Two US States Drop ‘Demeaning’ Terms for Immigrants; More Consider It
Luz Rivas remembers seeing the word on her mother’s residency card as a child: alien. In the stark terms of the government, it signaled her mother was not yet a citizen of the U.S. But to her young daughter, the word had a more personal meaning. Even though they were going through the naturalization process, it meant the family did not belong. “I want other children of immigrants, like me, to not feel the same way I did, that my family did, when we saw the word ‘alien,’” said Rivas, now an assemblywoman in the California Legislature. The Democratic lawmaker sought to retire the term and this year authored a bill — since signed into law — that replaces the use of “alien” in state statutes with other terms such as “noncitizen” or “immigrant.” Her effort was inspired by a similar shift earlier this year by the Biden administration. Immigrants and immigrant-rights groups say the term, especially when combined with “illegal,” is dehumanizing and can have a harmful effect on immigration policy. Lawmakers in at least seven states considered eliminating use of “alien” and “illegal” in state statutes this year and replacing them with descriptions such as “undocumented” and “noncitizen,” …
Border Wall Exhibition Opens at National Building Museum
An exhibition that examines the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico has opened at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The Wall/El Muro: What Is a Border Wall? looks at the structure from the perspective of design and architecture, but also reflects its environmental, historical and symbolic impact. Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera: Andrey Degtyarev, Producer: Anna Rice …
Migrants at US-Mexico Border Run Makeshift School for Stranded Children
At America’s southern border, pandemic-related restrictions continue to block most migrants from filing claims for asylum in the United States. New arrivals, including large numbers of children, have settled into border encampments and shelters hoping for a change in U.S. policy. As the months drag on, one organization has marshaled former teachers among the tent dwellers to give daily classes for migrant children. The Sidewalk School for Children Asylum Seekers started almost three years ago as a Texas couple’s effort to keep up with the humanitarian crisis on the border. This month it officially registered as a U.S. nonprofit organization and opened its largest school yet. Some 10 teachers are providing instruction to roughly 500 children in three massive tents erected in a squalid encampment a few blocks away from the bridge linking Reynosa, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, to Hidalgo, Texas. Under one of those tents, 36-year-old Josue Herman Sanchez Mendoza spoke into a microphone in front of dozens of students, ages 10 to 17, who had gathered for a social science class. He talked about a set of virtues the students should embrace: honesty, patience, tolerance, respect, generosity and willpower. “If we don’t practice …
US, Mexico Still Working on Returning Asylum-Seekers to Wait in Mexico
The Biden administration and Mexico have not yet agreed to restart a Trump-era program obliging asylum-seekers to await U.S. court hearings in Mexico, because certain conditions must first be met, two Mexican officials said on Wednesday. News outlet Axios reported earlier that returns under the program officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) could restart as soon as next week. But one of the Mexican officials said agreement was unlikely to be reached this week. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement it was working to resume the program “as promptly as possible” but could not do so without Mexico’s agreement. The two Mexican government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said talks were ongoing to determine under what terms the United States could begin returns. Mexico is insisting Washington provide more support against COVID-19 for migrants, such as vaccinations, more legal aid for asylum-seekers, and acceleration of hearings for those taking part in the returns program, one senior Mexican official said. The administration of President Joe Biden, who vowed to undo some of the hardline immigration policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, ended MPP. It makes asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings before U.S. immigration judges. …
US Rhodes Scholars for 2022 Includes More Women, Immigrants
The class of U.S. Rhodes scholars for 2022 includes the largest number of women ever selected for the scholarship in one year, the Rhodes Trust announced Sunday. Of the 32 students chosen to study at the University of Oxford in England, 22 are women, the office of the American secretary of the trust said in a statement. One of the women selected is Louise Franke, a 21-year-old senior studying biochemistry at South Carolina’s Clemson University. Franke said she hopes to merge her interests in science and public policy through a career in health care policy. She intends to study politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. Franke, of Spartanburg, South Carolina, is also the first Clemson student elected to a Rhodes class. She cited her mentors and various academic programs at the school as integral to her success. “It feels amazing to be part of this historic moment, as a woman and as a woman from the South,” Franke said. “I don’t really have the words for it.” Also among the winners is Devashish Basnet, a senior studying political science at New York City’s Hunter College. Basnet arrived in the United States as a 7-year-old asylum seeker from Nepal and spent much …
Pandemic Dents Turnout at Brazil University Entrance Exams
Turnout for Brazil’s standardized university admission exam on Sunday appeared to be the lowest in 15 years, in large part reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nation’s education, according to experts. Just over 3 million students signed up to take the annual exam, down 44% from last year’s registration and the lowest since 2006. The grueling 5 1/2-hour test, held over two weekends, is the main admission standard for Brazilian universities. Experts said they expected many of those who registered early this year to be absent Sunday. About half of the 5.7 million who signed up for last year’s tests also failed to show up when they were finally held amid the pandemic. Extensive school closures and frustration with online teaching affected millions of students across the country. “It is possible that, due to the interruption of the in-person learning, there is the feeling that there was not enough time to prepare for the exams,” said Claudia Costin, director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education Policies, a research group in Rio de Janeiro. She also noted that the pandemic caused economic hardships that pushed many to work rather than study. Low attendance was evident …
600 Migrants Found Crammed Into 2 Trailers Rescued in Mexico
Some 600 migrants from 12 countries were rescued Saturday in Mexico after they were found crammed into two tractor-trailers, the country’s National Migration Institute said. The 145 women and 455 men, who hailed from Central America, Africa and the Indian subcontinent, were found in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the institute said in a statement. The vast majority were from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua but a total of 37 were from Bangladesh, six from Ghana, and one person was from India and Cameroon each, the institute added. The migrants were crammed into the trailers of two trucks, said Tonatiuh Hernandez, the local head of the Human Rights Commission. “There are children, minors, I saw pregnant women, sick people,” Hernandez said. As the corridor between Central America and the United States, Mexico has seen vast numbers of migrants flow through its territory. Two caravans of several hundred migrants are currently making their way through southern Mexico, aiming to acquire documents that allow them to transit through the country. The flow of undocumented migrants has surged with the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden, who has taken a more humane approach to the border crisis than his …
Child Lost During Afghanistan Evacuation Reunites With Mother in US
Thousands of Afghans flocked to the Kabul airport in a desperate bid to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban took control Aug. 15. Eighteen-month-old Farzad arrived with his parents, who handed him across the barbed wire to an American Marine. VOA’s Noshaba Ashna reports on the reunion of Farzad and his mother after 43 days, as well as her husband who is still hoping to flee Afghanistan. Camera: Ajmal Sangaryar Producer: Noshaba Ashna …
Thousands of Afghans Seek Temporary US Entry, Few Approved
More than 28,000 Afghans have applied for temporary admission into the U.S. for humanitarian reasons since shortly before the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan and sparked a chaotic U.S. withdrawal, but only about 100 of them have been approved, according to federal officials. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has struggled to keep up with the surge in applicants to a little-used program known as humanitarian parole but promises it’s ramping up staff to address the growing backlog. Afghan families in the U.S. and the immigrant groups supporting them say the slow pace of approvals threatens the safety of their loved ones, who face an uncertain future under the repressive Islamist regime because of their ties to the West. “We’re worried for their lives,” says Safi, a Massachusetts resident whose family is sponsoring 21 relatives seeking humanitarian parole. “Sometimes, I think there will be a day when I wake up and receive a call saying that they’re no more.” The 38-year-old U.S. permanent resident, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of retribution against her relatives, is hoping to bring over her sister, her uncle and their families. She says the families have been in hiding and their house …
Chinese Students in US Reflect on COVID Chaos
Ryan Wang was among hundreds of thousands of Chinese students at U.S. colleges or universities who struggled over whether to return home to China or remain in the United States when the COVID-19 pandemic surged in the spring of 2020. “When the pandemic started in China [months earlier], I felt lucky I was already back to the U.S. for the new semester,” Wang, a Chinese undergraduate studying economics at Columbia University in New York City, told VOA. Unlike Wang, many international students had not returned to the United States from winter break in January 2020 and fretted that they would lose credits and tuition fees if they could not get back to school. For Wang, the concerns centered around whether he could return home to China. “I had to live through the fear of infection, paying over $10,000 dollars for a one-way ticket, and being scammed by fake ticket dealers before I could go home again,” he said. Fake dealers were selling bogus tickets to international students desperate to go home after Beijing limited international carriers to one flight a week into China in April 2020. To the delight of his parents, he said, three months after U.S. colleges and …
US Colleges, Universities See Sharp Losses During Pandemic
The number of students studying at U.S. colleges and universities sharply declined for the school year that started in September 2020. Experts attribute the decline to the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey of almost 3,000 institutions of higher education in the U.S. showed a 15% decrease in the number of international students attending the 2020-2021 school year. The number of new student enrollments was slashed by 45.6%. This brings the total of enrolled international students to 914,095, the first time since the 2015-2016 academic year the number fell below the 1 million mark after a decade of swift increases. International students comprise 4.6% of the nearly 20 million students enrolled in U.S. higher education. The number of students from China and India continue to dominate enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities. Combined, they continue to make up more than half of all the international students in the U.S. Students from China declined by 14.8% from the previous year to 317,299, or 34.7% of all international students. Students from India declined by 13.2% from the previous year to 167,583, or 18.3% of all international students. The pandemic emanated from China in December 2019. International students left the U.S. to return to their home countries for winter break, with many returning to U.S. campuses in January 2020. U.S. campuses locked down in March 2020 around spring break, and all …
Would-Be Immigrants See Hope in Reopened US Border
Maria fled the violent drug gangs of Michoacan with just three changes of clothes, and traveled 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) to the edge of Mexico where she now waits to claim political asylum in the United States. The 38-year-old is part of a record wave of Central and Southern Americans trying to escape violence and poverty at home and make a new life in the world’s richest country over the last year, even as its borders have been shut because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they have opened again, Maria sees a chink of light. “Now I have hope,” she told AFP in a makeshift camp in Tijuana, where hundreds have gathered waiting to travel a few miles north across the frontier. “We came to get away from organized crime. Not because we are criminals,” says Maria, whose real name is being withheld at her request. Her eldest son was recruited by a brutal gang last year. That was when the threats began. This year she, her husband, two young children and other family members gathered their meager possessions and headed north, in the hope of getting over the border somehow. Migration advocates say if they can just make it …
Are Britain’s Top Universities for Sale?
Some of Britain’s prestigious colleges — including the ancient universities of Cambridge and Oxford — are being accused of losing their moral compass by accepting donations from what critics say are dubious sources. The University of Oxford, London School of Economics and University College, London, have prompted a firestorm of criticism for accepting millions of pounds from the charitable trust of the late motor-racing tycoon Max Mosley, whose fortune was largely inherited from his father Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s and 1940s. Oxford was given $8 million from a charitable trust set up by Max Mosley, who died this year, and two of the university’s colleges, St Peter’s and Lady Margaret Hall, are also beneficiaries sharing another $8.5 million. A question of morality The acceptance of the gifts has drawn the ire of historian Lawrence Goldman, a former vice-master of St Peter’s, who said he was shocked by the Mosley donations and accused university authorities of “vast hypocrisy.” He contrasts Oxford’s readiness to accept the Mosley cash with its push to “decolonize the curriculum.” “But they go ahead and take money from a fund established by proven and known fascists. Its moral compass …
Hong Kong Student Group Shutdown Seen as Move Against Critics
Hong Kong’s universities have been under fire in a series of student arrests and university organization clampdowns since the territory’s controversial national security law was implemented in 2020. In the latest episode, the student union at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious universities, dissolved itself in October under pressure to register legally as an independent organization rather than just being recognized by the university. Established half a century ago, the student organization became history after the collective resignation of its student council – its governing body – and the organization’s decision to dissolve itself. The dissolution is widely seen as a consequence of authorities’ move to silence the voices of students, whom the government believe have made up most of the protesters in the anti-government movement since 2019. The university was at the forefront of the anti-government protests. In November 2019, it turned into a battlefield between student protesters and the police. The police fired rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators on campus; students responded by throwing bricks and gasoline bombs. This January, police arrested three students, including former student union President Owen Au, and searched dormitories after a campus protest. …
Bomb Threats Investigated at Brown, Columbia, Cornell
Bomb threats at three Ivy League college campuses caused evacuations and police investigations Sunday, with at least two schools saying the threats there were unfounded. Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities alerted students to the threats. Authorities at Columbia and Brown said campus buildings had been cleared Sunday evening. In Ithaca, New York, Cornell police cordoned off the center of campus on Sunday after receiving a call that bombs were placed in four buildings. In New York City, Columbia University police issued a campuswide emergency alert after receiving bomb threats at university buildings about 2:30 p.m. The university deemed the threats not credible shortly before 5 p.m. Brown University officials in Providence, Rhode Island, sent a text alert to students that said police were investigating “multiple buildings on campus involving a bomb threat. Later in the evening, the university issued another alert before 6 p.m. that said students were safe to resume activity on campus. The threats came two days after a bomb threat at Yale University forced the evacuation of several buildings as well as nearby businesses in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale’s campus resumed normal activities Friday evening, roughly five hours after the call was received. …
US Supreme Court to Hear Case of Surveillance of Muslims
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments Monday whether the U.S. government can invoke the protection of “state secrets” to withhold information about its surveillance of Muslims at mosques in California. The dispute began a decade ago when three Muslim men filed suit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, alleging the top U.S. law enforcement agency deployed a confidential informant who claimed to be a convert to Islam to spy on them based solely on their religious identity. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the practice of one’s religion. But the government is claiming in this case that it can refuse to disclose information about its surveillance under authority granted it by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as its use of the state secrets privilege defense, which allows the government to block the release of information it considers to be a risk to national security. The three Muslim men, Yassir Fazaga, Ali Malik and Yasser AbdelRahim, have argued that the use of the surveillance law violated their religious rights and allowed the government to avoid accountability. Patrick Toomey, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU National Security Project, told reporters last week, “This case has significant implications for …
Ivy League President Calls College, University Rankings ‘Daft’
The president of Princeton University, which routinely leads the lists of best colleges and universities, advises applicants to be wary of choosing a school based on ranking lists. “My university has now topped the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 11 years running. Given Princeton’s success, you might think I would be a fan of the list,” wrote Christopher Eisgruber in The Washington Post on October 21. “Not so. I am convinced that the rankings game is a bit of mishegoss — a slightly daft obsession that does harm when colleges, parents or students take it too seriously,” Eisgruber wrote, using a Yiddish word that means “senseless behavior or activity.” Rankings are highly popular and usually published around this time of year, application season for U.S. colleges and universities. An online search for “college rankings” reveals more than 66 million hits. While many companies and organizations publish such lists, the U.S. News & World Report rankings are seen as the most wide reaching. Colleges at the top of such lists often are the hardest to get into. Low acceptance rates — less than 10% for the “best” schools — indicate those colleges receive far more applications than they have places …
Biden: Families of Children Separated at US-Mexico Border Deserve Compensation
President Joe Biden said Saturday that the families of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration should be compensated, as his Department of Justice is in settlement talks with affected families. Raising his voice, Biden said that regardless of the circumstances, people who had their children taken from them under the Trump administration’s family separation policy, meant to deter families from crossing into the U.S. illegally, should be remunerated. “If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legally or illegally, and you lost your child — You lost your child. It’s gone — you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance,” Biden said. “What that will be I have no idea. I have no idea.” Shortly after taking office Biden created a task force to attempt to reunify hundreds of children and parents affected by the policy, which was in place for several months during 2018 and sparked a domestic and international outcry. The government was considering payments of around $450,000 to each person affected but has since changed the figure, though not dramatically, a person familiar with …
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