WASHINGTON — Late last month, an immigrant seeking asylum in the U.S. came across social media posts urging her to pay a new fee imposed by the Trump administration before Oct. 1, or else risk her case being dismissed.
Paula, a 40-year-old Los Angeles-area immigrant from Mexico, whose full name The Times is withholding because she fears retribution, applied for asylum in 2021 and her case is now on appeal.
But when Paula tried to pay the $100 annual fee, she couldn’t find an option on the immigration court’s website that accepted fees for pending asylum cases. Afraid of deportation — and with just five hours before the payment deadline — she selected the closest approximation she could find, $110 for an appeal filed before July 7.
She knew it was likely incorrect. Still, she felt it was better to pay for something, rather than nothing at all, as a show of good faith. Unable to come up with the money on such short notice, Paula, who works in a warehouse repairing purses, paid the fee with a credit card.
“I hope that money isn’t wasted,” she said.
That remains unclear because of confusion and misinformation surrounding the rollout of a host of new fees or fee increases for a variety of immigration services. The fees are part of the sweeping budget bill President Trump signed into law in July.
Paula was one of thousands of asylum seekers across the country who panicked after seeing messages on social media urging them to pay the new fee before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.
But government messaging about the fees has sometimes been chaotic and contradictory, immigration attorneys say. Some asylum seekers have received notice about the fees, while others have not. Misinformation surged as immigrants scrambled to figure out whether, and how, to pay.
Advocates worry the confusion serves as a way for immigration officials to dismiss more asylum cases, which would render the applicants deportable.
The fees vary. For those seeking asylum, there is a $100 fee for new applications, as well as a yearly fee of $100 for pending applications. The fee for an initial work permit is $550 and work permit renewals can be as much as $795.
Amy Grenier, associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., said that not having a clear way to pay a fee might seem like a small government misstep, but the legal consequences are substantial.
For new asylum applications, she said, some immigration judges set a payment deadline of Sept. 30, even though the Executive Office for Immigration Review only updated the payment portal in the last week of September.
“The lack of coherent guidance and structure to pay the fee only compounded the inefficiency of our immigration courts,” Grenier said. “There are very real consequences for asylum-seekers navigating this completely unnecessary bureaucratic mess.”
Two agencies collect the asylum fees: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), under the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), under the Department of Justice, which operates immigration courts.
Both agencies initially released different instructions regarding the fees, and only USCIS has provided an avenue for payment.
The departments of Homeland Security and Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House deferred to USCIS.
USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser said the asylum fee is being implemented consistent with the law.
“The real losers in this are the unscrupulous and incompetent immigration attorneys who exploit their clients and bog down the system with baseless asylum claims,” he said.
The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), a national membership organization, sued the Trump administration earlier this month after thousands of members shared their confusion over the new fees, arguing that the federal agencies involved “threaten to deprive asylum seekers of full and fair consideration of their claims.”
The organization also argued the fees shouldn’t apply to people whose cases were pending before Trump signed the budget package into law.
In a U.S. district court filing Monday, Justice Department lawyers defended the fees, saying, “Congress made clear that these new asylum fees were long overdue and necessary to recover the growing costs of adjudicating the millions of pending asylum applications.”
Some of the confusion resulted from contradictory information.
A notice by USCIS in the July 22 Federal Register confused immigrants and legal practitioners alike because of a reference to Sept. 30. Anyone who had applied for asylum as of Oct. 1, 2024, and whose application was still pending by Sept. 30, was instructed to pay a fee. Some thought the notice meant that Sept. 30 was the deadline to pay the yearly asylum fee.
By this month, USCIS clarified on its website that it will “issue personal notices” alerting asylum applicants when their annual fee is due, how to pay it and the consequences for failing to do so.
The agency created a payment portal and began sending out notices Oct. 1, instructing recipients to pay within 30 days.
But many asylum seekers are still waiting to be notified by USCIS, according to ASAP, the advocacy organization. Some have received texts or physical mail telling them to check their USCIS account, while others have resorted to checking their accounts daily.
Meanwhile the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) didn’t add a mechanism for paying the $100 fee for pending asylum cases — the one Paula hoped to pay — until Thursday.
In its Oct. 3 complaint, lawyers for ASAP wrote: “Troublingly, ASAP has received reports that some immigration judges at EOIR are already requiring applicants to have paid the annual asylum fee, and in at least one case even rejected an asylum application and ordered an asylum seeker removed for non-payment of the annual asylum fee, despite the agency providing no way to pay this fee.”
An immigration lawyer in San Diego, who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said an immigration judge denied his client’s asylum petition because the client had not paid the new fee, even though there was no way to pay it.
The judge issued an order, which was shared with The Times, that read, “Despite this mandatory requirement, to date the respondents have not filed proof of payment for the annual asylum fee.”
The lawyer called the decision a due process violation. He said he now plans to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, though another fee increase under Trump’s spending package raised that cost from $110 to $1,010. He is litigating the case pro bono.
Justice Department lawyers said Monday that EOIR had eliminated the initial inconsistency by revising its position to reflect that of USCIS and will soon send out official notices to applicants, giving them 30 days to make the payment.
“There was no unreasonable delay here in EOIR’s implementation,” the filing said. “…The record shows several steps were required to finalize EOIR’s process, including coordination with USCIS. Regardless, Plaintiff’s request is now moot.”
Immigrants like Paula, who is a member of ASAP, recently got some reassurance. In a court declaration, EOIR Director Daren Margolin wrote that for anyone who made anticipatory or advance payments for the annual asylum fee, “those payments will be applied to the alien’s owed fees, as appropriate.”
FAILED asylum seekers and foreign offenders are being left in Britain for up to a year because their governments are dragging their feet over travel papers, a Home Office file reveals.
The official guide, published by the department, shows deportations are crippled by delays from overseas embassies.
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Anti migrant protesters at the Holiday Inn in SolihullCredit: SWNS
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Protesters raised St George’s Cross and Union flags outside some of the 210 hotels being used to house migrant
Egypt, Guinea and Burkina Faso are among the worst offenders — taking six to 12 months to issue the documents needed to put its citizens on a plane home.
By contrast, Italy, Belgium and Sri Lanka can turn the paperwork around in less than two weeks, while India averages one month.
But the file also shows no reliable timescale is available at all for dozens of countries — leaving removals at the mercy of slow or unpredictable foreign bureaucracies.
The delays mean some migrants remain in Britain long after their claims have failed, with taxpayers footing the bill for hotel rooms, benefits and legal fees while they wait.
Yesterday, fed-up protesters raised St George’s Cross and Union flags outside some of the 210 hotels being used to house migrants — as PM Sir Keir Starmer announced plans to overhaul the failing asylum system.
Among those targeted was the Castle Bromwich Holiday Inn in Birmingham.
Outside the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, East London, a group of protesters gathered with one holding a banner that read: “Enough is enough protect our women and girls.”
Another said: “Tower Hamlets council house homeless Brits first.”
There were also protests outside the Holiday Inn in Solihull, West Midlands, and the Manchester South Hotel.
At least 15 people were arrested at protests relating to migrant hotels on Saturday.
Migrants to be kicked out of hotel at centre of protests in landmark ruling after asylum seeker’s ‘sex attack’
Following the release of the Home Office file, Reform UK demanded ministers get tough.
Deputy party leader Richard Tice said: “Foreign countries know Starmer’s Britain is a pushover, so it’s no wonder they are dragging their feet when it comes to accepting deportations.
“Britain needs to start using its diplomatic and economic power.
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Failed asylum seekers are being left in the UK for up to a yearCredit: AFP
“Countries that refuse to take their criminals back should not get off scot-free but instead face serious sanctions.
“Unfortunately, with this meek Labour Government, we will continue to be seen as a meek nation on the global stage.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp also hit out, saying: “Countries that do not fully and promptly co-operate should suffer visa sanctions — where we don’t give visas to citizens of those countries to come here.
‘TOO WEAK’
“Then, they would pretty soon fall into line.
“The legal power exists to do that but this Labour Government is too weak to use it.”
There is currently a 106,000-strong backlog of asylum claim cases, including at least 51,000 appeals.
Last week, official statistics showed a record 111,000 people applied for asylum in the UK during the first year of Labour coming to power.
The Government has said its latest plans would introduce independent panels to hear appeal cases to speed up the process and deport failed asylum seekers quicker.
A new commission will prioritise cases of those living in costly asylum hotels and foreign national offenders.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “We cannot carry on with these completely unacceptable delays in appeals as a result of the system we have inherited, which mean that failed asylum seekers stay in the system for years on end at huge cost to the taxpayer.”
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Protesters outside The Bell Hotel in EppingCredit: Reuters
She added: “Overhauling the appeals system so that it is swift, fair and independent, with high standards in place, is a central part of our Plan for Change.”
But the new scheme could take months to implement and record numbers of people continue to cross the Channel on small boats.
Tory Mr Philp said: “The Government is too weak to do what’s really needed — such as repeal the Human Rights Act for all immigration matters and deport all illegal immigrants immediately upon arrival.”
The Home Office said: “For some countries receiving returnees from the UK, establishing their identities and nationalities can take time.
“Where that is the case, we work with their respective governments closely to drive timings down to the minimum possible.”
THERE was a party atmosphere at an anti-migrant protest in Epping yesterday — with at least 150 dancing and cheering as drivers hooted their car horns in support.
Some shouted at police who stood outside the Bell Hotel, the focus of demonstrations but now set to stop housing asylum-seekers.
One man yelled: “Unfortunately Starmer has turned you into stormtroopers — or rather Starmtroopers.”
Other protesters held banners reading “deport foreign criminals” and chanted the name of the far-right’s Tommy Robinson.
Residents across the UK are hoping they will see their own asylum hotels shut after the High Court granted the Essex town’s council a temporary injunction.
The Bell Hotel has been at the centre of intense protests, and counter-protests over the summer
Asylum seekers are due to be removed from an Essex hotel after a council was granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking them from being housed there.
The injunction was sought by Epping Forest District Council to stop migrants being placed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, which is owned by Somani Hotels Limited.
Thousands of people have protested near the hotel in recent weeks after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the town.
Mr Justice Eyre made his judgement after refusing an 11th-hour effort from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to get the council’s case dismissed.
Asylum seekers must be moved out of the hotel by 16:00 BST on 12 September, the judge ruled.
All 80 rooms at the hotel are seemingly occupied and, as of last month, it was home to about 140 men.
The Home Office had warned the decision would “substantially impact” its ability to house asylum seekers in hotels across the UK.
Footage from 17 July showed projectiles being thrown towards police officers
Protests staged outside The Bell Hotel have been attended by both people against its use for asylum seekers and those in support of migrant rights.
But Conservative council leader Chris Whitbread said the repeated demonstrations were escalating tensions in the area and risked causing “irreparable harm”.
Reacting to the court ruling, he added: “The last few weeks have placed an intolerable strain on our community but today we have some great news.
“We have seen the protests that started off quite violently become peaceful protests, run by the people of Epping Forest.
“What I call upon the residents tonight is if they decide to go outside The Bell Hotel, don’t protest, don’t over-celebrate. This is the beginning. It is not the end.”
A small crowd had gathered outside the hotel on Tuesday evening.
PA Media
Chris Whitbread said the court victory showed “the government cannot ignore planning rules, just like no-one else can ignore planning rules”
Sixteen people have been charged with offences relating to disturbances during several protests, which Essex Police said became violent on occasion.
Representing the council, Philip Coppel KC agreed some protests “have unfortunately been attended by violence and disorder”.
He said Somani Hotels “did not advise or notify the local planning authority” to seek its views on the use of the site which he argued was not a hotel in the usual sense any more.
He told the court it was “no more a hotel than a borstal [was] to a young offender”.
Lawyers for the hotel and home secretary confirmed in court they wished to appeal against the injunction before a full hearing was listed in the autumn.
It followed a failed last-minute attempt by the Home Office to get the case dismissed.
Edward Brown KC, for the government, said any injunction could lead to other councils making similar applications.
“That would aggravate the pressures on the asylum estate,” he added.
‘Sidestepped scrutiny’
The council’s win comes three years after a string of judgments in similar cases in which judges refused to intevene.
However, Epping Forest told the court last Friday that its case was different because use of the hotel had become a public safety risk, as well as a breach of planning law.
In his judgement Mr Justice Eyre said: “Although the defendant’s [Somani Hotels Limited] actions were not flagrant or surreptitious they were deliberate.
“The defendant acted in good faith but chose to take its stand on the position that there was no material change of use.
“The defendant did so in the knowledge the claimant, as local planning authority, took a different view and believed that permission was necessary.
“It thereby sidestepped the public scrutiny and explanation which would otherwise have taken place if an application for planning permission or for a certificate of lawful use had been made.”
A small crowd gathered outside The Bell Hotel in the evening following the High Court judgement
Imram Hussain, from the Refugee Council, said: “We think asylum seekers should not be in hotels – there are cheaper, better ways of supporting people and we think the government should end the use of hotels as fast as it can.”
He said such migrants should be in “dispersal accommodation around the country”, as it was more cost-effective and it wanted the government to “work with local authorities to go back to that kind of system and not use hotels”.
Epping Forest District Council applied for the injunction on 12 August
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage welcomed the ruling and said: “This community stood up bravely, despite being slandered as far right, and have won.”
His deputy leader, Richard Tice, said his party would look at pursuing similar cases for hotels within the 10 council areas it controls, which included both North and West Northamptonshire councils, Doncaster, and Kent and Staffordshire county councils.
Angela Eagle, Border Security Minister, said: “This government inherited a broken asylum system; at the peak there were over 400 hotels open.
“We will continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns. Our work continues to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.
“We will carefully consider this judgment.”
Protests began outside The Bell after 41-year-old Hadush Kebatu, from Ethiopia, was charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity.
He denied the offences and remained in custody ahead of a two-day trial, due to begin next Tuesday.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 39 people, including 21 seeking humanitarian aid and 11 who starved to death, over 24 hours in Gaza, Palestinian health authorities say.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday that the total number of malnutrition deaths has reached 212, including 98 children, since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.
Most of the deaths have occurred in recent weeks as Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on aid supplies entering Gaza after partially lifting a total blockade in late May.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told Al Jazeera that famine continues to pose a serious risk “especially among children and the elderly”.
“Malnutrition among children leads to decreased immunity and may lead to death,” he said.
On Friday, the World Food Programme (WFP) called on Israel to allow the delivery of at least 100 aid trucks per day to Gaza, noting that only 60 of its aid truck drivers have been vetted and approved by the Israeli military to date.
The 100 trucks per day the organisation called for is a fraction of the 600 per day other United Nations agencies and Gaza authorities have said are needed to meet the basic needs of Gaza residents.
“Since July 27, 266 WFP trucks arriving at crossing points were turned back, 31 percent of which had initially been approved,” the agency’s latest report said.
“Convoy movements are frequently hampered by last-minute changes by Israeli authorities, and heavy insecurity due to military activities along convoy routes.”
In its latest statement on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, noted that it has not been allowed to bring any humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food and medicine, for more than five months, depriving hungry and ailing Palestinians of what they need to survive.
UNRWA has been calling on Israel to lift its siege on Gaza, saying the ongoing airdrops of humanitarian aid from several countries “are very expensive and ineffective” at reaching those urgently in need.
The warnings come as Israeli forces continued to escalate their attacks across the territory. Six people were killed by Israeli soldiers while waiting for aid near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Two other Palestinians were also killed and transported to the Nasser Medical Complex from a GHF aid distribution site in the southern part of the territory.
One woman was killed and another person was wounded in an Israeli air strike targeting an apartment in Khan Younis in the south.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry’s latest count, at least 39 people have been killed in 24 hours.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,369 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 152,850. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
UNRWA has called on Israel to lift its humanitarian siege on Gaza, saying the ongoing airdrops from several countries are expensive and ineffective [Mohammed Saber/EPA]
‘No one and nowhere is safe’
As the death toll continues to soar, international condemnation of Israel’s conduct in the war is growing, with several countries raising alarm over Israel’s plans to seize Gaza City in an operation that could forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza.
A rare emergency UN Security Council meeting has been scheduled on Sunday to address the plan approved by Israel’s security cabinet this week.
In Gaza City, residents were defiant, promising not to leave in the event of a new Israeli ground offensive.
Umm Imran told Al Jazeera that there was nowhere safe in Gaza.
“They say go south, go to al-Mawasi, but there is nowhere safe any more – north, south, east or west. No one and nowhere is safe. We will stay here.”
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said residents were unable to sleep on Friday night after the announcement by Israel.
“People are wondering what’s going to happen to them, what’s going to be left of Gaza if Israel moves on with its approved plan to occupy the entire Gaza Strip, starting with Gaza City,” he said.
The Israeli plan has also been condemned by the foreign ministers of Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
In a joint statement on Saturday, the diplomats warned that Israel’s plan will “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians”.
“Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also urged Muslim nations to work in unison to oppose Israel’s plan.
Speaking at a joint news conference in El Alamein with his Egyptian counterpart after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Fidan said members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation had been called to an emergency meeting to tackle the crisis.
Palestinians carry a man who was wounded while rushing to collect aid airdropped into Gaza City [Jehad Alshrafi/AP]
A group of over two dozen mostly European foreign ministers denounced Israeli attacks on Palestinian aid seekers in a joint statement condemning the “drip feeding” of aid and saying “the war in Gaza must end now.”
After Zahra Usman* quit a job she described as toxic in a law firm that overworked and underpaid her, affecting her mental health, she found herself searching for a job for over a year. She applied for every opportunity she was qualified for, and that was how she came across one that promised a role at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in the United Nations in 2024.
“My friend sent the flyer to me. It looked like a legit job application. The job had different roles, including legal assistants, and that was the role I applied for,” she says, recalling having no doubts at first, as she submitted her cover letter and curriculum vitae (CV) to the provided email address.
She did not receive an acknowledgement email and eventually forgot about it, as it was common not to hear back after applying for a job. However, in April 2024, they sent an email claiming they were recruiting again. Since she had already applied for the other role, they said they reached out because she met the requirements for the current position.
“They asked me to confirm my interest, reply to the email before the deadline, and send in an updated CV,” she recalled. They even offered an estimated salary of $2,ooo and links to calculate the tax requirements. They also said that due to the high level of applications, they couldn’t reply to individual queries.
After sending the CV, she didn’t hear back from them until May, when they informed her that she had gotten the job. They asked her to return the signed appointment letter, do a BSAFE assessment (a mandatory online security awareness training for all UN personnel), and submit the certificate. It took her almost the whole day to process the certificate, which required taking short courses and tests for each segment. The final test required answering 80 per cent of the questions correctly. Even though the process was stressful, Zahra still ensured she did it on time.
They also requested a Quantifiable Emotional Intelligence, Racial and National Diversity, Inclusion, and Validation Certificate (QREDIV). Still, when she followed the link, she discovered a payment of $99, which was about ₦160,000 at the time. At first, she wanted to borrow the money from a friend, but she became suspicious.
Employment scams were ranked as the second most serious type globally in 2023. Scammers exploit the economic crisis and high unemployment rates by promising lucrative opportunities with reputable companies. This includes fake job postings, phishing emails, and fraudulent job advertisements, many of which go unreported in the country. There is a lack of proper structures in place to trace and address these cases, and feelings of shame often prevent victims from speaking out. Additionally, some of these scams involve fake interviews designed to lure victims into situations where they could be kidnapped for ransom demands from their families.
“I entered the third-party website, and the whole thing made me suspicious. That was why I started to conduct proper research, to be sure, as it felt weird that the UN was expecting me to pay for any course. I searched for James Hall, who signed off all the emails on LinkedIn, but I couldn’t find him, and that was when I started to get more suspicious,” Zahra said.
The 29-year-old trusted her gut and decided to dig even deeper. She searched on Google to find out if the UN requires payment for courses, which led her to the Naija forum, an online platform where Nigerians shared their experiences. The search also led her to a disclaimer by the UN that they don’t charge a fee at any stage of the application process.
“Everything seemed so genuine. I even tried to run the links on ChatGPT, which confirmed they were legitimate. If people feel stupid for falling for this, they should know that it is not their fault; everything initially seemed legit. I later discovered that the first test I did was a requirement for UN workers,” Zahra added. She is currently job-searching while working at a friend’s law firm. Her near-scam experience has made her more vigilant; she now double-checks every opportunity before applying.
A successful extortion
In 2024, Fadila Mahmoud*’s cousin called to tell her about a job opportunity at Mentor Mothers, an initiative working towards preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission, and she was ecstatic to apply.
The initiative was under the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), which has an office at the Kaduna Ministry of Health in the country’s northwestern region. The only catch was that the job ‘required’ a payment before processing. She and her sister didn’t hesitate to raise the money.
“I called the man supposed to be in charge, and he assured me of a job opportunity. All I had to do was pay ₦150,000 in instalments, and the job was mine,” she recounted. However, the requirements didn’t end there; a percentage of their salary was expected every month.
Before starting the job, she and her sister paid an initial fee of ₦75,000. They were then expected to pay the balance within the first three months. A monthly deduction of ₦15,000 from their salary was also required. This included ₦5,000 labelled as ‘miscellaneous’ fees, which was deposited into the team leader’s account, and ₦10,000 that went to a coworker’s account, allegedly the sister of the person who referred them for the job. This arrangement made it difficult to identify the actual beneficiaries of these payments.
HumAngle examined the bank statements and confirmed records of the transfers that were made within those months.
Nigeria, which is said to have one of the highest misery indices globally, has seen an unemployment and inflation rate from 30.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2023 to 36.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2024. This situation is a serious concern, especially considering that the World Bank estimated in 2023 that 87 million Nigerians lived below the poverty line. Additionally, the removal of the fuel subsidy and the resultant cost of living crisis have further exacerbated this crisis.
“Since we needed the job, we agreed to the terms and got the job after a month of payment,” the 23-year-old explained. They signed a contract for the job, but it said nothing about the payment arrangements.
Her responsibility was to orient HIV-positive pregnant women and guide them to the hospital to obtain their medication during community outreach programmes. Each team is assigned to a specific hospital. “We attend antenatal days, sometimes twice a week,” she told HumAngle.
Things changed, however, when the company announced a salary increase from ₦75,000 to ₦120,000. The man who offered them the job demanded that they increase the monthly payment to ₦20,000, making a total of ₦25,000 monthly. HumAngle saw a record of the text that communicated this to her.
“The work was supposed to be contract-based; they assured us that we would be retained for two and a half years and our contract would be renewed for another two and a half years.”
Seven months later, however, Fadila said the head of the Kaduna Mentor Mothers branch called five of them to his office and explained that he had been contacted by the Abuja headquarters that the project they were hired for had been ‘put on hold’ for now. His explanation did not convince them. He also didn’t reference the monetary arrangement, suggesting he knew nothing about the unofficial contract.
“We thought that what they said was not true, and they had other reasons for doing so. At first, we suspected they might want to sell the job slots to others,” she said. Fadila also claimed three of the five people whose contracts were ‘terminated’ had purchased their job slots.
However, HumAngle found that the reason was unlikely. Mentor Mothers had to downsize as a result of funding cuts, according to a senior employee, who asked to be anonymous. HumAngle contacted the NEPWHAN Coordinator in Kaduna State, Bala Sama’ila, for his response to the allegations. We followed up for over three weeks but received no tangible response from him. When we reached out to inform him that we would go ahead with the story, he threatened a lawsuit, distancing himself from the allegations, without offering any explanation as promised.
He also asked HumAngle to share the identities of our sources with him, a request that goes against journalistic ethics and the principle of source confidentiality. “As far as I am concerned, I want to distance myself from all the allegations. Finally, I am not aware of the allegations,” he said in a snappy message sent to HumAngle.
The system is complex
A conversation with a colleague also made Fadila realise that there could be more at play, as she learned that the job slots were ideally intended for HIV patients rather than healthy workers.
Mentor Mothers was initially designed as an empowerment programme for women living with HIV to provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary to educate and emotionally support other mothers living with the virus.
HIV patients experience economic hardships due to medical expenses, loss of income, and an inability to work. A study conducted in Oyo State, South West Nigeria, reveals that female HIV patients are more likely to lose employment opportunities, with a ratio of 24.3 per cent of women affected compared to 9.5 per cent of men. Assigning jobs intended for HIV patients to healthy individuals further exacerbates this disparity.
“Normally, they would tell you not to speak about the monetary arrangement to others to keep it ‘under wraps’ and one of the coworkers even claimed to my sister that the money she was paying them was higher than what we were paying,” Fadila explained.
She felt betrayed and deceived over her job loss. However, she is not the only one being scammed by a seemingly legitimate job.
Habiba Shehu* also faced a similar experience with Mentor Mothers. She paid for a slot, but it did not lead to a job offer. It took several months before she received her money back. At 28 years old, she was waiting for her National Youth Service posting in 2024 when she received a job offer.
“My cousin called me about a job opportunity that her in-laws had sent her. However, they mentioned that I needed to pay ₦75,000 for it. I borrowed the money from others and managed to gather it on time,” Habiba told HumAngle.
The man assured her about the job, providing the requirements he had previously given to Fadila and her sister. They sent her an appointment letter shortly afterwards, with the man claiming that Habiba had taken someone else’s slot because of the high demand. However, after three months, he called her to say that while others had gotten the job, she was unfortunately no longer on the list.
“I asked for a refund of my money. He asked for a one-week extension and then two more weeks. But when he did send in the money, he sent only half of it and asked for more time,” she said.
After he began to evade them, they resorted to calling and threatening him. He became scared when they threatened to take him to court and refunded the full amount. Currently, Habiba is completing her NYSC, and she hopes the labour market will be much kinder by the time she finishes.
File: A National Youth Service Corps at the orientation camp in Kubwa, Abuja, on March 18, 2020. Photo: Kola Sulaimon/AFP.
Eunice Thompson, a corporate lawyer and expert in HR and compliance, sheds light on the legal implications of these schemes.
“The Advanced Fee Fraud Act states that everyone who collects money for something they can’t deliver can be jailed for up to seven years,” Eunice noted that people can sue the individuals and organisations responsible for this scam. The ICPC Act for public service jobs also counts asking someone to pay for a job slot as an act of corruption, which can lead to prosecution. But this also means that the people paying for the jobs are also taking part in the illegal system.”
The lawyer adds that people who have been scammed can get justice by gathering evidence and acting swiftly. She encourages people to collect documentation of every conversation they have with the person, including screenshots and other forms of documenting interactions.
“There are Ministries of Labour and employment offices in many states where these issues can be reported. If money has been collected, it becomes a criminal case, which can involve the police and the EFCC. In case you need legal aid in terms of resources, the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria or National Human Rights Commission or other nonprofit organisations can help,” she explained.
Hope beyond the shores
Haruna Shuaibu*, who has done jobs throughout his adult life, is another victim of the exploitative system.
After graduating from secondary school in Zamfara, things stagnated for him. He didn’t have the means to continue his education and was desperate for better opportunities. His desperation made him move to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, hoping to get a better chance at life. However, things didn’t go as planned, and he had to work other menial jobs to survive.
His first business in this new city was borehole repair, and he also sold carrots on the side. Eventually, these jobs were not sustainable enough to keep him in town, so he relocated to Kaduna State in 2012. With little to sustain himself, he started to hawk sugarcane in a wheelbarrow, but soon after, his brother-in-law employed him to work as a tiler under his business, where they got contracts to fix tiles in people’s homes.
“I worked with him for three years, but realised in 2015 that I could enter the tricycle business (locally known as Keke Napep). This has been the job that has sustained me for many years, during which I was able to start my own family,” Haruna said.
File: Tricycles at Gate junction, Ibadan, South West Nigeria. Photo: Adebayo Abdul Rahman/HumAngle
For the past few years, Haruna has used 23 tricycles, most of which he rented from others. He pays the owner ₦3,000 from his daily proceeds in his current arrangement. He also manages the tricycle’s daily maintenance while the owner handles significant repairs.
This job does come with its challenges. The tricycle is constantly at risk of being stolen, as it has happened to him before. However, this business has also introduced Haruna to what he believes could be a pathway to a better life.
A kind encounter with a passenger led to his employment as a driver for a family. This connection is what introduced him to the possibility of leaving the country.
“I worked with them for a few years. Before I learned that her husband helps process job opportunities for people abroad, I had received another job offer,” he recalls. Haruna had never considered leaving for greener pastures. Still, after an incident rendered his tricycle unusable, preventing him from working for almost four months in 2023, he had to explore other possibilities.
“My friend encouraged me to consider leaving with him as he tried to get opportunities out of the country. Someone connected us with a woman who was said to have connections. We were made to process our international passports and undergo a health screening,” he recounts.
However, the plan fell through due to financial constraints; the agents expected them to pay almost a million naira. They tried negotiating the terms, hoping to pay when they reached there, but they disagreed.
The opportunity was said to be in Baghdad. The woman collected their passports for a while, claiming she would help them process the jobs to the best of her abilities. “When we discovered that it wasn’t going to work out because the woman herself was leaving the country, we simply collected our passports back, ” he says.
Along the way, Haruna received other opportunities to work in Libya but refused after hearing the horror stories about such trips. Human traffickers have been operating in Libya since 2014, facilitating the smuggling of undocumented migrants across the Mediterranean Sea and causing many to lose their lives. This situation frightened Haruna, making him wary of such opportunities. Shortly after, the woman he worked for learned about his attempts to travel. She then informed him that her husband had connections with individuals who handled these opportunities.
“They said that the problem was that you have to pay first, due to previous bad experiences, where people switched jobs and secretly left the company they were assigned to, without paying their debts to the people who processed the opportunities. This had forced them to start a strict payment before service policy,” he tells HumAngle.
The husband in question later contacted him in 2024 and said they had an opening for a bike delivery man in a factory in Qatar. They thought he would be a perfect match for the job since it was similar to the one he was already doing. But he still wasn’t financially able to pay for it.
Haruna has been saving up for the next opportunity. He recently started the procedure for a potential job in Saudi Arabia, but he is invited to an interview in Lagos State before everything is set. This opportunity required a ₦500,000 processing fee, which he managed to save up.
The term “Japa,” which comes from the Yoruba language and means “to flee,” is commonly used to describe the mass outmigration of Nigerians seeking better opportunities abroad. Research indicates that various socio-cultural, political, and religious factors, such as high unemployment rates, insecurity, and poverty, fuel the Japa phenomenon. This trend has resulted in a significant loss of talented individuals. For example, Nigeria’s medical system has experienced a substantial drain of doctors, leading to a troubling doctor-to-patient ratio of approximately one doctor for every 30,000 patients in certain regions.
Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
“I am not sure which kind of job it is, but I know it involves working in a factory,” Haruna says. There weren’t a lot of details given to him about the job in question; the agents claimed that he would get more information when he went for the interview and medical screening in Lagos. The person he is communicating with informs him in Hausa that his potential job is at a ‘waya’ factory, which could translate to either a phone factory or a factory dealing with cables and wires, leaving him unsure of what the job description entails.
The job opportunity is said to last two years. “In those two years, you are expected to pay the company a certain agreed-upon amount from your salary. When the time expires, you can choose whether you want to leave or stay,” he explains. The details of the payment plan have not yet been communicated to him.
The company informed them that their potential monthly salary may be up to ₦800,000. There are many risks to irregular migration such as kidnaping and theft, exploitation and abuse, physical abuse, rape, torture, deportation from the countries, and enslavement.
HumAngle found that most of the supposed opportunities are for drivers or delivery men, who usually go to men, with occasional opportunities more suitable for women. The agents, who mostly work as middlemen, require a down payment before travelling, with a few exceptions.
Bashir Abba*, an agent between job seekers and companies, claimed, “There are many challenges. Sometimes, we get opportunities for people who refuse to pay back after getting the job. Other times, people ask for favours, and when we get them opportunities, they disappear and leave us to bear the cost.” This, among other reasons, is why he is reconsidering leaving that career path.
For Haruna, the reasons for leaving are massive. “I have many reasons for wanting to leave. I wouldn’t even go anywhere if I got tangible start-up money for my business. I would rather stay here and start a business instead. I am pretty sure there would be something I can do.”
Haruna expects to travel before the year ends, hoping to make enough money there. However, he is still sceptical, mainly due to the unclear details. He hopes that if he does travel, he will get a chance to change his financial status in Nigeria when he returns.
A BBC documentary released in April highlighted how scammers steal thousands from unsuspecting people under the guise of job opportunities and fail to deliver on those opportunities. Kelvin Alaneme, a popular Nigerian medical practitioner, who claimed to have helped 5,000 migrants relocate to the UK, was at the centre of this scheme. One of his victims claimed to have paid him £14,000 (₦29 million), after which the job didn’t materialise.
Payment made, refund denied
The extortionate job slot system thrives because many young Nigerians are desperate, as in the case of Ahmad Hassan*, who expected to get a job immediately after graduating from Ahmadu Bello University in 2015, especially with his skill set. However, 10 years later, like many other young Nigerians, he struggles to find footing.
Ahmad found himself constantly filling out job applications and delivering his CV to many who promised to help, but his hopes were crushed continuously as none of these opportunities materialised. “I had to find other ways to survive, so I ventured into selling clothing and jewellery. But that business soon went under as people always took things on credit,” he laments. The situation made it difficult for the 34-year-old architect to sustain his business. With few other opportunities in the saturated architectural field, Ahmad believed that buying a job slot or opportunity was his best alternative.
In 2022, his friend connected him to someone who was said to have a connection to the government and was offering a Central Bank job. Before that, Ahmad had tried to buy a Prisons Service job slot for ₦200,000 in 2021. He didn’t get the job, nor did he get his money back. He said the CBN opportunity came from a more ‘trustworthy’ source, and the total amount to be paid was ₦3.5 million with an initial deposit of ₦1.5 million, after which a balance of ₦2 million would be paid upon documentation.
“I did my due diligence by making inquiries about the process, people involved, duration of time it takes for the appointment to be ready and any other thing I was aware of. After I was satisfied with my inquiry and the assurance I got from those involved in finding a government civil service job, I made the payment.”
The initial contract also specified that payments would be refunded three months after they were made if the job did not succeed. However, Ahmad’s hopes were once again dashed when the opportunity he struggled to get money for didn’t manifest. He was left to keep asking for his money back, but the people kept requesting time extensions to source the funds.
Recruitment fraud in Nigeria has evolved into a multi-million naira industry with thousands falling victim to the schemes, leading to financial losses and mental distress. Earlier this year, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested a scammer who posed as a staff member at a house and defrauded job seekers of an estimated ₦22 million. Besides fake job advertisements, these scammers request an upfront payment or pose as agents from reputable organisations.
Eunice, the lawyer, explained that selling jobs is illegal especially government jobs which violates the Civil Service Rules, ICPC Act, as well as the Nigerian Constitution, and people who are caught can either be jailed, released from service or forced to pay money back- and as for private sectors, this also violates the Labor Act, the Advance Fee Fraud Act, and the Anti-money Laundering Act. She believes that the lack of access to information on the dangers of buying jobs, as well as the desperation that pushes many job seekers to make that decision, further perpetuates the circle.
Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
“I got ₦700,000 back in 2023, and only got the rest back last year in two instalments, ₦500,000 and then later on ₦300,000 was returned to me. I was even among the lucky ones to get their money back, as some people got nothing in return,” Ahmad said.
Ahmad felt he had few options despite the challenges and risks, as other businesses he ventured into eventually failed for one reason or another. Sometimes, he gets the occasional architectural gigs that bring in some cash. Then, a friend informed him that there was an opening for a job with the National Drug Law Enforcement (NDLEA), with an initial deposit of ₦100,000 required. However, even paying the money on time did not guarantee getting the job; he still struggles to get his money back.
“They only refunded me ₦50,000 in 2023, and I still haven’t gotten the rest back. When you don’t have options, you have to crawl your way up, and I know people who got jobs in the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through this process,” he added.
Another challenge he encounters is age limitations, which are a barrier to opportunities for which he is qualified. In 2023, Nigerian senator Patrick Abba Moro called for the dismissal of age limits, which serve as a discriminatory factor in the employment system. This limit has led to desperate Nigerians falsifying birth dates to meet this criterion. Chapter 4, Section 4 (2) of the Nigerian Constitution states that all citizens have the right to be free from Discrimination.
Ahmad has not given up on finding new business ventures or applying for job opportunities. He is not unwilling to try finding a job through this process, especially since he has seen it materialise for others, and other alternatives don’t seem to be working.
Like Ahmad, who almost tore his pocket to pay for non-existent job slots, Linda Joseph can never forget the man who taught her mother for a few years in secondary school. Now, his identity has become the man who defrauded her family with a fake job offer at the Ikeja Airport, Lagos State, southwestern Nigeria. His history with her mother was likely why her parents trusted him and didn’t scrutinise his offer deeply.
Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
Lagos is known as Nigeria’s commercial capital. Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
“He told my mum he worked at the Ikeja Airport and had an open position, but his boss requested a ₦100,000 fee. My mum paid in two tranches, and the last we heard from him was after the second payment landed in his account,” she says, noting that from 2019 till date, the man was nowhere to be found and no job materialised.
When this happened, Linda worked in a privately owned organisation in Lagos. Although she loved her job, she was usually up working in the middle of the night, which affected her sleep schedule.
“I won’t say I was searching for other opportunities heavily at that time, but the lack of sleep bothered me and my parents,” she explains.
After graduating from the university in 2014, Linda endured the treacherous job market. The 30-year-old has worked in the private sector and now works at a nonprofit, where her passion lies. Over the years, she has volunteered, interned, worked as a consultant, learned baking, and worked as a writer for a short while.
“In retrospect, I do not think he worked in any airport. My mum has since ‘left it to God’ in her usual manner, but I? He better hope I don’t see him anywhere on the streets because he will vomit my 100k.”
In the meantime, she is learning a skill pertinent to her career and hopes it will open up room for bigger opportunities.
Eunice pointed out that the problem with Nigerian laws is in implementation. Sections 23 to 24 of the Labour Act particularly seem good on paper. “There is a law that every recruitment organisation must first be licensed by the Ministry of Labour, but a lot of them operate illegally without registration. A lot of our processes and systems also use paper trails, making it difficult to trace,” she noted. “If enforcement is tightened, the bodies responsible can identify the people running these scams. For instance, in Ghana, the board department publishes a list of licensed employment private agencies online.”
The lawyer believes this would help curb some of the employment scams many desperate job seekers fall victim to. She also thinks in the adoption of a National Job Portal for public service jobs, which is currently being done in other countries like Kenya, as well as public awareness, with national orientation to educate people on these scams, especially using already existing schemes such as NYSC, can help put an end to these issues.
Asylum seekers stand in line for food, water, blankets and clothing near the border wall in Jacumba, California on Saturday, May 13, 2023. The migrant camp at the US-Mexican border is about 60 miles from San Diego. File photo by Ariana Dreshler/UPI | License Photo
July 2 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to stop implementing a proclamation to expel asylum seekers at the border that he had signed shortly after beginning his second term.
Trump had signed the proclamation, titled “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” on January 20, his first day in office. It invoked emergency presidential powers to expel migrants before allowing them to apply for asylum. A coalition of immigrants and immigrant rights groups then sued the administration in February.
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss has now granted the plaintiffs a partial summary judgment, finding that Trump’s proclamation and implementation guidance from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
In his proclamation, Trump had said that the screenings of asylum seekers under the INA — enacted by Congress — can be “wholly ineffective” but that the law grants the president “certain emergency tools” if he were to find that the entry of any class of immigrants would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.
“The court recognizes that the Executive Branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,” Moss wrote.
But he added that the Immigration and Nationality Act “provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country.”
But Moss found that the INA “provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country” and that the government lacked the statutory or constitutional authority to adopt an “alternative immigration system” to the one outlined by Congress.
He stayed his ruling for 14 days in anticipation of a likely appeal from the Trump administration, and deferred judgment on whether the government should grant relief to plaintiffs who are no longer in the United States and other aspects of the lawsuit.The judge’s ruling also did not include an injunction at this stage and ordered the parties to submit a joint status report proposing a briefing schedule on unresolved issues.
It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week in the case of Trump v. CASA Inc., a landmark ruling that determined that lower courts generally lack authority to issue “nationwide” or “universal” injunctions unless they are essential to fully remedy the specific plaintiffs’ harms.
While an injunction has not yet been granted in this case, officials in the Trump administration have criticized Moss as a “rogue” judge seeking to “circumvent” the Supreme Court.
“To try to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling on nationwide injunctions a Marxist judge has declared that all potential future illegal aliens on foreign soil (e.g. a large portion of planet Earth) are part of a protected global ‘class’ entitled to admission into the United States,” Stephen Millerposted on social media.
Gene Hamilton, the former deputy White House counsel, called the judge’s decision “judicial insurrection,” while Attorney General Pamela Bondi said that the Justice Department would fight the “unconstitutional power grab.
Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza after being “ordered” to do so by their commanders, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.
Israel ordered an investigation into possible war crimes over the allegations by some soldiers that it revealed on Friday, Haaretz said.
At least 549 Palestinians have been killed and 4,066 injured while waiting for food aid distributed at sites run by the Israeli-and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the Gaza Government Media Office said on Thursday. The GHF has been a source of widespread criticism since its establishment in May.
According to the Haaretz report, which quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers, troops were told to fire at the crowds of Palestinians and use unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.
“We fired machineguns from tanks and threw grenades,” one soldier told Haaretz. “There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog.”
In another instance, a soldier said that where they were stationed in Gaza, between “one and five people were killed every day”.
“It’s a killing field,” that soldier said.
Method of ‘control’
According to Haaretz, the Military Advocate General has told the army’s General Staff’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, which reviews incidents involving potential violations of the laws of war, to investigate suspected war crimes at these aid sites.
One of the authors of the report, Nir Hasson, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli directive to fire on civilians is part of a method to “control” the aid seekers.
“It’s actually a practice of … controlling the crowd by fire, like if you wanted the crowd to run off [from] a place, you shoot them at them, even though you know they are unarmed … You use fire to move people from one point to another,” he said from West Jerusalem.
While the journalist and his colleagues do not know the name of the commander who might have issued such a directive, Hasson said that he would likely hold a position high up in the army.
Despite this practice at these sites, most Israelis and the army’s troops still believe the war on Gaza is just, even while some cracks are emerging in this understanding, the journalist said.
“[There are] more and more people who are asking themselves if this war is necessary, but also what is the humanitarian price the Gazan population is [paying] for this war,” he said.
‘A death trap’
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the Haaretz report is “shocking”.
“People in Gaza have said these distribution centres have now become a death trap for Palestinians,” Salhut said.
“Aid groups have said that Palestinians are left with no choice – to either starve to death, or die seeking the very little food that is offered in the distribution centres run by the GHF,” she added.
The GHF operates four food distribution sites in Gaza – one in the centre and three in south.
Since an Israeli blockade was lifted on the entry of humanitarian goods at the end of May, attacks on aid seekers in Gaza have increased.
On Friday, medics said six people were killed by gunfire as they tried to get food in southern Gaza.
But the GHF has come under intense condemnation by aid groups, including the United Nations, for its “weaponisation” of vital items.
On Friday, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials, MSF, called the GHF’s aid distribution sites “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.
Since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, at least 56,331 people have been killed, with 132,632 wounded in Israeli attacks, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported.
Israeli forces and drones have reportedly killed dozens in the latest attacks on people seeking aid in Gaza.
The violence, carried out as Palestinians waited for aid at distribution sites across the enclave on Tuesday, may have killed as many as 50 people in total, according to Palestinian health workers and witnesses, although figures remain unverified.
The killings are the latest in a wave of daily carnage near aid distribution points established late last month by the controversial Israeli and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNWRA) has labelled a “death trap”.
Sources in Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera that up to 50 people had been killed by Israeli fire near aid distribution centres since dawn, along with 21 others across the territory.
Medical sources reported that at least 25 people were killed in an incident on Salah al-Din Street south of Wadi Gaza in central Gaza, according to The Associated Press news agency. More than 140 other people were injured, 62 of them critically.
Footage posted on social media site Instagram, and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency, showed bodies being brought to al-Awda Hospital in the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp.
Similar scenes were reported from the Nasser Medical Complex to the south in Khan Younis, following unverified reports that the Israeli army had targeted people waiting for aid on al-Tina Street.
People approaching an aid point in Gaza City were also killed, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from the city in the north of the territory, as well as Rafah in the south.
“Casualties were brought to various health facilities, including al-Shifa Hospital [in Gaza City],” he said. “The emergency ward there turned into a bloodbath, and many died waiting for medical care.”
Witnesses told AP that Israeli forces had opened fire as people were approaching the aid trucks.
“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa, reporting that tanks and drones had fired “even as we were fleeing”.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports of casualties from fire by its troops after a group of people approached soldiers in an area near the militarised Netzarim Corridor.
Israel has said that previous shootings near GHF aid sites have been provoked by the approach of “suspects” towards soldiers.
Witnesses and humanitarian groups have said that many of the shootings took place without warning.
The foundation launched its aid distribution programme in late May after Israel had completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, prompting warnings of mass famine.
The United Nations has refused to work with the GHF, citing concerns that it prioritises Israeli military objectives over humanitarian needs, and condemned it for its “weaponisation” of aid.
The GHF distribution sites have been plagued by scenes of chaos and carnage. More than 400 people have been killed and 1,000 wounded by Israeli soldiers since the GHF aid rollout began.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Tuesday that the system for aid distribution in Gaza was “an abomination”.
“The newly created so-called aid mechanism is an abomination that humiliates and degrades desperate people,” said at a news conference in Berlin. “It is a death trap costing more lives than it saves.”
In a letter published on Monday, the International Commission of Jurists — a human rights NGO of prominent lawyers and judges — joined 14 other groups in condemning the GHF and calling for “an end to private militarized humanitarian aid operations in Gaza”.
Philip Grant, executive director of Geneva-based NGO TRIAL International, said GHF’s model of militarised and privatised aid delivery “violates core humanitarian principles”.
He added that those who enabled or profited from the GHF’s work faced a “real risk of prosecution for complicity in war crimes, including the forcible transfer of civilians and the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.
Among the dozens killed are 13 aid seekers, as NGO warns Israel is also deliberately blocking energy access.
At least 43 people have been killed in various Israeli attacks since dawn as the military relentlessly pounds the besieged enclave, medical sources say, with the overall Palestinian death toll in the war surpassing a staggering 56,000.
Those killed on Monday include at least 20 aid seekers who lost their lives while desperately trying to access food for their families at distribution centres run by the controversial United States- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the United Nations has condemned for its “weaponisation” of aid.
The killings are the latest in a wave of daily carnage, targeting hungry Palestinians who continue to make the perilous journey to the food distribution points. Critics have slammed the sites as “human slaughterhouses” amid a worsening hunger and looming famine crisis.
Israeli attacks on Palestinians near aid centres have killed more than 400 people and wounded about 1,000 since the GHF began distributions on May 27.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Israel is engaged in its conflict with Iran while it also continues “the killing of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip with deadly air strikes on tents or residential homes”.
“Hungry crowds gather at food distribution centres in Rafah or the Netzarim Corridor. So far, 13 aid seekers have been shot dead today. They are among 30 people killed by Israel’s military since the early hours,” Mahmoud said.
Meanwhile, the Wafa news agency reported that at least four people were killed and several others wounded by an Israeli air attack on a residential building in northern Gaza’s Jabalia.
Three others, all brothers, were killed by Israeli forces while they were inspecting their damaged home in the al-Salateen area of Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza.
In central Gaza, al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp announced it had received the bodies of two Palestinians and treated 35 others injured in Israeli strikes on crowds gathered along Salah al-Din Street.
Sixteen of the wounded were in critical condition and transferred to other hospitals in the central governorate, Wafa said.
Israeli artillery also shelled the Shujayea neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.
The latest casualty figures bring the number of people killed in the territory since the start of Israel’s 20-month war more than 56,000, with at least 131,559 wounded.
Energy crisis
The attacks come as the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned that the lack of reliable energy sources is a key threat to survival in Gaza.
The “deliberate denial of energy access”, like electricity and fuel, “undermines fundamental human needs” in the enclave, the NRC said in a new report.
Israel has maintained a crippling aid blockade on Gaza, sealing vital border crossings, and preventing the entry of aid spanning from food, to medical supplies and much-needed fuel.
“In Gaza, energy is not about convenience – it’s about survival,” Benedicte Giaever, executive director of NORCAP, which is part of NRC, said.
“When families can’t cook, when hospitals go dark and when water pumps stop running, the consequences are immediate and devastating. The international community must prioritise energy in all humanitarian efforts,” she added.
NRC’s report noted that without power, healthcare facilities in Gaza have been adversely affected, with emergency surgeries having to be delayed, and ventilators, incubators and dialysis machines unable to function.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says that in the last 48 hours, 202 people have been killed in Israeli attacks.
At least 26 people, including more aid seekers, have been killed in the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The attacks come as desperate Palestinians under Israeli blockade continue to wait at food distribution points amid an ongoing hunger crisis.
Among those killed during Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave on Saturday, 11 were aid recipients at distribution centres run by the United States-and-Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the United Nations has condemned for its “weaponisation” of aid.
Meanwhile, Wafa news agency reported that at least three people were killed and several others wounded by an Israeli drone strike that targeted displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza.
The report said that the attack targeted a tent sheltering displaced members of the Shurrab family. The tent was located in an area the Israeli military had previously designated as a “safe zone”.
In the last 48 hours, at least 202 people have been killed, including four recovered bodies after Israeli attacks, and 1,037 wounded by Israeli attacks across Gaza, the Health Ministry reported.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, at least 55,908 people have been killed, and 131,138 have been wounded in Israeli attacks.
Attacks on aid sites
In recent days, Israeli attacks on aid distribution sites in Gaza have ramped up as thousands of Palestinians gather daily in the hope of receiving food rations following a two-month Israeli blockade of aid deliveries.
On Saturday, three people were killed at a GHF site in Khan Younis after Israeli forces opened fire. Several people were also wounded and taken to medical facilities.
Omar al-Hobi, a displaced Palestinian in Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera from a hospital that walking to those sites means you “enter the point of death”.
“I call it the point of death. The tank is in front of us, the machinegun is in front of us, and the quadcopter is above us, and there are soldiers on the ground with snipers. Anyone who moves before the time is shot, and the moment the tank retreats, we start running,” al-Hobi said.
Israel claims its attacks at the aid sites have been to control crowds, but witnesses and humanitarian groups have said that many of the shootings took place unprovoked, resulting in hundreds of casualties.
The Red Cross said on Thursday, the “vast majority” of patients who arrived at its field hospital in the enclave since the GHF aid system began at the end of last month had reported that they were wounded while trying to access aid or around distribution points.
Meanwhile, Wafa, citing the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in the Gaza Strip, reports that there has been a disruption in internet and landline services affecting the governorates of Gaza, which include Gaza City, and north Gaza.
There is currently an ongoing outage in the southern and central areas of the Gaza Strip that has lasted for more than three days.
Judges say Berlin broke EU law by refusing Somali asylum seekers entry.
A Berlin court has ruled that Germany violated asylum law when it deported three Somali nationals at its border with Poland in a decision that challenges Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s aggressive new migration stance.
The three asylum seekers – two men and one woman – were turned back by border police at a train station in Frankfurt an der Oder, a city on Germany’s eastern border.
“The applicants could not demand to enter Germany beyond the border crossing,” the court said in a statement on Monday. “However, the rejection was unlawful because Germany is obliged to process their claims.”
Officials cited the asylum seekers’ arrival from a “safe third country” as grounds for their refusal.
But the court determined the expulsion was illegal under European Union rules, specifically the Dublin regulation, which requires Germany to assess asylum claims if it is the responsible state under the agreement.
It marks the first such legal ruling since Merz’s conservative-led coalition took office in February, riding a wave of anti-immigration sentiment that has helped boost the far-right Alternative for Germany party, now the country’s second largest political force in parliament.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt defended the deportations, saying the asylum system was failing under pressure. “The numbers are too high. We are sticking to our practice,” he told reporters, adding that the court would receive legal justifications for the government’s position.
Migration policies in doubt
But opposition lawmakers were quick to capitalise on the ruling. Irene Mihalic of the Greens called it “a severe defeat” for Merz’s government, accusing it of overstepping its powers “for populist purposes”.
“The border blockades were a rejection of the European Dublin system and have offended our European neighbours,” she said.
Karl Kopp, managing director of Pro Asyl, an immigration advocacy group, said the expulsion of the Somalis reflected an “unlawful practice of national unilateral action” in asylum policy and called for their return to Germany, the Reuters news agency reported.
The ruling also casts doubt on Merz’s wider migration agenda. In May, his government introduced a directive to turn back undocumented people at Germany’s borders, including those seeking asylum – a sharp departure from former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s more open policy during the 2015 migrant crisis.
Last month, the European Commission proposed a bloc-wide mechanism that would permit member states to reject asylum seekers who passed through a “safe” third country. The measure, widely criticised by rights groups, still awaits approval from national parliaments and the European legislature.
Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth”, the United Nations has said, as Israel continues to block all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering the Strip, where famine stalks the entire Palestinian population, and the Israeli military relentlessly bombs the besieged enclave.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on Friday that 100 percent of the 2.3-million population of Gaza is now on the verge of “catastrophic hunger”.
The “limited number of truckloads coming in [Gaza] is a trickle – it’s drip-feeding food,” Laerk said.
“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”, he added.
What paucity of aid is entering the enclave is under the control of a new, shadowy NGO backed by Israel and the United States – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
On Friday, sources at Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera that 20 people were shot by Israeli troops as they desperately tried to get food at a GHF aid distribution point.
That distribution site, located near Israel’s Netzarim Corridor bisecting the territory, is the third to have been set up, after two distribution points were established in the southern city of Rafah.
Armed surveillance is administered around the clock. “People are telling us that the sites managed and operated by the GHF are metres away from where the Israeli military is stationed. They can see the tanks, they can see the armoured vehicles,” said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.
Ten people were killed earlier this week trying to access food distribution points, and images showed many being herded into cage-like lines. Palestinians desperately trying to get hold of any aid must risk Israeli fire and military forces.
“There are also reports of enforced disappearances. A lot of families reported that many of their children, of their family members, who went to the sites … have gone missing as they were trying to get food,” Mahmoud said.
The aid delivery scheme has been roundly condemned by UN officials and the humanitarian community, who have accused the group of aiding Israel’s war objectives by forcibly displacing Palestinians under the guise of aid.
Critics maintain that the currently inadequate aid could be safely scaled up in Gaza, if Israel would allow access to aid and let the organisations that have decades of experience handle the flow.
“Through this dangerous and reckless approach, food is not being distributed where it’s needed most but is instead directed only to areas where Israeli forces choose to amass civilians,” said Doctors Without Borders Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear. “This means the most vulnerable – especially the elderly and people with disabilities – have virtually no chance of accessing the food they desperately need.”
Famine is declared in an area where at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food. At famine levels of deprivation, 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least four children in every 10,000 die each day from starvation or malnutrition-linked disease. OCHA said at least 1 in 5 people in Gaza is currently facing starvation.
Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says it’s “safe to say there is famine” in Gaza. Fakhri told Al Jazeera that Israel is using aid “as bait to corral people” and push them out of the north and into militarised zones”.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza was already catastrophic when Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, causing conditions to deteriorate even further. After growing international pressure, Israeli authorities said they would allow minimal supplies of food and medicine into the Strip, but critical supplies are still not reaching the people.
France’s sanctions threat
The chorus of condemnation against Israel was underscored by France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday. The French leader warned that Paris could “apply sanctions” unless the Israeli government responds to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Speaking during a visit to Singapore on Friday, Macron said the international community could not remain passive while Palestinians in Gaza face a deepening hunger crisis that is “untenable”.
“If there is no response in the coming hours and days in line with the humanitarian situation, we will have to harden our collective position,” he added, suggesting that France may consider applying sanctions against Israeli settlers.
Palestinian daily deaths as ceasefire remains uncertain
At least 30 people have been killed since dawn on Friday in attacks in southern Deir el-Balah, northern Jabalia and on eastern Khan Younis.
The Israeli army has also been expanding its military operation on the ground, issuing new forced displacement orders for five areas in northern Gaza. According to a UN spokesperson, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in Gaza in the last two weeks by Israel’s displacement orders.
Meanwhile, hopes for an elusive truce remained unrealised. Hamas said on Friday it is currently reviewing a new US ceasefire proposal that Washington says has been signed off on by Israel, but that in its current form will only result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on the ceasefire proposal, and the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had submitted it to Hamas for consideration.
Trump said he believes his administration will have an announcement later on Friday, “or maybe tomorrow”.
“We have a chance of that,” he told reporters from the Oval Office.
The details of the new proposal have not been made public, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the news agency Reuters that, crucially, it did not contain commitments from Israel to end its war on Gaza, withdraw from the enclave, or allow aid to freely enter the war-torn territory.
At least 10 Palestinians desperately seeking aid from a contentious and heavily criticised United States-backed organisation have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the last 48 hours, according to the besieged enclave’s Government Media Office.
The updated toll on Wednesday comes a day after a harrowing video showed thousands of starving Palestinians rushing to get aid, with many of them herded into cage-like lines, from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution point in Rafah in southern Gaza.
In a statement, the Government Media Office said Israeli forces “opened direct fire on hungry Palestinian civilians who had gathered to receive aid” at the distribution site, wounding at least 62 people.
It was not immediately clear exactly how many incidents of gunfire occurred or on which days the 10 Palestinians were fatally shot, but there were deaths on both days.
“These locations were transformed into death traps under the occupation’s gunfire,” the media office said, decrying the killings as a “heinous crime”.
For its part, the GHF said it had opened a second of a planned four aid distribution sites in Gaza on Wednesday.
The centres are part of an aid delivery scheme that has been roundly condemned by United Nations officials and the humanitarian community, who have repeatedly said that life-saving aid could be adequately and safely scaled up in Gaza if Israel would allow access to aid and let those organisations that have decades of experience handle the flow.
Speaking earlier in the day, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, decried the US-backed delivery model as a “distraction from atrocities” and called on Israel to allow the UN-backed humanitarian system to “do its life-saving work now”.
The message was echoed by several members of the UN Security Council during a meeting in New York discussing the conflict, with Algeria, France and the United Kingdom among those appealing for Israel to allow unfettered aid deliveries.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said Israel was using “aid as a weapon of war”.
Reporting from UN headquarters, Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey said that Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s special coordinator for Middle East peace, and Feroze Sidhwa, a surgeon who recently went on a humanitarian mission to Gaza, were among those who addressed the council.
“The message from both of these experts was again calling for a ceasefire and the full resumption of aid into the Gaza Strip,” she said.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, criticised the UN for what he said were “attempts to block access to aid” and demanded a retraction from Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian chief, for accusing Israel of committing genocide.
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said the attacks levied by Danon should come as no surprise.
“They are on the defensive, knowing all too well that they lost their public relations campaign and that their reputation around the world is in the mud,” he said, referring to Israel’s near-daily bombardment and siege of Gaza.
The alternate US representative at the UN, John Kelley, said that the UN should “work with the GHF and Israel to reach an agreement on how to operationalise this system in a way that works for all”.
He maintained that the GHF was “independent” and developed to “provide a secure mechanism for the delivery of aid to those in need”.
Relentless Israeli attacks
As the debate over aid access raged, Israel’s punishing attacks continued across Gaza, with rights observers warning of an even worsening humanitarian situation.
At least 63 people were killed in Israeli attacks since the early hours of Wednesday, according to medical sources speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic, bringing the death toll since October 7, 2023, to at least 54,084 Palestinians, with more than 123,308 wounded.
The ministry added that only 17 hospitals in Gaza remained partially functioning, with critical shortages of essential medicines and oxygen supplies.
Separately, the Red Cross reported that its field hospital in southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi area came under Israeli fire early on Wednesday, causing panic and injuries among patients there.
In an open letter, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), Oxfam and other nonprofit groups called for “full, independent and international investigations into the attacks on healthcare in Gaza as violations of international humanitarian law”.
The UN’s World Food Programme, meanwhile, reported that its warehouse in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah had been broken into by hungry people “in search of food supplies”. Preliminary reports indicate that at least four people were killed amid the stampede and gunfire, though the cause of the latter was not immediately clear.
The agency said that increasing aid was “the only way to reassure people that they will not starve”.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City that the search for food has proven deadly, even away from crowded distribution areas.
“For example, in the past couple of hours, two people were reported killed in the Shujayea neighbourhood [of Gaza City]. They were killed trying to get to their homes,” he said.
“They were forced to evacuate in the past few weeks. They left everything behind. All of their belongings, all of their food supplies that they managed to get … [were] inside the house.”
Ceasefire remains elusive
As the attacks have continued, a breakthrough for a more lasting agreement to end the fighting has remained elusive.
Still, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, on Wednesday said he had “very good feelings” about soon reaching a long-term solution.
That came shortly after Hamas said it had reached an agreement with Witkoff on a general framework for a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid.
The framework appears at odds with the position of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said the Israeli military would remain in Gaza indefinitely, continuing to control aid access and pursuing the complete defeat of Hamas.
Speaking to Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu listed top Hamas officials killed throughout the war. The list included Mohammed Sinwar, the brother and successor of killed Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar.
Hamas has not yet confirmed Mohammed Sinwar’s death.
WASHINGTON — Asylum seekers under the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy whose cases were closed — many for reasons beyond their control, including kidnappings and court rulings against the government — will now be able to come into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims, the Biden administration said Tuesday.
The administration on Wednesday will begin to allow the first of thousands with closed cases to pursue their asylum claims within the United States, the Department of Homeland Security announced. More than 30,000 migrants could potentially be eligible, according to government data.
“As part of our continued effort to restore safe, orderly, and humane processing at the Southwest Border, DHS will expand the pool” of asylum seekers eligible for processing, the department said in a statement, including those “who had their cases terminated or were ordered removed in absentia.”
But when President Biden took office and began winding down the policy that he sharply criticized, his administration allowed only asylum seekers under Remain in Mexico — formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols — whose immigration cases remained open to enter the United States.
Since February, the Biden administration has permitted entry to some 12,000 asylum seekers with pending Migrant Protection Protocols cases, according to the United Nations refugee agency, the primary organization processing them. At the same time, Biden officials have urged patience from those whose cases were closed, promising a second phase.
Advocates and experts welcomed the move to begin admitting those asylum seekers, but criticized the administration’s slowness on restoring access.
“A delay of that kind would have to be driven by political considerations, not legal or purely administrative ones,” said Austin Kocher, an assistant professor at Syracuse University. “It flags a larger question: Is the Biden administration serious about following its national and international obligations to asylum law?”
For many asylum seekers, it is too late. From January 2019, when the Trump administration first implemented the policy in Southern California, to when Biden froze the program on his first day in office, roughly 70,000 migrants were sent by U.S. officials to wait in some of the world’s most dangerous cities just south of the border.
More than 1,500 of them suffered rape, kidnapping and assault, according to Human Rights First. And those numbers have continued to rise during Biden’s presidency, through a combination of policies that have left tens of thousands stuck on the southern side of the border.
“Why it’s taken so long is obviously of concern, because those people who are still in Mexico are still suffering and in dangerous situations,” said Judy Rabinovitz of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued then-President Trump over the policy.
Biden administration officials have acknowledged this grim toll, even as they continue to send asylum seekers — some with Migrant Protection Protocols cases — to Mexico again, invoking a Trump-era coronavirus policy. Citing Title 42, an obscure 1944 public health law, border officials have summarily expelled more than 850,000 migrants, including asylum seekers, this time without a court date or due process.
“Having Title 42 still in place at the same time that the administration is claiming to try and fix cases in Remain in Mexico presents the administration with a fundamental contradiction between what they claim to be doing and the way that border control is actually working on the ground,” said Kocher.
Biden froze Migrant Protection Protocols on his first day in office, though it had already largely been supplanted by Trump’s coronavirus expulsions policy. But the Biden administration did not formally end Remain in Mexico until June 1.
In the memo ending the policy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said it had further strained department resources and added to a record backlog in immigration court proceedings.
More than 25% of those subjected to the policy were apprehended by border officials when they attempted to enter again, Mayorkas said, and roughly 44% of cases were completed by judges’ orders to remove asylum seekers who missed their hearings.
That raised questions about whether the program provided them “adequate opportunity” to appear, he said, “and whether conditions faced by some MPP enrollees in Mexico, including the lack of stable access to housing, income, and safety, resulted in the abandonment of potentially meritorious protection claims.”
Advocates argue that migrants subjected to Migrant Protection Protocols who received final decisions from immigration judges denying their asylum claims also deserve to be given another opportunity to seek asylum in accordance with U.S. law.
On Tuesday, the Homeland Security Department statement reiterated that others who may be eligible to enter in the future “should stay where they are currently located and register online” through a system administered by the United Nations.
“This is what they wanted, and this is what they got: People couldn’t get asylum,” Rabinovitz said of Trump administration officials. Now with Biden in the White House, she continued, “we’re saying no — in order to unwind it, you need to give people a new opportunity to apply for asylum, free of that taint.”
U.S. border officials frequently committed errors while administering the Remain in Mexico policy, The Times found. That included serving asylum seekers paperwork in languages they did not speak, or writing the phrase “domicilio conocido” — “known address” — or simply “Tijuana” — a Mexican border city of some 2 million people — on their paperwork, instead of a legally required address. That made it nearly impossible for applicants to be notified of changes to their cases or court dates.
These missteps by U.S. border officials also fueled federal judges’ rulings against the policy.
In one ruling, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge said Homeland Security’s procedures for implementing the policy were “so ill-suited to achieving that stated goal as to render them arbitrary and capricious.”
But the Supreme Court never ultimately ruled on the legality of Migrant Protection Protocols. In early February, the Biden administration asked the nation’s highest court to cancel arguments on the policy. Opponents in several states sued, arguing that the Biden administration cannot end it.
On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected that effort, ordering: “The motion to intervene is dismissed as moot.”
May 17 (UPI) — Three Iranian men were charged with National Security Act violations for targeting U.K.-based journalists with “serious violence” during a Saturday court appearance.
Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, of London were charged in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the BBC reported.
Sepahvand also is charged with “surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research” while planning to commit “serious violence against a person in the U.K.”
The trio are London residents who have sought asylum and were arrested on May 3 for “engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service” from Aug. 14 to Feb. 16, CNN reported.
Iran’s foreign intelligence service is the one they are accused of assisting by allegedly surveilling and targeting journalists for Iran International, which is an independent media outlet based in London.
The three are Iranian citizens and entered the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2022.
Sepahvand hid inside a lorry when he arrived in 2016, while the other two arrived in small boats.
Each was granted temporary asylum shortly after arriving in the United Kingdom.
None of the three entered pleas during Saturday’s court hearing, and the three men have another court hearing scheduled on June 6 at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court in London.
