A federal judge sentenced a Houston man to nearly two years in prison for conspiring with a Harlingen man and active duty soldiers stationed at Fort Hood to smuggle undocumented immigrants north throughout the country.
The U.S. Defense Department has been asked to provide shelter for as many as 12,000 undocumented immigrants and their children as part of an effort to keep families together, the Pentagon said late Wednesday.
Maytham Alshadood came to the U.S. and Colorado in 2008 after years of serving as a combat interpreter for American troops in Iraq, but he quickly discovered a major hurdle to settling into his new home.
On Jan. 11, a frustrated President Donald Trump allegedly posed a jarring question to the bipartisan group of lawmakers gathered in the Oval Office after their conversation turned to protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations: “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” And after weeks of political furor in the United States and abroad over the comments, the perfect rebuke to the commander-in-chief’s assessment came not from cable news or Congress, but the most senior uniformed officer in the Air Force: They do it because of “hope, hard work, perseverance & patriotism.”
About 1,000 foreign-born service members who enlisted under the Delayed Entry Program but whose visas have expired could have their military contracts canceled and face deportation under a proposed Department of Defense policy, the Washington Post reports.
