WASHINGTON — Asylum seekers may be turned away without a hearing at the southern border, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a historic retreat from the promise of relief for those who say they are fleeing persecution.
The justices split over whether this was a simple dispute over legal wording or a moral question involving desperate families.
Siding with the Trump administration, the court’s conservatives said the Refugee Act of 1980 offers a right to seek asylum to migrants who “arrive in the United States” but not those who are turned back when they approach a border crossing or a port of entry.
“This case presents a straightforward question” that turns on the word “in,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place.”
The liberal dissenters agreed with immigration rights lawyers who saw this as a nonsensical reading of the law.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the asylum law arose from the “international moral reckoning that followed the Holocaust and World War II.”
She cited the infamous voyage of the MS St. Louis in 1939. More than 900 Jewish refugees attempted to flee persecution in Nazi Germany by setting sail aboard the ship, which was turned away from Cuba and the United States.
Most of the passengers were returned to Europe, and several hundred died in the Holocaust, she said.
“Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980 because it did not want this country to repeat the mistakes of its past. Yet if the refugees on the M.S. St. Louis were to walk up to a port of entry on our southern border today, the majority’s interpretation would allow immigration officers to refuse even to consider their asylum applications by physically blocking them from stepping foot onto U. S. soil,” Sotomayor wrote.
Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.
The Department of Homeland Security said these asylum seekers must wait on the Mexican side of the border until they could return for a scheduled interview. The policy was extended to other border crossings, but it was challenged as illegal in federal court in San Diego.
Last year, a divided 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those restrictions were illegal if they prevented migrants from applying for asylum.
“To ‘arrive’ means ‘to reach a destination,’” wrote Judge Michelle Friedland. “A person who presents herself to an official at the border has ‘arrived.’”
She said the “government’s reading would reflect a radical reconstruction of the right to apply for asylum because it would give the executive branch vast discretion to prevent people from applying by blocking them at the border.”
The 2-1 decision upheld a federal judge in San Diego who ruled for migrants who had filed a class-action suit and said they were wrongly denied an asylum hearing.
But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to review and reverse the appellate ruling, noting 15 judges of the 9th Circuit joined dissents that called the decision “radical” and “clearly wrong.”
The administration argued federal immigration law “does not grant aliens throughout the world a right to enter the United States so that they can seek asylum.”
From abroad, they may “seek admission as refugees,” Sauer said, but the government may enforce its laws by “blocking illegal immigrants from stepping on U.S. soil.”
Defenders of the asylum system denounced the decision.
“We believe that today’s ruling violates international law, as well as the express intent of Congress,” said Erika Pinheiro, executive director of the migrant support organization Al Otro Lado, which led the legal fight. “For decades, the United States has allowed individuals and families who are fleeing persecution, torture and death to ask for protection at U.S. borders.”
“Cruelty is not a substitute for real solutions. Blocking people from seeking asylum at official ports of entry will do nothing to fix our broken immigration system, said Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council. “It only makes things more chaotic and dangerous for vulnerable families.”
The Federation for American Immigration Reform applauded the decision.
“Our immigration laws are written to be pro-enforcement, not-anti-enforcement,” said Christopher J. Hajec, deputy general counsel of FAIR. “Because of this, courts that hamstring enforcement are often forced to violate basic logic, as the 9th Circuit did here. We are pleased the Supreme Court saw that the lower court’s reading would make immigration law incoherent, and reversed.”
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Published On 20 Jun 202620 Jun 2026
Two roadside bomb blasts in northwestern Pakistan have killed at least seven people.
The first explosion on Saturday hit a vehicle, and the second was detonated as rescuers responded, police said.
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“A private pick-up truck carrying passengers was targeted with a remote-controlled IED,” said Yasir Afridi, a police officer in Bannu district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, using a common acronym for a homemade bomb.
“The injured were being transported to hospital in a car for emergency treatment when a second IED exploded,” he said, adding that three people were wounded.
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and said the government would bring those responsible to justice.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the blast, but the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, and other armed groups operate in the area.
Pakistan has blamed Afghanistan for a surge in attacks near the border, although the Taliban government in Kabul has repeatedly denied Pakistani accusations that Afghan territory is used as a sanctuary for armed groups.
Frosty relations have escalated into clashes in recent months, including Pakistani air strikes on Afghan cities.
Pakistani air strikes near the border this month killed at least 26 Taliban fighters, the Pakistani government said, while the Afghan government said 12 civilians were killed.
The border has remained largely closed since violence escalated in October, freezing bilateral trade and disrupting the movement of people and goods.
The new EU Entry/Exit System (ESS) was fully implemented on Friday 10, April, with significant travel disruptions happening as a result. Holidaymakers have found themselves in long queues lasting hours as they try to pass through the digital border system.
It has even left some missing their flights and having their holidays in tatters. The EES has replaced manual passport stamping and requires all Brits travelling to the Schengen area to “create a digital record” and register their biometric details, including fingerprints and a photograph.
As delays continue at European airports, there have been mounting worries about how it will affect travel during the summer holidays, which is famously one of the busiest periods to fly.
Travel expert Simon Calder says there has been “a litany” of people stuck in queues at Dover for hours or even missing their flights home due to delays.
He described the system as a “Euro shambles” before being pressed on where in Europe is the worst impacted by the new process. Simon named Milan Malpensa, Lisbon, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Copenhagen as the airports with the “worst” delays.
Simon said on The Travel Expert podcast: “From what I have experienced, and certainly one of them is Milan Malpensa. The fingerprint stuff took an hour, and I was the first one off the EasyJet plane from Gatwick.
“Then, I went through the other terminal to check out and it took 45 minutes that time but they wanted those fingerprints again, which is absolutely not in the rules.”
He added: “I have heard terrible stories from Lisbon, other places frequently mentioned, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt. Both of them are huge hubs where you have got a lot of people flying from various regional airports across the UK into Paris and Frankfurt to connect.
“That’s okay if you are going intercontinental but if you are trying to connect to somewhere in Europe it is awful.”
Simon explained he had a friend travel to Frankfurt last weekend, who experienced 90 minute queues.
A friend was there last weekend and it took 90 mins, connection could be toast. Simon went on to name Copenhagen as also experiencing bad delays.
Co-host Greg Dickinson said: “This was a rare instance where the Foreign Office said you may encounter long queues in or out of the airport.”
Despite the issues, Simon was optimistic about the future of travel this summer. When asked if he thinks there will be more delays this summer, he said: “I would hope we might see a bit less.”
‘Worst’ European airports for ESS delays
Milan Malpensa
Lisbon Airport, also known as Humberto Delgado Airport
NEW biometric checks for UK travellers at European borders may not “stabilise” for another two years, officials have warned.
The new EES system has caused chaos and long queues at airports with no plans to relax the checks during the busy summer period.
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EES system has caused chaos for UK travellersCredit: Alamy
The Entry Exit System (EES) involves people from third-party countries such as the UK having their fingerprints registered and photographs taken to enter the Schengen Area.
This Area consists of 29 European countries, mainly in the EU, and around 1,700 border crossing points requiring the use of EES.
For most UK travellers, the process is done at foreign airports with the digital record being kept for three years.
The airline body International Air Transport Association recently warned border queues could reach six hours this summer.
Airports in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy have been reported to be among the worst affected.
This comes after more than 100 easyJet passengers missed a flight from Milan Linate to Manchester in April because of delays at passport desks caused by the ramping up of EES.
Uku Sarekanno, deputy executive director of EU border agency Frontex, said some member states are “struggling” to adopt the new system.
During a summit of travel industry leaders organised by Abta in Westminster, Sarekanno said: “We expect that the situation will stabilise in one or two years.
“The most challenging part is the first enrolment, that is the moment where fingerprints and facial images will be taken.
“If a person is visiting the EU again (within three years), they don’t have to go through the same process, so they can have a more fast track of entry.”
Experts say queues are going to get even worse for British holiday makers this summer with queue times potentially stretching to as much as six hours.
According to The Times, Rafael Schvartzman warned that the EES systems are being operated differently between airports, which is causing the problem.
Schvartzman said: “What we are seeing is a very hard risk of really challenging times or waiting times, talking about expectations of three, four, five, six hours which is unacceptable.
“We know for a fact there are many cases where people have lost flights or their connectivity.”
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.
WASHINGTON — The Senate is beginning a long series of votes Thursday on legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, moving toward passage of a three-year fix as Democrats have blocked the money for months in protest.
The roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.
First, though, Republicans must beat back a potential gauntlet of amendments that Democrats plan to offer, including to try and permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who he believes have been politically persecuted. Democrats have said their first amendment Thursday morning will be to eliminate the fund and send the immigration spending bill back to committee.
Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security that they eventually scrapped and fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.
“The thing we’re trying to do here is to keep the focus on funding for ICE and CBP,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday evening, after the Senate voted to start debating the legislation. “This was narrow and targeted from the very beginning and clean, and we’re trying to maintain it that way.”
But it’s unclear if Republicans will have enough votes to fend off the Democratic amendments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward, and many GOP senators said Wednesday that they were satisfied with his remarks.
Yet Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future on Wednesday afternoon when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.
“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.
Democrats, Republicans plan to force votes on settlement
To pass legislation through the budget process called reconciliation, the Senate must first hold a long series of votes. Democrats are using that process to try and ban the settlement by law — and also kill the immigration spending bill.
After Trump’s comments about the fund, Schumer posted on X that “this is EXACTLY why” Democrats would be forcing votes to ban it.
Some Republicans also planned to try and put Blanche’s promise in writing. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said he will offer an amendment to block any attempt at resurrecting the fund.
“We’ve got a sufficient number of Republicans who have been very clear they’ve got concerns there,” said Tillis.
ICE and Border Patrol money has been long fight
Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.
After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the DHS funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support. But ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding, and Republicans launched a new effort to pass three years of funding for those agencies with no Democratic votes.
Security money for Trump’s ballroom dropped
Work on the legislation was also delayed by Republican opposition to $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, that was added to the original bill.
Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project, and Republicans did not include it in the final bill when it was released on Wednesday.
Thune said he was working with his GOP conference to try and fight off any amendments and ensure he has enough votes for a simple majority to pass the bill in the 53-47 Senate.
“Keep in mind, we’ve got to keep them all together, make sure we’ve got 50 votes for it,” he said.
Republican House leaders said Wednesday they would like to clear the legislation before the end of the week, if the Senate can finish it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that House leaders were having internal conversations about the schedule.
“We just need to make sure everybody’s there,” Scalise said.
Jalonick and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.
Uganda has closed its border with neighbouring DR Congo for four weeks in an effort to contain an Ebola outbreak. Authorities say at least seven cases, including one death, have been confirmed, while hundreds are being monitored.
People in southern Lebanon are living under “psychological terror” from Israeli air attacks and displacement orders.
Published On 23 May 202623 May 2026
Israeli forces launched a new wave of air attacks in Lebanon on Saturday after earlier raids killed 10 people, targeting an area near the Syrian border and several villages in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said there were five Israeli air attacks shortly before midnight in the mountainous Nabi Sreij area on the outskirts of Brital, which had been spared from attacks since April 17. On Saturday, the agency reported large explosions in the towns of Yohmor al-Shaqif in Nabatieh and Taybeh in the Marjayoun district, both in southern Lebanon.
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On Thursday, an Israeli attack near the Tebnine Hospital in southern Lebanon damaged all three floors of the building, including the emergency room, intensive care unit, surgical ward, and ambulances parked outside, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
Israel’s military had issued two forced displacement warnings since Friday night via its Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee, for the southern Lebanese village of Burj Rahal and the areas of Tyre and Zqouq al-Mufdi.
Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre, southern Lebanon, at the edge of the 500-metre (550-yard) perimeter that Israel has designated as the danger zone, said: “There are ambulances here. There are also rescue teams and people who have fled their homes this evening following this forced [displacement] order.”
Many left in fear and panic, he said, seeing these orders as threats while being unsure of when they could return home.
“People are here with their families and their children,” Hitto said. “This is the kind of psychological terror that Israel is forcing people to live in, here in southern Lebanon.”
More than 3,100 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israeli forces escalated attacks on the country on March 2, and attacks have continued despite a ceasefire announced by United States President Donald Trump on April 16. The dead include 123 medics, more than 210 children and nearly 300 women, according to statistics shared by Lebanon’s Health Ministry on Friday.
With almost 750 suspected Ebola cases in the DRC, health measures intensified along the DRC–Uganda border. At the busy Mpondwe crossing near outbreak zones in Beni, authorities deployed health workers and shut weekly border markets, measures that residents say are threatening their livelihoods.
SEOUL, May 18 (UPI) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened a meeting with commanding officers from across the country’s armed forces and called for strengthening frontline defenses along the border with South Korea to create an “impregnable fortress,” state-run media reported Monday.
Kim held the meeting at the headquarters of the ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee on Sunday, the official Korean Central News Agency said. It was the first known gathering of all division and brigade commanders since Kim took power in 2011.
Kim called for the “rapid modernization of the military and technical equipment of our army” and stressed the need to adapt military training to the changing nature of modern warfare, KCNA said.
He emphasized the country’s “territorial defense” policy, including “strengthening the first-line units in the southern border and turning the border line into an impregnable fortress,” according to the report.
KCNA said Kim outlined plans to reorganize the military structure and bolster frontline and other major units with upgraded weapons and technology as part of efforts to strengthen deterrence.
Earlier this month, North Korea announced plans to deploy new 155 mm self-propelled howitzers to three battalions assigned to long-range artillery units along the southern border this year.
The meeting comes as Pyongyang hardens its military posture toward Seoul and formally abandons decades-old reunification language.
North Korea recently revised its constitution to remove all references to reunification with South Korea, cementing Kim’s push to redefine inter-Korean ties as relations between two separate states.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry assessed Monday that the meeting appeared aimed at encouraging the military while reinforcing ideological discipline and modernization efforts.
“North Korea has adopted a two-state stance, and there appear to be trends in that regard,” ministry spokesman Yoon Min-ho said at a regular press briefing. “We will continue to closely monitor related trends in the future.”
Asked whether the North’s latest moves could escalate the situation along the border, Yoon said Seoul would continue efforts to reduce military tensions and build trust on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought to reduce tensions since taking office in June, including by dismantling border propaganda loudspeakers and calling for renewed dialogue, but Pyongyang has largely ignored the overtures while continuing to expand its military capabilities.
On Monday, the Unification Ministry released its annual white paper, which defined Seoul’s new “Korean Peninsula peaceful coexistence policy.”
The policy is based on principles President Lee outlined in August, including respecting North Korea’s system, rejecting unification by absorption and avoiding hostile acts.
A new survey from Booking.com has revealed three in five people going on holiday to Europe are concerned about the long delays from the EU’s new border checks
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Holidaymakers fear they will miss their flights due to checks(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Three in five UK holidaymakers heading to Europe this year expect to be caught up in delays linked to the European Union’s new entry-exit system (EES).
Figures from a recent survey show that 59% of travellers believe they’ll be held up by the new system and fear they could miss their flights due to the border checks. EES involves people from third-party countries such as the UK having their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the Schengen Area, which consists of 29 European countries, mainly in the EU.
For most UK travellers, the process is done at foreign airports. A poll commissioned by Booking.com revealed the worrying figures.
The representative body Airports Council International recently reporting that EES was causing delays of up to three hours, with airports in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy among the worst affected. Last month more than 100 easyJet passengers missed a flight from Milan Linate to Manchester as the border checks were ramped up at passport desks.
The survey indicated that 56% of UK travellers plan to arrive at airports earlier than usual in an attempt to avoid disruption, with 12% intending to arrive at least four hours before departure. More than half (52%) of respondents who have travelled to the EU since the introduction of EES said they experienced delays during their journey.
Meanwhile 43% said they were not delayed. Families and holidaymakers travelling to Europe during the May half-term break were told to make sure their passports are eligible for their dates and to keep items such as portable phone chargers and medication in their hand luggage.
Ryan Pearson, regional manager for the UK and Ireland at Booking.com, said: “May half-term is a key moment in the travel calendar, and we know many people are feeling anxious about how the new entry-exit system could impact their trip. We want to help travellers feel informed and prepared before they leave, whether that’s checking travel documents in advance or packing the right essentials in hand luggage in case of longer queues.
“Changes to the way we travel can understandably feel daunting, but we’re already seeing that many journeys are running smoothly. The key is preparation.”
Advantage Travel Partnership, a network of independent travel agents, reported earlier this month that demand for holidays in Greece has surged since the country revealed on April 17 it will not impose the requirements on UK travellers this summer. The south-eastern European country’s market share of UK holiday bookings rose from 7.7% in mid-April to 9.98% by the end of the month, Advantage Travel Partnership said.
EES was first introduced in October last year, with its roll out ramped up on April 10. EU rules currently allow the checks to be temporarily halted to avoid queues at peak periods.
TECATE, Mexico — White sage burning, Norma Meza Calles gathers guests at a Mexican wellness resort into a semicircle facing Kuuchamaa Mountain and asks everyone to close their eyes and feel its presence.
“This is sacred to us like a church for you all. The mountain is our healer, our psychologist,” said Meza Calles, a Kumeyaay Nation tribal leader who explains that in its creation story a shaman transformed into the mountain. “Here is where we gather strength to live in this difficult world.”
Then she calls for a moment of reflection. But the silence is pierced by the crushing of rock. U.S. federal contractors have been blasting and bulldozing Kuuchamaa, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico frontier, to make way for new sections of border wall.
Indigenous leaders say that in the Trump administration’s rush to build border wall segments, contractors are desecrating Native American sacred places and cultural sites at an unprecedented pace, more than 170 years after the international boundary split the territories of dozens of tribes.
Blasts on sacred mountain
Wall construction has ramped up along the 1,954-mile border even as illegal crossings have plummeted to historic lows. Much of it began this year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security waived cultural and environmental laws.
In California, explosions on Kuuchamaa, also known as Tecate Peak, send rocks hurtling down its Mexico side.
“We feel that in our DNA,” said Emily Burgueno, a California member of the Kumeyaay Nation, noting that “body” and “land” are the same word in the Kumeyaay language. Some tribal leaders met with Homeland Security officials to urge them to protect Kuuchamaa and are looking into legal action.
“No one ever consented or supported the use of dynamite on the mountain,” Burgueno said.
In Arizona, Homeland Security contractors last month carved through a massive, 1,000-year-old fish-shaped geoglyph called Las Playas Intaglio. The rare drawing, etched into the desert floor much like Peru’s Nazca Lines, was created on a lava field in what is now the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
Construction crews work April 24 on a new border wall segment near the end of a previously built section on Kuuchamaa Mountain, seen from Tecate, Mexico.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
The Tohono O’odham Nation said it had pointed out the site on its ancestral land for contractors to avoid.
“This was a devastating and entirely avoidable loss,” Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose said in an April 30 statement. “There is nothing more important than our history, which is what makes us who we are as O’odham. The site was also an irreplaceable piece of the United States’ history, one none of us can ever get back.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that a contractor “inadvertently disturbed” the site west of Ajo, Ariz., on April 23, but it vowed to protect the remaining portion. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott is talking to tribal leaders to determine next steps.
Members of the Inter-Tribal Assn. of Arizona, which represents 21 tribes, traveled to Washington last month to lobby against a 20-foot secondary wall being built along that section of the border, as well as a primary 30-foot bollard wall planned on Tohono O’odham tribal lands.
They met with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a Cherokee Nation member, who listened but made clear his intent is to build more border wall as fast as possible, the Tohono O’odham Nation said in a statement.
Hundreds of miles under contract
The Trump administration says the barriers are necessary to keep people and drugs from entering the U.S. illegally. It wants walls to cover at least 1,400 miles of the border.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year devoted more than $46 billion to the effort.
CBP has awarded contracts or begun construction on over 600 miles of new border wall, with companion surveillance technology. A double wall is planned or under construction along an additional 370 miles.
In Arizona, where the Patagonia Mountains descend to the border, heavy machinery crawls along freshly graded roads to extend a double wall that could block a wildlife corridor for endangered ocelots and jaguars. Jaguars have long coexisted with the Tohono O’odham, who consider the species “spiritual guardians,” Austin Nunez, a tribal leader, said in a 2025 lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the Homeland Security waivers.
In Sunland Park, on New Mexico’s border with Mexico, crews this year set off blasts on Mt. Cristo Rey, a pilgrimage site topped with a limestone crucifix.
CBP is seeking to seize a strip of the mountain owned by the Roman Catholic Church for wall construction. The Diocese of Las Cruces asked a judge this month to deny the land transfer as an affront to religious liberties and the “faithful who seek to commune with God on Mount Cristo Rey.”
In western Texas, the federal government in February notified ranchers on the Rio Grande east of Big Bend National Park of its interest in their land that contains canyonland pictographs and petroglyphs, said Raymond Skiles, a retired Big Bend National Park ranger.
“There are pictographs, paintings of shaman figures and various things that we don’t know how to interpret,” said Skiles, describing the drawings on his family’s ranchlands.
After community backlash, CBP’s online planning map showed the 30-foot-wall plans were scrapped for surveillance technology, patrols and some vehicle barriers. A segment in the national park and neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park would rely on technology alone.
CBP says it recognizes the importance of natural and cultural resources and is working to minimize the construction’s impact, including leaving drainage gates open in wildlife corridors for animal passage. Illegal border crossings have littered, polluted and trampled sensitive habitat, the agency says.
CBP also says 535 miles of remote, rugged border terrain will solely rely on detection technology.
Many tribes would prefer that to walls.
Norma Meza Calles, a Kumeyaay Nation leader, leads a guided tour of traditional Kumeyaay uses for local plants at a wellness center in Tecate, Mexico.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
Desecrating Native American sites is a felony
Tribes along the border “are all experiencing the same tragic desecration of our cultural and sacred sites,” said Burgueno, chair of the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy, a nonprofit organization in California that works to protect Kumeyaay lands. “This is a great example of the federal government not following federal laws.”
Desecrating a sacred Native American site on U.S. federal or tribal land is a felony, punishable by imprisonment and fines. In 1992, the National Park Service listed Kuuchamaa Mountain in the National Register of Historic Places, giving it limited protection. It noted that “discarding or disturbing the mountain’s natural state would be sacrilegious.”
Rising 3,885 feet above sea level, Kuuchamaa has also captivated non-Native people.
Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely said her father, Edmond Szekely, felt the mountain’s healing energy when he arrived in Tecate, Mexico, as a Hungarian Jewish refugee during World War II, and started the renowned wellness resort, Rancho La Puerta, which she now runs.
“There are all of these people that have a deep relationship with the mountain,” she said.
Meza Calles leads walks at Rancho La Puerta to teach guests about Kuuchamaa.
Traditionally, young men would spend 40 days at its base in a coming-of-age ceremony before becoming warriors or shamans, she said. Today’s rituals are shorter. People suffering from a death, debt, divorce or other difficulty seek Kuuchamaa’s healing, she said.
“It’s sad they are ruining the mountain,” she said. “We’ll see how far they go. Destiny is destiny. But the fight is not over.”
Watson and Lee write for the Associated Press and reported from Tecate and Santa Fe, N.M., respectively.
Both sides target each other despite a pause in fighting mediated in March.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been tense since the Taliban took power in 2021.
On Monday, Pakistan summoned a senior Afghan diplomat after an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TPP. The group said it carried out two more attacks since, mostly against security forces.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of backing the fighters, which it denies.
The latest violence started with a major border skirmish in February. Mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkiye and China led to a pause in the fighting.
But the two sides have continued to target each other. This includes a Pakistani strike on a drug rehabilitation centre that killed more than 250 people.
Will these breaches lead to a resumption of hostilities? And is lasting peace possible between the neighbours?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Masood Khan – Former permanent representative of Pakistan, United Nations
Michael Kugelman – Senior fellow, Atlantic Council
Obaidullah Baheer – Adjunct lecturer, American University of Afghanistan
