kidnap

FILE PHOTO: A child looks through the border wall during the visit of U.S. President Donald Trump to Calexico, California, as seen in Mexicali, Mexico April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
April 19, 2019
(Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico on Thursday called for state authorities to investigate a small group of armed U.S. citizens who they alleged are illegally detaining migrants entering the United States.
The United Constitutional Patriots, who claim to be mainly military veterans, have been patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border near Sunland Park, New Mexico, since late February in search of illegal border crossers.
They post near daily videos showing members dressed in camouflage and armed with semi-automatic rifles holding groups of migrants, many of them Central American families seeking asylum, until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive to arrest them.
The small volunteer group says it is helping Border Patrol deal with a surge in undocumented migrants but civil rights organizations like the ACLU say it is a “fascist militia organization” operating outside the law.
“We cannot allow racist and armed vigilantes to kidnap and detain people seeking asylum,” the ACLU said in a letter to New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Hector Balderas.
“We urge you to immediately investigate this atrocious and unlawful conduct.”
The offices of Lujan Grisham and Balderas did not respond to requests for comment.
On a March 27 visit to El Paso, Texas, next to Sunland Park, then U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said his agency, which runs U.S. Border Patrol, did not need the help police the border.
“We are not asking for civil society groups to provide border security assistance,” said McAleenan, who was recently appointed acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. CBP did not respond to a request for further comment. UCP member John Horton did not immediately return calls. Horton has previously told media that UCP members are armed for self defense, as is their right under U.S. law, and aware they cannot detain people entering the United States illegally.
U.S. armed groups have long patrolled the U.S. border, their numbers rising during upticks in migrant apprehensions, such as during the mid 2000s when the Minuteman Project was established.
The UCP says it is responding to a rise in migrant arrests to their highest monthly levels in more than a decade.
The ACLU said the group was a product of the Trump administration’s “vile racism” that “has emboldened white nationalists and fascists to flagrantly violate the law.”
(Reporting By Andrew Hay in Taos New Mexico; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Source: OANN

U.S. tourist Kimberly Sue Endicott poses with her guide, Jean Paul Mirenge in Uganda, April 7, 2019, in this image taken from social media. Picture taken April 7, 2019. Wild Frontiers/via REUTERS
April 10, 2019
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda has arrested eight local people suspected of involvement in the kidnap of an American tourist and her guide last week, the government said on Wednesday.
Kimberley Sue Endecott, 35, and local guide Jean Paul Mirenge-Remezo were ambushed and seized by gunmen as they drove in Queen Elizabeth National Park in southwest Uganda on April 2.
The kidnappers demanded a ransom of $500,000 and the pair were released six days later.
Confirming the arrests on a government Twitter account, spokesman Ofwono Opondo said he hoped they would help break a larger criminal network in Uganda and neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Ugandan police had announced arrests on Tuesday, but not given the number.
The firm that organized Endecott’s safari said she and her guide were released after a “negotiated settlement” and a Ugandan official also said a ransom was paid.
But Opondo contradicted that.
“The policy of the (government of Uganda) is that we don’t pay ransom. What you have been hearing is just rumor-mongering,” he said.
Given the importance of income from tourism, President Yoweri Museveni’s government was eager to solve the case and restore a feeling of safety in national parks.
In 1999, an American couple, four Britons and two New Zealanders were killed along with four guides after being ambushed by gunmen in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Cawthorne)
Source: OANN

Migrants queue for food inside a shelter in Tijuana, Mexico April 6, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
April 10, 2019
By Andrew Hay and Jose Gallego Espina
TIJUANA, Mexico/SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – On Tuesday, seven Central American families living temporarily in Mexico appeared in a San Diego immigration court to plead for asylum in the United States.
Mindful of a federal court ruling the day before that halted the Trump administration’s policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico, the judge repeatedly asked the U.S. government lawyer what would happen to these families now.
“I do not have an answer,” replied the lawyer, Kathryn Stuever.
Neither the U.S. government nor the more than 1,000 people awaiting asylum hearings in Tijuana and other border cities knows what will happen next to families already returned to Mexico by the Trump administration.
The ruling by a U.S. District Court judge on Monday made clear that the 11 plaintiffs who sued the government over the policy would be brought back to the United States to press their asylum claims. It also made clear that, for now, new asylum seekers could not be forced to await resolution of their cases south of the border.
But the hundreds of people now living in shelters, from tents inside warehouses to more established settings, are in legal limbo – a situation some say frightens them because they feel vulnerable to kidnappings, violence and serious illness.
The migrants are from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua and 286 of them are children. Most do not have legal representation, according to immigration advocates.
In interviews with Reuters in recent days, several reported robberies, violence or attempts to kidnap their children.
Reuters was not able to independently verify their claims. But those interviewed said they did not feel safe in Tijuana and were scared to leave the shelters housing them.
The ruling does not go into effect until Friday and the White House said it would appeal, which could put the decision on hold. The administration has contended that the asylum seekers are pushing the immigration system to its limits. The appeals process could take months, perhaps extending through the 2020 presidential campaign, legal experts said.
In court Tuesday, Veronica Guadalupe Galdamez, 32, appeared with her two children and her partner. They asked for more time to get a lawyer. In court, her partner claimed fear of being returned to Mexico because “someone tried to take one of the children.”
Galdamez told Reuters this week she fled El Salvador in 2018 after gang threats. Within minutes of returning to Mexico after her first U.S. court hearing on April 1, she said, two men tried to steal her 4-year-old son. Reuters was not able to independently corroborate her story.
The dangers of Tijuana are generally known, however. With 138 murders per 100,000 residents in 2018, Tijuana was the most violent city in the world outside a war zone, according to a recent study by Mexico’s Security, Justice and Peace group. San Salvador ranked 24th, with a rate of 50, the study showed.
After appearing in court on Tuesday, Galdamez and her family were referred to an interview with an asylum officer. Her family’s fate was uncertain.
Others in the program remained in Mexico on Tuesday, wondering what the ruling meant for their futures.
Carmen Zepeda, 45, from El Salvador, was returned to Tijuana last month and has her first court hearing on April 22. She fled San Salvador following a death threat against her son and domestic abuse by her husband, she said.
“Now we’re in danger here as well,” she said. “I’m praying they give me the opportunity to cross.”
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Tijuana, Mexico and Jose Gallego Espina in San Diego; Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati, Tom Hals and Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Julie Marquis and Lisa Shumaker)
Source: OANN

U.S. tourist Kimberly Sue Endicott poses with her guide, Jean Paul Mirenge in Uganda, April 7, 2019, in this image taken from social media. Wild Frontiers/via REUTERS
April 9, 2019
By Elias Biryabarema
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda said Tuesday some suspects had been arrested in connection with last week’s kidnap of an American tourist and her tour guide in a national park while a minister told a local TV that a ransom had been paid to free them.
Tourist Kimberley Sue Endecott, 35, and guide Jean Paul Mirenge-Remezo were ambushed and seized by gunmen as they drove in Queen Elizabeth National Park in the country’s southwest near the border with Democratic Republic of Congo on April 2.
It’s one of Uganda’s most visited parks, home to antelopes, lions, elephants, hippos, crocodile and leopards.
The kidnappers later demanded a ransom of $500,000. On Sunday Ugandan security officials said they had rescued the pair unharmed near the border.
In a statement on Tuesday, police said: “The joint security team actively investigating the kidnapping incident … has made some arrests of suspects, on suspicion of being involved.”
Police did not give details about the suspects but said they had been detained during “raids and extensive searches” in Kanungu district, more than 400 km (250 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala.
On Tuesday, junior tourism minister, Godfrey Kiwanda Ssubi, told NBS TV that a ransom was paid to secure the victims.
“Whatever these people (kidnappers) demanded for was paid,” Ssubi said.
“The money had to be taken … everything was done to save the lives of these people.”
Ugandan security officials had earlier refused to acknowledge the payment despite several reports in local and international media.
The United States has maintained it follows a policy of no concessions to kidnappers although the tour firm that arranged the safari told Reuters the captives were released after a “negotiated settlement” with the assistance of the US government.
In a tweet on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Ugandan authorities to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice “openly and quickly”.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Source: OANN
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