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Illegal migrants reportedly escaping NYC to California could be eligible for numerous free benefits

Illegal migrants reportedly escaping NYC to California could be eligible for numerous free benefits

The four illegal migrants arrested and charged with violently attacking New York City police officers and released without bail have reportedly fled to California, a sanctuary state.  It’s unclear whether the Golden State will work with the state of New York to return the men to be prosecuted for their alleged crimes or whether the Department of Homeland Security will work to deport the individuals. California law restricts state officers from assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in deporting migrants. There are also numerous taxpayer-funded programs from which illegal migrants generally can benefit.  Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in January California would begin providing health care coverage to an additional 764,000 illegal immigrants on top of the 1.1 million already in the Medi-Cal system, California’s version of Medicaid. SUSPECTED ILLEGAL MIGRANTS LAND BOAT ON SAN DIEGO BEACH AND FLEE INTO WEALTHY VILLAGE California has been incrementally adding illegal immigrants to the Medi-Cal program since 2015. That was the year it made undocumented children eligible. Four years later, it added adults 50 and older.  The expansion means illegal immigrants will also be eligible for hormone and sex-change surgeries subsidized by taxpayer dollars.  Nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants between the ages of 26 and 49 qualify, as of Jan. 1, for these federal health care services, which will cost California taxpayers an estimated $3.1 billion. For those living in California illegally within this age range, it translates to approximately $4,058 per year in medical coverage subsidies funded by the state’s general fund. NYC MIGRANTS ARRESTED FOR ASSAULTING POLICE FLEE TO CALIFORNIA UPON RELEASE: REPORT Illegal immigrants can also pay in-state tuition and be eligible for financial aid for state schools.  CalFresh, the state’s federally funded food assistance program, expanded its eligibility requirements to include illegals age 55 and over to receive food benefits.  CALIFORNIA STATE HEALTH INSURANCE TO COVER SEX CHANGES FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS California also has a program called Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI), which is “a 100 percent state-funded program designed to provide monthly cash benefits to aged, blind, and disabled non-citizens who are ineligible for Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) solely due to their immigration status.”  Fox News Digital has reached out to Newsom’s office for comment. Four migrants caught and released after allegedly attacking two New York City police officers near Times Square have reportedly fled to California. The New York Post, citing a law enforcement source, said authorities believe Darwin Andres Gomez Izquiel, 19, Kelvin Servita Arocha, 19, Wilson Juarez, 21, and Yorman Reveron, 24, skipped town after the incident. Police believe the foursome successfully got on a bus bound for California on Wednesday after giving fake names to a church-affiliated nonprofit group that helps migrants leave the Big Apple, the Post reported. In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for New York’s Office of Court Administration said the office was unaware of the whereabouts of Arocha, Juarez, Reveron and Izquiel. Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.

Crisis in the Northwest: Fentanyl ‘killing the mentally ill for a dollar a pill’ in state with loose drug laws

Crisis in the Northwest: Fentanyl ‘killing the mentally ill for a dollar a pill’ in state with loose drug laws

This story is part of a series examining the drug and homeless crises plaguing Oregon. Read part one. PORTLAND, Ore. – People sleeping — or passed out — in downtown Portland hardly get a second glance. Most pedestrians keep their eyes trained straight ahead as they walk past clouds of fentanyl smoke or slumped figures with lolling heads. Maybe they cross the street or look sidelong at someone who starts shouting or throwing things. But Nikki is different. CRISIS IN THE NORTHWEST: ARE VOTERS ‘BEYOND A TURNING POINT’ AFTER DECADES OF PROGRESSIVE POLITICS? “Are you okay? Are you sleeping?” she called out, approaching a cocooned form next to the light rail tracks. Somewhere inside the sleeping bag, a man grunted in response. Nikki, who has been homeless for two and a half years, repeats this process any time she sees someone lying on the ground, making sure they’re responsive. Fentanyl “literally makes people so careless that they will stand over someone who is dead or dying and continue to get high,” she said. It happened to one of her friends, a man in his mid-20s who appeared to be sleeping, but had died. “They were gonna have a lot of life left,” she added. Oregon has turned into a battlefield in the war over drug policy since the state became the first to decriminalize drug possession. Nearly 60% of voters approved Measure 110 but, three years later, numerous polls suggest they regret that move. And no other states have followed Oregon’s lead, despite assurances from researchers and decriminalization advocates that the law is not responsible for increased addiction, overdoses and crime. State lawmakers are poised to re-criminalize drug possession in a special legislative session that begins Monday, though Democrats and Republicans have drafted competing bills. And Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a 90-day state of emergency this week in downtown Portland, where the fentanyl crisis has been most pronounced. “Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Kotek, a Democrat, said in a release. “We are all in this together.” WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE Fentanyl strikes fear among even longtime drug users. “This is creating zombies,” Lori, a homeless woman in Portland, told Fox News last summer. “This sh– should be illegal because they’re killing the mentally ill for a dollar a pill, because I guarantee ya, all these people have some kind of mental illness.” Michael Dusek, who uses marijuana and meth, agreed. “They’re incoherent most of the time, they’re babbling about something to themselves quite loudly, like they can’t hear themselves,” said Dusek, who has been homeless off and on since 1992. “They’re like living dead.” ‘LET THIS SERVE AS A WARNING’: ANARCHISTS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR BURNING CAR OUTSIDE CITY LEADER’S HOME Overdose deaths in the state surged from 800 in 2020 to 1,394 in 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overwhelming majority of fatal overdoses are now attributed to fentanyl, according to Oregon health data. “It seems like we got all of Oregon coming, just to pick up fentanyl now,” Dusek said of Portland. Decriminalization advocates point out that fatal overdoses surged across the country beginning in early 2020, not just in Oregon. Many analysts attribute the spike to isolation and despair during the coronavirus pandemic.  Regardless, Nikki said she has revived 32 people in the past year, collecting as many doses of naloxone as she can from clinics, shelters and even places where citizens have “just nailed a box to a tree or to a wall and keep it stocked with Narcan.” Most fentanyl users Fox News spoke to were difficult — if not impossible — to understand. One woman chattered breathlessly while absently sorting syringes inside her tent, one hand protected by a blue latex glove. A 27-year-old man muttered that he was originally from Idaho, then lived on the Yakama Indian Reservation before a family member dropped him off in Portland so he could “live homeless and do drugs.” “Most of them are mentally ill, and the families don’t wanna take care of them,” Lori said. “Or they’re sick and old and their families don’t take care of ’em.” Methamphetamine was historically Oregon’s drug of choice. But around 2018, law enforcement started to see a trickle of fentanyl, and then a surge, outpacing cocaine, heroin and meth. The small blue pills looked like Oxycodone and were filling the void left after states cracked down on opioid prescriptions. And they were cheap to produce. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of fentanyl to meet the supply side for particular users to give them the effects that they want,” said Chris Gibson, executive director of the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). The number of pills law enforcement seized soared from about 100,000 in 2019, to more than 3 million in 2022, according to HIDTA’s annual report. And while preliminary data from 2023 shows the increase in pill seizures slowing, powder seizures more than tripled last year. Police who participate in the HIDTA reported finding more than 180 kg (nearly 400 lbs) of fentanyl powder, Gibson said. “When you start thinking about the fact that it’s estimated that two milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose to a new user, we start seeing the dangers of that,” Gibson said. The ingredients to make fentanyl are typically shipped from China to Mexico, Gibson said, then the finished product makes its way up the I-5 corridor from border to border, fanning out along the way. “Oregon can’t control the southern border, but we have Honduran cartel members all in our urban areas pushing deadly fentanyl,” Clackamas County Commissioner Ben West said. “We can’t control that. But that costs Oregonians lives and it causes a lot of criminality and despair.” But Oregon can control its drug policies, West said, and “elections have consequences.” Measure 110 made possession of user amounts of all drugs,

‘Overshadow Gaza crimes’: World reacts to US attacks on Iraq and Syria

‘Overshadow Gaza crimes’: World reacts to US attacks on Iraq and Syria

The United States has conducted a wave of air strikes on Iran-aligned targets in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for an attack that killed American soldiers in Jordan. On Saturday, Iraq said 16 people, including civilians, were killed on its soil, and a monitoring group reported 18 people were killed in Syria. Washington has warned of more strikes to purportedly deter the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” amid Israel’s war on Gaza. In announcing the overnight attacks, US President Joe Biden said: “Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing.” Here is how the world reacted to the US action: Iran “The attacks are a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, international law, and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanaani. “In addition to an all-out support of the US for four months of relentless and barbaric attacks by the Zionist regime against the residents of Gaza and the West Bank, and military attacks on Yemen and violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, last night’s attacks on Syria and Iraq were another adventurous action and another strategic error by the US government which will have no result but to intensify tensions and instability in the region.” “The attacks merely support the goals of the Zionist regime. Such attacks increasingly involve the US government in the region and overshadow the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza.” Iraq “This aggressive strike will put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss,” the Iraqi government said in a statement, and denied Washington’s claims of coordinating the air raids with Baghdad as “false” and “aimed at misleading international public opinion”. The presence of the US-led military coalition in the region “has become a reason for threatening security and stability in Iraq and a justification for involving Iraq in regional and international conflicts”, read the statement from Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office. “Iraq reiterates its refusal to let the country be an arena for settling scores,” said government spokesperson Basim Alwadi. Yahya Rasool, the Iraqi military spokesperson, said the attacks “constitute a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, and pose a threat that could lead Iraq and the region into dire consequences”. “The outcomes will have severe implications on the security and stability in Iraq and the surrounding region,” Rasool added. Syria The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strikes served to “inflame the conflict in the Middle East in an extremely dangerous way” and added to Washington’s “record of violations against Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the safety of its people, proving once again that it is the main source of global instability”. The military said: “The area targeted by the American attacks in eastern Syria is the same area where the Syrian Arab Army is fighting the remnants of the Daesh [ISIL] terrorist organisation, and this confirms that the United States and its military forces are involved and allied with this organisation, and are working to revive it as a field arm for it both in Syria and Iraq by all dirty means.” “The aggression of the American occupation forces at dawn today has no justification other than an attempt to weaken the ability of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies in the field of fighting terrorism, but the army.” Islamic Resistance in Iraq The coalition of US and Israel-opposed armed groups in Iraq, which had “suspended” its attacks earlier this week, said it launched drones at a US base in Erbil. Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed reported from Baghdad that Iraqi groups have also carried out attacks with missiles targeting the al-Tanf military base in Syria which is home to US personnel, as well as the Ain al-Assad base in western Iraq. Hamas “We condemn in the strongest terms the American aggression against Iraq and Syria, and consider it a dangerous escalation, an infringement on the sovereignty of the two Arab countries, and a threat to their security and the stability of the region, in service of the occupation’s expansionist agenda and covering up its horrific crimes against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” read a statement from Hamas. “The administration of US President Biden bears responsibility for the consequences of this brutal aggression against both Iraq and Syria, which adds fuel to the fire, and we affirm that the region will not witness stability or peace except by stopping the Zionist aggression, crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our people in the Gaza Strip, and ending the Zionist-Nazi occupation.” European Union “Everybody should try to avoid that the situation becomes explosive,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. While Borrell did not address the US strikes directly, he repeated a warning that the Middle East “is a boiler that can explode”. He pointed to the war in Gaza, violence along the Israel-Lebanon border, bombings in Iraq and Syria, and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. “That’s why we call everybody to try to avoid an escalation.” United Kingdom “The UK and US are steadfast allies. We wouldn’t comment on their operations, but we support their right to respond to attacks,” a British government spokesperson said in a statement. “We have long condemned Iran’s destabilising activity throughout the region, including its political, financial and military support to a number of militant groups.” Poland “Iran’s proxies have played with fire for months and years, and it’s now burning them,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters as he arrived for a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels. Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski was the first EU foreign minister to directly comment on the strikes [Radek Pietruszka/EPA] US House speaker Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, accused Biden of “placating” Tehran after the strikes, and said that “to promote peace, America must project strength”. Analysts “I’m not surprised there has been this reprisal

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 710

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 710

As the war enters its 710th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Friday, February 3, 2024. Politics and diplomacy The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that parts of Ukraine’s case against Russia, arguing that Moscow baselessly accused Kyiv of genocide to justify the 2022 invasion, can move forward. Two French volunteer aid workers were killed in a Russian drone attack in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said, confirming reports from the regional governor and other officials. Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence, reiterated Kyiv’s call for an international investigation into the crash over the Russian region of Belgorod to determine whether the cargo plane carried weapons or passengers along with the crew. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov suspended a senior official while authorities investigate suspected corruption in the procurement of weapons, his ministry said. The Ukrainian government informed the White House that it plans to fire Valerii Zaluzhny, the country’s top military commander overseeing the war against Russia, two sources told the Reuters news agency. Fighting The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said its troops had repelled 19 attacks around the town in the eastern Donetsk region and a further 10 in nearby areas. Two Ukrainian drones struck a primary oil processing facility at the Volgograd oil refinery in southern Russia on Saturday in an operation conducted by the SBU security service, a Ukrainian source told Reuters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the arrival of two new air defence systems that he said could “shoot down anything”. Adblock test (Why?)

Israel vs UNRWA: Deflection and deception

Israel vs UNRWA: Deflection and deception

Israeli intelligence accuses a UN refugee agency of collusion with Hamas – and the media take it at face value. Israel has for years been claiming that the United Nations refugee agency (UNRWA) is in cahoots with Hamas. The latest allegations – which coincided with the International Court of Justice’s order for Israel to prevent genocide – bear the hallmarks of a distraction tactic. So far, the media have taken the bait. Contributors:Diana Buttu – Palestinian lawyerTal Mimran – Former Israeli government adviserAbdaljawad Omar – Academic, Birzeit UniversityKenneth Roth – Former executive director, Human Rights Watch On our radar Last month, a New York Times investigation carried Israeli allegations of sexual violence by Hamas during its October 7 attacks. Meenakshi Ravi explains why that story is being called into question. Germany’s ‘Palestine exception’ to free speech Historical guilt and the stifling of pro-Palestinian dissent in Germany. Contributors:Hebh Jamal – Palestinian journalistHanno Hauenstein – Journalist and former editor, Berliner ZeitungWieland Hoban – Chair, Jewish Voice for Peace Adblock test (Why?)