Trump ordered aide to give Kushner security clearance -NY Times

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump ordered his chief of staff in May to grant his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

It said senior administration officials were troubled by the decision, which prompted then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to write an internal memo about how he had been ordered to give Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald McGahn, also wrote an internal memo outlining concerns raised about Kushner and how McGahn had recommended against the decision, it said.

The Times said the memos contradicted a statement made by Trump in an interview with the newspaper in January that he had no role in Kushner's receiving his clearance.

Asked about the report, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: "We don’t comment on security clearances."

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner's attorney Abbe Lowell, said in an email that White House and security clearance officials last year asserted that Kushner's clearance was "handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone."

"New stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time," Mirijanian said.

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9 suspected migrants dead after crammed in Texas truck, 30 ill

SAN ANTONIO - Nine suspected migrants were found dead Sunday after being packed inside an overheated truck that was discovered in a Walmart parking lot in Texas, and 30 others were hospitalized in what police said appeared to be a "horrific" human trafficking crime.

Seventeen of those taken to hospitals after the discovery in the early morning hours in San Antonio -- about a two hour drive from the Mexican border -- were in critical condition, suffering from heat stroke and dehydration, authorities said.

At least 39 people were in the trailer, including one person who was later found in a nearby wooded area, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

At least two were school-age children, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was not immediately clear how many suspected migrants might have fled and were unaccounted for.

City police chief William McManus told CNN that the dead were all adult men. Authorities were not releasing the victims' names or nationalities until their families were notified.

"We got a call from a Walmart employee about a welfare check in a tractor-trailer that was parked on the lot here," McManus told a news conference.

"He was approached by someone from that truck, who was asking for water."

The employee returned with the water and then called the police who "found eight people dead in the back of that trailer," the police chief said, calling it a "horrific tragedy."

"We're looking at a human trafficking crime," McManus said.

The truck driver had been arrested, he said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr, 60, of Florida, was in custody and would be charged Monday morning in San Antonio.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed Sunday evening that the death toll had climbed to nine and called the case "a heartbreaking tragedy."

"Texas will continue to provide protection for the victims who have been robbed of their most basic rights, and bring down the full weight of the law for the perpetrators of this despicable crime," he said in a statement.

'HOT TO THE TOUCH'

People in the truck were "hot to the touch," Hood said, adding the air conditioner in the trailer was not working.

"For those people who survived, they took a beating," he told CNN.

"With heat stroke, you sometimes have neurological deficits that you're never going to be able to recover from."

Hood estimated the temperature in the truck could have reached 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius), likening it to an oven.

"If that truck would have been there overnight, there's no doubt that we would have lost all 38 of those people," Hood said.

HAPPENS 'ALL THE TIME'

The US Department of Homeland Security and immigration officials are assisting local law enforcement with the investigation.

"This is not an isolated incident... this happens all the time," McManus said.

"It happens late at night, under darkness because they don't want to be discovered."

The police chief said store security footage showed that some vehicles came to pick up some travelers who were on the truck and who had made it out alive.

It was not immediately clear how long the truck had been in the parking lot, and police were working to determine who owns it.

Tens of thousands of illegal migrants from Mexico and Central America attempt to make the treacherous trip into the United States each year.

In 2003, 19 would-be migrants died in an overheated truck while being taken from south Texas near the Mexican border to Houston.

President Donald Trump has pledged to build a security wall along America's border with Mexico in order to crack down on illegal immigration.

So far, the project has been stalled by reluctance in Congress to dedicate funding for the barrier, which could cost as much as $20 billion according to some estimates.

US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has been to Mexico twice to discuss immigration, human trafficking and the spiraling cross-border drugs trade.

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Thomas Homan said the incident "ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished."

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U.S. might ban laptops on all flights into and out of the country

The United States might ban laptops from aircraft cabins of all flights into and out of the country, John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security, said on Sunday.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday Kelly said the U.S. plans to "raise the bar" on airline security, including tightening screening of carry-on items.

"That's the thing that they are obsessed with, the terrorists, the idea of knocking down an airplane in flight, particularly if it's a U.S. carrier, particularly if it's full of U.S. people."

In March the government imposed restrictions on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins on flights from 10 airports, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey.

Kelly said the move would be part of a broader effort to tighten airline security to combat what he called "a real sophisticated threat." He said no decision has been made as to the timing of any ban.

"We are still following the intelligence," he said, "and are in the process of defining this, but we're going to raise the bar generally speaking for aviation much higher than it is now."

Among the enhanced measures will likely be tighter screening of carry-on items to allow Transport Security Administration (TSA) agents to discern problematic items in tightly stuffed bags.

The reason, Kelly said, is that in order to avoid paying a fees for checking bags, people are stuffing them to the point where it is difficult to see through the clutter.

"The more stuff is in there, the less the TSA professionals that are looking at what's in those bags through the monitors can tell what's in them."

The TSA has begun testing certain new procedures at a limited number of airports, requiring people to remove additional items from carry-on bags for separate screenings.

Asked whether the government would expand such measures nationwide, Kelly said: "We might, and likely will."

On Friday Kelly told Fox News that if most people knew the extent of the security threat to the United States some people would "never leave the house."

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A Day Without Immigrants: Thousands skip work, school in anti-Trump protest

DETROIT/SAN DIEGO - Businesses shut their doors, students skipped class and thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the United States on Thursday to protest President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Activists called "A Day Without Immigrants" to highlight the importance of the foreign-born, who account for 13 percent of the U.S. population, or more than 40 million naturalized American citizens.

Trump campaigned against the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, playing on fears of violent crime while promising to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and stop potential terrorists from entering the country.

While the number of participants in Thursday's protests could not be determined, many sympathetic business owners closed shop and working-class immigrants forwent pay for the day.

"I told my English teacher that I wasn't going to school, and she said she understood," said Rosa Castro, a 13-year-old U.S. citizen in Detroit, who marched with her 26-year-old sister, one of several undocumented family members whose future she is concerned about.

Since taking office last month, the Republican president has signed an executive order temporarily banning entry to the United States by travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees. That order was put on hold by federal courts.

Immigrant rights groups have also expressed alarm after federal raids last week rounded up more than 680 people suspected of being in the country illegally.

In San Diego's Logan Heights neighborhood, a 44-year-old undocumented business owner who identified herself only as Lucia for fear of deportation told Reuters she closed her nutrition shop for the day, costing her $200.

"Our community is frightened and cannot speak out," she said. "Things are very bad for us with the new president."

 Advocates have called attention to cases such as one in El Paso, Texas, where federal agents arrested a transgender woman as she left a courthouse where she was seeking a protective order for domestic violence.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe wrote Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to express concern over immigration enforcement in his state, citing an NBC Washington report that agents arrested people outside a church that operates as a shelter from the cold.

Sympathy marches and rallies were held in cities including Raleigh, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas. Thousands joined demonstrations in Chicago and Detroit.

In the Los Angeles Fashion District - comprising some 4,000 apparel outlets, showrooms and manufacturers covering about 100 blocks of downtown - about half the shops in the area's retail core were closed, along with about 40 percent of one of the large flower markets in the area, said district spokeswoman Ariana Gomez.

A Southern California grocery chain, Northgate Gonzalez Markets, said it gave employees at 41 stores and the corporate headquarters permission to use paid personal time off to participate.

In Washington, more than 50 restaurants were closed, including high-end eateries.

"As far as I'm aware, all of our immigrant employees chose to take the day off," said Ruth Gresser, 57, who owns four pizza restaurants in the District of Columbia area. "We have three relative novices and an old lady making pizza," she said, referring to herself.

At the Pentagon, about half a dozen food outlets were forced to close after staff members joined the protest, a Defense Department spokesman said.

The National Restaurant Association criticized the walkouts, saying in a statement that the organizers "disrupt the workplaces of hard-working Americans who are trying to provide for their families."

In Austin, hundreds chanting "Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here" marched from City Hall to the State Capitol, where lawmakers in the Republican-controlled body are considering a measure to punish sanctuary cities that shield immigrants from federal agents.

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US could ask visa applicants for social media passwords

PASSWORD, PLEASE: US embassies could ask visa applicants for passwords to their own social media accounts in future background checks, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Tuesday.

Kelly said the move could come as part of the effort to toughen vetting of visitors to screen out people who could pose a security threat.

He said it was one of the things under consideration especially for visitors from seven Muslim majority countries with very weak background screening of their own -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

"We're looking at some enhanced or some additional screening," Kelly told a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee. "We may want to get on their social media, with passwords," he said.

"It's very hard to truly vet these people in these countries, the seven countries... But if they come in, we want to say, what websites do they visit, and give us your passwords. So we can see what they do on the internet."

"If they don't want to cooperate, then they don't come in" to the United States, he said.

Kelly stressed that no decision had been made on this, but said tighter screening was definitely in the future, even if it means longer delays for awarding US visas to visitors.

"These are the things we are thinking about," he said.

"But over there we can ask them for this kind of information and if they truly want to come to America, then they will cooperate. If not, next in line."

The seven countries were targeted in president Donald Trump's January 27 immigrant and refugee ban order, which has sense been at least temporarily blocked under court order.

pmh/mdl

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