TEXAS, USA: The Trump administration has continued releasing people charged with being in the country illegally to nongovernmental shelters along the US-Mexico border after telling those organizations that providing migrants with temporary housing and other aid may violate a law used to prosecute smugglers.

Border shelters, which have long provided lodging, meals and transportation to the nearest bus station or airport, were rattled by a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that raised “significant concerns” about potentially illegal activity and demanded detailed information in a wide-ranging investigation.

FEMA suggested shelters may have committed felony offenses against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States.

“It was pretty scary. I’m not going to lie,” said Rebecca Solloa, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Laredo.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement continued to ask shelters in Texas and Arizona to house people even after the March 11 letter, putting them in the awkward position of doing something that FEMA appeared to say might be illegal. Both agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security.

After receiving the letter, Catholic Charities received eight to 10 people a day from ICE until financial losses forced it to close its shelter in the Texas border city on April 25, Solloa said.

The Holding Institute Community, also in Laredo, has been taking about 20 families a week from ICE’s family detention centers in Dilley and Karnes City, Texas, Executive Director Michael Smith said. They come from Russia, Turkiye, Iran, Iraq, Papua New Guinea and China.

Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, has been receiving five to 10 people day from ICE, including from Honduras and Venezuela, said Ruben Garcia, its executive director.

International Rescue Committee didn’t get a letter but continues receiving people from ICE in Phoenix, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been made public. The releases include people who had been held at ICE’s Krome Detention Center in Miami, the site of severe overcrowding.

Working around conflicting issues

ICE’s requests struck Solloa as a “little bit of a contradiction,” but Catholic Charities agreed. She said some guests had been in ICE detention centers two to four weeks after getting arrested in the nation’s interior and ordered released by an immigration judge while their challenges to deportations wound through the courts. Others had been flown from San Diego after crossing the border illegally.

Those released were from India, China, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Central and South America, Solloa said.

Smith, a Methodist pastor, said that the FEMA letter was alarming and that agreeing to continue caring for people released by ICE was “probably not a good idea.” Still, it was an easy choice.

“There’s some things that are just right to do,” he said.

Tricia McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, drew a distinction with large-scale releases under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden. The Biden administration worked closely with shelters but, during its busiest times, released migrants at bus stops or other public locations.

“Under the Biden administration, when ICE has aliens in its custody who are ordered released, ICE does not simply release them onto the streets of a community — ICE works to verify a sponsor for the illegal alien, typically family members or friends but occasionally a non-governmental-organization,” McLaughlin said.

The government has struggled to quickly deport people from some countries because of diplomatic, financial and logistic challenges. Those hurdles have prompted ICE to deport people to countries other than their own, including El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and — this week — South Sudan. If those options aren’t available, ICE may be forced to release people in the United States.

People can challenge deportations in immigration court, though their options are much more limited when stopped at the border. If a judge orders their release, ICE is generally left with no choice but to release them.

Families pose another challenge. ICE is generally prohibited from holding families with children under 18 for more than 20 days under a long-standing court agreement that the Trump administration said Thursday it would try to end.

The Trump administration has boasted that it virtually ended the practice of releasing people who cross the border illegally with notices to appear in immigration court. The Border Patrol released only seven people from February through April, down from 130,368 the same period a year earlier under President Joe Biden. But those figures do not include ICE, whose data is not publicly available

Close ties between shelters and federal authorities

FEMA awarded $641 million to dozens of state and local governments and organizations across the country in the 2024 fiscal year to help them deal with large numbers of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico.

FEMA has suspended payments during its review, which required shelters to provide “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided.” Executive officers must sign sworn statements that they have no knowledge or suspicions of anyone in their organizations violating the smuggling law.

The releases show how border shelters have often maintained close, if cordial, relations with federal immigration authorities at the ground level, even when senior officials publicly criticize them.

“We have a good working relationship with our federal partners. We always have,” Solloa said. “They asked us to help, then we will continue to help, but at some point we have to say, ‘Yikes I don’t have any more money for this. Our agency is hurting and I’m sorry, we can’t do this anymore.’”

Catholic Charities hosted at least 120,000 people at its Laredo shelter since opening in 2021 and housed 600 to 700 people on its busiest nights in 2023, Solloa said. It was counting on up to $7 million from FEMA. The shelter closed with loss of nearly $1 million, after not receiving any FEMA money.

Holding Institute, part of United Women in Faith, has cut paid staff and volunteers to seven from 45 amid the absence of federal funding, Smith said. To save money, it delivers most meals without protein. Language differences have been challenging.

The International Rescue Committee said in a statement that it intends to continue providing support services to released people in Phoenix.

“As the scale and scope of these needs evolve, the IRC remains committed to ensuring individuals have access to essential humanitarian services, including food, water, hygiene supplies and information,” it said.

BERLIN: A German woman accused of a mass stabbing attack that wounded 18 people at a train station in Hamburg suffers from mental illness, police said Saturday.

The suspect, a 39-year-old woman, is accused of going on a stabbing spree on Friday at the main station in Hamburg, stunning the northern city in the middle of the evening rush hour.

The woman has “very clear indications of a psychological illness,” police said in a statement, without giving further details on her condition.

They added there were no signs she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack, which left four victims seriously wounded.

The woman was subdued by two passersby and law enforcement officers, then taken into custody at the scene without resisting arrest, police said.

She was due to appear before a judge later Saturday.

Police say they have ruled out a “political motive” for the attack and believe the suspect acted alone.

The victims range in age from 19 to 85.

The four in serious condition were a 24-year-old man and three women, aged 24, 52 and 85, police said.

Emergency officials initially said their wounds were life-threatening, but police say all the victims now appear to be out of immediate danger.

The attack took place just after 6:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) Friday on one of the platforms in front of a standing train, German media reported.

The suspect was thought to have turned “against passengers” at the station, a spokeswoman for the Hanover federal police directorate, which also covers Hamburg, told AFP.

Some of the victims were treated onboard waiting trains in the station, German daily Bild reported.

Images of the scene showed access to the platforms at one end of the station blocked off by police and people being loaded into waiting ambulances.

Forensic police could also be seen walking up and down the platforms where the attack took place.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed his shock in a call with the mayor of Hamburg.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” Merz said, according to a readout from a spokesman.

Germany has been rocked in recent months by a series of violent attacks with often jihadist or far-right extremist motivations that have put security at the top of the agenda.

The most recent, on Sunday, saw four people injured in a stabbing at a bar in the city of Bielefeld.

The investigation into that attack has been handed over to federal prosecutors after the Syrian suspect told the police officers who arrested him that he had jihadist beliefs.

The question of security — and the immigrant origin of some of the attackers — was a major topic during Germany’s recent election campaign.

Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU topped the February vote, which also saw a record score of more than 20 percent for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Last year, Germany toughened its legislation on carrying knives, now banned at public gatherings and on long-distance trains.

They are also banned in specific zones in some cities, including at Hamburg’s train station.
But experts and police unions have previously questioned whether such bans are effective.