(Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/AP/Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/AP)
Originally published by The Washington Post
The U.S. government announced Thursday that immigrants from El Salvador and Haiti with temporary protected status have 60 days to apply for permission to remain in the United States until their protection ends in 2019.
Renewal applications must be submitted by March 19.
The 60-day window marks the last opportunity for about 200,000 Salvadorans and nearly 60,000 Haitians to renew their temporary protected status and work authorizations.
Federal officials have said they will end temporary protection for Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, and they gave each group a grace period to prepare to return home as long as they re-register with the government.
The federal government approved protected status for Salvadorans 17 years ago, following two devastating earthquakes in the Central American nation. Their protection expires in September, 2019.
A federal judge barred until Tuesday the transfer by U.S. authorities of an American held four months without charges in Iraq to another country, while she decides whether to permanently ban the man’s transfer while he challenges his detention in court.
The government has said the man has been held by the U.S. military as a suspected member of the Islamic State and “enemy combatant” after surrendering in Syria to rebel Syrian Democratic Forces, who turned him over to U.S. forces on Sept. 14.
The ACLU filed suit Oct. 5 to represent the man, whom the government has not identified, and after U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia ordered the government to allow the ACLU to speak with him, he authorized the group to file a habeas corpus petition in his behalf.
The American’s case could test for the first time whether the right — established by the Supreme Court during George W. Bush’s presidency — of U.S. citizens suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to challenge detentions after their capture on a battlefield also applies to suspected Islamic State fighters.
Officials told The Washington Post in October that the man once had ties to the Pacific Northwest but that most of his family and roots are in the Middle East. The New York Times reported that the Trump administration was considering transferring him to Saudi Arabia under restrictions and that the man was a dual Saudi national.
— Spencer S. Hsu
A fiery helicopter crash killed key Zimbabwean opposition leader Roy Bennett while on holiday in a remote part of New Mexico and four others aboard, friends and authorities said.
State Police Lt. Elizabeth Armijo confirmed Bennett’s death Thursday, a day after a helicopter carrying him and five others went down in a mountainous rural area of northern New Mexico. One person survived the crash, whose cause was not yet known.
Bennett, 60, was a member of the Movement for Democratic Change faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Bennett’s wife, Heather, also died, party spokesman Obert Gutu said.
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