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The former mayor of a small town in southern Italy was convicted Thursday of aiding illegal immigration and sentenced to 13 years and two months in prison, the Associated Press reported.

Domenico "Mimmo" Lucano was also found guilty of fraud, embezzlement, criminal association and abuse of office by the court in Calabria.

Lucano, who has denied committing any crimes, previously served as the mayor for Riace, also known as "the town of welcome." Prosecutors accused Lucano of helping to arrange marriages between Italian men in his town and foreign women, who would receive residency permits for Italy when married.

He also misused government money meant to assist migrants, including five million euros that ended up in private pockets rather than serving its intended purpose, prosecutors alleged. Lucano's face was one of disbelief as he heard his verdict and he was seen putting a hand on his forehead, the AP reported.

"I will be stained for life for wrongs I didn't commit,'' he said, as reported by the Italian news agency ANSA.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

Lucano's lawyers said they will appeal both the conviction and the sentence, which was some five years longer than what prosecutors had requested.

One of his lawyers, Giuliano Pisapia, a former left-wing mayor of Milan, had discounted that the trial was politically motivated. Still, he said, "without a doubt, there was certainly hostility against Lucano."

Lucano remains out of prison pending the outcome of final appeals.

Humanitarian groups that rescue migrants from traffickers' unseaworthy boats in the Mediterranean expressed outrage at the court's verdict and sentence.

"The former mayor of Riace gave life and future to his city through welcome and solidarity,'' tweeted Sea Watch Italy. "We are at the side of Mimmo Lucano and whoever practices solidarity every day."

Many migrants in Riace, a town of some 1,700 people, obtained municipal jobs, such as as street cleaners, while Lucano was mayor.

Another humanitarian group, Mediterranea Saving Humans, decried the verdict as "shameful." In a statement it described the trial's outcome as "the gravest repressive attack on the culture and the practice of solidarity in our country."

The charity added: "Who is poor or a migrant is forced to suffer every violence, and whoever helps them is considered a criminal."

Riace is famous for the discovery in 1972 of two ancient Greek statues at the bottom of the sea off the nearby coast. The statues are known as the Riace Bronzes.

More here:
Mayor Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison, Convicted of Aiding Illegal Immigration - Newsweek

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was confronted by immigration activists who followed the senator from the classroom where she teaches at Arizona State University to the bathroom while demanding the Arizona Democrat take action on a "pathway to citizenship."

"We knocked on doors for you to get you elected. Just how we got you elected, we can get you out of office if you don't support what you promised us," one of the activists said to Sinema in the video that was recorded with a phone.

MANCHIN CONFRONTED BY KAYAKERS IN HIS DC HOUSEBOAT

The activists first confronted Sinema at her ASU classroom, then followed her down the hall as the senator went into the bathroom and shut the door of a stall. Nevertheless, the activists continued to voice their demands from inside the bathroom, including a demand that she support President Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda and legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal migrants.

"We need the Build Back Better plan right now," one activist said.

"I was brought here to the United States when I was 3 years old and in 2010 my grandparents both got deported because of S.B. 1070," another activist said. "And I'm here because I definitely believe that we need a pathway to citizenship."

Sinema did not engage in a discussion with the activists in the video footage, instead ignoring the group as she exited the stall and washed her hands.

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz weighed in on the video, sharing it to social media with the caption "#DeportBlanca."

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The video comes on the same day another group of activists confronted Sen. Joe Manchin at his houseboat in Washington, D.C., demanding the West Virginia Democrat drop his opposition to his party's $3.5 trillion spending bill.

Both Sinema and Manchin have expressed opposition to the legislation, dealing a blow to Democrats who cannot afford a single defection in the evenly split Senate.

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Sinema confronted by immigration activists in a bathroom - Fox News

Illegal immigration into Spain has increased by 51% compared to the same period last year.

The number of illegal immigrants who tried to enter Spain by land and sea until September 30 has increased by 51%, according to data published from the Ministry of The Interior.

Between January 1 and September 30, 2021, a total of 28,729 were counted, over half more than in the same period from the previous year, when 19,024 illegal entries were recorded.

Of these, 47% made it to the Canary Islands, where a total of 13,118 migrants arrived in the islands (116% more than in 2020), while the remaining 13,320 made it to the coasts of mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands (18.8% more than a year before).

The number of arrivals by sea to Ceuta has also grown, by a staggering 142%. Between January 1 and September 30 of last year, 286 people arrived in the autonomous city, compared to the 694 that have been counted so far in 2021. On the other hand, arrivals in Melilla fell by 73%: 15 people who arrived in the first nine months of 2020, that has dropped to just 4 this year.

Melilla and Ceuta and recently Almeria in Spain are often seen as a gateway to Europeas migrants struggle to cross over from Africa many of them fleeing conflict and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan countries, and others increasingly arriving from Syria or Palestine.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and checkThe Euro Weekly Newswebsite for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us onFacebookandInstagram.

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Illegal immigrants into Spain increase by 51% compared to last year - Euro Weekly News

The woman who followed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., into the bathroom while filming her defended her actions, accusing critics of being the "tone police" in a Facebook post.

Dr. Sophia Marjovic, one of the immigration activists who confronted Sinema at Arizona State University over "a pathway to citizenship" for illegal immigrants this weekend, defended filming the senator while following her into the bathroom.

Marjovic accused critics of her filming a senator as she went into a bathroom stall as trying to "tone police" her "desperate demands for labor protections" in a Sunday Facebook post, saying the critics did not "have a right" to do after what she "endured as a human trafficking survivor due to the f---ed up gig economy."

SINEMA FIRES BACK AFTER FAR-LEFT ACTIVISTS RECORD HER IN ASU BATHROOM: UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR

"None of you have a right to tone police my desperate demands for labor protections after what I have endured as a human trafficking survivor due to the f---ed up gig economy," Marjovic wrote in her Facebook post.

"For now, connect with the fact that you are on stolen Indigenous land and Indigenous women and children go missing and murdered because we don't have access to stable jobs, stable housing,clean water, clean food, or stable decent healthcare despite the fact that Indigenous people have upheld our end of the treaty in assimilating and getting educated," she continued.

Marjovic also wrote that she "will speak about the controversy regarding following Senator Sinema into the bathroom" when she has "the time."

Sinema unloaded on the group of activists in a Monday press release, saying they "filmed and publicly posted videos" of her students "without their permission" as well as "footage taken of both my students and I using a restroom."

"It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom," Sinema said in a Monday press release.

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"In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students," the senator continued. "Yesterday, that environment was breached. My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. This is wholly inappropriate."

Sinema was confronted by immigration activists who followed the senator from the classroom where she teaches to the bathroom while demanding the Arizona Democrat take action on a "pathway to citizenship."

Marjovic did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment.

Fox News Michael Lee contributed reporting.

Houston Keene is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find him on Twitter at @HoustonKeene.

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Activist who recorded Sinema in ASU bathroom defends actions, accuses critics of being 'tone police' - Fox News

The Biden administration is going to take another crack at ending former President Donald Trumps Remain in Mexico immigration policy after a federal judge and the Supreme Court allowed it to remain in effect.

The Department of Homeland Security released a statement Wednesday evening announcing its intent to issue a memorandum scuttling the policy known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols.

A federal judge in Texas ruled DHS effort to end the program that requires people claiming asylum to wait out the process in their own countries violated the law and issued an injunction to stop the White House from ending it.

The Supreme Court last month turned down the administrations request to block the judges order.

A new memorandum terminating MPP will not take effect until the current injunction is lifted by court order. In issuing a new memorandum terminating MPP, the Department intends to address the concerns raised by the courts with respect to the prior memorandum, DHS said in the statement.

In the meantime, while the court injunction remains in effect, the Department has been working in good faith to re-start MPP in compliance with the order, and it will continue to do so, it continued.

DHS also said it and the State Department are involved in high-level diplomatic discussions about the policy.

President Biden reversed and rolled back a number of the Trump administrations immigration policies, including Remain in Mexico, in the early days of his administration.

The Republican attorneys general of Texas and Missouri sued, as suspension of the program would result in a surge of illegal immigrants coming to the US.

Since rolling back the policies, the Biden administration has scrambled to curb the record-smashing influx of illegal immigrants at the border.

Earlier this month, in one instance, more than 14,000 Haitian migrants traveled to the US border, walked into the country unobstructed, and camped out under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, for more than a week as they waited to be processed.

The administration deported some of them to Haiti, but DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on Sunday that more than 12,000 of the illegal immigrants have been released in the US.

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DHS tries again to end Trump-era 'Remain in Mexico' immigration policy - New York Post