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According to government data, U.S. authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border stopped migrants close to 209,000 times in August. This marks a slight decrease since entries reached a 21-year high in previous months. Single migrant adults, who are more likely to attempt to cross the border multiple times, were stopped more than 103,000 times — a 7% drop from July. About 75% of single adult migrants were expelled under the Trump-era public health rule Title 42. The number of unaccompanied children taken into U.S. border custody also slightly decreased, though the number of migrant families attempting to cross in August grew a bit. CBS News
In other national immigration news…
孰真孰假？对特朗普关于移民的言论的事实核查
8,000 Migrants Wait for Processing Under International Bridge
The number of migrants waiting for processing under the international bridge in Del Rio increased from close to 2,000 during the weekend to more than 8,000 on Thursday. According to the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, most of the migrants are from Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba. The coalition usually assists released migrants with lodging, food and transportation. But despite complaints from a Republican congressmember about the growth, Shon Young, coalition president, said they haven’t seen an increase in the number of migrants they help. He mentioned the bridge is used as a staging area where federal officials gather hundreds of migrants onto buses and take them to undisclosed locations. Border Report
Hispanic Federation Introduces Initiative to Assist Immigration Backlog
The Hispanic Federation announced that it plans on funding organizations throughout the country that are helping immigrants with backlogged asylum cases. The federation’s Caminos de Esperanza will grant $100,000 each to 11 organizations. According to Melissa Marantes, executive director of the Orlando Center for Justice, this grant will give legal assistance to over 100 families and individuals in Central Florida. There are currently over 1.4 million pending immigration cases throughout the U.S. Over 150,000 of those cases are based in Florida. WMFE
Report: ICE Abandoning Immigrants with Disabilities and Mental Illnesses
Attorneys reported that individuals who are declared mentally incompetent from cognitive disabilities or mental illnesses are being thrown out of immigration jails without notice to their attorneys, families or caregivers. Vera recently released a report (English/Spanish) describing the experiences immigrants with disabilities and mental illnesses faced in immigration detention. One of them was Luis, an immigrant detainee who had a serious mental illness and was released and put on a bus to California to an address where no one in his family had lived for about a year. Deanna Garcia for Documented.
17 Immigrants Transferred Between Two Detention Centers
Last week, over a dozen individuals were transferred from one ICE jail in California’s Kern County to another. According to Susan Beaty, a staff attorney from Centro Legal de la Raza, a group of detainees from the Golden State Annex discovered they were being transferred after midnight last Wednesday. About 17 detainees were transferred to Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center. Beaty and two detainees claim ICE transferred individuals who spoke out or filed grievances about the food, medical care, cleanliness and COVID-19 precautions while at the McFarland facility. Two immigrant detainees and their attorneys are calling this an act of retaliation from ICE. The Fresno Bee
