(NEW YORK) — It’s not easy to do schoolwork on an old laptop with a poor internet connection.
Just ask Sabina Rodriguez, who went through her junior and senior year in online learning classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Her parents were both unemployed and couldn’t afford new devices.
“I was literally on the world’s oldest computer,” Rodriguez said. Her mother is Colombian immigrant who previously worked as a house cleaner. Her father grew up in a low-income household, and chauffeured for a living.
“As a minority, especially in a financial situation, school was like our only way to success,” she said. “Our parents came here so we could go to school.”
That’s when she discovered First Tech Fund, a new nonprofit dedicated to “closing the digital divide” among underserved high school students in New York City.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the burgeoning digital divide among students of different economic backgrounds. About 25% of all school-aged children across the U.S. live without the sufficient technology or access to Wi-Fi at home, according to the National Education Association.
It’s a situation First Tech Fund co-founder Josue De Paz knew well, and when the pandemic forced kids out of school and back into their homes, it was a need he was determined to help solve.
The organization offers high school students a year-long fellowship in which they are supplied with a laptop and a Wi-Fi hotspot, with unlimited internet access. They’re also paired with a mentor and are given weekly virtual workshops on digital skills, career growth and other professional development opportunities.
“I can never repay them for the situation I’m in right now,” Rodriguez said. She said she’s spent hours on Zoom calls with mentors and professionals who’ve helped edit her resume, college essays and more.
In New York City, 14% of students didn’t have a computer or computing device, and 13% didn’t have adequate internet access, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union and New York State Education Department.
The NYSE report showed how students in Black and Latino school districts suffered disproportionately during the pandemic: Compared with students in largely white districts, they were about four times as likely to lack internet access and three times as likely to lack a device that allowed them to complete schoolwork.
De Paz said some students were doing homework from phones or sharing devices with siblings, making it much harder to complete assignments, let alone excel among peers. First Tech Fund targets these marginalized communities.
Rodriguez said students felt more encouraged and supported throughout the school year, especially those on their way to college. One of 52 students chosen from 743 applicants in the first cohort of fellowship winners, Rodriguez is now a freshman at Fordham University, pursuing a career in psychology and medicine.
Some 23 of the 24 college-eligible students in that 2020-2021 cohort are now enrolled at a two- or four-year institution.
In this upcoming school year, outreach was expanded to 86 students out of about 200 applicants. De Paz credited donors, partner organizations and elected officials for helping him help so many.
“There’s more power in the community than we often give ourselves credit for,” De Paz said. “We should be leveraging it — now more than ever — when people need that support.”
De Paz, a DACA recipient, moved to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 5 years old. He thanks his mother for working long hours at several jobs to provide him with a personal laptop and dial-up internet.
“I saw my mom work two to three jobs in order for me to get that access, and then I really saw how that impacted my entire educational career,” De Paz said. “Even before I had a bed, my mom was like, ‘You’re going to have a desk, and you’re gonna have a computer,’ so I was sleeping on the floor, but I still had what I needed for school.”
De Paz is paying forward that gratitude to help students like Rodriguez.
“I’ve always struggled financially, growing up,” she said, “so the fact that Josue, another Hispanic who grew up in the same situation, that he actually has the courage to like be like, ‘I’m going to help, I’m going to give back’ … it really comes from, like, his heart.”
(CA) — Nanette Packard, who was convicted of directing her ex-NFL lover to kill her millionaire fiance, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she still carries “a lot of guilt over what happened.”
“Had I not been having an affair … Bill would be alive still,” Packard said. “I feel that way.”
She and former NFL linebacker Eric Naposki have spent nearly a decade behind bars as convicted killers serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murder of Bill McLaughlin. Both deny having any involvement in his death.
“I don’t know for sure [who killed McLaughlin],” Packard said. “I never said that Eric did it because I couldn’t say that Eric did it for sure. I don’t know that. He never said that to me.”
Packard met Naposki in the early ‘90s at a gym. Naposki, who had once played for the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, had left professional sports by then, and was living in California, where he worked as a security guard for a nightclub and worked as a bodyguard on the side.
The two eventually started seeing each other romantically even though Packard, who was then a mother of two in her 20s, was already in a relationship with McLaughlin. He was an entrepreneur 30 years her senior who had made millions off of a medical device invention.
Packard was living with McLaughlin in Newport Beach, California, in a luxurious home located in a wealthy, gated community. However, she told Naposki that she and McLaughlin were just business partners.
“Eric knew about Bill and Bill knew that Eric was my friend. [Bill] didn’t know we were having an affair,” Packard said.
She said she met McLaughlin, a father of three, through a personal ad he had posted in the Pennysaver.
“Maybe it wasn’t the most intense [relationship] romantically but I did love him,” Packard said of McLaughlin. “He was a good man and he was good to my children, and I would never have killed him and probably would still be with him today if he were alive, because I had no reason.”
McLaughlin was 55 years old when he was shot six times in the chest by an intruder while he sat at his kitchen table on Dec. 15, 1994.
Authorities did not make any arrests in connection to his death until 15 years later, when investigators re-examined the case.
Packard and Naposki were arrested separately during a bicoastal sting operation in May 2009 on murder charges.
By the time of their arrests, Packard and Naposki had gone their separate ways. Packard had gone on to marry twice more and was still living in California. Naposki, meanwhile, had briefly gone back to playing professional American football overseas before returning to the U.S., where he had a fiancée and was living in Connecticut.
The prosecutor alleged Packard was the suspected mastermind behind McLaughlin’s death and that she convinced Naposki to kill him so they could collect a substantial sum of money.
Prosecutors argued that Packard stood to benefit from McLaughlin’s million-dollar life insurance policy, $150,000 from his will and access to his beach house.
There was reason to suspect Packard. In 1996, she had pleaded guilty to forgery and grand theft after she was accused of forging McLaughlin’s name on checks and stealing from his accounts. She served 180 days behind bars.
Packard denied the murder charges against her, saying she needed McLaughlin to continue her lifestyle.
“I only gained money if Bill was alive,” she said.
According to prosecutors, Naposki’s story evolved during questioning. He initially lied about owning a .9 mm handgun, which was the same kind of weapon used to kill McLaughlin.
“The single most important piece of evidence that we had against Eric Naposki was … the way he lied to the police,” said ABC News consultant and former Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy, who tried the case.
When asked why he lied to police, Naposki told ABC News, “I just didn’t want to talk about it because, if I wasn’t at the scene, and I wasn’t in Newport, then I couldn’t have killed the guy even if I had a bazooka.”
Naposki went to trial first and was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2011. Afterward, he met with prosecutors and told them Packard had orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot against McLaughlin, and the killer had used his gun.
“[Naposki said] he was there, in the room, when they talked about [the plot],’” said author Caitlin Rother, who wrote a book about the case titled, “I’ll Take Care of You.” “But then he says, ‘But apparently, [the killer] went behind my back and made arrangements with Nanette. So the two of them planned this. It wasn’t me.’”
“The way he describes it, he is a co-conspirator in a murder case,” Murphy added. “Even if it was true, the way he describes that, he is still 100% guilty for exactly what he was convicted of.”
Packard was found guilty in January 2012 of first-degree murder and guilty of the special circumstance of committing murder for financial gain.
Naposki is serving time at Avenal State Prison in Avenal, California. He said he hasn’t spoken to Packard since everything “went down.”
“I didn’t kill anybody. I’m not a killer,” he said.
Packard is serving her sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility, training service dogs through a program called Little Angels.
“These dogs, they just bring so much healing,” she said. “It also helps to make a difference for me, for me to be able to live with the fact that I’m away from my kids.”
McLaughlin’s children, who at one point thought their father’s murder would never be solved, have tried to move forward. They believe justice was served.
“[Packard and Naposki’s lives] have been taken away from them … and hopefully they’re thinking about what they did,” Kim McLaughlin told ABC News. “What I miss most about my father is just having him as a friend … and I know he’d be very proud of us and the choices we’re making. And so, it’s hard not to have him be able to share that here on earth with him… We miss him dearly.”
(BETHESDA, Md.) — Over 3 million infant loungers made by Boppy, the popular maker of baby products, are being recalled after reports of eight infant deaths between 2015 and 2020, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced Thursday.
Boppy is recalling its Boppy Original Newborn Loungers, Boppy Preferred Newborn Loungers and Pottery Barn Kids Boppy Newborn Loungers, according to the CPSC.
The eight infant deaths reportedly happened after infants were placed on their back, side or stomach and fell asleep on the lounger, according to the CPSC.
The infants reportedly suffocated and were found on their side or their stomach, the agency said.
The CPSC urged people to “immediately stop” using the recalled loungers.
“These types of incidents are heartbreaking,” Acting Chairman Robert S. Adler, CPSC commissioner, said in a statement. “Loungers and pillow-like products are not safe for infant sleep, due to the risk of suffocation. Since we know that infants sleep so much of the time — even in products not intended for sleep — and since suffocation can happen so quickly, these Boppy lounger products are simply too risky to remain on the market.”
In response to the recall, Boppy said it is “devastated to hear of these tragedies.”
“Boppy is committed to doing everything possible to safeguard babies, including communicating the safe use of our products to parents and caregivers, and educating the public about the importance of following all warnings and instructions and the risks associated with unsafe sleep practices for infants,” the company said in a statement. “The lounger was not marketed as an infant sleep product and includes warnings against unsupervised use.”
The recalled products were sold at retailers including Pottery Barn, Target, and Walmart and Amazon.com from January 2004 to today, according to the CPSC. The loungers retailed for between $30 and $44 and were “solid in a variety of colors and fashions.”
Boppy also distributed about 35,000 of the recalled loungers in Canada, according to the CPSC.
The news of the recall follows a report from Consumer Reports earlier this month that found seven recent infant deaths were tied to nursing pillows and infant loungers made by Boppy,
It also comes one year after the CPSC issued a warning for caregivers about the risks of using pillow-like products for sleeping infants.
The 2020 warning from CPSC, which applied to all nursing pillows and baby loungers on the market, said infant deaths involving the products appeared to happen when “children are left on or near pillows, and the child rolls over, rolls off, or falls asleep.”
The recall announced Thursday applies only to loungers made by Boppy, and does not include nursing pillows or all pillow-like products on the market.
Caregivers should always place infants to sleep on their backs on a firm, flat surface and should never add “blankets, pillows, padded crib bumpers, or other items to an infant’s sleeping environment,” according to both the CPSC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, has resigned in protest over the Biden administration deportations of Haitians from the southern border, calling them “inhumane.”
“Ambassador Daniel Foote, who had been serving as Special Envoy for Haiti since July 22, 2021, submitted his resignation to Secretary Blinken yesterday. We thank Ambassador Foote for his service in this role,” a State Department spokesman told ABC News on Thursday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Prince Harry and Meghan kicked off their visit to New York City Thursday by visiting the city’s highest point.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made an early morning visit to One World Observatory inside the One World Trade Center, the tallest building not only in New York City but also in the United States.
The Sussexes were joined at the observatory, the focal point of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex, by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, along with his wife, Chirlane McCray, and their son, Dante.
Harry and Meghan’s trip to New York City is their first joint public trip since they moved to California last year.
It is also the first live public appearance Meghan has made since giving birth to their second child, daughter Lilibet, in June.
On Saturday, Harry and Meghan are scheduled to take part in Global Citizen Live, an annual concert event held on the Great Lawn in Central Park.
The Sussexes will appear at the concert to promote vaccine equity around the world in the fight against COVID-19.
Harry and Meghan were co-chairs in May of “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World,” an international COVID-19 vaccination effort organized by Global Citizen.
Earlier this month, Prince Harry gave an impassioned speech at the GQ Men of the Year Awards, pleading with governments and pharmaceutical companies to do more to vaccinate the world.
“Until every community can access the vaccine, and until every community is connected to trustworthy information about the vaccine, then we are all at risk,” he said, while adding about misinformation campaigns that are adding to vaccine hesitancy, “This is a system we need to break if we are to overcome COVID-19 and the rise of new variants.”
The Sussexes were recently featured on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list, in which they were applauded for starting “essential conversations on topics from mental health to misinformation.”
The TIME cover portrait featuring the Duke and Duchess of Sussex marked the first time the couple has formally posed together for a magazine cover shoot.
(NEW YORK) — This summer, the United States has seen the effects of climate change firsthand, as record-breaking wildfires, droughts and hurricanes have devastated parts of the country.
During his United Nations General Assembly speech on Tuesday, President Joe Biden called on countries to bring their best ideas to end climate change to COP26 in Glasgow in November.
“To keep within our reach the vital goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, every nation needs to bring their highest possible ambitions to the table,” the president said.
To keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius — which is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says needs to happen to avoid the worst effects of climate change — countries will have to lower emissions. One way to do that is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
There is already a natural solution available: Take care of and learn more about the oceans. Oceans cover 70% of the world, leading to a vast reservoir capable of pulling in and storing carbon dioxide.
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, scientists estimate oceans have pulled in around 30% of all the carbon dioxide humans have released into the atmosphere.
How much the ocean takes in each year varies, according to Dr. Jaime Palter, an associate professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, who spoke with ABC Audio’s “Perspective” podcast.
“We really would like to have a quantification of the ocean carbon dioxide uptake narrowed so that we can make really skillful predictions of where [the] climate is going and how quickly temperatures will stop rising once we go to net-zero human-caused emissions,” she said.
Palter is part of a team trying to learn how much carbon the Gulf Stream absorbs and how it transports heat
“It’s the perfect place for the ocean to take up carbon dioxide, both because of the weather of the region — it’s just so stormy — and also because of the oceanography of the region,” said Palter. “Second, once it’s taken off, it can sequester it for hundreds of years if it manages to sink in the deep ocean.”
Palter, along with Saildrone — a company that produces unmanned ocean drones for research — and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting will launch six 72-foot autonomous drones off the East Coast this fall.
“Those are very difficult seas, particularly in the winter months, and it’s one reason why we know so little about that area,” Anne Hale Miglarese, the program executive officer for impact science at Saildrone, said on the “Perspective” podcast.
The drones are wind- and solar-powered and are equipped with sensors and cameras to check CO2 levels, wind speed and several other variables. They navigate via predetermined way-points while a pilot supervises on land.
Once launched, the drones will spend the next 12 months crisscrossing the Gulf Stream.
The data will be fed back instantly to researchers on land via satellites.
The mission has two focuses: first, to better understand how the Gulf Stream absorbs carbon, and second, to learn how it transports heat, which is the ECMWF’s focus.
“The European Commission for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting … was very interested in understanding the track of the Gulf Stream and the temperatures, the air temperatures and the water temperatures, and the like,” Hale Miglarese said.
The commission will use the data to improve forecasts.
Palter and the University of Rhode Island will lead the carbon measurement research to learn how much carbon the ocean absorbs.
“[We want to] improve the accuracy on the number, how much carbon goes into the ocean, also where it gets absorbed by the ocean, [and] what are the processes that the ocean takes it up,” said Palter. “We can understand whether this is going to be a set of processes that remains stable into the future or ones that could be vulnerable as the ocean warms and the circulation changes.”
Palter said the Gulf Stream is intriguing because of what could happen to the climate if the natural absorption process were to change.
“If that process were to slow down, the capacity of the ocean to store manmade carbon could also slow down,” Palter said. “These are important things we want to learn so that we can have accurate predictions of future climate.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 681,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The average number of daily deaths in the U.S. has risen about 20% in the last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The U.S. is continuing to sink on the list of global vaccination rates, currently ranking No. 45, according to data compiled by The Financial Times. Just 64% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 23, 6:38 am
COVID-19 hospitalizations reach another all-time high in Iowa for 2021
More people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Iowa than at any other point
this year so far, according to weekly data released by the Iowa Department of Public Health on Wednesday.
The data shows that there are now 638 people hospitalized with the disease statewide, up from 578 last week. Although the figure is nowhere near Iowa’s peak of more than 1,500 in mid-November last year, it’s the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations that the Hawkeye State has recorded since December.
Sep 22, 7:48 pm
FDA authorizes Pfizer booster dose for those who are 65 and up, high-risk
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized a third booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for people who are 65 and older or at high risk of severe COVID-19, the agency announced Wednesday.
The dose is authorized to be administered at least six months after the second shot. High-risk recipients must be at least 18 years old.
The announcement comes days after a similar recommendation from FDA advisers.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory board is scheduled to vote on booster recommendations Thursday.
Sep 22, 6:04 pm
Florida letting parents choose whether to quarantine asymptomatic, close-contact children
The Florida Department of Health issued an emergency rule Wednesday that lets parents choose whether to quarantine their children if they are deemed a close contact of someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
In such cases, parents can let their children “attend school, school-sponsored activities, or be on school property, without restrictions or disparate treatment, so long as the student remains asymptomatic,” the emergency rule stated.
The move is the state’s latest to empower parents when it comes to coronavirus measures in schools. In July, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order giving parents the choice of whether to send their kids to school with masks, setting off an intense back-and-forth between the state and districts that mandated masks in the weeks since.
DeSantis touted the new “symptoms-based approach” during a press briefing Wednesday.
“Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging to their educational advancement,” he said. “It’s also incredibly disruptive for families all throughout the state of Florida.”
At least one superintendent in Florida has spoken out against the new quarantine rule.
“I find it ironic that the new state rule begins with the phrase ‘Because of an increase in COVID-19 infections, largely due to the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant,'” Carlee Simon, superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools, said in a statement posted to Twitter Wednesday.
“In fact, this rule is likely to promote the spread of COVID-19 by preventing schools from implementing the common-sense masking and quarantine policies recommended by the vast majority of health care professionals, including those here in Alachua County,” she added.
(WASHINGTON) — Even as the Biden administration makes progress toward dispersing the large group of mostly Haitian nationals gathered in Del Rio, Texas, government officials are facing internal divisions over how the migrants have been treated.
“As we speak out against the cruel, the inhumane, and the flat out racist treatment of our Haitian brothers and sisters at the southern border we cannot and we must not look away in this moment,” Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley said Wednesday.
Joined by a growing chorus of Democratic leaders in Congress, Pressley was referring to the striking images of Border Patrol agents on horseback confronting migrants and snapping their reins aggressively.
Some Democrats are also calling on the Biden administration to immediately stop repatriating the Haitians back to their island nation, citing concerns about safety. As of Wednesday afternoon, officials report there were just over 5,547 migrants left in the encampment under an international bridge in the South Texas town of Del Rio, as the Biden administration scrambles to track, process and remove the group that at one point ballooned to more than 14,000 people.
Rep. Pressley on situation at U.S. southern border: “Haitian lives are Black lives, and if we truly believe that Black lives matter, then we must reverse course.”
“Despite the Administration’s rapid deployment of personnel and resources in response to this crisis, much of the strategy to address the care of these vulnerable individuals is deeply concerning,” Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson and Gregory W. Meeks said in a joint statement on Wednesday. “Specifically, we urge the Administration to halt repatriations to Haiti until the country recovers from these devastating crises.”
The Department of Homeland Security has a limited number of options after agents encounter unauthorized migrants in the border region. Some are referred to ICE custody for detention or deportation while many are released to U.S. resettlement organizations and given a future date to report or appear in court.
DHS extended temporary protections for Haitian nationals over the summer. But it only moved the deadline to apply to July 29. That means those who have arrived more recently do not qualify for the Temporary Protected Status designation even if they fled Haiti before the deadline, and thay are subject to removal under what’s called Title 42.
“We have looked at the country conditions and made a determination that in fact we can return individuals who’ve arrived,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
DHS provided a statement to ABC News Wednesday evening saying removal flights from Texas to Haiti will continue, noting that more than 1,000 migrants have already been flown back.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the government has rapidly expelled hundreds of thousands of migrants from the U.S. under a decades-old part of the public health code known as Title 42. These expulsions have gravely concerned immigrant advocates who say the process cuts off access to the humanitarian protections some migrants are due.
Immigration officials have cited the protocols as a necessary tool in managing the migration challenges, but resources on the border have remained strained and agents have been pushed to their limits in an attempt to manage the influx in Del Rio.
At the same time, images of the tactics used by Border Patrol agents on horseback have stirred outrage from Democrats, with some drawing connections to extremist views.
“Congress must do the work of investigating and ensuring accountability of the egregious and white supremacist behavior of border patrol agents in Del Rio Texas,” Pressley said at the Wednesday press conference.
Mayorkas addressed the images of the horse mounted patrol at the beginning of Wednesday’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing and reiterated that the agents in question won’t be interacting with migrants while the agency investigates.
“The facts will drive the actions that we take,” Mayorkas said. “We ourselves will pull no punches, and we need to conduct this investigation thoroughly, but very quickly.”
“I’m unhappy, and I’m not just unhappy with the cowboys who were running down Haitians and using their reins to whip them. I’m unhappy with this administration,” Rep. Maxine Waters says at a news conference on the situation at the U.S. southern border. https://t.co/tUeqoESHTPpic.twitter.com/BuWTMs8ilf
He said he expects the investigation to wrap up “in days and not weeks.”
Mayorkas was pressed again Wednesday about providing data that explains what has happened to migrants after they’ve been arrested or detained by border officials. When asked repeatedly by Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, he declined to provide specifics or estimations, citing concerns over accuracy.
“Congressman, I want to be precise in my communication of data to the United States Congress and to you specifically having posed the question,” Mayorkas said.
White House Press Secretary Jenn Psaki was also questioned Wednesday on the lack of information coming out of DHS about where the Haitian nationals are ending up, including how many have been released into the U.S.
“I certainly understand why you’re asking and understand why people have been asking Secretary Mayorkas,” Psaki said. “Those are numbers that are — the secretary — the Department of Homeland Security would have the most up-to-date numbers.”
“But why is it so hard to keep track of a simple number like that?” asked ABC News White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega. “Why can’t you give it? Why can’t he give it? It’s been two days now he’s been asked that.”
“I’m certain they will provide it. It’s an absolutely fair question to ask, and I’m certain he just wanted to have the most up-to-date numbers to provide,” Psaki responded.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to Mayorkas on Tuesday, expressing her concerns about the treatment of migrants at the hands of agents for Border Patrol, a subdivision of the Department of Homeland Security.
Mayorkas promised her an update on the investigation into the incident involving Border Patrol agents on horseback and said the department is taking its obligations to provide humanitarian support seriously, according to a readout of the conversation from the vice president’s office.
ABC News’ Kenneth Moton, Luke Barr, Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
(TEXAS) — A mounting crisis is unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border where thousands of migrants, many from Haiti, have trekked across dozens of countries, facing blistering heat and other dangers to seek refuge in the United States.
But entering the land of the free has proved difficult after migrants waded across the border. They were met by Border Patrol agents and deportation efforts.
All eyes are on the small town of Del Rio, Texas, where at one point more than 14,000 migrants, the majority from Haiti, were sheltering under a bridge.
One of the migrants, Jean Baptiste Wilvens, told ABC News he crossed 11 countries to get to the U.S. after he and his family had been living in Chile for the last four years.
“I’m scared to go back there because right now I cannot live in my country,” he said.
His pregnant wife and 10-year-old daughter are now back on the Mexican side of the border. He said they had made it to the U.S. camp but called it “hell.”
On the U.S. side, Wilvens said they were only given a burrito and a bottle of water per day, but in Mexico, several people came to the camp to give away food, which some migrants got into a fight over.
The mayor of Del Rio, Bruno Lozano, called the scenes unfolding,”heartbreaking.”
“The fact that they’re putting their lives at risk is telling of the situation that they come from,” he said.
Like so many migrants who arrive at the U.S.’ southern border, the current wave has come from Central or South America. Many of them are Haitian refugees who left their country after the 2010 earthquake.
“For a variety of reasons, perhaps mostly economic, the economy suffered with COVID, we have seen them migrate up over the last few months to our southern border,” said Elizabeth Neuman, a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary and ABC News contributor.
Now, the world watches to see how the Biden administration handles the influx.
For years after the 2010 earthquake, Haitians living inside the U.S. had been granted temporary protected status. The Trump administration let that designation expire.
However, after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenal Moise in July and another devastating earthquake earlier in August, the Biden administration restored that special status to Haitians.
“While that TPS is only applicable for people that are already here in the United States, that might have given the Haitian community hope that if they somehow got into the United States, maybe they could take advantage of that TPS as well,” Neumann said.
Some of the migrants have claimed asylum and are awaiting the immigration process inside the U.S., but many have already been loaded onto planes and deported back to Haiti.
The Biden administration says one to three flights are leaving a day removing migrants who do not have a valid claim to stay in the U.S. based on Title 42, a Trump-era law prohibiting migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S., citing COVID concerns.
“If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned. Your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a Monday press conference.
“Title 42 is actually not immigration law as much as it is public health law that allows an emergency to be declared and basically the borders to be closed,” Neumann said. “A year ago, you could definitely see the case. We did not have vaccines. We did not have a robust testing capability. We have those things now.”
However, unaccompanied minors, and many families are exempt from Title 42. Still, migrant advocates like Guerline Jozef with the Haitian Bridge Alliance say that’s not enough.
“Title 42 should not be used as a way to trap migrants, as a way to trap asylum seekers,” she said. “Why can’t we make sure they are tested, they are vaccinated and provide them the access? Jozef said.
On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers have called for the end of the use of Title 42.
“I urge President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas to immediately put a stop to these expulsions and to end this Title 42 policy at our southern border,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
Now, many migrants are living in fear of being sent back to Haiti after their exhaustive and perilous journeys.
One migrant named Josef, a social studies school teacher and father of three who didn’t want to share his last name, told Nightline he crossed 10 countries to get to the U.S. to give his children the chance at a better life.
“When I saw that my child would not get the education that I wanted, I had to think that maybe the U.S., as a superpower, could give me some wisdom, and that my child could get social protection, a protection for education,” Josef said.
Wilvens compared how the U.S. has welcomed Afghan refugees, but is turning away Haitians.
“The U.S. gives nearly 30,000 Afghans the ability to be refugees in the U.S. but Haitians are deported. Why is that?” Wilvens said.
Neumann said that “we have a debt that we owe the Afghan people,” with the withdrawal of American troops in wake of the swift Taliban takeover and end of 10-year war in Afghanistan.
“There is a slightly different sentiment for those trying to reach us from the Southern Hemisphere. And I think that it’s a good question for us to ask ourselves why,” she said.
Harrowing images from the border have emerged over the past week showing border patrol agents on horseback aggressively attempting to push back migrants as they cross the Rio Grande into the U.S.
One image showed an agent on horseback grabbing a man by the back of his shirt.
“As I saw this, this image brought me back to slavery,” Jozef with the Haitian Bridge Alliance said, overcome with emotion.
“As a Black woman, as a descendant of slaves, as a woman from Haiti whose forefathers and ancestors fought to end slavery, fought for freedom of all Black people, it is painful because we keep on being reminded that our lives do not matter, our pain [does] not matter,” she said.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz initially defended the agents, saying, “We do not know who are the smugglers or who are the migrants. So it’s important that the Border Patrol agents maintain a level of security,” during a press conference Monday.
Homeland Security later slammed the video as “extremely troubling,” saying a “full investigation, which will be conducted swiftly, will define the appropriate disciplinary actions.”
President Joe Biden said he found the videos of tactics used by Border Patrol agents on horseback against Haitian migrants at the Texas border “horrific and horrible,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
But, Biden doubled down on the handling of the chaos at the border.
“We will get it under control,” he said when asked about the crisis by reporters at the United Nations headquarters Tuesday.
Vice President Kamala Harris condemned the treatment of migrants at the border on Tuesday saying, “Human beings should never be treated that way. I was deeply troubled by it.”
Meanwhile, the Del Rio mayor said of the images, “We don’t know the situation that came out that caused that, that contrast to happen, but I can tell you what I’ve seen is, it’s been a humanitarian effort of proportions that I’ve never seen in my life.”
The union representing Border Patrol agents defended the images, arguing that’s part of their training.
DHS says it now has agency monitors on the ground at the border to make sure policies are being followed.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott visited Del Rio Tuesday and asked the Biden administration for an emergency declaration.
“These border patrol officers are overwhelmed with the amount of work they are ordered to do and they’re suffering the consequences of an administration that is not providing either the personnel or the resources they need,” he said.
Neumann said she hopes the crisis will lead to “public pressure on Congress to once and for all address things that we are now on four presidents that have been trying to address this.”
“We’ve got to fix it because the problem is just going to get worse,” she said. “These are human beings that deserve to be treated better than we’re capable of treating them today.”
Jozef with the Haitian Bridge Alliance said people are coming to the border as a last resort.
“Because they are in need of protection, because they are dying, because they need support,” she said.
Their desire for a better life often makes them vulnerable to smugglers and coyotes who have been known to charge migrants anywhere up to $15,000 per person to take them over the border, she said.
“If those people haven’t had an avenue to properly present themselves to want to seek asylum, there would be no need for them to be engaged with those coyotes, to be engaged with those human traffickers, frankly, to be engaged with people who do not have their best interests at heart,” Jozef added.
For families like those of Haitian school teacher Josef, making this treacherous journey for a chance at a better life is one of the last options they have left.
“I went through all these dangers with my family, my wife and my children, because the United States, I think, it’s the last journey for us to make our dreams come true,” Josef said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol could issue its first subpoenas in the coming days, possibly targeting several former high-level aides to President Donald Trump for records and information, sources tell ABC News.
Former GOP congressman and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House aides Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller are among those of interest to the committee, sources familiar with the matter have told ABC News.
Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale, who, like the other aides, remains close to the former president, could also be subpoenaed by the panel, sources said.
Sources also said that John Eastman, a lawyer who worked with Trump’s legal team last year, could also be subpoenaed for records and testimony by the committee.
Eastman was the author of a controversial memo obtained by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa that encouraged Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in office by rejecting the electors in nearly a dozen states.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment when reached by ABC News.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters on Monday that the first subpoenas could be issued “within a week.”
Lawmakers were briefed on the status of the probe by committee staff for more than five hours Monday night in the Capitol, meeting in person for the first time in weeks to walk through the complex inquiry via PowerPoint slides.
Thompson said the committee has scheduled testimony with persons of interest, but would not say who those people are and whether they have officially accepted the invitations from the committee.
Committee investigators are in the process of reviewing thousands of pages of documents obtained in response to requests issued in recent weeks to federal government agencies and 35 social media and communications companies.
The panel has also requested documents from the National Archives, which maintains and preserves White House records. National Archives officials said they’re in the process of reviewing the request and have yet to turn over any documents to the committee for their review.
