After Trump travel ban, immigrants seek to naturalize
After Trump travel ban, immigrants seek to naturalize
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Andres Dorantes has long been content with the green card that lets him live in the U.S. and work as a tattoo artist in Los Angeles.
That changed when Donald Trump became president and swiftly made executive orders to crack down on immigrants and ban travel from certain countries. Dorantes, a Mexican immigrant, made an appointment at a naturalization workshop to start the process of becoming an American citizen.
“I wanted to do it for a long time but I was always busy,” said the 33-year-old Dorantes, who came to the U.S. a decade ago after his father sponsored him for a green card. “Now, I see what is happening — everything is crazy.”
Since last month, immigrants have been rushing to prepare applications to become U.S. citizens. Legal service organizations in Los Angeles, Maryland and New York catering to diverse immigrant communities from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East all said they’ve been fielding a rising number of calls and questions about how to become a citizen.
The wait time has doubled for a spot at a monthly naturalization clinic focused on Asian immigrants in Los Angeles. Since Trump’s executive orders on immigration, the number of immigrants inquiring about citizenship has also doubled at a Muslim organization in Southern California and at Latin American-focused groups in Maryland and New York, advocates said.
Sentencing of Israeli soldier in shooting deepens fissures
JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli soldier was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for killing a badly wounded Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground, in a landmark decision that deepened fissures in Israeli society and drew Palestinian criticism for being too lenient.
Leading nationalist Israeli politicians called any jail time unfair and urged an immediate pardon, while Palestinians dismissed Israel’s justice system as a “joke.”
The sentencing of Sgt. Elor Azaria culminated a nearly yearlong saga that has bitterly divided the country. While Israel’s top generals pushed for the prosecution of a soldier they say violated the military’s code of ethics, large segments of the public, including politicians on Israel’s nationalist right, sided with Azaria. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave only lukewarm support to his military.
Although the sentence was lighter than expected, those divisions showed no signs of easing following Tuesday’s sentencing at a Tel Aviv military court. Dozens of people demonstrated outside in support of Azaria, one of them holding a poster that said “Trump would do the same,” and hard-line politicians called for his release.
“Even if he erred, Elor should not sit in prison. We will all pay the price,” said Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home Party.
State lawmakers channel grief into fight against opioids
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — In statehouses across the country, lawmakers with loved ones who fell victim to drugs are leading the fight against the nation’s deadly opioid-abuse crisis, drawing on tragic personal experience to attack the problem.
A Minnesota state senator whose daughter died of a heroin overdose in a Burger King parking lot — a friend hid the needles instead of calling for help — spearheaded a law that grants immunity to 911 callers. In Wisconsin, a state representative has introduced more than a dozen opioid-related bills in the years since his daughter went from painkillers to heroin to prison. A Pennsylvania lawmaker whose son is a recovering heroin addict championed a state law that expanded availability of an antidote that can reverse an overdose.
“We’re all here because we have this empty void in our lives,” said Minnesota state Rep. Dave Baker, whose son started out taking prescription drugs for back pain and died of a heroin overdose in 2011.
The lawmakers’ personal stories have lent weight to the effort to combat what public health officials have deemed a full-blown epidemic that is fast approaching the severity of the AIDS outbreak of the 1980s and ’90s.
More than 52,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2015, and roughly two-thirds of them had used prescription opioids like OxyContin or Vicodin or illegal drugs like heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those overdoses have jumped 33 percent in the past five years alone, with some states reporting the death toll had doubled or more.
Supreme Court seems split in case of boy’s death near border
WASHINGTON (AP) — Examining a tragic shooting death on the U.S. border with Mexico, a divided Supreme Court on Tuesday puzzled over the rights of foreigners to sue in American courts.
The case involving a Mexican teen slain by a U.S. Border Patrol agent’s gunshot, which traveled across the border, elicited questions about how a ruling could affect victims of American drone strikes. The court battle over President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven majority Muslim nations also lurked in the background: While the legal issues are different, both issues have courts weighing the rights of foreigners.
A 4-4 tie could provide Judge Neil Gorsuch an early opportunity to cast a key vote if he is confirmed to the court before the term ends in late June.
Tuesday’s case arose from a June 2010 shooting in the wide, concrete-lined ditch — actually the dry bed of the Rio Grande river — that separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The agent was on the U.S. side of the border when he fired his gun, striking Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, who was on the Mexican side.
Milo Yiannopoulos apologizes for remarks, quits Breitbart
NEW YORK (AP) — Polarizing right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos resigned as an editor at Breitbart News on Tuesday and apologized for comments he had made about sexual relationships between boys and men.
Yiannopoulos, speaking to reporters, said that two men, including a priest, had touched him inappropriately when he was between the ages of 13 and 16.
“My experiences as a victim led me to believe I could say anything I wanted to on this subject, no matter how outrageous,” he said. “But I understand that my usual blend of British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humor might have come across as flippancy, a lack of care for other victims or, worse, advocacy. I am horrified by that impression.”
He said he was resigning from Breitbart, which helped make him a star, because it would be “wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.”
The apology followed days of criticism from fellow conservatives after the release of video clips in which Yiannopoulos appeared to defend sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13.
Rise in premiums lays bare 2 Americas on health care
WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Schwarz is a self-employed business owner who buys his own health insurance. Subsidized coverage through “Obamacare” offers protection from life’s unpredictable changes and freedom to pursue his vocation, he says.
Brett Dorsch is also self-employed and buys his own health insurance. But he gets no financial break from the Affordable Care Act. “To me, it’s just been a big lie,” Dorsch says, forcing him to pay more for less coverage.
Schwarz and Dorsch represent two Americas, pulling farther apart over former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Known as the ACA, the law rewrote the rules for people buying their own health insurance, creating winners and losers.
Those with financial subsidies now fear being harmed by President Donald Trump and Republicans intent on repealing and replacing the ACA. But other consumers who also buy their own insurance and don’t qualify for financial help feel short-changed by Obama’s law. They’re hoping repeal will mean relief from rising premiums.
The ACA sought to create one big new market for individual health insurance in each state. It required insurers to accept all customers, regardless of medical problems. And it provided subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people afford premiums.