Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Migrants seeking to enter the United States will again have to stay in Mexico as they await immigration hearings, as the Biden administration reluctantly announced plans Thursday to comply with a court order and accept conditions set out by Mexico for resuming the Trump-era policy.
Mexico's foreign relations secretary said Mexico will allow returns, beginning next week, in light of U.S. concessions "for humanitarian reasons and for temporary stays."
Revival of the "Remain in Mexico" policy comes under a court order even as the Biden administration maneuvers to end it in a way that survives legal scrutiny. U.S. President Joe Biden scrapped the policy, but a lawsuit by Texas and Missouri has forced him to put it back into effect, subject to Mexico's acceptance.
About 70,000 asylum-seekers have been subject to the policy, which President Donald Trump introduced in January 2019 and which Biden suspended on his first day in office.
Illegal border crossings fell sharply after Mexico, facing Trump's threat of higher tariffs, acquiesced in 2019 to the policy's rapid expansion. Asylum-seekers were victims of major violence while waiting in Mexico and faced a slew of legal obstacles, such as access to attorneys and case information.
Migrants are expected to be returned starting Monday at one border city and soon after in three others, U.S. officials said. They are San Diego and Texas crossings in El Paso, Laredo and Brownsville. The sequence has yet to be determined.
The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that it was acting to comply with a court order but that Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas believes the policy "has endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts, and failed to address the root causes of irregular migration."
The dual announcements follow intense discussions between the U.S. and Mexico after U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, ordered the policy be reinstated, subject to Mexico's participation.
The policy's new iteration, outlined for reporters by Biden administration officials who spoke on the condition that they not be named, includes major additions and changes that Mexico demanded.
All migrants subject to the policy will be vaccinated against COVID-19. Adults will get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires only one shot. Children who are eligible under U.S. guidelines will get the Pfizer shot, with second shots when they come to the U.S. for their first hearings.
The U.S. will try to complete cases within 180 days, a response to Mexico's concerns that they will languish. The Justice Department is assigning 22 immigration judges to work on these cases exclusively.
U.S. authorities will ask migrants if they fear being returned to Mexico instead of relying on them to raise concerns unprompted. If the migrants express fear, they will be screened and have 24 hours to find an attorney or representative.
The Biden administration is working to ensure migrants' safety when they travel to and from court, including within Mexico. Migrants returned from Laredo and Brownsville, where Mexican border cities are especially dangerous, will be moved to locations further inside Mexico.
Migrants from Western Hemisphere countries will be eligible. U.S. officials haven't said how many will be processed daily. The administration has kept in place another Trump-era policy that allows it to return Central Americans to Mexico on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Migrants will have an opportunity to meet with attorneys before each hearing. The State Department is working with Mexico on locations for video and phone access to attorneys in the U.S.
The changes mirror many conditions that Mexico laid out in a press release last week. Mexico also said "vulnerable" people should be exempt, including unaccompanied children, pregnant women, physically or mentally ill people, older people, indigenous people and members of the LGBTQ community.
"The Mexican government reaffirms its commitment to migrant rights as well as to safe, orderly, regulated migration," Mexico's foreign relations secretary said in a statement confirming that the country accepted the Biden administration's changes and additions.
Mexico is also seeking money from the U.S. for shelters and other organizations to substantially increase support for migrants waiting in Mexico.
Many U.S.-based legal aid groups that have represented asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico say they will no longer take such cases, raising questions about how the U.S. can satisfy Mexico's insistence on better access to counsel. Administration officials say they believe there are enough other lawyers who will represent asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.