Voice of America’s immigration news

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — Heavy rains once again pounded parts of Brazil's southernmost state on Thursday, ruining days-long cleanup efforts and flooding areas that had previously been untouched in Rio Grande do Sul's capital city of Porto Alegre. Record flooding over the past month has killed 163 people and displaced 600,000 more. Another 64 people are still missing. Rains had lightened to a drizzle over the past few days, with stores beginning to open and residents working to rebuild. But the skies opened on Thursday morning, dumping heavy rains and flooding areas of Porto Alegre all over again. One day care in the neighborhood of Menino Deus, which reopened Wednesday after a weeklong cleanup, was forced to evacuate as the rain rushed in. "It all happened very quickly, [the flooding happened] much faster than last time," said the director of the child care center, who did not give her name. In a span of 12 hours, parts of Porto Alegre received more rain than they typically do in a month, according to data from the national meteorological institute. The flooding Thursday also hit areas of Porto Alegre, including the south, which had previously gone unscathed. Gimena Samuel had to call for her elderly parents to be rescued in the neighborhood of Cavalhada, where streets were flooded and cars unable to get through. "There are a lot of elderly people here who can't get out by themselves," she said. Earlier this week, the city of Porto Alegre had asked residents to leave their trash out on the sidewalk to be thrown away. However, the fresh rain carried the trash out onto the street, clogging drains and worsening the flooding. Porto Alegre Mayor Sebastiao Melo told reporters the city was not surprised by the downpour, but that it was "excessively heavy." Residents, however, complained about the lack of warning.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

washington — Three U.S. servicemembers suffered noncombat injuries in the effort to make a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza into a conduit for humanitarian aid, with one in critical condition at an Israeli hospital, U.S. officials said Thursday.  The injuries were the first for U.S. forces during the latest operation to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians.  The pier was announced by U.S. President Joe Biden in March, and the military assembled the floating structure off the coast. Estimated to cost $320 million for the first 90 days and involve about 1,000 U.S. servicemembers, it went into operation last week.   U.S. Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters that two servicemembers suffered "very minor, routine injuries" - a sprained ankle and a back injury. "Those individuals returned to duty." A third servicemember, injured on a ship at sea, was medically evacuated to a hospital in Israel, he said. A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the individual was in critical condition.   U.S. lawmakers have voiced concern about the risks of positioning U.S. troops off the coast of Gaza. Biden has said they will not enter the war-torn city.   The Pentagon has said it will prioritize the safety of U.S. military personnel.  "We're clear-eyed, and we continue to look at force protection all day, every day. And as it stands now, we assess the operations can continue," Cooper said.   Social media images showed a U.S. air defense system, known as the Counter Rockets, Artillery and Mortars (CRAM), firing into the sky while on the pier. U.S. officials said troops were testing the system.   Daniel Dieckhaus of the U.S. Agency for International Development said that since the pier opened last week, about 506 metric tons of aid had been handed off to humanitarian groups inside Gaza. About a third of that has not yet been distributed but will be soon, he said.

The U.S. assertion this week that Russia has launched a satellite capable of inspecting and destroying other satellites prompted a denial from the Kremlin and concern from U.S. lawmakers. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports. Camera: Saqib Ul Islam.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Sweden, NATO's newest member, this week announced a three-year plan to provide additional support for Ukraine totaling more than $7 billion. The move comes amid concerns about Russia’s growing aggression. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports. Camera: Daniil Batushchak.

Bangkok — Interviews have begun with Myanmar refugees living in Thailand who are eligible for a new resettlement program in the United States, the Thai government said. Thailand said it hopes the first group may get to move by the end of the year. Some 90,000 refugees live in nine camps on the Thai side of the border to escape fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic minority rebel armies vying for autonomy. Some of the refugees were born in the camps, which started to form in the mid-1980s, and many have lived in them for decades. Persistent fighting in Myanmar, amplified by a military coup in February 2021, has kept most from returning home. Aiming to give the refugees a safe way out of the camps, Thailand, the United States and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees announced the resettlement plan in May 2023. One year on, Thailand’s Ministry of Interior says that the Thai government and UNHCR have finished checking the personal information of the refugees to verify their eligibility for the program. More than 80,000 refugees were deemed eligible, and nearly all of them told officials they wanted to resettle. “After that, the U.S. team went to the first two camps for interviews, which have already been done,” Zcongklod Khawjang, an interior ministry official in charge of overseeing the resettlement program, told VOA this week. The two camps — Ban Don Yang and Tham Hin — are among the smallest of nine and host about 8,750 refugees combined. Zcongklod said the U.S. Embassy in Thailand has not told the Thai government when the authorized refugees would be resettled or when interviews in the other seven camps would begin. But he added that Thailand was expecting the “first batch” to move to the U.S. sometime this year. Hayso Thako, a joint secretary with the Karen Refugee Committee, one of the charities working in the camps, said he received the same message from the UNHCR at a meeting in March. “They said most probably the first group would be able to leave by the end, almost the end of this year,” he said. The UNHCR declined to comment on when resettlement might begin and referred the question to the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok declined to provide a time frame. “Resettlement operations are ongoing in cooperation with the UNHCR and the Royal Thai Government,” the U.S. Embassy told VOA by email, attributing the comment to “a U.S. official.” The embassy also would not say how many of the 80,000-plus eligible refugees the U.S. was prepared to take in, either annually or in total. Zcongklod said the embassy has not provided the Thai government with those figures, either. The Border Consortium, a network of charities that coordinate much of the international aid that reached the camps, said it has not been provided with official figures but said plans for the program appear to have been scaled down over time. “Figures have changes. At the beginning, it was this number of people who could be resettled … and maybe now it could be a lower number of people who could be resettled,” Leon de Riedmatten, executive director of The Border Consortium, told VOA. Even so, he said, “It’s important for the residents in the camps themselves that there is still the possibility of resettlement. I think this is the main message, even if it’s not going to be so many people who are going to be resettled to the United States.” Thailand has denied the refugees a regular path to gaining permanent legal residence and keeps tight control over their movements in and out of the camps. Myanmar’s 2021 coup brought the country's brief experiment with democracy to a halt, plunging it into civil war and dashing hopes that the refugees could return safely anytime soon. Hayso Thako and de Riedmatten said it would help if other countries committed to taking in some of the refugees. Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told VOA it has encouraged more countries to join the resettlement program. A previous program ended about five years ago after resettling thousands of refugees in the United States and a few other countries. Without a clear idea of how many of the refugees the new program can handle, and no end in sight to the civil war raging in Myanmar, charities say the Thai government should also give the refugees the opportunity to settle permanently in Thailand. “I think it’s key. It’s very, very important, because we cannot expect that all these refugees will be resettled. We cannot expect also that a large part of these refugees will return to Myanmar. So the ones, the majority, who will be left in the camps should have a better future,” de Riedmatten said. Even after four decades, most of the camps still lack electricity and running water. Most homes are huts of bamboo and eucalyptus poles topped with thatched roofs. The refugees are mostly barred from studying or working outside of the camps, have few job opportunities inside and receive an average of about $9 in food aid a month. Some advocates say a growing sense of despair across the camps is causing a rise in domestic abuse, gang violence, drug use and suicide. “Living in the camps is not easy,” Eh Nay Moo, 30, who fled Myanmar with his parents when he was three years old, told VOA. “Here, we are just illegal people. … There is no freedom for us. Going here and there outside of the camp, we are not allowed,” he said from Mae La, the largest of the nine camps on the border. Having spent almost his entire life in the camps, Eh Nay Moo said he cannot imagine returning to Myanmar but sees no real future for himself in the camps. Eh Nay Moo said he has applied for the new resettlement program and is eagerly awaiting an interview. “If I get a chance to move to the U.S. … I believe that I will get more opportunity or freedom to do and live my life as a human being,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans again blocked a bill meant to clamp down on the number of migrants allowed to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sought Thursday to underscore GOP resistance to the proposal. The legislation, negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators, was already rejected by most Republicans in February when it was linked to a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies. But with immigration and border security becoming one of the top issues of this year's election, Democrats are looking for an answer to the barrage of GOP attacks, led by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.  "To those who've said for years Congress needs to act on the border, this bipartisan bill is the answer, and it's time to show we're serious about fixing the problem," Schumer, a New York Democrat, said ahead of the vote Schumer is trying to defend a narrow Senate majority in this year's election and sees the Republicans’ rejection of the deal they negotiated as a political "gift" for Democrats. While a majority of Senate Democrats again supported the procedural vote to begin debate on the bill Thursday, the proposal failed 43-50. When the proposal was brought up in February, a test vote failed 49-50 — well shy of the 60 votes needed to advance.  Not even some of the bill's primary authors, Sens. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, and Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, voted for Schumer's move.  "Today is not a bill, today is a prop," Lankford said on the floor ahead of the vote. "Everyone sees it for what it is."  Sinema called the vote "political theater" that will do nothing to solve problems at the border.  "To use this failure as a political punching bag only punishes those who were courageous enough to do the hard work in the first place," she said.  Republican leaders spent much of the week decrying the vote as a bald-faced political maneuver and amplifying a well-worn criticism of President Joe Biden: That he bears responsibility for the historic number of migrants who have made their way to the U.S. in recent years.  "We're nearing the end of President Biden' s term, and the American people's patience for his failing to secure the southern border is running thin," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday Earlier in the week, McConnell told reporters, "The president needs to step up to it — do everything he can do on his own because legislation is obviously not going to clear this year." Since the collapse of the Senate's legislation in February, the Biden administration has been considering executive orders on border policy and immigration. It has already made some changes to the asylum system meant to speed up processing and potential removal of migrants. Yet the Senate's test vote this week was widely seen as part of a lead-up to Biden issuing more sweeping border measures, potentially as early as June. The Democratic president has considered using a provision in federal immigration law that gives leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the U.S. if it would be "detrimental" to the national interest of the United States. The authority was repeatedly tapped by Trump when he was in the White House, but some of those actions faced legal challenges. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters Monday that legislation to address problems at the border — as opposed to executive actions by the president — would be more effective. The Senate legislation would provide more money for Customs and Border Protection officials, asylum officers, immigration judges and scanning technology at the border — all things that officials have said the underfunded immigration and border protection system needs. "The legislation provides tools that executive action cannot," Mayorkas said. The Senate bill aimed at gaining control of an asylum system that has sometimes been overwhelmed in the last year. It would provide faster and tougher enforcement of the asylum process, as well as give presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if the numbers encountered by border officials exceed an average of 4,000 per day over a week. Even before the bill was fully released earlier this year, Trump effectively killed the proposal by labeling it "meaningless" and a "gift" for Biden's reelection chances. Top Republicans soon followed his lead and even McConnell, who had initially demanded the negotiation over the border measures, voted against moving forward. A significant number of Democrats have also criticized the proposal, mostly because it does not include any broad relief for immigrants who have already established lives in the United States. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a statement this week that the Senate's bill "fails to meet the moment by putting forth enforcement-only policies and failing to include provisions that will keep families together." Amid the tension, Biden's reelection campaign met with CHC leadership Wednesday to discuss outreach to Latino communities, and Biden spoke on the phone with Rep. Nanette Barragan, the chair of the group. Still, for Democratic senators facing tough reelection battles, the vote Thursday provided another opportunity to show they were supportive of stronger border measures as well as distance themselves from Biden's handling of the border.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Nairobi, Kenya — A record 75.9 million people are living in internal displacement due to conflict, and nearly half that number is in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a recent report. The report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, or IDMC, shows 34.8 million people in the region were displaced in 2023, up from the previous year. The biggest increase came in Sudan, which is currently in the midst of civil war. Sudanese doctor Aisha Hassan is among the millions of people newly displaced last year.  The doctor said that when she arrived for work at a hospital to tend to those injured in the country’s ongoing civil war, she faced threats from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and gangs. The RSF has been at war with the Sudanese armed forces since April of last year.  The threat forced her to leave her patients and her city, Omdurman, northwest of the capital, Khartoum. Hassan said she and her family fled to safety.  "From there I went to North Sudan Al-Shimaliyya, it's called Karima. We stayed there for three months, and my family and I went to Port Sudan. From there we displaced here to Uganda," she said.  Fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF has displaced 9.1 million since April 2023, making Sudan the country with the most displaced people globally. According to the IDMC, the number marks “the most ever recorded in a single country since records began in 2008.”  The conflict has made it difficult for aid agencies to reach the millions in need, triggering more displacement as people search for food, water, medicine and safety.   Elsewhere, fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo between the army and rebels has displaced close to 7 million people. Conflict in Ethiopia that began with a two-year war in Tigray in 2020, and erupted in many parts of the country, displaced 790,000 people last year.   Africa's conflicts are usually over territory, community politics, and control over resources, with at least 10 African countries, predominantly in West Africa, dealing with terrorism-related conflicts.  Burkina Faso is the most affected of the West African countries, with 700,000 people displaced last year, up 61 percent from 2022.   "A rising conflict is really contributing to the rising trend, and especially weather-related disasters, including floods, storms, and drought, are also contributing to pushing the figures to an all-time high,” said Vicente Anzellini, coordinator and lead author of the IDMC report. “So all of this is really a concerning trend. It's important to underscore, however, that governments and humanitarian actors are taking more action and are producing more data. And this, of course, influences the trend."  Anzellini said governments need to improve their capabilities to resolve conflicts and cope with natural disasters.   "What we're really seeing in the region should be a reason for concern and more efforts need to be put in conflict resolution, of peace building, and disaster risk reduction across this region to reduce the trend that, again, highly influences the global trend,” Anzellini said. “So if internal displacement is addressed and reduced in Africa, the global trend will also successfully reduce. And it's unfortunately not a trend that we're seeing in the last couple of years. And for this to happen more government leadership and investments will be needed."  The Swiss-based agency says the overwhelming majority of the displaced stay in their own countries as they struggle to survive and rebuild their lives.  For Hassan, it was too dangerous for her to stay, as armed groups started to loot her family’s home while she was working in the hospital in Sudan.  "After two months or so, the Rapid Support team came and resided in our home,” she said. “Now they are living in our home. I don't know how many of them there are, but they told us they are living there. They took my father's car, and they are living there."  The IDMC says no country is immune to disaster displacement and that conflicts in Sudan, the DRC, and the Palestinian territories drove up the number around the world.