This day in 1993, Hollywood and Nashville combined as it was revealed that Julia Roberts had married Lyle Lovett in a hush-hush ceremony two days earlier. The fairytale was not destined for a happy ending though, the couple divorced less than two years later.
HOUSTON (AP) — The acting head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection resigned Tuesday amid an uproar over the discovery of migrant children being held in pitiful conditions at one of the agency’s stations in Texas.
Acting Commissioner John Sanders’ departure deepened the sense of crisis and added to the rapid turnover inside the agencies responsible for enforcing President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration priorities as the U.S. deals with record numbers of migrant families coming across the border.
In a message to employees, Sanders said he would step down on July 5. He did not give a reason for leaving.
Hours after Sanders’ departure became public, two officials told The Associated Press that he was being replaced by Mark Morgan, who was named acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just last month. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly about the move and declined to be identified.
In an interview last week, Sanders blamed the problems in detention on a lack of money and called on Congress to pass a $4.5 billion emergency funding bill to address the crisis. The House approved the legislation on Tuesday night, setting up a showdown with the Senate where Republican leaders plan approval of a different, bipartisan bill this week that does not offer as many protections and services for migrants.
At the White House, Trump said that he did not ask for Sanders’ resignation — adding that he doesn’t think he has ever spoken to the man — but that he is “moving some people around into different locations” amid the crisis.
While activists welcomed Sanders’ departure, Trump defended U.S. border authorities, saying, “The laws are so bad and the asylum rules and laws are so bad that our Border Patrol people, who are so incredible, aren’t allowed to do their jobs.”
The unprecedented surge of migrant families has left U.S. immigration detention centers severely overcrowded and taxed the government’s ability to provide medical care and other attention. Six children have died since September after being detained by border agents.
After he was picked to lead ICE, Morgan, the new acting director, showed a willingness to deport families during enforcement sweeps. However, past Trump immigration officials hesitated over concerns about logistics and the public’s reaction.
The Trump administration has faced a barrage of criticism in recent days over conditions inside the Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas, first reported by The Associated Press: inadequate food, lack of medical care, no soap, and older children trying to care for toddlers.
In one case reported in Clint, attorneys said a 2-year-old boy without a diaper was being watched by older children. Several youngsters had the flu. Many were separated from extended family members like aunts and uncles who brought them to the border; others were teenage mothers with babies.
“On just a gut level I see myself, I see my family, I see my neighbors, I see my students in these migrants,” said Diego Carlos, who teaches social studies at an El Paso high school and joined a small protest outside the station.
“Literally, I have students who come over from the border almost every day to go to school at the school I teach,” Carlos added.
An official from Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday that the majority of the roughly 300 children detained at Clint last week had been moved to facilities operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, wouldn’t say exactly how many.
But around the same time Sanders announced his resignation, his agency said officials had moved more than 100 children back to the station.
The human costs of the migrant surge were driven home this week by a searing photo of the bodies of a Salvadoran man and his nearly 2-year-old daughter, face down in shallow water along the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. On Sunday, two babies, a toddler and a woman were found dead on the Texas side, overcome by the sweltering heat.
Trump said he is “very concerned” about conditions at the border but claimed without evidence that things are “much better than they were under President Obama, by far” and in “much better shape than it ever was” — an assertion immigration activists said is simply not true.
“We did not have the kind of overcrowded conditions for unaccompanied kids in Border Patrol holding cells like we saw in Clint,” said Michael Bochenek, a lawyer from Human Rights Watch.
Previously CBP’s chief operating officer, Sanders was named acting commissioner in April after the agency’s previous leader, Kevin McAleenan, became acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Other key DHS agencies also have interim or acting directors, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Morgan, who also served as chief of the Border Patrol, a subsidiary of CBP, under President Barack Obama, is now expected to be replaced as ICE’s acting leader by Matthew Albence. Albence served as acting director earlier this year after the departure of another former leader, Ronald Vitiello.
ICE on Saturday delayed an operation to sweep U.S. cities and arrest hundreds of people accused of flouting orders to leave the country, days after Trump tweeted about the upcoming crackdown. Former ICE acting director Thomas Homan, a Trump administration ally, then went on television to accuse McAleenan of leaking information about the operation because he opposed it.
CBP is the agency that apprehends and first detains migrant parents and children crossing the Mexican border.
CBP’s facilities at the border were almost all built when most people crossing into the U.S. illegally were single adults. Now, the agency is apprehending tens of thousands of parents and children weekly. It recorded 84,500 apprehensions of adults and children traveling together in May.
In the wake of Sanders’ resignation, Democratic Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, lashed out at the administration’s immigration policies and “bad actors in the White House.”
“There is simply no excuse for the horrific conditions children and families are being held in at the border,” he said.
Jennifer Quigley, director of refugee advocacy for Human Rights First, called on Congress to hold hearings on the youngsters’ treatment.
“Trump administration officials need to be held accountable for the disgraceful response to the situation at the border,” she said in a statement. “This is only the tip of the iceberg. We need a full accounting of how children came to be caged in filthy and unsafe conditions.”
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Associated Press journalists Jill Colvin and Colleen Long in Washington, and Cedar Attanasio in El Paso, Texas, contributed to this report.
There is racing tonight (6/26) at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. Dickey Transport and Middlekoop Seed will be sponsoring the 2019 Hall of Fame Night at the Speedway. Action will heat up with hot laps in all four racing divisions at 7 pm with racing to follow at 7:30. After the heat races have been run, the 2019 Hall of Fame class inductees will be honored. KBOE-FM’s coverage of the Southern Iowa Speedway starts at 6pm with the pre-race show…and the races at 7:30.
Dierks Bentley is dealing with a few bumps and bruises. The singer revealed in an interview that he was in the emergency room yesterday after injuring himself in a mountain bike accident in Colorado.
Turns out Dierks broke some bones in his hand in the accident, but it shouldn’t keep him from the stage, since he isn’t really playing guitar on stage during his current tour. He is worried about one thing. Seems he hurt his right hand, which is also the hand he uses to hold his beer.
Dierks’ “Burning Man Tour” hits Clarkston, Michigan on Saturday.
This day in 1977, Elvis Presley gave his final concert at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana. His final song of the concert was “Can’t Help Falling In Love”.
Footage of the final concert was taken but has not been widely seen; the audio portion can be heard on the LP “The Last Farewell” (released on CD as Adios: The Final Performance).
The last recording Elvis made was a vocal overdub on “He’ll Have To Go” done on October 31st, 1976 in the “Jungle Room” at his home at Graceland.
The last song Elvis performed in private was a rendition of “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain,” done on his piano in Graceland hours before his death.
Elvis would suffer a fatal heart attack on August 16th, 1977.
Two overturned kayaks were discovered early Tuesday morning (6/25) north of Oskaloosa. The good news is that everyone has been accounted for and no one was hurt. The Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office tells the No Coast Network it was called around 1:10am about two capsized kayaks on the South Skunk River north of Oskaloosa. A group of four kayakers had entered the river on Highway 63 near the Oskaloosa Waterworks plant around midnight. One of the four had swam to short and walked to a neighboring farmhouse to call for help. Mahaska County Sheriff Russ Van Renterghem says two more kayakers arrived safely to the Glendale river access on Oxford Avenue, leaving one kayaker unaccounted for.
“So that’s when we contacted the Osky Fire Department and the New Sharon Fire Department to bring their boats out so we could start searching for her. It was about 3:15 this morning where we actually found her on land and she was safe.”
All four kayakers refused medical treatment. Van Renterghem says kayaking or canoeing late at night isn’t a good idea….especially with water levels being so high.
“The river is just bank full, I mean, the South Skunk is bank full. Much more coming down, it’s going to be out of its banks again.”
Van Renterghem adds that all four kayakers were wearing life jackets.
By MARTHA MENDOZA and GARANCE BURKE
The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.
Just 30 children remained at the station outside El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection.
Attorneys who visited Clint last week said older children were trying to take care of infants and toddlers, The Associated Press first reported Thursday. They described a 4-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days, and hungry, inconsolable children struggling to soothe one another. Some had been locked for three weeks inside the facility, where 15 children were sick with the flu and another 10 were in medical quarantine.
She asked to be informed by the end of this week what steps they’re taking to end “these humanitarian abuses.”
Lawmakers from both parties decried the situation last week.
Border Patrol officials have not responded to AP’s questions about the conditions at the Clint facility, but in an emailed statement Monday they said: “Our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis.”
Although it’s unclear where all the children held at Clint have been moved, Escobar said some were sent to another facility on the north side of El Paso called Border Patrol Station 1. Escobar said it’s a temporary site with roll-out mattresses, showers, medical facilities and air conditioning.
But Clara Long, an attorney who interviewed children at Border Patrol Station 1 last week, said conditions were not necessarily better there.
“One boy I spoke with said his family didn’t get mattresses or blankets for the first two nights, and he and his mom came down with a fever,” said Long, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch. “He said there were no toothbrushes, and it was very, very cold.”
Long and a group of lawyers inspected the facilities because they are involved in the Flores settlement, a Clinton-era legal agreement that governs detention conditions for migrant children and families. The lawyers negotiated access to the facility with officials and say Border Patrol knew the dates of their visit three weeks in advance.
Many children interviewed had arrived alone at the U.S.-Mexico border, but some had been separated from their parents or other adult caregivers including aunts and uncles, the attorneys said.
Government rules call for children to be held by the Border Patrol in their short-term stations for no longer than 72 hours before they are transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services, which houses migrant youth in facilities around the country through its Office of Refugee Resettlement while authorities determine if they can be released to relatives or family friends.
Customs and Border Protection has referred AP’s questions to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which said Monday that 249 children who had been held at Clint would be moved to the agency’s network of shelters and other facilities by Tuesday.
″(Unaccompanied children) are waiting too long in CBP facilities that are not designed to care for children,” ORR spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said. “These children should now all be in HHS care as of Tuesday.”
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This story has been corrected to show Pence was on “Face the Nation,” not “Meet the Press.”
The Oskaloosa Community Development Foundation made a big donation to the Oskaloosa Kiwanis Club Monday (6/24). The Foundation presented a check for over $40,000 to go toward the Kiwanis playground project at Edmundson Park. The Oskaloosa Kiwanis plans to make improvements at the wooden playground at Edmundson Park.
Thomas Rhett is celebrating a new number one. The singer’s latest single, “Look What God Gave Her” is number one on both the “Billboard” Country Airplay and Country Aircheck/Mediabase Airplay charts this week, making it his 13th number one single.
“Thirteen…what an incredible way to celebrate this chapter of new music,” Thomas shares. “This year has already been beyond anything I could have dreamed of, I’m just so grateful and blown away by the continued support.”
And it sounds like Thomas is already planning his next hit. The singer announced that “Remember You Young,” will be the next single from his latest release, “Center Point Road.”
In other chart news…
Garth Brooks and Blake Shelton’s “Dive Bar” debuts at 16 on the Country Airplay chart, and at 34 on the Hot Country Songs chart.
Luke Bryan’s “Knockin’ Boots” is at eight on the Hot Country Songs chart, Luke’s 28th Top Ten hit.
Oskaloosa High’s baseball team moved into first place in the LIttle Hawkeye Conference Monday night (6/24) by sweeping a doubleheader from Newton. The Indians took the first game 11-1 as Rian Yates went two for three with four runs batted in. Tyler Miller was the winning pitcher. In the nightcap, Rian Yates and Cole Kraber both homered and Kraber pitched a three-hitter with five strikeouts as Oskaloosa defeated the Cardinals 5-1. Oskaloosa improves to 11-4 in the Little Hawkeye Conference….and combined with Dallas Center-Grimes splitting a Monday doubleheader with Grinnell…that moves the Indians into first place in the Conference, one half game ahead of Dallas Center-Grimes. Tuesday night (6/25), the Indians play a non-conference game at EBF with the first pitch at 7:30.
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