by tyler | Feb 21, 2024 | CNN, us
Daniel Penado Zavala was 17 when he made a heart-wrenching decision to leave his family behind in San Salvador and try to make a new life where it was safer.
He saw gang members target and kill young people like him. After his stepfather was slain, Daniel’s mother was left to support him and his three siblings.
He, too, would be a victim if he resisted the wishes of thugs, he thought. That’s how life had become for people without means in El Salvador. Gang members infiltrated public schools, he said, and threatened kids to join their ranks.
He scraped together $7,000 – a huge sum of money for a family like his – to pay a coyote, or smuggler, to arrange a harrowing journey, first to Mexico and then over the Texas border.
Daniel’s is not an unfamiliar story anymore. Thousands cross the southern U.S. border illegally each year in hopes of better lives.
But now the problem has reached epic proportions, with children like Daniel fleeing the Central American countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. And they are arriving in the United States alone – without a parent or guardian.
Many are hoping to be reunited with parents or relatives already living in America, and they cross the border without papers because there are virtually no legal ways for them to immigrate. Nor can their undocumented parents return home to get them.
The number of children making these journeys by themselves has doubled each year since 2010. U.S. authorities estimate that between 60,000 and 80,000 children will seek safe haven this year.
Immigrant rights agencies project that number could soar to 130,000 next year. That’s more than all the people who came over from Cuba during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, which would make this the largest refugee crisis on U.S. soil since then.
Some of the children are as young as 4. They have notes pinned to their shirts giving authorities a name and phone number or address of a relative in the United States.
By the numbers: What you need to know about immigration
Suddenly, U.S. Border Patrol agents are finding themselves having to care for thousands of young lives while enforcing the law. To complicate matters, immigrant advocates say the crisis has proven to be fertile ground for human traffickers who are quick to take advantage of the chaos.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott cited a 92% increase in the number of immigrants 18 and younger who are being arrested at the border with Mexico. In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Abbott asked for $30 million to help secure the border.
“With the Border Patrol’s focus shifted to this crisis,” Abbott said, “we have grave concerns that dangerous cartel activity, including narcotics smuggling and human trafficking, will go unchecked.”
Everyone involvaed has gone into emergency mode, said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a national non-profit immigrant child advocacy group.
“Right now,” she said, “we are in triage.”
Immigration reform has stalled in Washington, but the shocking new reality has brought the issue back to the forefront.
It has overwhelmed U.S. facilities along the border and forced federal authorities to scramble to find viable solutions.
They’ve had to open temporary shelters because the existing ones are filled to capacity. Journalists are not allowed inside, but leaked photographs of a Border Patrol holding facility in Nogales, Arizona, show cramped cells without enough food, beds, toilets or showers. They seem more befitting of refugee camps Americans hear of in war-ravaged regions of the developing world than right here at home.
From those less-than-ideal conditions have risen allegations of sexual abuse, threats of violence, strip searches and filthy conditions.
A complaint filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and four immigrant rights groups lists accusations made by 116 children. Half described a lack of medical care. Others describe ice-cold holding cells in which bright fluorescent lights were kept switched on day and night. About 70 percent of these children said they were held by the Border Patrol longer than the statutory limit of 72 hours.
President Barack Obama has announced an interagency Unified Coordination Group to respond to humanitarian needs.
Recently, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the Coast Guard and military are being deployed to transport and help house unaccompanied minors. He also said he is discussing faster repatriation with the ambassadors of the three Central American countries of origin.
Immigrant advocates say federal authorities should not have been surprised by a trend that advocates on the border have seen coming for years. When you have a confluence of violence and poverty, they say, people flee.
“We’ve had children dying here in the desert,” said Isabel Garcia, an immigrant rights activist with the Arizona-based Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (Coalition for Human Rights).
“It really is unacceptable, the entire thing.”
Opinion: Undocumented fed up with partisan politics
Why are they coming?
On a recent morning on Capitol Hill, Daniel told a small panel of lawmakers the tale of his perilous journey to the U.S. border. How he waded through a river infested with alligators, drank its murky waters, slept in a locked room with 20 people.
After the coyote abandoned him, he crossed the U.S. border and walked the desert alone without water or food.
He lay down on the parched ground and abandoned hope.
“I started crying and thinking this was the end,” he said, recounting his journey for CNN.
He hoped that the Border Patrol would find him. He prayed to God that someone would find his body to take back to his family.
He found the strength to go on only when he thought of Magaly, the 13-year-old sister he left behind in San Salvador. He loved her deeply and wanted so much to be able to send money home to pay for a good education – one that would help her stay safe.
There’s little doubt that poverty and violence are two big reasons for the rising tide of Central American children fleeing their homes.
A United Nations report published in March found that most children feared for their safety in their home countries. U.N. refugee agency staff interviewed more than 400 children in U.S. custody and listened to stories similar to Daniel’s.
A 17-year-old boy who fled Honduras said, “My grandmother is the one who told me to leave. She said: ‘If you don’t join, the gang will shoot you. If you do, the rival gang will shoot you, or the cops. But if you leave, no one will shoot you.’”
A 14-year-old girl from El Salvador said: “The biggest problem is the gangs. They go into the school and take girls out and kill them. … I used to see reports on the TV every day about girls being buried in their uniforms with their backpacks and notebooks. I had to go very far to go to school, and I had to walk by myself. There was nowhere else I could go where it would be safer.”
The report found a strong link between regional violence and insecurity and new displacement patterns – children migrating northward.
“This new trend is heartbreaking,” said Nicole Boehner, who works as a protection associate for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the United States and oversaw the research for the March report.
She said the first priority right now should be the protection and safety of the children, who have lived through trauma.
“These are incredibly courageous children who have made a decision that no child should have to make,” Boehner said. “Think about how hard it is to make a decision to leave home and travel somewhere completely foreign because of the need for safety.
“They showed incredible courage,” she said. “They deserve to be protected. And they deserve to have a childhood.”
Beyond the short-term need to ensure safe environments for the children, Boehner said ultimately, the waves of child migration will have to be addressed as a foreign policy issue.
“This is a regional problem and requires a regional response,” she said.
But not everyone agrees with the U.N. assessment. Many blame the Obama administration for fostering a misconception that if you are a child who ends up in America illegally, you will get a free pass to stay.
Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia called the surge in children an “administration-made disaster.”
“Word has gotten out around the world about President Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies, and it has encouraged more individuals to come to the United States illegally, many of whom are children from Central America,” said Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Obama’s critics blame policies such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which offers relief for certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.
Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary, suggested that Central American families believe that their undocumented children may be spared from U.S. deportation under DACA, even though those arriving now do not meet the eligibility criteria.
Immigrant families also may be assuming their undocumented children would someday be eligible for a proposed pathway to citizenship, Johnson said. But current immigration reform proposals don’t make such offers.
“Those apprehended at our border are priorities for removal,” Johnson said. “They are priorities for enforcement of our immigration laws regardless of age.”
Despite the reality, many Central Americans are holding onto hope.
Sgt. Dan Broyles, a deputy constable in Hidalgo County, Texas, said he has been helping Border Patrol agents for decades and has never seen anything like the current crisis.
“We’re not having to chase them down anymore,” he said. “They come over here and they want to get caught. They make no quarrels about getting caught.”
Sexual abuse of minors alleged at border as kids flock into U.S.
Beyond the journey
After two days in the Texas desert, Daniel came across a house. The owners fed him and called the Border Patrol.
He was given a health screening and underwent a routine process of fingerprinting and identification. Then he was sent to a shelter, like all the others who are coming across now.
The laws are different for citizens of contiguous countries who cross the border. Unaccompanied children from Mexico and Canada are repatriated unless they are determined to be victims of trafficking.
But with non-contiguous countries, children are taken into U.S. custody.
Federal law says minors cannot be held at a Border Patrol facility for more than 72 hours. They have to be processed and then either sent to live with a relative in the United States or released to a shelter operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services.
The refugee office operates about 100 permanent shelters for unaccompanied minors, said spokesman Kenneth Wolfe. Right now, they are filled to capacity.
The surge in children crossing the border has forced authorities to open three temporary shelters at military bases – Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Fort Sill in Oklahoma and Naval Base Ventura County in California.
In Daniel’s case, authorities contacted his aunt in Alexandria, Virginia, and he was sent to live with her until his immigration status is resolved. That’s how it works for many of the children entering America now. If authorities can find a relative, the children are put on buses that take them to cities and towns across the nation.
But often that’s when another set of problems begin.
Beyond the life-and-death journey, beyond the crisis that’s making headlines lies another journey, one that can be equally perilous for a child in a different sort of way.
The law mandates that a child must at some point appear before an immigration judge, who could decide to grant special immigrant juvenile status if that child has been abused, abandoned or neglected and is unable to be reunited with a parent.
That status gets children permanent residency in the United States – also known as a green card – although they are barred from petitioning for a green card for their parents and cannot petition for a green card for their siblings until becoming U.S. citizens.
Or children may file a petition for asylum if they fear persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion.
Either way, without a lawyer, it’s hard for children to argue their case.
And in many cases, they’re not able to, said Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations for the non-profit U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants.
“That’s the trick,” she said. “Everyone has an immigration hearing scheduled but everyone has to find an attorney. There’s no system in place for children.”
In Daniel’s case, for instance, his family could not afford a lawyer and he missed his chance to petition for special juvenile status. He is now 19, an adult, and no longer qualifies for that.
Immigrant advocates say they have seen young children appear on their own in court, not knowing how to make a case for themselves. It’s a situation that’s made even more difficult by the fact that few are able to obtain proof of what happened to them in their homelands. Often, there are no police reports or other documents, so judges have to rely on the veracity of their stories.
Immigrant rights groups say they are scrambling to recruit more lawyers who are willing to represent undocumented children for free.
Young, the president of KIND, said her group has trained 7,000 such lawyers since 2009.
“But the problem is you can’t just hand a volunteer attorney who is a corporate lawyer and say, ‘Have at it,’” she said. “You need to train that lawyer in immigration law.”
And there isn’t always the money to do that, she said. The bottom line is there aren’t enough lawyers to go around.
“Imagine a kid who is 5 who does not have representation,” Young said. “That child is likely to be deported.”
Add to that equation an already burdened immigration court system, and many children find themselves in legal limbo for years.
Michelle Abarca, a lawyer with Americans for Immigrant Justice in Miami, said on some days she has as many as 30 cases on the court docket.
“I equate it to working in the ER,” she said.
Undocumented in America
Daniel is a junior in high school now. He learned English as a second language and does fairly well with grades. His lowest has been a C, he said.
After school, he works as a mechanic and dreams of becoming an engineer in the Air Force. He joined the ROTC program at his high school and proudly wore his uniform when he appeared on the Hill.
He broke down in tears as he described for lawmakers how he made it to America.
“It was a terrible idea to come over like that. I don’t want anybody to come like that,” he told CNN. “I wanted to testify. I want people to know what happened to me. I don’t want anybody else to experience that.”
He sends money home for his sister’s education at a private school, where she is safer and further out of the reach of violent gangs. He promised his two younger brothers that if he has the opportunity to go to college and get a better job, he would help them, too.
He is part of a fast-growing population of young Central Americans who find themselves in a land of opportunity but without documentation.
Immigration reform could help alleviate the current crisis, depending on the legislation.
Immigrant rights activists say that legalizing the undocumented, even if they’re not given a pathway to citizenship, would let Central Americans travel back to their homelands to visit the children they left behind. That could help reduce the number of children crossing over the southern U.S. border.
“I hope the government decides to protect people and we can have the opportunity to live here,” Daniel said. “It’s very hard without anything that recognizes us.”
He regrets that he could not afford a lawyer when he still qualified for special juvenile status.
He is waiting his day in immigration court. He knows there’s a chance he will be deported to San Salvador.
It’s a thought that haunts him every day.
Follow CNN”s Moni Basu on Twitter
by tyler | Feb 21, 2024 | CNN, politics
President Barack Obama announced Thursday he is sending up to 300 military advisers to Iraq, and could down the road authorize targeted military action, if necessary.
Advisers will help train and support Iraqi forces, while gathering intelligence on the militant group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has taken several cities in the north and west of Iraq.
Obama said such action was necessary to help prevent a civil war in Iraq that could destabilize the region, and also prevent creation of a terrorist safe haven.
One aircraft carrier and five warships are already positioned in the Persian Gulf, U.S. drones are flying intelligence missions over Iraq and military sources tell CNN a list of ISIS targets has been compiled.
Special forces teams will arrive in Iraq soon. They could ultimately assist in calling in airstrikes, if they are authorized.
“Going forward, we will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it,” Obama said on Thursday.
Without deploying combat troops – which Obama has ruled out – how could the United States take further military action?
Airstrikes: Air power is the most talked about option to target ISIS fighters who have seized cities in northwestern Iraq and could advance into Baghdad.
Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, which could facilitate an emergency evacuation of U.S. personnel in Iraq, would also enable missile strikes or bombing.
Striking from the air could hamper the movement of ISIS fighters, said Karl Mueller, associate director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources program at RAND Arroyo Center.
Airstrikes would “help stem the advancing tide of ISIS, mainly by striking their forces advancing toward Baghdad or other cities not already under their control,” he said.
Targeted strikes could help shift the momentum from ISIS fighters to Iraqi soldiers and could be highly effective and low risk, Mueller said.
As during the 2011 intervention in Libya, ground forces are unlikely to pose a significant threat to U.S. air power and ISIS’s air defenses “would likely be even weaker,” Mueller said.
American bombing would not only give Iraqi forces the upper hand against ISIS, but could provide a much-needed “psychological boost” to Iraqi forces after soldiers abandoned their posts in Mosul, which was quickly captured by ISIS.
Another benefit? U.S. airstrikes would be achievable without deploying U.S. military personnel near the ground targets, CNN military analyst retired Gen. James “Spider” Marks said.
While some have raised concerns that an air campaign could result in a high number of civilian casualties, Marks called ISIS a “very conventional force,” boasting armored vehicles, artillery and ammo stockpiles.
Precision strikes would be difficult to call in without forces on the ground, but the advisers Obama is now deploying could fulfill that task, CNN military analyst Rick Francona said.
U.S. special forces would be “in a great position to call in any air strikes,” Francona said.
Retired Army Gen. Mark Kimmitt called airstrikes “one of the best guarantees” to keep Iraq in one piece, but argued that ISIS is more focused on consolidating their gains and may not be interested in pushing into Baghdad.
“It’s highly unlikely that they have either the manpower or the capability – or quite frankly the desire – to go well south into the southern, predominantly almost exclusively Shia areas,” Kimmitt said.
Drones: What if Obama decides he doesn’t want U.S. pilots flying over Iraq at all?
Drones have already been at the forefront of the U.S.’s fight against terrorism in the Middle East and perhaps the most recognizable weapon of the Obama administration’s policy in countries like Yemen and Pakistan.
But drones are best used to strike small, specific targets like vehicles and individual suspected terrorists and several military officials have told CNN that drone strikes would have a limited impact on a force like ISIS.
Drones would help U.S. military officials fill the intelligence gap they need to seal in order to strike ISIS precisely, effectively and with limited civilian casualties.
Experts and critics have cited the lack of updated military intelligence in ISIS-controlled areas as a hindrance to identifying specific targets.
And the Pentagon has ramped up drone surveillance over northern and western Iraq since ISIS took several cities.
But some say that is not enough.
On the ground, intelligence-gathering: Obama has ruled out sending troops “back into combat.”
Plans for advisers are similar to those that retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former head of Central Command, called for Monday on CNN.
“They can provide some of that ground intelligence … that we’re lacking,” he said. “They also can control airstrikes if necessary. They can function as advisers.”
Zinni suggested the elite forces could work with Iraqi forces as well as with Kurdish fighters who recently seized control of the northern, oil-rich city of Kirkuk and are also battling the Islamist militants.
Gen. Mark Hertling also called intelligence-gathering essential to distinguish between ISIS fighters and civilians.
“Intelligence is the driver. You can’t drop bombs or hit targets without intelligence,” Hertling said. “In order to get intel, especially in a nation that’s like Iraq, you have to have people seeking that intel on the ground. It just can’t come from satellite photos, or an airplane moving at 200 knots above a target and say: ‘Hey, that’s good enough, let’s drop a bomb.’”
To those urging Obama to take swift military action to strike ISIS, Hertling has a message: easier said than done.
He urged caution, warning that without more intelligence, U.S. strikes could hit civilians.
“And as soon as the first bomb or the first strafing run hits a school bus or a car full of civilians, then the Americans are to blame for that,” he said.
But sending advisers could just be a first step to a larger U.S. mission in Iraq, experts warned.
“This is the first step. This is how you get drawn into these situations,” Francona, a CNN military analyst, said.
Cooperating with Iran: Obama also said that Iran can play a constructive role in Iraq if it is not “coming in solely as an armed force on behalf of the Shia.”
Iran deployed about 500 Revolutionary Guard troops to help the Iraqi government.
But Iran’s growing influence in Iraq continues to worry experts and U.S. officials as Iran’s involvement risks further inflaming sectarian tensions already at a boiling point in the region.
As Iranian planes fly through Iraq to arm the Syrian regime and as the war in Syria swells into neighboring countries, experts are warning of a possible regional war between Sunnis and Shiites.
To keep Iraq from breaking into pieces, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would consider communicating with Iran to kill the advance of ISIS militants.
Kerry is heading to Iraq for consultations on the situation there.
“We’re open to discussions if there’s something constructive that can be contributed by Iran,” he said in an interview with Yahoo News, responding to a question about cooperating with the Iranian military. “I think we need to go step by step and see what, in fact, might be a reality.”
Kerry clarified Thursday that the United States is only “interested in communicating with Iran” and sharing information to prevent mistakes.
But the powder-keg situation in Iraq has convinced even one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate to consider working with Iran.
“The Iranians can provide some assets to make sure Baghdad doesn’t fall,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said.
Meghan O’Sullivan, a former deputy national security adviser, agreed that a coordinated effort in Iraq between the U.S. and Iran might benefit both sides.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress coordination with Iran would not be a first as the United States had previously “worked with the Iranians on that western border in Afghanistan.”
Others worried that a collaboration with Iran could further alienate Sunni Iraqis who are already weary of the Iraqi government or Iran’s regional rivals.
House Speaker John Boehner said the U.S. should rule out any partnership with Iran.
“I can just imagine what our friends in the region, our allies will be thinking by reaching out to Iran at a time when they continue to pay for terrorists and foster terrorism not only in Syria, in Lebanon but in Israel as well,” Boehner said.
Obama announces military advisers going to Iraq
Transcript: Obama’s remarks on U.S. response to Iraq crisis
Obama: Military advisers will go to Iraq, but U.S. not returning to combat
by tyler | Feb 21, 2024 | CNN, world
At least three people have been killed and 52 injured after Buddhist mobs rampaged through Muslim areas in southwest Sri Lanka, police say.
The outbreak of religious violence followed a large rally Sunday by the Bodu Bala Sena, a hardline Buddhist nationalist group led by monks, in the town of Aluthgama, about 60 kilometers south of Colombo.
The rally was prompted by the alleged assault of a monk by Muslim youths days earlier, police said.
After the rally, violence erupted on both sides as the demonstrators marched through Muslim neighborhoods, allegedly chanting anti-Muslim slogans, according to a statement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
Muslim homes and shops were gutted in the violence, which has prompted Muslims in the region to gather in mosques for safety.
Sri Lankan police spokesman Ajith Rohana told CNN that 12 people from Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority had been arrested over the violence, some of them members of Bodu Bala Sena.
“They have been remanded at the moment and we’re framing charges in due course,” he said.
Soldiers had been brought in to enforce a curfew, banning people from the roads or from gathering in public places, in the hope of preventing further clashes in Aluthgama and the nearby town of Beruwala, coastal destinations popular with foreign tourists.
The curfew was relaxed from 8 a.m. to noon Tuesday to allow people to leave their homes to gather supplies. Rohana said that “sporadic incidents” had been reported Monday night, but that authorities had the situation under control.
The violence has alarmed international observers, with the U.N.’s Pillay urging Sri Lanka’s government to “urgently do everything it can to arrest this violence, curb the incitement and hate speech which is driving it, and protect all religious minorities.”
“I am very concerned this violence could spread to Muslim communities in other parts of the country,” she said.
Sri Lanka’s Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem, a Muslim, said his party would weigh its future in the government depending on the official response to the attacks. “I am ashamed I could not help my people,” he said.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is in Bolivia for the G77 summit, commented on the clashes on Twitter.
“The Government will not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands. I urge all parties concerned to act in restraint,” he wrote.
“An investigation will be held for law to take its course of action to bring to book those responsible for incidents in Aluthgama.”
READ MORE: Are Sri Lanka’s ‘anti-terror’ arrests an attempt to intimidate activists?
About three-quarters of Sri Lanka’s population are Sinhalese, most of them Theravada Buddhists. According to the country’s 2011 census, 70.2% of the population is Buddhist, 12.6% Hindu, 9.7% Muslim and 7.4% Christian.
In recent years, the country has witnessed a surge of Buddhist nationalism, led by the Bodu Bala Sena, the country’s most powerful Buddhist organization, which has pledged to defend the religion.
Its rally on Sunday was held in response to an earlier incident on Thursday, which is a public holiday in Sri Lanka commemorating the day Buddhism reached the island nation.
Rohana said a Buddhist monk and his driver had been assaulted by a group of four Muslim youths, sparking anger among the Buddhist community. The four alleged assailants were subsequently arrested.
He said the mob violence did not begin until the rally on Sunday.
Fred Carver, of the UK-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, urged Sri Lanka’s authorities to rapidly take charge of the situation.
“We know from past experience that ethnic violence in Sri Lanka rapidly spirals and leads to phenomenal loss of life unless there is swift and effective intervention by the police,” he told CNN.
“In the longer term, I hope the Sri Lankan Government reflects on the consequences of patronizing and endorsing extremist nationalists, while at the same time engendering a culture of impunity for those involved in ethnic violence.”
The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka condemned the violence and called on all sides to show restraint.
Groups warn of backlash as U.N. calls for probe into Sri Lanka civil war
by tyler | Feb 21, 2024 | CNN, justice
The families of two men who were fatally shot are suing the New England Patriots and its owners to prevent the football team from paying former player Aaron Hernandez, who has been charged in their slayings.
The NFL team and its owner’s company, Kraft Enterprises, have been named as co-defendants in a $6 million civil wrongful death lawsuit along with Hernandez.
The attorney for the families is asking the court to prohibit the Patriots and its owners from paying Hernandez $3.25 million and other funds that may become due to Hernandez, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges.
The National Football League Players Association has filed a grievance on behalf of the former tight end after the team failed to pay him the multimillion-dollar sum, which was due in March, the lawsuit says.
The wrongful death lawsuit was originally filed in February on behalf of the families of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, according to court papers.
The lawsuit alleges that the victims’ families have sustained both fiscal and emotional damages.
Prosecutors say that in July 2012, Hernandez fatally shot de Abreu and Furtado in their car after de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez and spilled his drink at a nightclub earlier in the evening.
“We are seeking to have the families who have been victimized by these deaths have some assets set aside that they may be somehow compensated,” according to a written statement from William Kennedy, the families’ attorney. “The two young men in our case both supported their mothers with their modest earnings. That support and emotional attachment has been lost forever.
“Our information is that Hernandez has received over $11M in compensation in the 3 years as a Patriot,” Kennedy added. “Part of his funds and assets should be set aside for the victims of his crime. The victims should be compensated.”
CNN has reached out to the Patriots and Kraft Enterprises but has not yet received a response.
Hernandez was charged with murder in the deaths of de Abreu and Furtado in May.
He was dropped by the New England Patriots in June 2013 after being charged with first-degree murder in the death of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd.
He has since been incarcerated and has pleaded not guilty to all three murder charges.
by tyler | Feb 21, 2024 | CNN, world
Kenyan forces shot dead five people allegedly involved in an attack this week that turned a World Cup viewing party into a bloodbath.
The five were killed Thursday in the coastal town of Mpeketoni as they tried to escape Kenyan forces, the ministry said Friday.
Authorities detained additional suspects in the raid, including the owner and driver of a vehicle used in the attack on soccer viewers that killed at least 48 people, said national police chief David Kimaiyo.
Another suspect, who was operating social media accounts allegedly used by Al-Shabaab, was also arrested, he said.
Kenyan authorities aggressively looked for suspects in Sunday’s attack on the soccer viewers in the same town.
Armed men stormed the city center, shooting and hacking people to death before moving into a residential area, where they went from door to door, the witnesses said.
Al-Shabaab, the al Qaeda-linked militant group active in Somalia, was not responsible, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said earlier this week.
Instead, he blamed local political networks.
“The attack was well planned, orchestrated and politically motivated ethnic violence against the Kenyan community with the intention of victimization for political reasons. This therefore was not an Al-Shabaab terrorist attack,” Kenyatta said.
The heavily armed gunmen, many in military uniforms, attacked hotels, a restaurant, gas station, bank, police station and a government office, according to the Kenyan Red Cross. Video from the scene showed burned-out vehicles and walls pockmarked by bullets.
Mpeketoni sits to the west of the Kenya-Somalia border, where the Kenyan army is fighting troops loyal to the al Qaeda-linked militant group.
The attack in Mpeketoni is the deadliest attack in Kenya since Al-Shabab militants stormed Nairobi’s Westgate Mall last year, killing dozens.
READ: Explosions in Kenya leave at least 10 dead, officials say
READ: New Kenya law legalizes polygamy; women’s group applauds it
by tyler | Feb 21, 2024 | CNN, justice
Claiming that even the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is air conditioned, prisoners in Texas have filed a federal lawsuit over soaring temperatures in state prisons that they say have killed at least 12 prisoners in the last three years.
The suit, filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project and the University of Texas School of Law Civil Rights clinic on behalf of the prisoners, isn’t seeking monetary damages. It seeks cooler temperatures for the prisoners. Eighty-eight degrees to be exact.
The lawsuit, broadly concerned about the lack of air conditioning across state facilities, centers on a facility in Navasota, Texas, known as the Wallace Pack Unit. Located about 70 miles northwest of Houston, the facility houses about 1,400 men. As of January, the compliant said, 114 men over the age of 70 were housed there. They have no air conditioning, and the windows which do open provide little relief, the suit claims, leading to temperatures inside that often exceed those outside.
And outside it’s hot.
The suit cites internal data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice which found that over the past three years the mercury topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “Stainless steel tables in the inmate dormitories become hot to the touch” the complaint reads and “prisoners have to lay towels down on the table to rest their elbows while sitting.”
In addition to the older inmates, the complaint said a number of men have various underlying medical conditions that make them especially vulnerable to heat stroke, like 69-year-old Marvin Yates, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.
“I don’t know if I will make it this summer. The heat and humidity are so bad inside I have trouble breathing,” said Yates, one of three named plaintiffs, in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges some 20 deaths since 1998 and details names, ages and internal body temperatures of the victims, including cases where the body temperature recorded was well over 100 degrees. One man, 45-year-old Rodney Adams, died one day after his arrival. His internal temperature registered 109.9.
There is air conditioning in some parts of the facility. The law library, education building and visitation center all are equipped with air conditioning, according to the complaint, but the inmates are “rarely allowed” in these areas. The complaint also said that the warden’s office and other administrative buildings have air conditioning.
County prisons also have air conditioning. Texas statute mandates those jails keep temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees inside, but the state system, according to the complaint, has no such requirement. The lawsuit alleges the conditions violate federal law and the inmate’s constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Men treated worse than pigs?
The lawsuit alleges that hogs on Texas Department of Criminal Justice property receive better treatment than the prisoners. “TDCJ policy requires temperatures be kept no higher than 85 degrees to ensure ‘pig comfort,’” the suit said, adding that the department begins “to cool the pigs when the temperature goes above 74 degrees to keep the pigs ‘comfortable.’”
Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said the department couldn’t comment on pending legislation. But he did spell out what the agency does to “mitigate temperature extremes.” The agency provides water and allows for additional showers “when feasible.” Clark also said the staff is trained to identify “offenders susceptible to heat-related issues.”
Guards not immune
But according to the complaint the staff may also need to identify heat-related issues for one another, since they also have to go into the hot rooms of the prison.
“The correctional officer’s union has made numerous public requests for the prison housing areas to be air conditioned,” the complaint said, detailing one female guard who suffered heat exhaustion and dehydration.
The plaintiffs said the situation has led to the correctional officer’s union lending public support to the suit.
Clark said the department doesn’t have the money to make changes, conceding “a detailed cost analysis has not been done.”
