SEATTLE — Civil rights groups and lawmakers were demanding information from federal officials following reports that dozens of Iranian-Americans were held up and questioned at the border as they returned to the United States from Canada over the weekend. In a statement Sunday, the Washington state chapter of the Council...
What Crackdown? Migrant Smuggling Business Adapts, Thrives
HERMOSILLO, Mexico — The heavy-set man swept through a curtain into the reserved area of a nightclub as his bodyguard stood nearby. In the darkness, he agreed to talk about his business: handling the income from smuggling migrants across a 375-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border. “We control all the...
House Sets Vote on $1.4 Trillion Federal Spending Bill
WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House is voting Tuesday on a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package with an unusually large load of unrelated provisions on the must-do legislation. The package, some 2,313 pages long, was unveiled Monday as lawmakers prepared to wrap up reams of unfinished work against a backdrop of...
A Tale of 2 Migrations: Before and After New Trump Policies
SANTA ANA, El Salvador — María Teresa Carballo was worried. She hadn’t heard from her daughter-in-law since the young woman and her two young children left with a smuggler for the U.S. border a week earlier. The silence was unexpected: Seventeen other members of Carballo’s family had undertaken the same...
Top AP Photos of 2019 Range From the Epic to the Intimate
Ours is a world of sweeping vistas, and intimate scenes. In 2019, Associated Press photographers captured both. A single Border Protection officer stands in the rain at the border; pieces of heavy equipment, replacing a stretch of border wall, are dwarfed by the open, blue sky. And the bodies of...
How the Gunfights in North Mexico That Left 23 Dead Unfolded
VILLA UNION, Mexico — When dozens of pickup trucks crowded with armed men and mounted machine guns roared into Villa Union, residents of the small town near the U.S. border began to realize they were the target of a military-style invasion. What followed were hours-long gunbattles between a cartel force...
Cartel Sieges Leave Mexicans Wondering If Criminals Run the Country
Recent deadly attacks by criminal organizations have instilled fear across Mexico. In mid-October, shootouts between cartels and police in the states of Guerrero and Michoacán killed over 30 people. And a 12-hour criminal assault on Culiacán, Sinaloa, after Mexican security forces captured the son of drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo”...
Joint Turkish and Russian Patrols Begin in Syrian Region
SEVIMLI, Turkey — Turkey and Russia launched joint patrols Friday in northeastern Syria, under a deal that halted a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters who were forced to withdraw from the border area following Ankara's incursion. The Turkish Defense Ministry said an initial patrol covered an area 54 miles...
Border Wall, Impeachment Battle Imperil Budget Progress
WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a long-overdue, $209 billion bundle of bipartisan spending bills Thursday, but a bitter fight over funding demanded by President Donald Trump for border fencing imperils broader Capitol Hill efforts to advance $1.4 trillion worth of annual Cabinet agency budgets. The 84-9 vote sends the measure...
Turkish Forces Push Deeper Into Syria, With Deaths Rising
AKCAKALE, Turkey — Turkish forces pushed deeper into northeastern Syria on Friday, the third day of Ankara's offensive against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters, as casualties mounted, international criticism of the campaign intensified and thousands of civilians fled the violence. Turkey said it captured more Kurdish-held villages in the border region,...