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Trumps arraignment

Donald Trump has a busy day ahead of him tomorrow. He returned to the Big Apple Monday night and, after getting some shut-eye in Trump Tower, the former president will head to the Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday for his indictment. After his court appearance and a quick photo-op, hell jet back to Mar-a-Lago before an evening news conference.

Sound like an orchestrated plan? Thats because Trumps team wants to capitalize on the publicity blitz around his arrest to bolster his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Theres reason to believe this is working: Since the news of his indictment dropped, his campaign claims to have raised $7 million, and his polling numbers have soared above other Republican candidates.

On March 30, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the results of his investigation before a Manhattan grand jury, which voted to indict the former president. Trump is expected to plead not guilty on Tuesday.

While the charges against him have not been revealed, they likely involve Trump's reimbursement to his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence ahead of the 2016 election. The Trump Organization then filed Cohens $420,000 reimbursement and bonus as a legal expense.

Falsifying business records is only a misdemeanor in New York, but if it is done with the intent to commit or cover up another crime namely, violating campaign finance laws then Trump could be looking at a Class E felony and a minimum of one year in prison.

Trump will be the first former US president to be indicted on criminal charges. But whether his indictment will push the GOP to jump ship in favor of another candidate, or what it means for the campaign if they dont, remains unclear.

On Tuesday, Finland finally joins NATO, lengthening the alliances border with Russia by 800 miles and adding to its ranks some of the worlds most fearsome snow snipers. Good work, Mr. Putin!

But remember who isnt joining the club? Sweden, whose accession bid remains blocked by NATO member Turkey, who says Stockholm still hasnt done enough to quash Kurdish terrorist groups that are at war with the Turkish government. Note that Turkey dropped similar objections about Finland last week but is still squeezing Sweden.

Why? For one thing, Turkeys pugnacious President Recep Tayyip Erdoan faces a very tough election in May, and flexing against the West like this can stoke nationalist passions in his favor. He may also seek concessions from his Western partners elsewhere, say, on Washingtons refusal to sell him state-of-the-art fighter jets, or its support for Kurdish militias in Syria.

For years, Erdoan has played a shrewd game as a NATO member but friend to Putin; a European partner on the migrant crisis but at a price. By greenlighting Finland while holding back on Sweden, hes showing hes willing to be reasonable but that he expects his pound of flesh too. Will it work?

Times are tough economically speaking in Egypt, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi is looking to mend and shore up relations across the region. On Monday, el-Sissi traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, the countrys de facto leader.

El-Sissi's visit comes as the economy of import-reliant Egypt is reeling as a result of economic mismanagement and Russias war in Ukraine. (Egypt has been forced to devalue its currency three times over the past year.)

While Riyadh has long doled out funds to help keep cash-strapped Egypt afloat, it recently said that it will no longer hand out blank checks and that Cairo should implement reforms to receive aid. El-Sissi likely wants to convince MBS that hes already making some changes as part of a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

Another big topic on the agenda? Reintegrating Syria, deemed a pariah by the West, into the Arab League. This comes just days after Egypt and Syria held high-level talks for the first time in a decade as Cairo looks to reestablish diplomatic ties with Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, Egypt is just the latest Arab country to welcome Syria back in from the cold, with reports that el-Sissi hopes to eventually win lucrative contracts to help rebuild the war-torn country.

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What Were Watching: Trumps day in court, Turkey stuffing Sweden, Egypt buddying up - GZERO Media

Investigators believe many were brainwashed by smugglers and social media posts advertising safe routes to the UK.

But they could now be pivotal in providing vital clues to investigators on the smugglers identities, the routes they take and how they control different camps in Northern France.

The NCA believes migrants will realise the immense danger people smugglers put them, and their children, in and may be motivated by trying to prevent friends and family from being put in peril.

Gangs are also buying cheap, dangerous single-use boats made just for a solitary Channel crossing, the Daily Express understands.

But we're really keen to hear from those individuals.

At the time, they wanted to get here, they're almost brainwashed with the social media from the facilitators.

Theyve arrived here. They may now realise the risks that they've undertaken or the risks their children have been put through, or their family members in the future.

We're really keen to engage with those members of the community now because they may hold some really important information about the facilitators, the groups, and their journey.

Mr Morris said many of the migrants come from countries where there is no trust in the police or the authorities.

He added: Part of our process will be initially using Crimestoppers, completely anonymous and that is the way were going to start to communicate out to individuals.

Our angle is, at the end of the day, they are human beings. Not everyone, although theyve arrived here criminally, committed offences.

We just want to explain the differences between the UK authorities and police forces and start building that trust because, like general policing by consent, were only as good as the intelligence we are getting from our communities.

Yes, some we will need to pursue because they are causing us problems, but there is a vast number that we can work with."

Asked if the NCA had spoken to the Home Office about the idea, Mr Morris said: They understand that theres no one silver bullet. Yes, we will pursue the criminals and those criminal elements.

A lot of our information comes from that initial engagement with migrants as they come off the boats and if there are individuals already here that can tell us about their journeys, and are happy to, then we really want to reach out to them and the Home Office will understand that that will build on our knowledge of the wider threat.

Senior members of the NCA also revealed gangs are, en masse, buying cheap boat engines so poorly constructed that they cannot be sold in Europe.

They are also increasingly concerned that profits from Channel people smuggling operations are being reinvested in drug and gun crime networks. People smuggling is feared to be a stepping stone into even more lethal trades.

The Home Office fears around 80,000 migrants will cross the English Channel this year. The NCA admitted 2023 is likely to be another record-breaking year as refugees flee wars, natural disasters and economic catastrophes.

Mr Morris said: When you look at those numbers and why we say they are going to be higher, part of that is because if we look at the areas that are suffering from conflict, and with really drastic living standards, that is increasing.

They [the smugglers] are reassuring people that you can use the small boat method, it is extremely cheap and when you get to the UK, you are over the goal line and you are made for life.

All those messages are wrong. More and more migrants that have arrived by this route are realising it is not such a pleasant environment.

The Daily Express has been told there are criminals in the UK exploiting the Channel migrant crisis.

But the NCA does not currently believe any heads of the smuggling gangs operating in the Channel live in the UK.

Kurdish gangs are still largely believed to control most of the smuggling routes. But the lengths of the beaches in Northern France means there is still space for more gangs to operate, despite many taking control of migrant camps and even certain beaches where they launch their boats from.

The smuggling networks are said to be younger and more chaotic than traditional organised crime networks which rely upon clear structures.

Amid an influx of Albanian migrants crossing the Channel last Summer, investigators were concerned other gangs may try to wrestle control from the Kurds.

Albanian crime gangs have brutally gained control of Britains cocaine market and dominate in nearly every city.

But the NCA told the Daily Express they are not seeing cocaine and gun-running gangs shifting to people smuggling as there are greater profits in the more traditional commodities.

Mr Morris said: The profits that can be made from the people smuggling, small boat method, are there because the volumes of customers, passengers being put on those boats

There are still much better profits on the more traditional commodities. If we are looking at trafficking in a shipment, there may be shared loads. They may mix commodities. It might even put firearms on drugs loads.

The only issue is, and this happens across other commodities, is if they are lower sophisticated, they are starting to make money in this area, then if they want to make more money and become more successful, they will move into those other commodities.

The money they make from this will undoubtedly be invested into those commodities. If you think, one of our issues with the small boat issue, it is UK-specific.

Facilitators are living within their communities, are making money from this and will be expanding into other criminalities.

Were not seeing people coming from drugs or other more traditional commodities. As Ive seen in our thematic reporting, this is their stepping stone into that more profitable work.

People smugglers are trying to boost their profits by cramming more migrants into dangerously poor-quality boats.

But gangs are attempting to cut costs as well, by purchasing single-use boats and engines.

Katherine Tyler, the head of the NCA team fighting organised immigration crime, told the Daily Express: The boats that we are seeing being used are sometimes single-use boats.

They are not boats that you would see for sale through the normal market.

They are specifically made, in order, for single use, perhaps specifically for crossing the Channel.

The greatest concern is that the numbers of migrants per boat is steadily increasing.

Mr Morris added: They are using very low quality engines. Brand new, single use and the indications are they are being bought en mass.

They are low quality, cheap, mass-produced engines which the criminals involved basically use as a single-use disposable engine, like the boat.

Thats probably the actual regard they have for the human beings on the boat.

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Migrants to join UK's fight on people smugglers with anonymous tip-offs - Express

The deaths of dozens of migrants at a detention center in Ciudad Jurez, on the Mexico-U.S. border, has brought the migratory crisis into sharper focus. The facility, run by the Mexican National Institute of Migration (INM), has been overcrowded for several years and was engulfed in a fire on Tuesday that has taken the horrors and hardships facing would-be migrants into the United States to a new level. The authorities have placed the death toll at 38 people with 28 more seriously injured, all of them men, in what is the worst tragedy ever to have occurred at a federal immigration center. In its aftermath, questions are being asked about the actions of immigration agents tasked with their care. A video that circulated on social media on Tuesday showed guards fleeing the building and leaving the men locked up while smoke and flames erupted.

The terror and desperation on display in the video contrast with the initial reactions of the Mexican government. President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador said Tuesday that the migrants had learned they were going to be deported and had set mattresses alight in protest. Some of the 68 men had been detained the previous afternoon in Ciudad Jurez amid a recent crackdown on migrants in the city. Others were returning from the United States, according to local media reports.

What remains unanswered is why the detainees were locked in cells and why the guards did not let them out when the fire started. International organizations have condemned the lack of response from the immigration agents at the center. The United Nations has demanded a thorough investigation. Others have been more critical, such as the NGO Refugees International.The INM has a long history of the abuse of migrants in Mexico, and greater accountability for those abuses could have prevented this tragedy, said Rachel Schmidtke, the NGOs senior lawyer for the region.

Latin America is experiencing an unprecedented migratory crisis, fueled by violence, hunger, lack of opportunity, climate change and political and economic factors. Over the past five years, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans, among many other nationalities, have crossed jungles and deserts in an attempt to forge a new life in the U.S. or Canada. Many have died on the journey, victims of organized crime and the networks of traffickers and facilitators who exploit the exodus. Now, the authorities have failed them as well.

The problem is a long-standing one. The administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden have both entrusted Mexico with a role in U.S. immigration policy, which consists of stopping new arrivals before they cross the border. Mexico has performed this task with considerable effectiveness. Over the past two years record numbers of migrant detentions have been recorded: 228,115 in 2021 and 444,439 in 2022. North of the Rio Grande, the U.S. government has been closing routes to migrants, including those for political or humanitarian asylum. Title 42 legislation enacted in 2020 under Trump that closed U.S. borders to prevent the spread of coronavirus remains in place under the Biden administration and continues to be used to prevent migrants from seeking international protection, with very few exceptions, despite the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announcing in May 2022 that it was no longer required for pandemic containment.

In Mexico, little has changed in recent years. Lpez Obrador assumed the presidency in December 2018 with a humanist, cross-cutting discourse, which soon found itself at odds with Trumps rhetoric over the construction of a border wall. A barrier that, the Republican president added, he would make Mexico pay for. The battle of wills went back and forth, with Lpez Obrador stating that Mexico would do no such thing. However, Mexico has created its own wall through the INM, which is supported in its role by the Mexican National Guard, created in 2019 under the Lpez Obrador administration.

However, the INMs broad mandate to monitor and detain migrants has failed to prevent the flow. Instead, it has served to hide it, pushing it even further toward the margins. Tragedies have occurred before the Ciudad Jurez fire. In December 2021, a truck full of migrants crashed in Chiapas, southern Mexico, leaving a terrible toll: 54 dead and more than 100 injured. Earlier the same year, in February, a group of 17 migrants passing through Tamaulipas, a border region in Mexicos northeast, encountered a group of police officers who, for reasons that remain unclear, riddled them with bullets. They then set fire to their bodies.

But the Ciudad Jurez is of a different dimension because there, the migrants were under the charge of the Mexican government. The INM, which is nominally dependent on the Secretariat of the Interior, manages the immigration center at the Stanton-Lerdo International Bridge, located a few hundred meters from the U.S. border. Its agents are responsible for the facility and those who are inside it. The center has said that it will cooperate with the investigation, which is being carried out by the Mexican Public Prosecutors Office (FGR).

It remains to be seen how the Mexican government will respond to the tragedy: whether it treats it is a one-off error, blames individual agents for failing to follow protocols, or points the finger at the system as a whole. On Tuesday, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard provided some indication of what the fallout might be. On social media, he said that those directly responsible for the events have been presented before the FGR, without giving further details. On the other hand, some pro-government media outlets have reported that the Attorney Generals Office, which insists responsibility for the fire rests with the migrants, has made progress on its own investigation.

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Deaths in Ciudad Jurez detention center fire lay bare the harsh reality of migration crisis - EL PAS USA

NEW YORK After learning that a fire at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico killed more than three dozen migrants, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso said the tragedy underscores the urgency of addressing the complex humanitarian crisis at the southern border.

Our brother and sister migrants, who are in many cases fleeing extreme violence, persecution, and extreme poverty, deserve dignity, compassion, and the protection of their human rights as children of God, Seitz, who is the U.S. Bishops Conference Migration Committee chair, said in a statement. As a faith community we are called to respond to their suffering with love, empathy, and support.

The fire at the National Migration Institute in Ciudad Jurez the city bordering El Paso killed at least 40 migrants. It started around 10 p.m. after migrants set mattresses ablaze in protest of their pending deportation, according to Mexico President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador.

29 others were injured in the fire and are in delicate-serious condition, the institute said in a statement. There were 68 men from Central and South America held in the facility at the time of the fire. As a protest, at the door of the shelter, they put mattresses and set them on fire, and they did not imagine that this was going to cause this terrible tragedy, Lpez Obrador said at a news conference. We assume it was because they found out they were going to be deported.

Seitz offered his deepest and most heartfelt condolences to the families of the migrants who died and extended prayers for the swift recovery of the individuals who were injured. He also pledged to continue his advocacy for more humane immigration policies.

As we mourn this devastating loss, I call upon people of all faiths and goodwill to join in prayer for the victims and their families, Seitz said. May our collective efforts lead to meaningful change and help prevent such tragedies from occurring.

Directly across from El Paso, Ciudad Jurez has long been a hot spot for migrants to gather before they attempt to enter the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection have encountered almost 225,000 migrants trying to illegally cross into El Paso between Oct. 1, 2022, and February 2023, according to agency data. Overall, there have been almost 900,000 total encounters over that time, the data shows. Dylan Corbett, executive director of the El Paso-based Hope Border Institute a faith-based immigration advocacy organization that does humanitarian work in both El Paso and Ciudad Jurez told Crux that the fire is a direct result of U.S. pressure on Mexico to up its immigration enforcement, especially at the northern part of the border. Corbett said Hope has done humanitarian work at the National Migration Institute in Ciudad Jurez in the past, but has not had access in recent months amid the crackdown prompted by the U.S. government.

We know theres a direct line that you can draw from the Biden administration pressuring the government of Ciudad Jurez to increase enforcement to the death that weve seen, Corbett said.

The strategy that weve implemented includes as part of its overhead death, so its an indictment of our approach, Corbett continued. Death cant be the price of immigration enforcement and theres nothing stopping us from putting in place a humane and effective and safe process at the border. Corbett and other immigration advocates have long been critical of the Biden administrations border entry deterrent policies that limit migrants ability to seek asylum, arguing that they are not just illegal but ineffective given the desperation of many migrants. They have argued at a time of record number of migrant crossings at the border that the administration and Congress need to work on comprehensive reform to the nations immigration system and work to address the root causes that force people to migrate in the first place. In the short term, advocates say more effective legal pathways are needed.

The system we allowed to be created in our name is predicated on pain and death and that is what killed them, Corbett said. We have to work to put in place a more just system.

Seitz also works with migrants on both sides of the border, calling Ciudad Jurez El Pasos sister city. He said in the aftermath of the fire, he has been in communication with the bishop of Ciudad Jurez. I have been in contact with Bishop Jos Guadalupe Torres Campos, expressed my prayer solidarity with him and the faithful of his diocese, and offered support to him and the people in his pastoral care in the Diocese of Ciudad Jurez, Seitz said.

Follow John Lavenburg on Twitter:@johnlavenburg

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Deadly fire at Jurez detention center shows 'urgency' of addressing ... - Crux Now

In an ironic twist, cruise ships are being hailed as the latest measure to help stop the boats. Most Fleet Street newspapers have today splashed on briefings that Channel migrants will be housed on ex-military bases, disused ships and barges, under plans that are expected to be announced later today. The aim is twofold: to act as a deterrent for future migrants and to cut the 6 million-a-day hotel bill to house the 50,000 people who are already here.

TheTimesreports that ministers have procured an accommodation barge capable of holding hundreds of migrants, which is being refitted. It will probably be moored in port rather than at sea, with the location yet to be decided. Former military bases include RAF Wethersfield in Essex and RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. Sources close to Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, are briefing that he hopes to start moving new arrivals to military sites within weeks.

Versions of this policy have been briefed out multiple times under the Sunak government

The use of military bases and cruise ships are controversial for different reasons. The former are often based in Tory constituencies and spark a visceral reaction from local residents who are not too enthusiastic at the prospect of housing thousands of young men. RAF Wethersfield is in James Cleverlys seat of Braintree; he is understood to share local concerns. RAF Scampton, meanwhile, is the home of the Dambusters squadron, with Nigel Farage now championing a petition to stop it being turned into a 1,500-strong asylum centre.

What about cruise ships then? Rishi Sunak proposed putting migrants on such barges as early as last summer when he ran for the Tory leadership. But, as critics point out, similar policies have been floated for decades to host refugees and prisoners, without success. A previous effort was mounted in 1986 when the Thatcher government rented a ferry called the Earl Williams which almost ended in disaster when a storm dragged the boat out to sea from its mooring in an Essex port. Priti Patel was considering a similar scheme as recently as December 2020, using the Estonian-owned Silja Europa cruise ship to hold up to 3,000 passengers. That too came to nought. Versions of this policy have been briefed out multiple times under the Sunak government: in November and December last year, and again last month.

What then, has changed? Ministers are stressing that illegal mass migration is a Europe-wide problem, with attitudes hardening across the continent. At cabinet yesterday, it was pointed out that Greece, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are using large-scale sites to accommodate migrants. The Dutch government is using ships to house migrants, while Nicola Sturgeons administration deployed disused cruise ships for Ukrainian refugees. It is therefore hoped that such arrangements would not breach international conventions on refugees.

TheTimesstory on the accommodation barge noted that discussions are at an early stage, which suggests that the proposal to transfer migrants to former military bases will feature more prominently in todays announcements. But local authorities in such areas will bitterly fight the government in such areas with those in Essex and Lincolnshire expected to seek High Court injunctions.

The problems involved with both land and port sites highlights once again why Sunaks promise to stop the boats is likely to be the most difficult of his five pledges to fulfil.

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Will cruise ships solve the migrant housing crisis? - The Spectator