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Uvalde says goodbye to teacher and her husband

Mourners gathered at a Catholic church in Uvalde, Texas, to say goodbye to slain teacher Irma Garcia and her husband, Joe, who died two days later from an apparent heart attack after visiting his wife's memorial. (June 1) (AP Video: Cody Jackson, Allen Breed)

AP

An array of sometimes conflicting information has emerged sincea mass shooting left19 elementary school students and two teachers deadand injured17 others,at aUvalde, Texas, elementary school. Officials' statements about the day of the shooting have shifted, policymakers and voters have debated gun controland high levels of emotion about the shootinghave all combined to create an environment ripe for the spread of misinfomation.

USA TODAY's fact check team has analyzed an array of false and misleading claims related to the Uvalde tragedy, including assertions about the gunman, the nature of theshootings and gun policy in the U.S.

Follow us:Like our Facebook page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Here's a rundown of our Uvalde fact checks.

Claim:An off-duty Border Patrol agent killed the Texas school shooting suspect

Our rating: False

Tens of thousands of users online shared a post claiming that off-duty CBP officer Jacob Albaradotook down the suspected gunman atRobb Elementary School. However, Albarado was not part of the tactical team that shot Salvador Ramos. Hehelped children evacuate from the building, but he never went inside the school.Read more.

Claim:ICE is conducting immigration enforcement at the scene of the Texas shooting

Our rating: False

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was at the scene to provide assistance to victims and families and did not conduct immigration enforcement-related activities on site, officials said.Read more.

Claim:Image shows Sen.Ted Cruzuses a Twitter templateformass shootings

Our rating: Altered

USA TODAY found no evidence that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has a Twitter template he uses in response to mass shootings.The tweets in theimage are manipulated versions of a May 24 tweet Cruz shared in response to the Uvalde shooting. The collage presentedin the claim showssupposed identical tweets, but thoseare not found on any of Cruz's Twitter accounts. Read more.

Claim:Texas shootingsuspect Salvador Ramos was transgender

Our rating: False

The viral postat the heart of this claim misidentifies an image ofa transgender woman as Salvador Ramos, the Uvalde, Texas, shooting suspect.A mugshot includedin the post does show Ramos, however. We also found no evidence Ramos was transgender.Read more.

Claim:Texas elementary school shooting suspect, Salvador Ramos, was an 'illegal alien'

Our rating: False

The Texas governor and a state senator confirmed the shooting suspect was a U.S. citizen, born in North Dakota. Read more.

Claim:The US has had 288 school shootings while other countries had two or less

Our rating: Missing context

The United States has a significantly higher number of school shootings than other countries, but a claim uses outdated statistics to make the point.The data cited in the post tallies only shootings from 2009 to 2018. One database of shootings before and after thattime framepushes the tally past 2,000 school shootings in the U.S.Read more.

Claim:The NRA bannedguns at its annual conference

Our rating: Partly false

Tens of thousands of peoplesharedclaims that the National Rifle Associationhad banned guns at a conference held the weekend after the Uvalde shooting, but this wasn't the case. The NRA authorizes visitors to the conference to legally carry firearms and did not order any bans or limitations on itspolicy. Rather, the Secret Service enforced its own ban on guns at an event where former President Donald Trump spoke. Read more.

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Fact check roundup: What's true and what's false about the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas - USA TODAY

The scandal over the negative treatment of the Windrush Generation, Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the U.K. decades ago, first erupted in 2018, forcing then Foreign Secretary Amber Rudd to resign

The scandal over the negative treatment of the Windrush Generation, Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the U.K. decades ago, first erupted in 2018, forcing then Foreign Secretary Amber Rudd to resign

The story so far: A recently-leaked report of the United Kingdom Home Office revealed that the almost three decades of legislation partly aimed at reducing the non-white population in the country eventually caused the Windrush immigration scandal that broke out in 2018, T he Guardian reported on Monday, May 30.

The publication of the report commissioned by the Home Office was reportedly suppressed last year. According to the British daily, the 52-page analysis stated that the deep-rooted racism of the Windrush scandal could be attributed to immigration legislation from 1950 to 1981 designed in part to lessen the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK.

The Windrush generation is a generation of people who were invited to Britain from Caribbean nations between 1948 and 1971 to help plug the labour shortage and rebuild the country after the destruction of World War Two. They were allowed to lawfully live and work in Britain as part of the extended Colonial empire.

The name Windrush comes from a ship called the Windrush Empire on which the first group of nearly 500 Commonwealth citizens arrived in the UK in June 1948, from countries such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.

Some of them arrived without passports or as eight or nine-year-old children on the strength of their parents passports, as they had been invited by the British Empire, which had colonised their countries.

The University of Oxford estimates that over 5,00,000 British residents born in a Commonwealth nation arrived in the UK before 1971.

Immigration from the Caribbean to the U.K. largely stopped in 1971, when the Immigration Act was passed. It granted Commonwealth citizens already in the country indefinite leave to remain, but any foreign-born British passport holder post the passage of the Act would have to possess a work permit or proof that a previous generation was born in the country to continue to stay in the U.K.

The Windrush scandal surfaced in early 2018 when The Guardian began covering the stories of individuals belonging to the Windrush generation, who were wrongly being labelled illegal immigrants.

The issue snowballed, revealing that hundreds of naturalised British citizens who had come from Commonwealth countries years ago were now stuck in tangles with British immigration authorities. Despite spending over five to six decades in the U.K., they were being asked to provide proof of settlement and evidence of their lives in Britain, which they had never before been required to keep.

In some cases, several such citizens were detained by immigration officials, faced the risk of deportation, or were denied their rights to employment, residence, and healthcare by the National Health Service (NHS).

A prominent case that emerged in late 2017 was that of Paulette Wilson, a woman in her sixties who had come to Britain as a child in the 1960s. As per the law, she had indefinite leave to remain in the U.K., and she had also worked as a cook in the House of Commons for years. Despite this, the Home Office served her a letter when she was in her 50s, declaring her an illegal immigrant.

After spending years caught in bureaucratic tangles, she spent a week in a detention centre before being taken to the Heathrow airport, the usual point of departure for detainees sent back to their countries of origin. Her deportation was halted after the courts stepped in.

However, many who struggled like Ms. Wilson were eventually wrongly deported; the Home Office revealed in 2018 that nearly 63 immigrants from the Caribbean might have been wrongly deported.

The Windrush generation scandal broke right when leaders of Commonwealth countries were set to arrive in the U.K. for a summit with the then-Prime Minister Theresa May. Leaders of Caribbean nations took strong exception to the Windrush revelations. Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness pointed out that the Windrush generation, who had enriched Britain and British society for years, were now unable to claim their place as citizens.

Following this, Prime Minister May apologised to the Commonwealth leaders for any anxiety that had been caused to those belonging to the Windrush generation.

As Home Secretary in 2012, Theresa May outlined a strategy to weed out illegal immigrants. The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal migration, she said to the press. This was believed to have led to the crackdown on Commonwealth citizens by U.K immigration authorities.

Immigration legislation in the U.K. post-2012 was largely built around what came to be known as the hostile environment policy. The 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts essentially empowered officials and even private banks, employers, landlords, and service providers to determine whether their client or employee was an illegal immigrant and consequently deny them services. It gave immigration officials the power to identify illegal immigrants living in the country, simplify their removal process, and limit their right to appeal.

As a partial result of the policy, authorities also began to ask many Windrush generation citizens to provide evidentiary documentation of their life in Britain.

In 2018, it was also revealed that thousands of landing slips recording the dates of arrival of Windrush immigrants were destroyed when a department of the Home Office moved to another building in 2010, despite warnings from employees.

After the scandal broke out, the government in April 2018 announced an inquiry into the Windrush controversy and a scheme to give British citizenship and compensation to those belonging to the generation.

However, amid growing criticism from the Opposition, civil society, and Windrush campaigners, the then-Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned in late April. She admitted that many Windrush citizens has been mistreated by the Home office and said that their treatment appalled her. She was replaced by former Home Secretary Sajid Javed.

In 2020, a government inquiry report revealed that the Home Office showed institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race, and that the departments outlook toward the Windrush generation had been consistent with some elements of the definition of institutional racism.

Following the report, Home Secretary Preeti Patel vowed that the Home Office would transform its culture and become a more compassionate department.

In 2021, it was revealed by the Home Office that 21 people had died since the launch of the compensation scheme, still waiting for their compensations to be remitted. The Home Affairs Committee found the same year that only 5 per cent of those targeted in the Windrush scandal had received their compensation.

In March this year, a report by an independent inspector stated that the Home Office had failed to make tangible progress in transforming its culture and implementing the recommendations of the 2020 report.

Last month, Britains immigration policy had come under the scanner for a new plan to send asylum seekers unofficially arriving in the U.K. to Rwanda. The plan was heavily criticized by refugee organisations and the Opposition.

Read more here:
Explained | The U.K.s Windrush immigration scandal and the new revelations about it - The Hindu

None fix everything, but all help

Gun rights supporters complain about proposals for longer waiting periods when they buy a gun. Pay attention: Theres a waiting period for everything, from minutes to weeks to months.

Buy something online? We wait for delivery. Why not for guns? Last year I waited six months after placing an order for an appliance to take possession.

Now lets add better more comprehensive background checks, better red flag laws, and mandatory weapon insurance against death or injury.

None of these changes individually or collectively will stop all massacres in schools or other situations, but each will help reduce the carnage.

Finally, consider the cost, the cost to school and civic budgets. Taxpayers should be outraged. Prevention is a much better and cheaper method of controlling such murderous behavior, than is the cleanup after more massacres.

Carl Brookins, Roseville

I went to church the other morning. I sat behind a family with two young children. These little girls did what children do in church wiggle, climb on their parents laps, etc.

One of the girls was being distracting so her dad picked her up. She put her arms around her dads neck and grinned a little. That just broke my heart. I couldnt stop crying and thinking of the families in Uvalde who will never again be able to pick up or hug their precious babies. What a total nightmare that will never end.

Please think of these people and imagine this happening to you. We allow this to happen. God help us. Why?

Chris Marken, Woodbury

For the past 30 years and more, from the presidency of William Clinton, who said in one of his State of the Union messages that illegal immigration at the southern border was out of control and something must be done, to Sen. Chuck Schumer and others on both sides of the aisle who echoed that message. Nothing definitive was done to address the issue.

Six years ago, candidate Trump ran on a platform of securing that southern border and for that and other reasons, won that election, against all odds. During the four years of Donald Trumps presidency, he attempted to gain funding from Congress to close the boarder to the surge of illegal immigration, and at nearly every turn, his efforts were blocked. But his efforts did result in a significant drop in that influx.

Now we are continually faced with tens of thousands of migrants illegally crossing our border and our government is unable or unwilling to stop the flood. Reportedly the United States has the best trained, advanced and technologically superior government resources in the world, yet we/they are unable to control or stop this influx of unarmed women, children and young males into this country.

God help these United States of America if we are ever threatened with a military invasion by a foreign power.

Jim Feckey, Mendota Heights

Thank you for Its our Honor to Honor, the beautiful story of how a group of American veterans honor another fallen veteran during ceremonies at Fort Snelling. My wife and I witnessed this personally with the death of her dad, my uncle, and most recently, a brother-in-law.

Presentation of the American flag to a survivor is powerful, filled with meaning, a profound reminder that America the Great will always remember the service of her military veterans.

Someday it will be my turn. Im thanking the Honor Guard in advance.

Dave Racer, Woodbury

Looks like our presidents handlers have come up with a new stategy for the mid-terms. I didnt do it.

Lets blame the oil companies, corporate greed, Putin, the Federal Reserve and, of course, Donald Trump. Pretty sure the complicit press will jump on board with whatever they say.

Pete Bradt,Mendota Heights

Link:
Letters: None of these gun-laws changes will save the day, but each will help - St. Paul Pioneer Press

By Bethany BlankleyThe Center Squarehttps://www.thecentersquare.com/

Gov. Greg Abbott is launching the Joint Border Security Operations Center to oversee a 15-agency effort to thwart illegal immigration funded by Texas taxpayers.

Texas shares the largest border with Mexico of 1,254 miles and is bearing the brunt of the surge illegal immigration. Last year, the state legislature allocated $4 billion for border security efforts, Abbott launched Operation Lone Star and Texas began building its own wall.

The command center will oversee these efforts on a larger agency-wide scale. It was launched on Friday in anticipation of a deluge of illegal immigrants expected to flood the southern border on Monday. The CDC has designated Monday as the day to lift Title 42, the public health authority that enables federal agents to quickly deport illegal immigrants.

However, also on Friday, a federal judge halted the administrations plan, keeping Title 42 in place.

Another federal court announced today what we have known all along: President Biden is ignoring federal law with his open border policies," Abbott said after Friday's ruling. "While todays court ruling rejecting President Bidens ending of Title 42 expulsions is a positive development, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants remain at our southern border ready to flood into Texas.

Texas will continue utilizing all available resources and strategies to prevent this mass illegal migration, including the deployment of Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard resources, the coordination with Mexican border governors, and the activation of the Joint Border Security Operations Center. We remain vigilant in fighting the lifting of Title 42 expulsions.

Last month, the attorneys general of Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri sued, asking a federal court in Louisiana to halt the administrations plan; days later more states joined as plaintiffs. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also filed a separate lawsuit in federal court in Texas.

Of the courts ruling, Paxton said, Once again, the courts rule against Joe Bidens lawless agenda. Title 42 is one of the last remaining protections we have from a deluge of illegals coming across our border. I am glad for our state and our nation that It will remain in place.

JBSOC, based at the Texas Department of Public Safetys headquarters in Austin, will coordinate the efforts of 15 agencies, led by the Texas Military Department, DPS and Texas Department of Emergency Management. It will provide 24-7 situational awareness by overseeing intelligence and tactical, marine, air, and ground operations, coordinating live feeds from Texas National Guard and DPS aircraft, UAVs, and detection cameras, and remaining in direct contact with law enforcement on the ground at the border.

"Texas will not stand by as President Biden puts our state and our nation in danger by allowing dangerous criminals, illegal weapons, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flow unabated into the United States, and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis at our southern border," Gov. Abbott said.

Abbott also recently entered into agreements with four Mexican governors who pledged to work with Texas to combat illegal immigration, the first governor to do so in U.S. history.

Despite the historic agreements, more people are entering Texas illegally through these Mexican states. Shortly after the agreements were reached, one member of the Texas National Guard drowned attempting to save drug smugglers. His death, and the thousands of illegal immigrants pouring into Texas, suggest the agreements are more symbolic than they are effective, critics argue.

On Friday, Abbott said, "We continue taking unprecedented action to secure the border, ramping up every available strategy and resource in response to President Biden's ongoing border crisis, adding that JBSOC will play an integral role in our state's robust response to provide the border security strategy Texans and Americans deserve."

But several strategies exist that he hasnt yet taken, conservatives argue.

Conservatives have repeatedly called on Abbott to use his constitutional authority to protect Texas sovereignty and declare whats happening at the border an invasion, to shut down ports of entry, and to take other military measures, which he hasnt yet done. Theyve also called on Paxton to issue a legal opinion on the matter, which he hasnt done. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is the only one to issue such an historic opinion.

Even with Title 42 in place, due to the Biden administrations widespread reversal of immigration laws, more than 234,000 people were encountered entering the U.S. illegally, the greatest number in a single month in recorded U.S. history.

Thats a 1,376% increase from 17,106 encounters reported in April 2020 under the Trump administration.

See the original post here:
Texas launches operations center to oversee 15-agency effort to thwart illegal immigration - The Highland County Press

Border Patrol encountered more than 234,000 illegal border crossers in April, according to a court document filed this week. It's an all-time monthly record, and speaks volumes about what the Biden administration is telegraphing to migrants and the cartels that traffic them. The border is for all intents and purposes open, and everyone is taking full advantage.

But controlling immigration is not only something that's accomplished at the border. Most of the folks crossing our southern border are coming in search of better economic opportunitiesopportunities they have no problem finding. It's supply and demand, Economics 101. And what it means is that if you want to control the flood of illegal immigrants, you need to make it costly for businesses to hire to them. End the demand, and you'll staunch the supply.

And yet, the Biden administration is doing the exact opposite. Earlier this year, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a memo that he was putting an end to workplace immigration raids. Unsurprisingly, illegal immigration began to skyrocket soon after the policy shift was announced last fall, as migrants realized that once they made it into the United States, they'd be able to work under the table with little chance of detention and deportation.

Word spread in impoverished communities around the world, and folks started making preparations to illegally migrate to the United States, where even the lowest wages and worst working conditions are often better than what's available in their home countries.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas presented the end of ICE workplace raids as compassionate. He's wrong: It's not. It will only incentivize more illegal immigration and lead to more human suffering, as unscrupulous employers realize they can abuse undocumented workers with virtual impunity.

Ending the raids effectively grants amnesty not to undocumented workers but to the most inhumane, criminal employers in the country. After all, their illegal hiring isn't a victimless crime. Honest citizens and legal immigrants get passed over for jobs that would otherwise be theirs. Wages fall. And of course, the illegal workers themselves often face appalling abuse.

It has already happened in industries like agriculture, construction, and meatpacking, and the practice will only spread as long as the government turns a blind eye.

Consider a recent example from Georgia, where a human smuggling ring trafficked 200 undocumented workers across the border to work in conditions a U.S. attorney described as "modern-day slavery." These farm workers were bartered like cattle and sexually assaulted.

Scofflaw employers have almost total control over undocumented workers, who know that any complaints about unsafe working conditions or unfair labor practices could cause their managers to summarily fire themor report them to ICE.

As a recent story in the progressive magazine The American Prospect details, contractors often stiff undocumented workers injured on their job sites, leaving them on the hook for ruinous medical bills. Particularly cruel contractors will even report their injured employees to ICE rather than provide medical care.

Moreover, by effectively ignoring illegal hiring, the government is complicit in driving down wages for blue-collar Americans. The presence of undocumented workers in the labor force suppresses the average American's wages by 5 percent, and less-skilled workers by as much as 12 percent.

Black Americans, in particular, suffer. One study showed that mass migration could be responsible for around 60 percent of the Black-white wage gap. Honest employers also lose out because they can't compete with the artificially low wages and inflated margins of their exploitive rivals.

The prospect of a raid keeps many employers at the margin honest, which in turn helps keep illegal immigration levels down. During his first week in office, President Trump signed executive orders expanding the use of workplace raids, along with other border security and immigration enforcement measures. In just a few months, illegal immigration fell 70 percent, to a 17-year low. Not coincidentally, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, workers' wages rose faster for the bottom 10 percent than the top 10 percent of American earners, and fastest of all among Blacks and Latinos.

Taking away that deterrent incentivizes employers and migrants alike to flout the law.

Just a few months after President Biden took office and reversed the Trump-era immigration policies, the southern border was overrun. 2021 saw the highest number of illegal crossings ever recorded, along with a looming humanitarian crisis. 2022 promises to be even worse, with Border Patrol prepping for 18,000 daily migrant encountersmore than double the current ratestarting later this spring.

Raids deter illegal immigration and help prevent the worst sorts of workplace abuses. Ending them helps no one except the unscrupulous companies that use de facto slave labor to pad their bottom lines.

Mark Thies, Ph.D. is an engineering professor at Clemson University whose research is focused on energy and sustainability.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

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Ending Workplace Immigration Enforcement, Biden Incentivizes Slavery and Abuse | Opinion - Newsweek