One of the biggest news stories making global headlines last week was a fire at a migrant center in Mexico that killed 39 migrants. Some critics say the White House and its policies bear the blame.
Here are some of the top headlines from last week.
1: Mexican President deflects blame to US for mass-casualty fire at migrant detention center
Mexico Leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed a lack of US aid for the economic conditions causing mass migration and, essentially, the fire that killed almost 40 migrants at a Mexican detention center in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.
López Obrador said the United States should be spending more on economic development in Latin America to prevent migrants from leaving their homes, rather than sending military aid to Ukraine. He suggested the US should provide direct cash support payments to families in the region.
“How can you compare what the US government sends to Central America with the $30–$35 billion it is spending on buying weapons for Ukraine?” López Obrador said when he visited the scene on March 31.
Federal Public Safety Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said the government would close the detention center where the fire occurred. A Mexican court issued arrest orders for six people in relation to the fire. Migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, and El Salvador were among those detained at the center.
Leaked surveillance video shows migrants, reportedly fearing they were about to be moved, placing foam mattresses against the bars of their detention cells and setting them on fire. In the video, later confirmed by the government, two people dressed as guards rush into the camera frame, and at least one migrant appears by the metal gate on the other side. But the guards don’t appear to make any effort to open the cell doors and instead, hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the structure within seconds.
2: DHS accepting reported gender identity
The Biden administration will now allow immigrants seeking benefits to mark their gender identity without needing their documentation to match, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
A US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) release said the update to the immigration benefits policy is meant to clarify that immigrants do not have to submit proof of their gender identity when requesting to change their gender marker, except when submitting a Form N-565, which is used by those applying for a replacement naturalisation certificate or citizenship document.
3: US population grows thanks to immigration
Immigration has returned to pre-pandemic levels nationally, the Census Bureau has reported, adding 1.2 million to the population of the United States last year. The total population is now estimated at 333 million.
Immigration provided a demographic boost for states compared to the previous year. The nation’s 20 largest counties gained more than 300,000 new residents between July 2021 and July 2022 through international migration—more than triple the gain in the previous 12 months, according to Census data.
Despite the most recent gains, Manhattan was still running a population deficit of almost 98,000 residents as of last July when compared with April 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens recorded among the biggest population declines in the US last year, with losses ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 residents.
4: USCIS medical exam results change
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently removed the 60-day rule for civil surgeon signatures on the immigration medical exam results form.
This change applies to all applicants filing Form I-693, a document that must be completed by a qualified physician when an immigrant is applying for lawful permanent resident status in the United States. (New York Amsterdam News)
