Two Honduran migrants subjected to a mass kidnapping in northern Mexico in late December told @Gottesdiener about their harrowing experience, the first public account from victims:

reuters.com/world/americas… Armed, masked men stormed a bus they were on, asked for IDs, and then abducted them

Some were imprisoned in a cramped house crawling with rats and cockroaches and kept without food and water while others went to a ranch so crowded there was not enough room to sit down

The US abruptly canceled plans on Monday to bring asylum seekers into Texas at two ports of entry, dashing the hopes of hundreds who have been waiting for months in Mexico under Trump’s “Migrant Protection Protocols”: reuters.com/article/us-usa… “We are really confused because we don’t see any change. We are just looking for help,” said Josue Cornejo, a migrant from Honduras who has been stuck in a makeshift camp in Matamoros, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, for over a year. “They aren’t telling us anything.”

“Police evacuated lawmakers and struggled for more than three hours after the invasion to clear the Capitol of Trump supporters, who surged through the hallways and rummaged through offices in shocking scenes of chaos and disorder.” reuters.com/article/us-usa… “The chaotic scenes unfolded after Trump, who before the election refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost, addressed thousands of supporters near the White House and told them to march on the Capitol to express their anger at the voting process.”

Biden’s efforts to reverse Trump’s immigration legacy would be slowed by legal hurdles, political pressure to keep some measures, and a crowded agenda dominated by the coronavirus pandemic:

reuters.com/article/us-usa… Biden pledged to rescind Trump’s travel bans on “Day 1” but that’s now planned for some time within the first 100 days, according a campaign official. He still intends to submit an immigration reform bill to Congress on his first day.

EXCLUSIVE w/ @micarosenberg: Federal inspections found serious health care lapses found in a US detention center housing transgender migrants in New Mexico reuters.com/article/us-usa… Among the problems were hundreds of unanswered requests for medical attention, poor quarantine procedures and deficient treatment for mental illnesses and other chronic diseases. As a result, all of the transgender detainees were transferred to other facilities in January.

EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration is considering imposing entry restrictions at the US-Mexico border to control the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, according to two DHS officials reuters.com/article/china-… The concern over containing the virus at the southern U.S. border comes as the Trump administration also weighs possible restrictions on the entry of travelers from South Korea, Italy and Japan

Trump’s refugee admissions in the coming year could fall even further than the all-time low of 18,000 his admin proposed last month. The reason: heightened vetting, a lack of political will, new hard-to-fill carveouts, and a freeze on refugee interviews politico.com/news/2019/10/1… “He’s basically trying to eviscerate and totally destroy the program,” said Kerri Talbot, director of federal advocacy for the pro-migrant Immigration Hub. “Their ultimate goal is just to decrease legal immigration into the United States, including refugees.”