WASHINGTON (AP) — New detention facilities will be opened to house immigrant families caught crossing the border illegally amid a surge from Central America, the Obama administration said Friday.

The first will be a 700-bed family detention facility at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, the Homeland Security Department said. The training center is home to the Border Patrol’s training academy.

Officials had no specific date for the opening, saying it would be soon.

The administration was actively looking for additional space to house immigrant families, primarily mothers with young children, caught crossing the Mexican border illegally, Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. He did not say how many people the new family detention centers would house or where others would be located.

The government operates only one such facility, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with space for fewer than 100 people.

Mayorkas said about 39,000 adults with children have been apprehended at the border since the start of the budget year in October. The administration has released an unspecified number of them into the U.S. in recent months with instructions to report later to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices. Mayorkas, the No. 2 official at the agency and former head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told reporters he didn’t know how many people have been released or subsequently appeared as ordered.

Mayorkas said the administration will also send more immigration judges, ICE attorneys and other immigration officials to the region to help process immigrants caught crossing the border illegally and, when possible, quickly return them to their home countries.

Immigrants crossing the border illegally have overwhelmed U.S. immigration agencies. More than 174,000 people, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been arrested in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley this year.

The spike in border crossers — southern Texas is now the busiest border crossing in the country — prompted the Homeland Security Department earlier this year to start sending families to other parts of Texas and Arizona for processing before releasing them at local bus stops.

Family detention has long been a contentious issue for Homeland Security. In 2009 the department was forced to shutter a large family detention center in Texas after legal challenges about the conditions of the facility. And in 2012, ICE abandoned plans to accept bids for a new family detention center in Texas amid complaints from advocates about the possibility of housing immigrant families in jails.

Also Friday, House Speaker John Boehner urged President Barack Obama to send National Guard troops to the southern border to help deal with the surge of children and other immigrants. More than 52,000 children traveling alone have been caught crossing the border illegally since October.

President George W. Bush deployed thousands of troops to the border during his second term to augment the Border Patrol as it bolstered its ranks. Since then, the agency has nearly doubled to more than 20,000 agents and the number of immigrants caught crossing the border illegally has declined overall.

Mayorkas said the administration only recently received Boehner’s letter and will review it to understand how lawmakers envision the role of the National Guard. He said immigration enforcement at the border and elsewhere is a civilian law enforcement job that is being ably handled by the Border Patrol and other parts of the Homeland Security Department.

The administration planned a series of other steps it hopes will help curb the flow of illegal immigration from Central America, including a meeting with Central American officials. Vice President Joe Biden is in Guatemala.

Other administration announcements about illegal immigration from Central America included:

—The administration will give the governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala $9.6 million to help local authorities reintegrate returned immigrants.

—The U.S. Agency for International Development will launch a $40 million program to help improve citizen security in Guatemala. USAID will also start a $25 million crime and violence prevention program in El Salvador.

—More than $18 million will be used to support community policing and law enforcement efforts to combat gangs in Honduras under the Central American Regional Security Initiative, or CARSI. The U.S. government will also provide $161.5 million for CARSI programs focused on security and government challenges in the region.

___

Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• Homeland Security Department
• Homeland Security
• Central America

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Friday it will open new detention facilities to house immigrant families caught crossing the border with Mexico illegally, amid a surge from Central America.

Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration was actively looking for additional space to house immigrant families, primarily mothers with young children, caught crossing the Mexican border illegally. He did not say how many people the new family detention centers would house or where they will be located. The government currently operates only one such facility, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with space for fewer than 100 people.

Mayorkas said about 39,000 adults with children have been apprehended at the border since the start of the budget year in October. The administration has released an unspecified number of them into the U.S. in recent months with instructions to report later to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices. Mayorkas, the No. 2 official at the agency and former head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told reporters he didn’t know how many people have been released or subsequently appeared as ordered.

Mayorkas said the administration will also send more immigration judges, ICE attorneys and other immigration officials to the region to help process immigrants caught crossing the border illegally and, when possible, quickly return them to their home countries.

Immigrants crossing the border illegally have overwhelmed U.S. immigration agencies. More than 174,000 people, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been arrested in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley this year.

Other announcements the administration made about illegal immigration from Central America Friday include:

—The administration will give the governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala $9.6 million to help local authorities reintegrate returned immigrants.

—The U.S. Agency for International Development will launch a $40 million program to help improve citizen security in Guatemala. USAID will also start a $25 million crime and violence prevention program in El Salvador.

—More than $18 million will be used to support community policing and law enforcement efforts to combat gangs in Honduras under the Central American Regional Security Initiative, or CARSI. The U.S. government will also provide $161.5 million for CARSI programs focused on security and government challenges in the region.

The spike in border crossers — southern Texas is now the busiest border crossing in the country — prompted the Homeland Security Department earlier this year to start sending families to other parts of Texas and Arizona for processing before releasing them at local bus stops.

Family detention has long been a contentious issue for Homeland Security. In 2009 the department was forced to shutter a large family detention center in Texas after legal challenges about the conditions of the facility. And in 2012, ICE abandoned plans to accept bids for a new family detention center in Texas amid complaints from advocates about the possibility of housing immigrant families in jails.

Also Friday, the leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, urged President Barack Obama to send troops to the southern border to help deal with the surge of children and other immigrants. More than 52,000 children traveling alone have been caught crossing the border illegally since October.

Former President George W. Bush deployed thousands of troops to the border during his second term to augment the Border Patrol as it bolstered its ranks. Since then, the agency has nearly doubled to more than 20,000 agents and the number of immigrants caught crossing the border illegally has declined overall.

___

Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

• Immigration Issues
• Politics & Government

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Some of the immigrant families caught crossing the border together illegally will be coming to New Mexico and housed by the Catholic Church, advocates said Friday.

Thomas Baca, executive director of Catholic Charities in Las Cruces, told The Associated Press that close to 300 people will be housed at a parish in Anthony after they are released by federal immigration authorities.

“Right now we are working on raising money, applying for grants and getting the parish ready so people can take showers,” Baca said.

The Diocese of Las Cruces expects to house around 280 people, he said.

Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House in El Paso, said volunteers have help hundreds of immigrants released to the Diocese of El Paso this month find other relatives in the U.S. Around half are from Honduras and most are mothers with children, he said.

“I can’t understand how anyone who is human not wanting to help these people,” Garcia said.

The migrants are being flown in to El Paso from south Texas by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said.

Once they find relatives in other parts of the U.S., those relatives help them with bus tickets and finding them homes, Garcia said.

Tens of thousands of families, mostly mothers traveling with young children, have been apprehended at the border since the start of the federal budget year in October.

The administration has released an unspecified number of them into the U.S. in recent months with instructions to report later to ICE offices. But it won’t say how many have been released or subsequently appeared as ordered.

The Obama administration said Friday it will open new detention facilities to house immigrant families caught crossing the border illegally, amid a surge from Central America.

ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement is handling the unaccompanied minors detained by U.S. Border Patrol and didn’t know if any detention facilities were being set up in New Mexico.

___

Follow Russell Contreras at http://twitter.com/russcontreras.

• Immigration Issues
• Society & Culture

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – Immigration rights groups in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday accused Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio of overstepping his bounds as a local official by using anti-identity theft laws to target undocumented immigrants in workplace raids.

Puente Arizona, an immigrant rights groups, filed the lawsuit in federal court, along with two women who were arrested by Arpaio’s deputies last year and a local minister who contends the sheriff is squandering his tax dollars by conducting the operations.

The lawsuit represents the latest challenge by advocates for immigrants against Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County who bills himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and has become a divisive figure in the national immigration debate.

Arpaio is the only local law enforcement official in Arizona enforcing state laws that make it illegal for a person to use information belonging to someone else, such as a Social Security number, to obtain employment, said Dan Pochoda, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is one of the groups representing the plaintiffs.

“We know from past experience that when the (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office) gets into the business of immigration enforcement, it’s a recipe for discrimination and abuse,” Pochoda said in a statement.

A federal judge last year ordered Arpaio to stop using race as a factor when making law enforcement decisions, in response to a 2007 lawsuit that tested whether police could target unauthorized immigrants without also profiling U.S. citizens and legal residents of Hispanic origin.

In their lawsuit filed on Wednesday, immigrant rights advocates said Arpaio has no right under the U.S. Constitution to target illegal immigrants because that is the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Attorneys who filed the suit are seeking a judge’s order requiring Arpaio from enforcing the identify theft laws. It was filed as a proposed class action, with attorneys seeking to represent all workers subject to arrest and detention by Arpaio’s office under those laws.

Arpaio, in a phone interview, said the lawsuit is frivolous, and that his office has arrested over 800 people in connection with identity theft by employees.

“Identity thieves will not get sanctuary in Maricopa County as long as I am sheriff,” Arpaio said. “This is a very serious crime, identity theft.”

Arpaio said his office does not specifically intend to target illegal immigrants with the operations but that many of those arrested turn out to be undocumented.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Ken Wills)

• Society & Culture
• Politics & Government
• Sheriff Joe Arpaio

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Thousands of immigrant children who have entered the U.S. illegally are being held in crowded, foul-smelling holding cells in South Texas until they’re transferred to shelters.

Customs and Border Protection officials offered a tour Wednesday of an overcrowded Border Patrol station in Brownsville. It was the first tour of the station since President Barack Obama called the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have come this budget year an “urgent humanitarian situation.”

Most of the immigrants being held at the Fort Brown station are teenagers and children. They are held in concrete cells and sleep on the floor.

The minors were caught crossing the border amid a surge of immigration from Central America in recent weeks. They are processed in Brownsville and Nogales, Arizona, before being transferred to shelters and then reunited with family members in the U.S.

• Immigration Issues
• President Barack Obama

WOODLAND HILLS, CA–(Marketwired – Jun 17, 2014) – Trevor Gerszt, the young son of hard-working South African immigrants to the United States, founded the highly successful precious metals company, Goldco Precious Metals, in 2006 — and has always been motivated to give back to the community. 

Goldco Precious Metals would like to highlight the contributions of Gerszt to support the efforts of the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, to eradicate cancer and many other diseases from the world. Gerszt recently donated $1,800 to the research center, in the memory of his mother, Gail Heather Gerszt, who passed away in 2000 from breast cancer.

Gerszt hopes the donation will aid the Center’s efforts to find cures for the world’s most common human diseases — and reduce the amount of pain suffered by those who contract them. In addition to treatment and new studies, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center also focuses on the prevention of disease, studying how preventive measures such as lifestyle changes can reduce the risk and avoid the need for reactive treatment.

Gerszt said about his support of the center, “there is nothing more gratifying about my financial success than having the ability to help those in need, especially those suffering from life-altering illnesses. All the good work we do at Goldco Precious Metals would mean little, except for the opportunity to help people — whether helping our customers protect their retirement assets, or helping cancer patients extend and improve their lives.”

If you or your organization would like to donate to support the great research and work done at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, please find more information at http://www.fhcrc.org/en/how-to-help.html

To speak with Trevor Gerszt, and learn more about his experiences as an American immigrant or his successes in the precious metals field, or to interview him about issues related to precious metals and finance, please contact Erik Even at 818-921-3136.

About the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, located in Seattle, WA, is renowned for its contributions to the study, prevention and treatment of cancer and other diseases. Their main goal is to eliminate cancer and related diseases entirely while also developing prevention and treatment methods that can provide better care to patients. The Center hosts numerous scientists to provide the top level of research ability and creative thinking. To learn more about the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, please visit their website at http://www.fhcrc.org/en.html or contact them at externalrel@fhcrc.org.

About Goldco Precious Metals

Goldco Precious Metals is a precious metal wholesaler that specializes in gold and silver, while also offering opportunities to diversify financially by investing in tangible assets. Goldco Precious Metals also helps clients add these precious metals to their retirement IRAs and 401(k)s as a way of protecting their personal wealth. Located in Woodland Hills, California, Goldco Precious Metals has top industry experts to help guide you in your purchase selection. For more information on Goldco Precious Metals, please visit their website at http://goldcodirect.com/ or reach out via their contact form at http://goldcodirect.com/contact-goldco-direct/contact.html/.

About Trevor Gerszt

Trevor Gerszt has been passionate about gold since childhood. Growing up in South Africa, the world’s second largest gold producer, Gerszt spent his youth collecting gold coins. Surrounded by a family of experienced coin collectors, he gained valuable insight about the precious metal. When he came to the United States with his family in the 1980s, his fascination with gold and silver led him to a career in precious metals.

Gerszt has since established himself as a leading expert in the precious metals investment industry. He founded Goldco Precious Metals in 2006. He is committed to educating everyone — from the novice client to the serious investor — about the benefits of investing in the gold market.

• Health
• Disease & Medical Conditions
• precious metals

WOODLAND HILLS, CA–(Marketwired – Jun 17, 2014) – Trevor Gerszt, the young son of hard-working South African immigrants to the United States, founded the highly successful precious metals company, Goldco Precious Metals, in 2006 — and has always been motivated to give back to the community. 

Goldco Precious Metals would like to highlight the contributions of Gerszt to support the efforts of the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, to eradicate cancer and many other diseases from the world. Gerszt recently donated $1,800 to the research center, in the memory of his mother, Gail Heather Gerszt, who passed away in 2000 from breast cancer.

Gerszt hopes the donation will aid the Center’s efforts to find cures for the world’s most common human diseases — and reduce the amount of pain suffered by those who contract them. In addition to treatment and new studies, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center also focuses on the prevention of disease, studying how preventive measures such as lifestyle changes can reduce the risk and avoid the need for reactive treatment.

Gerszt said about his support of the center, “there is nothing more gratifying about my financial success than having the ability to help those in need, especially those suffering from life-altering illnesses. All the good work we do at Goldco Precious Metals would mean little, except for the opportunity to help people — whether helping our customers protect their retirement assets, or helping cancer patients extend and improve their lives.”

If you or your organization would like to donate to support the great research and work done at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, please find more information at http://www.fhcrc.org/en/how-to-help.html

To speak with Trevor Gerszt, and learn more about his experiences as an American immigrant or his successes in the precious metals field, or to interview him about issues related to precious metals and finance, please contact Erik Even at 818-921-3136.

About the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, located in Seattle, WA, is renowned for its contributions to the study, prevention and treatment of cancer and other diseases. Their main goal is to eliminate cancer and related diseases entirely while also developing prevention and treatment methods that can provide better care to patients. The Center hosts numerous scientists to provide the top level of research ability and creative thinking. To learn more about the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, please visit their website at http://www.fhcrc.org/en.html or contact them at externalrel@fhcrc.org.

About Goldco Precious Metals

Goldco Precious Metals is a precious metal wholesaler that specializes in gold and silver, while also offering opportunities to diversify financially by investing in tangible assets. Goldco Precious Metals also helps clients add these precious metals to their retirement IRAs and 401(k)s as a way of protecting their personal wealth. Located in Woodland Hills, California, Goldco Precious Metals has top industry experts to help guide you in your purchase selection. For more information on Goldco Precious Metals, please visit their website at http://goldcodirect.com/ or reach out via their contact form at http://goldcodirect.com/contact-goldco-direct/contact.html/.

About Trevor Gerszt

Trevor Gerszt has been passionate about gold since childhood. Growing up in South Africa, the world’s second largest gold producer, Gerszt spent his youth collecting gold coins. Surrounded by a family of experienced coin collectors, he gained valuable insight about the precious metal. When he came to the United States with his family in the 1980s, his fascination with gold and silver led him to a career in precious metals.

Gerszt has since established himself as a leading expert in the precious metals investment industry. He founded Goldco Precious Metals in 2006. He is committed to educating everyone — from the novice client to the serious investor — about the benefits of investing in the gold market.

• Health
• Disease & Medical Conditions
• precious metals

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — U.S. officials are looking into temporarily housing hundreds of Central American immigrant children and teenagers on the campus of a closed college in rural Virginia.

Administration for Children and Families spokesman Kenneth J. Wolfe told The Associated Press in an email Monday that the idea is on hold to allow the community to discuss it. He said a Thursday meeting is scheduled on the idea to house the immigrants at St. Paul’s College in the tiny tobacco-farming community of Lawrenceville.

Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts says residents are worried about security and are upset no one told them about the plan.

The children and teenagers were caught entering the country illegally following a surge in border crossings. They are being held on an interim basis at military bases.

• Politics & Government
• Society & Culture

Sixteen-year-old G.G. says she was apprehended in Texas by Border Patrol agents who told her they would kill her if she tried to run. “Your little scheme won’t work to keep you here in the U.S.,” an agent reportedly told her, accusing G.G. of lying when she told them her age. She says she was detained by Customs and Border Protection for a total of nine days in five different detention centers—each one worse than the last. CBP officials allegedly fed her moldy bread and, when she vomited from the food, accused her of being pregnant and called her a “dirty liar.” Her bed consisted of a thin sheet of paper on the floor of her cell and the bathroom, without doors or garbage cans, was covered in used toilet paper and sanitary pads. “You’re the garbage that contaminates this country,” CBP officials reportedly told her.

‪This is just one of 116 different, yet equally horrifying, individual tales included in a report released Tuesday (PDF) on alleged rampant abuses by U.S. Customs and Border Protection—the federal agency that includes Border Patrol—against unaccompanied immigrant children. The rapid influx of kids, many of them from Central America, illegally crossing the border into Texas over the past few months has captured recent headlines. Unable to accommodate all of the children apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley, Customs and Border Protection have been sending unaccompanied minors by the hundreds to detention centers in Arizona over the past few days and even more are expected. According to a recent investigation by Mother Jones, 70,000 kids will cross the border without parents this year. As senior administration officials confirmed during a media conference call earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that includes Customs and Border Protection, was in no way prepared for the high volume of undocumented children and, as such, are scrambling to accommodate them.

READ MORE Talking Student Debt With Obama

‪But CBP detention facilities have long been the epicenter of what many adult immigrants claim are severe human and civil rights abuses by officials. According to a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Border Litigation project and four other immigrants rights groups, child detainees are equally—if not more often—subjected to the same harsh conditions and physical, verbal and sexual abuse reported by their adult counterparts. Consistent, too, with a recent report by the American Immigration Council that 97 percent of Border Patrol complaints filed between 2009 and 2012 did not result in any action, children who report abuses to CBP officials mostly are ignored.

Spotlighting jarring testimonies from detained immigrant children, the groups concluded that such abuse is systemic and called on the Department of Homeland Security to investigate these alleged violations and implement policy changes to combat them.

READ MORE One Down, 200 or So to Go

According to the complaint, many of the children who cross alone and end up in detention are fleeing violence and extreme poverty in their home countries, mostly in Central America. Many of them have been subjected to abuse or trauma not only at home but also on their journeys through Mexico to the United States border, and are particularly vulnerable upon arrival.

In addition to the descriptions of freezing cold, overcrowded and unsanitary holding cells, one in four children referenced by Wednesday’s complaint said they were subjected to physical abuse—sexual, beatings, and even torture-style stress positions—by CBP officials. More than half of them reported sexual harassment, death threats, and other forms of verbal abuse. More than half said they were denied medical care and about 70 percent of them say they were detained beyond the 72-hour limit—though many report that it was hard to tell what time of day it was or how many days had passed because fluorescent lights were kept on at all hours.

READ MORE Bergdahl’s Pre-Capture Writings Revealed

Over 80 percent of the kids interviewed said they were denied adequate food and water. Many say they became sick after eating the frozen or moldy food the CBP officials gave them. One child said that while he was in custody, the drinking water came from a toilet tank. Many of the children reported being shackled while transported to and from CBP facilities, and 30 percent said that, when they were finally released, money and personal belongings that had been confiscated by CBP officials were not returned to them.

‪Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Border Patrol did not return immediate requests for comment on this story. In an email to The Arizona Republic, DHS spokesman Michael Friel said, “While in temporary custody, CBP strives to protect unaccompanied children with special procedures and safeguards.”

READ MORE Cantor-Killer Unsure About Minimum Wage

The complaint conveys frustration felt by the ACLU, the National Immigration Justice Center, Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, who say they’ve filed numerous complaints and published several reports on this very issue only to received silence from the Department of Homeland Security.

“By failing to meaningfully investigate or otherwise respond to consistent reports of systemic abuse,” they write. “DHS has demonstrated a continuing disregard for the civil and human rights of unaccompanied immigrant children.”

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