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Refugee claimants from U.S. strain Canada’s border resources

By Allison Lampert

HEMMINGFORD, Quebec (Reuters) – Canadian police said on Monday they had bolstered their presence at the Quebec border and that border authorities had created a temporary refugee center to process a growing number of asylum seekers crossing from the United States.

The Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, said at a news conference that it had converted an unused basement into a refugee claimant processing center. Both the border agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are reassigning staff from other locations in the province, as needed, to accommodate rising demand.

The CBSA said the number of people making refugee claims at Quebec-U.S. border crossings more than doubled from 2015 to 2016. Last month, 452 people made claims in Quebec compared with 137 in January 2016, the agency said.

The influx is straining police, federal government and community resources from the western prairie province of Manitoba, where people arrive frostbitten from hours walking in freezing conditions, to Quebec, where cabs drop asylum seekers off meters away from the Quebec-U.S.border, the border agency said.

Canadian Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

A Reuters reporter on Monday saw RCMP officers take in for questioning a family of four – two men, a woman and a baby in a car seat – who had walked across the snowy gully dividing Roxham Road in Champlain, New York, from Chemin Roxham in Hemmingford, Quebec.

“Please explain to her that she’s in Canada,” one Canadian officer told another officer.

Police take people crossing the border in for questioning at the border agency’s office in Lacolle, Quebec, which is the province’s biggest and busiest border crossing. Police identify them and ensure they are not a threat or carrying contraband.

They are then transferred to the CBSA for fingerprinting and further questions. If people are deemed a threat or flight risk, they are detained. If not, they can file refugee claims and live in Canada while they wait for a decision

“It’s touching, and we are not insensitive to that,” Bryan Byrne, the RCMP’s Champlain Detachment commander, told reporters near the border. “Some of these people had a long journey. Some are not dressed for the climate here.”

Asylum seekers cross illegally because Canada’s policy under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement is to turn back refugees if they make claims at border crossings. But as U.S. President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigrants, Amnesty International and refugee advocacy groups are pressuring the Canadian government to abandon the agreement, arguing the United States is no safe haven.

On Monday, Montreal, Canada’s second most populous city, voted to declare itself a “sanctuary city,” making it the fourth Canadian city to protect illegal immigrants and to provide services to them.

(Additional reporting and writing by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Diane Craft and Peter Cooney)

Jewish centers report bomb threats across United States

By Brendan O’Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Several Jewish community centers (JCC) across the United States were evacuated for a time on Monday after receiving bomb threats, the latest wave of threatened attacks against them this year, the national umbrella organization said.

Some 11 centers including those in the Houston, Chicago and Milwaukee areas received phoned-in bomb threats that were later determined to be hoaxes, said David Posner, a director at JCC Association of North America who advises centers on security.

No arrests were made and no one was injured. All of the centers returned to normal operations, Posner said in a statement.

The FBI was investigating the incidents, Posner said.

Officials at the FBI were not immediately available for comment.

Officials at the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, received a bomb threat at 10:15 a.m. local time, the second such incident at the center over the last three weeks, it said on Twitter.

“Taking very cautious measures, we are sheltering in our gym, as has been recommended,” the Milwaukee JCC said in a text message sent to parents of children who attend the preschool at the center, according to an NBC affiliate in Milwaukee.

The center reopened two hours later, the center said on Twitter.

Monday’s incidents come after three waves of bomb threats in 2017. In all, 69 incidents at 54 JCCs in 27 states and one Canadian province have been reported, according to the JCC Association of North America.

“We are concerned about the anti-Semitism behind these threats, and the repetition of threats intended to interfere with day-to-day life,” Posner said.

Jewish community centers typically offer after-school activities, fitness programs and various other services.

Over the weekend, the headstones at the graves of about 170 Jews were vandalized in the St. Louis area, the Washington Post reported.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robert Birsel)

ASEAN unsettled by China weapon systems, tension in South China Sea

ASEAN leaders meeting to discuss China's actions

By Manuel Mogato

BORACAY, Philippines (Reuters) – Southeast Asian countries see China’s installation of weapons systems in the South China Sea as “very unsettling” and have urged dialogue to stop an escalation of “recent developments”, the Philippines said on Tuesday.

The region’s foreign ministers were unanimous in their concern over China’s militarization of its artificial islands, but were confident a framework for a code of maritime conduct could be agreed with Beijing by June, Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said.

Yasay did not say what developments provoked the concern, but said the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) hoped China and the United States would ensure peace and stability.

He said demilitarisation would be a key component of any ASEAN-China code of conduct, but it was too soon to say whether Beijing’s dismantling of its weapons installations would be a prerequisite.

“The ASEAN members have been unanimous in their expression of concern about what they see as a militarization of the region,” Yasay told reporters after a ministers’ retreat on the Philippine island of Boracay.

Referring to China’s manmade islands in the Spratly archipelago, Yasay said ASEAN countries had “noticed, very unsettlingly, that China has installed weapons systems in these facilities that they have established, and they have expressed strong concern about this.”

With the Philippines chairing the bloc this year, Yasay’s comments signal a rare, firm position by a grouping that often struggles to achieve consensus, due to its contrasting opinions on how to respond to China’s assertiveness.

ASEAN’s statements of concern often avoid mentioning China by name. Much is at stake from upsetting China, as ASEAN members, to varying extents, are under its influence and need its trade, investment and tourists.

TRUMP UNCERTAINTY

Regional geopolitics has become more uncertain since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, particularly over his administration’s role in a region strongly courted by Washington during the “pivot” of predecessor Barack Obama.

Friction between the United States and China over trade and territory under Trump has fueled worry that the South China Sea could become a flashpoint.

China claims most of the waters, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

China on Friday completed war games with an aircraft carrier that unnerved neighbors. A day later the U.S. navy said its aircraft carrier strike group had started routine patrols in the South China Sea, a step China had warned against.

Yasay said ASEAN nations recognized policies under Trump were still evolving, but hoped they could be unveiled within a few months to provide a “more concrete and clearer picture”, especially regarding China.

“We do not know the complete picture of what this foreign policy might be, insofar as its relationship with China is concerned. We’re, however, hopeful that the policy that would come out will be positive.”

Asked if China was committed to a set of rules on the South China Sea, he said Beijing had shown it was keen.

But all parties should ensure that the code, which has made little progress since the idea was agreed in 2002, needed to be legally “binding and enforceable”, Yasay added.

(Additional reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz and Manolo Serapio Jr; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

One in four Canadians support temporary refugee ban

A man who claimed to be from Sudan runs for the border after his family crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Hemmingford, Canada,

OTTAWA (Reuters) – One in four Canadians say Ottawa should have adopted a temporary halt on Syrian refugees in response to the United States’ controversial travel ban, though the majority supported the government’s current immigration plan, an Angus Reid Institute poll showed on Monday.

Sixty percent of those surveyed in an online poll said the Canadian government had done a good job of resettling Syrian refugees since the Liberals came to power in 2015.

The Syrian crisis became an issue during the election campaign after photos of a drowned Syrian toddler in Turkey whose family had wanted to emigrate to Canada made front page news. The Liberals made bringing in more Syrian refugees part of their platform.

The government plans to bring in 40,000 refugees from Syria and elsewhere this year. Forty-seven percent of those polled said Canada is taking in the right amount, though 41 percent said the number was too high. Just 11 percent said Canada should open its doors to more refugees.

“Public opinion in this country is onside with its government’s approach and response on domestic refugee policy, but is showing signs Ottawa may be testing the limits of how many migrants Canadians are willing to accept,” the report said.

After U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month suspending travel to the United States by citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that Canada welcomes those fleeing war and persecution.

Fifty-seven percent of people in the poll said the government had made the right decision in standing pat, but 25 percent said Canada should have put its own ban in place. Eighteen percent said Canada should have responded by taking in more refugees.

While Canada often prides itself as being a tolerant, ethnically diverse country, 54 percent doubted refugees would make what they considered enough effort to fit into Canadian society.

The survey of 1,508 Canadians was conducted earlier this month.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Sandra Maler)

U.S. infrastructure legislation back on Congress’ radar

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring massive investments in U.S. infrastructure projects showed new signs of life on Friday after lying dormant for weeks, as leading Republican lawmakers said proposals from the administration could be in the offing.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, told reporters he expects to receive “some kind of recommendation on an infrastructure bill, a subject that we frequently handle on a bipartisan basis,” but gave no details or timing.

He has previously voiced concern over adding to budget deficits with a new injection of federal funds for road, bridge and other construction projects like the ones President Barack Obama secured from Congress in 2009, especially after a major highway funding law was enacted about a year ago.

Some Republicans and Democrats in Congress are increasingly criticizing Trump’s administration for being slow to get behind his legislative initiatives during the first month of his presidency.

Trump’s plans to create an infrastructure council led by two New York billionaire friends, developers Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth, have yet to be launched, a spokesman for LeFrak said.

During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would push for a $1 trillion infrastructure program to rebuild roads, bridges, airports and other public works projects. He said he wanted action during the first 100 days of his administration, which now seems unlikely.

The Republican president has talked about creating a tax credit to encourage private sector investment in many of these projects. But Democrats say that would fail to spur enough rebuilding and put taxpayers on the hook for a tax credit to wealthy developers, who they said would build toll roads that taxpayers would then have to pay to use.

Democrats want a more direct federal role in sparking a construction boom.

In an interview on Tuesday, Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said he had “no doubt that it (infrastructure investment) is a priority for the administration.”

Diaz-Balart chairs a House subcommittee that would control the flow of Washington money that might be needed to fund some of the public works projects.

Several lawmakers and aides speculated the initiative could be attached to tax reform legislation that Republicans want to advance this year, but no decisions have been made.

Writing an infrastructure bill involves seven or eight committees, there are complicated tax and spending questions at stake, and lawmakers are divided.

There are also questions over what would qualify as an infrastructure project, with rural areas, for example, clamoring for more broadband internet service.

Senator John Thune, a member of the Republican leadership who chairs the commerce and transportation panel which has a say on any bill, said he had little information on the content or status of legislation.

Asked about McConnell’s comments, Thune said, “Maybe he knows more about it since he’s married to the secretary of transportation,” Elaine Chao.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; additional reporting by Herb Lash in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and James Dalgleish)

Wisconsin man, Virginia man each get prison for trying to join Islamic State

FILE PHOTO: An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture

(Reuters) – A Wisconsin man and a Virginia man were sentenced separately to federal prison on Friday for attempting to travel abroad to join Islamic State, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Joshua Van Haften, 36, of Madison received a 10-year sentence from a federal court in Wisconsin after pleading guilty in October to attempting to support a terrorist organization.

Van Haften, who posted an oath of allegiance to Islamic State’s leader online, traveled to Turkey in 2014 and tried to cross the border into Syria, according to prosecutors.

He also attempted to aid another American interested in joining the militant group, Leon Davis, who was sentenced to 15 years in 2015 after federal agents arrested him at an Atlanta airport on his way to Turkey.

Meanwhile, Haris Qamar, 26, from Burke, Virginia, was sentenced to 8-1/2 years in prison on Friday by a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Like Van Haften, Qamar pleaded guilty in October to a terrorism charge.

U.S. prosecutors said Qamar helped a confidential witness working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation take photographs of landmarks in Washington, D.C., for what he believed would be a propaganda video for Islamic State to encourage attacks.

Qamar also told the witness he bought a plane ticket to Turkey in 2014 so he could join Islamic State but was stymied when his parents confiscated his passport, prosecutors said.

Federal agents also arrested two acquaintances of Qamar on Wednesday and charged them with lying to investigators about the case.

The Justice Department has prosecuted more than 100 Islamic State-related cases since 2014.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Eight people flee U.S. border patrol to seek asylum in Canada

Canadian police assist child from Sudan family fleeing to Canada

(This version of the Feb. 17 story corrects the headline and first paragraph to eight people from nine)

By Christinne Muschi

CHAMPLAIN, N.Y. (Reuters) – Eight asylum-seekers, including four children, barely made it across the Canadian border on Friday as a U.S. border patrol officer tried to stop them and a Reuters photographer captured the scene.

As a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer seized their passports and questioned a man in the front passenger seat of a taxi that had pulled up to the border in Champlain, New York, four adults and four young children fled the cab and ran to Royal Canadian Mounted Police on the other side.

One by one they scrambled across the snowy gully separating the two countries. RCMP officers watching from the other side helped them up, lifting the younger children and asking a woman, who leaned on her fellow passenger as she walked, if she needed medical care.

The children looked back from where they had come as the U.S. officer held the first man, saying his papers needed to be verified.

The man turned to a pile of belongings and heaved pieces of luggage two at a time into the gully — enormous wheeled suitcases, plastic shopping bags, a black backpack.

“Nobody cares about us,” he told journalists. He said they were all from Sudan and had been living and working in Delaware for two years.

The RCMP declined on Friday to confirm the nationalities of the people. A Reuters photo showed that at least one of their passports was Sudanese.

The man then appeared to grab their passports from the U.S. officer before making a run for the border. The officer yelled and gave chase but stopped at the border marker. Canadian police took hold of the man’s arm as he crossed.

The border patrol officer told his counterpart that the man was in the United States illegally and that he would have detained him.

Officers on both sides momentarily eyed the luggage strewn in the snow before the U.S. officer took it, and a walker left on the road, to the border line.

The RCMP carried the articles to their vehicles, and the people piled in to be driven to a nearby border office to be interviewed by police and to make a refugee claim.

People seeking refugee status have been pouring over the Canada-U.S. border as the United States looks to tighten its policies on refugees and illegal immigrants. Asylum-seekers sneak across because even if they are caught, they can make a claim in Canada; if they make a claim at a border crossing, they are turned away.

(Writing by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

U.S. ambassador at U.N. says Trump supports two-state solution

US Ambassador to United Nations Nikki Haley

By Ned Parker

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Thursday the United States still supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a day after President Donald Trump suggested he is open to new ways to achieve peace.

“First of all, the two-state solution is what we support. Anybody that wants to say the United States does not support the two-state solution – that would be an error,” Haley told reporters at the United Nations.

“We absolutely support the two-state solution but we are thinking out of the box as well: which is what does it take to bring these two sides to the table; what do we need to have them agree on.”

Haley’s comments came after Trump said on Wednesday that he was open to ideas beyond a two-state solution, the longstanding bedrock of Washington and the international community’s policy for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

“I’m looking at two states and one state, and I like the one both parties like,” Trump told a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I can live with either one.”

Trump said that the United States would work toward peace but said he was leaving it up to the parties themselves ultimately to decide on the terms of any agreement. He said such a deal would require compromises from both Israelis and Palestinians.

Trump’s announcement appeared to loosen the main tenet of U.S. Middle Eastern policy dating back three administrations and stunned the international community, which has crafted it diplomacy based on the premise of a Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel.

Haley also echoed Trump in her remarks Thursday, stressing that a peace deal was not for Washington to impose but could only come from the parties themselves.

“The solution to what will bring peace in the Middle East is going to come from the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority,” Haley said. “The United States is just there to support the process.”

Haley, a Republican who previously served as South Carolina governor, also criticized the United Nations and the Security Council on Thursday for what she called a bias against Israel.

She described the day’s scheduled Security Council meeting on the Middle East as “focused on criticizing Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East.”

Haley said the United States would not support any U.N. resolutions like the one approved by the Security Council in December calling for an end to Israeli settlement building, that passed only after the administration of former President Barack Obama chose not to wield its veto.

“I am here to say the United States will not turn a blind eye to this anymore,” Haley said. “I am here to emphasize that the United States is determined to stand up to the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias.”

French and British diplomats also repeated their longstanding support of the policy, in a show of how Trump’s remarks on Wednesday had caused confusion.

“The UK continues to believe that the best solution for peace in the Middle East is the two-state solution,” said British ambassador to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft.

On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned during a visit to Cairo that was no viable way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict other than the establishment of a Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel.

(Reporting by Ned Parker; Editing by Dan Grebler and Lisa Shumaker)

Trump says four people under consideration for national security adviser

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he is considering four people to serve as his top aide on security, including acting national security adviser Keith Kellogg.

Kellogg, a retired general who was chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, stepped into the role after Michael Flynn resigned on Monday amid controversy over his contacts with Russia.

Trump had offered the job to retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, who turned it down on Thursday.

Trump said in a post on Twitter he was still weighing other potential candidates for the White House job.

“General Keith Kellogg, who I have known for a long time, is very much in play for NSA – as are three others,” Trump said. He gave no other details about any of the contenders.

According to two sources familiar with Harward’s decision, the senior executive at Lockheed Martin declined the offer in part because he wanted to bring in his own team.

Trump has said that Flynn’s deputy, K.T. McFarland, could stay.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Florida man charged with plotting to bomb Target stores

(Reuters) – A Florida man has been charged with plotting to plant bombs in at least 10 Target Corp stores and then profit when the blasts caused the company’s stock price to fall, federal prosecutors have said.

Charles Barnett, 48, of Ocala, had asked a law enforcement informant to put the homemade bombs on the shelves of Target stores from Florida to New York state, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said in a statement on Thursday.

“Barnett theorized that the company’s stock value would plunge after the explosions, allowing him to cheaply acquire shares of Target stock before an eventual rebound in prices,” the statement said.

A criminal complaint said the bombs were disguised in packages for pasta, stuffing mix and breakfast bars and delivered to the informant on Feb. 9. Barnett also gave the informant gloves, a mask and a license plate cover to conceal his identity from police.

The informant, a convicted burglar on probation, turned the bombs in to authorities on Monday, the complaint said. A search of Barnett’s house by federal agents turned up bomb parts.

The complaint said that Barnett was a registered sex offender and was on probation for felonies that included kidnapping, sexual battery and grand theft. He wears a Global Positioning System monitor as part of his probation.

Barnett is charged with possession of a firearm, or destructive device, affecting commerce by a felon. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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