In a sign of how tight border security has become over the past year, the INS this year will not issue visa waivers to Mexican high school students to participate in a Christmas in the Christmas parade in Calexico, California. For the past 16 years the students have marched in the parade, and have been allowed to enter the US without a visa. Because the visa requirement is now being strictly enforced, only three of the 25 groups from Mexicali, Mexico, right across the border from Calexico, will participate in this week’s parade. Local business owners say the parade day is the biggest shopping day of the year, and worry that stepped up enforcement will hurt their businesses.
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Three Mexican citizens were recently charged with smuggling six immigrants from the Middle East into the US. One person, a man from Lebanon, died during his journey to the US during this past June.
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Five stowaways from Colombia found on board a cargo freighter at Port Everglades near Miami were taken into INS custody recently. Three of the men were taken to a local hospital for treatment for dehydration. As stowaways, the only way they will be allowed to remain in the US is by winning an application for asylum. Much more likely is that they will be deported to Colombia within a few days.
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On Monday December 16, 2002, Immigration Judge Rex J. Ford denied the first five asylum requests from the Haitian refugee boat that arrived in Miami on October 29th. Judge Ford stated that he was not unsympathetic to the situation of the Haitians, but there was no evidence to grant asylum as outlined by the law. The individuals denied asylum and ordered removed to Haiti are five males currently detained in the Krome Processing Center in Miami, Florida.
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Haitian immigrants and immigration advocates in South Florida participated in a fast to protest the federal government’s detention of children from the October 29th Haitian refugee boat. The protestors demand that the government release the children before Christmas to relatives in the Miami area. The children are currently detained at Boystown, a juvenile facility in southwest Miami-Dade County.
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Immigration Judge Kenneth Hurewitz ruled on this week that Cuban spy suspect Juan Emilio Aboy be removed to Cuba. Judge Hurewitz found that during his U.S. immigration process, Aboy did not reveal that he participated in espionage training and that he was a member of the Cuban Communist Party. Normally, Cubans who are ordered deported are not returned to Cuba. However, the Cuban government sometimes makes acceptations to this general rule. Aboy’s attorney plans to appeal the removal order. Aboy entered the United States on May 1996 and has been employed as a commercial diver. Throughout his immigration proceedings, Aboy denied being a spy. He admits being a member of the Revolutionary War Marines from 1974 to 1999. He also acknowledges being sent to Russia by the Cuban government to study diving.
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