Leid Stories—Commentaries: Hundreds of Migrants Seeking Legal Entry to U.S. Told There’s No Room —04.30.18

More than a month ago, about 150 people, including many families with children, began a 2,000-mile trek north—from southern Mexico to a border-crossing processing center in San Diego, Calif.—seeking legal entry into the United States. Most of them said they were fleeing the intolerable poverty, political turmoil and unspeakable violence in their home countries in Central America. But when they got to San Diego, they were turned away by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at the San Ysidro crossing, which told them there was no room. Trump’s ramped-up immigration policy seems to include swamping Mexico with Central American migrants.

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria begins a three-day visit at the White House today. He and President Trump are expected to discuss trade, economic development throughout the African continent, and stemming the tide of terrorism. Talks with Trump are said to have as a backdrop President Obama’s purportedly lackluster relationship with Africa’s leaders.

Leid Stories listeners share their views in a preliminary discussion on the Bill Cosby trial, which ended last Thursday with a jury’s verdict convicting him of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for sexually assaulting a female basketball coach he had mentored in his Philadelphia home in 2004. The 80-year-old comedian faces up to 10 in prison on each count when he is sentenced in June.