy there, even though Israel has illegally occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. Under a normalization deal announced by former President Trump last September, Israel recognized Kosovo’s independence from Serbia in exchange for Kosovo’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has opened a Jerusalem branch of its Israeli Embassy.
In Guatemala, the remains of 16 migrants — who were massacred while crossing Mexico as they attempted to reach the U.S. — have been repatriated. The families of the deceased continue to demand justice. This is the father of one of the victims.
Rodolfo Jiménez: “It hurts to lose a child. He went to look for a better life. He wanted to build his house, help his family, his siblings. That was his goal. But, unfortunately, he was killed in the Tamaulipas massacre.”
In January, 19 bodies were found shot and charred inside a pickup truck in the northern state of Tamaulipas, near the U.S.-Mexico border. A dozen Mexican police officers were arrested in connection to the killings. According to the Guatemalan government, at least five people survived the massacre and are currently under protection in the U.S.
In Bolivia, former interim President Jeanine Áñez has been arrested and faces terrorism charges over her involvement in the 2019 military coup that overthrew then-President Evo Morales. Other members of Áñez’s right-wing interim government also face possible charges, as well as military and police accused of carrying out massacres and violent repression against Indigenous communities and supporters of Morales. Evo Morales returned to Bolivia last November — after one year in exile — following the election of President Luis Arce and the return of Morales’s MAS party.
In Britain, outrage is mounting after London police forcibly and aggressively broke up a vigil with thousands of mourners Saturday evening in memory of Sarah Everard, a woman who was kidnapped and killed earlier this month. A police officer has been charged in her murder. This is a mourner at Clapham Common, where a memorial has been set up near where Everard was last seen.
Emily Wraith: “This has affected every woman across the country. What it has done is it’s kicked up every single thing that’s ever happened to us. And as a collective, we needed to come together to be able to grieve that as a process. And basically, the police robbed us of our human right for collective grief.”
This comes as British lawmakers are considering a bill to give police greater authority to crack down on protests. The minority Labour Party has vowed to oppose the new law.
In Australia, tens of thousands took to the streets across the country today amid a recent wave of allegations of sexual assault and discrimination against high-level political figures, including Australia’s attorney general. A former staffer for the Liberal Party, Brittany Higgins, recently went public with an accusation of rape against a former colleague. Other women have since come forward to say they, too, survived sexual assault by the unnamed man. Brittany Higgins spoke at today’s rally in Canberra.
Brittany Higgins: “I was raped inside Parliament House by a colleague. And for so long, it felt like the people around me only cared because of where it happened and what it might mean for them. It was so confusing, because these people were my idols. I had dedicated my life to them. They were my social network, my colleagues and my family. Then suddenly they treated me differently. I wasn’t a person who had just gone through a life-changing, traumatic event; I was a political problem.”
The city of Minneapolis on Friday reached a record $27 million civil settlement with the family of George Floyd. This is civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Floyd’s family.
Benjamin Crump: “In this historic agreement, the largest pretrial settlement in a police civil rights wrongful death case in U.S. history makes a statement that George Floyd deserved better than what we witnessed on May 25th, 2020, that George Floyd’s life matters, and, by extension, Black lives matter. It sends a message that the unjust taking Black life will no longer be written off as trivial, unimportant or unworthy of consequences.”
This comes as the criminal trial for former officer Derek Chauvin, who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck for over nine minutes, continues. Seven jurors have now been selected.
Protests and gatherings were held in Louisville, Kentucky, and other cities across the country Saturday, marking one year since plainclothes police officers busted through the door of Breonna Taylor’s home in the middle of the night and shot her dead. Breonna Taylor was a Black, 26-year-old emergency medical technician and aspiring nurse. This is Keturah Herron of the ACLU of Kentucky.
Keturah Herron: “No one has been charged. No one has been prosecuted or convicted for her murder. And it’s important for people to remember that and that we have to continue to fight and we can’t stop. We have to keep going, and we cannot rest. Breonna was not able to rest, so we should not be able to rest until people are held accountable for the murder.”
On Friday, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker filed a federal lawsuit against the Louisville Police Department for violations of his constitutional rights. Walker, who was in the apartment with Taylor when she was killed, was cleared just last week of charges for allegedly shooting and wounding a police officer during the deadly raid.
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