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Sen. Bob Menendez decides not to delay May trial with appeal of judge’s ruling

NEW YORK (AP) — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez will not appeal a judge’s ruling on Constitutional grounds that would have delayed his May trial, his lawyers said Thursday.

The Democrat’s lawyers notified the Manhattan federal judge who will preside over the May 6 trial in a letter that the senator’s decision was “principally motivated by his desire to proceed to trial and establish his innocence without further delay.”

He has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges filed after investigators discovered gold bars and cash at his New Jersey home.

Prosecutors say the gold and cash resulted from bribes that he and his wife received in exchange for favors Menendez carried out for three New Jersey businessmen.

Earlier this month, Judge Sidney H. Stein ruled that multiple warrants used to conduct 2022 searches of the Democrat’s email accounts and his home were properly sought and carried out.

The warrants had been contested by Menendez under provisions of the Constitution that would have allowed an appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prior to a trial if the senator chose to go that route.

The senator’s lawyers had claimed the warrants were “riddled with material misrepresentation and omissions that deceived the authorizing magistrate judge.”

Stein said any omissions in the warrants were not intentional or material for searches of his home in June 2022 that resulted in the discovery of over $100,000 worth of gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash. Prosecutors said much of the gold and cash was hidden in closets, clothing and a safe.

Menendez, 70, said the cash found in the house was personal savings he had put away for emergencies. After his fall arrest, Menendez was forced to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but said he would not resign from Congress.

Besides Menendez, his wife, Nadine, and two businessmen also have pleaded not guilty to charges. A third businessman facing charges has pled guilty in a cooperation deal with prosecutors that calls for him to testify at trial.

According to an indictment, Menendez and his wife accepted gold bars and cash from a real estate developer in return for the senator using his clout to get that businessman a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund.

Menendez also was charged with helping another New Jersey business associate get a lucrative deal with the government of Egypt.


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House Republicans invite President Biden to testify at public hearing as impeachment inquiry stalls

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Thursday invited President Joe Biden to testify before Congress as part of their impeachment inquiry into him and his family’s business affairs.

Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Democratic president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to “explain, under oath,” what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses.

“In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the Committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from Members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” the Kentucky Republican wrote.

While it is highly unlikely that Biden would agree to appear before lawmakers in such a setting, Comer pointed to previous examples of presidents’ testifying before Congress.

“As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974,” Comer continued.

The bold invitation comes as the monthslong inquiry into Biden is all but winding down as Republicans face the stark reality that it lacks the political appetite from within the conference to go forward with an actual impeachment. Nonetheless, leaders of the effort, including Comer are facing growing political pressure to deliver something after months of work investigating the Biden family and its web of international business transactions.

After a hearing earlier this month, the White House scoffed at the idea of Biden appearing for a public hearing, telling Republicans to “move on” and focus on “real issues” Americans want addressed.

“This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment,” spokesman Ian Sams said last week. “Call it a day, pal.”


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Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers want to make public statements about stolen money. FBI says Murdaugh lied

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Lawyers for convicted killer Alex Murdaugh want to release to the public statements he made to the FBI about what happened to million of dollars he stole from clients and his South Carolina law firm and who might have helped him steal the money.

Murdaugh’s attorneys made the request in a court filing Thursday after federal prosecutors asked a judge earlier this week to keep the statements secret. They argued that Murdaugh wasn’t telling the truth and that his plea deal on theft and other charges should be thrown out at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Monday.

Prosecutors think Murdaugh is trying to protect an attorney who helped him steal and that his assertion that more than $6 million in the stolen money went to his drug habit is not true. Releasing the statements could damage an ongoing investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

But Murdaugh’s attorneys said FBI agents can just black out any information they don’t want to make public while leaving the bulk of the statements available so people can judge the allegations themselves.

“To allow the Government to publicly accuse Murdaugh of breaching his plea agreement while also allowing the Government to hide all purported evidence supporting that accusation from the public would violate the public’s right to the truth,” attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian wrote.

Murdaugh, 55, is already serving life without parole in state prison after a jury found him guilty of murder in the shootings of his wife and younger son. He later pleaded guilty to stealing money from clients and his law firm in state court and was sentenced to 27 years, which South Carolina prosecutors said is an insurance policy to keep him behind bars in case his murder conviction was ever overturned.

The federal case was supposed to be even more insurance, with Murdaugh agreeing to a plea deal so his federal sentence would run at the same time as his state sentences.

Murdaugh’s lawyers said if prosecutors can keep the FBI statements secret, Monday’s court hearing in Charleston would have to be held behind closed doors, denying Murdaugh’s rights to have his case heard in public.

The FBI said it interviewed Murdaugh three times last year. After agents concluded he wasn’t telling the whole truth about his schemes to steal from clients and his law partners, they gave him a polygraph in October.

Agents said Murdaugh failed the test and federal prosecutors said that voided the plea deal reached in September where he promised to fully cooperate with investigators.

Prosecutors now want Murdaugh to face the stiffest sentence possible since the plea agreement was breached and serve his federal sentence at the end of any state sentences.

Each of the 22 counts Murdaugh pleaded guilty to in federal court carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Some carry a 30-year maximum.

State prosecutors estimated Murdaugh stole more than $12 million from clients by diverting settlement money into his own accounts or stealing from his family law firm. Federal investigators estimate at least $6 million of that has not been accounted for, although Murdaugh has said he spent extravagantly on illegal drugs after becoming hooked on opioids.

Investigators said that as Murdaugh’s financial schemes were about to be exposed in June 2021, he decided to kill his wife and son in hopes it would make him a sympathetic figure and draw attention away from the missing money. Paul Murdaugh was shot several times with a shotgun and Maggie Murdaugh was shot several times with a rifle outside the family’s home in Colleton County.

Murdaugh has adamantly denied killing them, even testifying in his own defense against his lawyers’ advice.

Federal prosecutors said Murdaugh did appear to tell the truth about the roles banker Russell Laffitte and attorney and old college friend Cory Fleming played in helping him steal.

Laffitte was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, while Fleming is serving nearly four years behind bars after pleading guilty.


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Republican states file lawsuit challenging Biden’s student loan repayment plan

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A group of Republican-led states is suing the Biden administration to block a new student loan repayment plan that provides a faster path to cancellation and lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers.

In a federal lawsuit filed Thursday, 11 states led by Kansas argue that Biden overstepped his authority in creating the SAVE Plan, which was made available to borrowers last year and has already canceled loans for more than 150,000.

It argues that the new plan is no different from Biden’s first attempt at student loan cancellation, which the Supreme Court rejected last year. “Last time Defendants tried this the Supreme Court said that this action was illegal. Nothing since then has changed,” according to the lawsuit.

Biden announced the SAVE repayment plan in 2022, alongside a separate plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for more than 40 million Americans. The Supreme Court blocked the cancellation plan after Republican states sued, but the court didn’t examine SAVE, which was still being hashed out.

The new lawsuit was filed a day after the White House hosted a “day of action” to promote the SAVE Plan. The Biden administration says more than 7.7 million borrowers have enrolled in the plan, including more than 5 million who have had their monthly payments reduced to $100 or less because they have lower yearly incomes.

The challenge was filed in federal court in Topeka, Kansas, by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. It asks a judge to halt the plan immediately. Along with Kansas, the suit is backed by Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

“In a completely brazen fashion, the president pressed ahead anyway,” Kobach said during a news conference at the Kansas Statehouse. “The law simply does not allow President Biden to do what he wants to do.”

Biden’s new repayment plan is a modified version of other income-based repayment plans that the Education Department has offered since the ’90s. The earliest versions were created by Congress to help struggling borrowers, capping payments at a portion of their income and canceling any remaining debt after 20 or 25 years.

The new plan offers more generous terms than ever, offering to reduce monthly payments for more borrowers and canceling loans in as little as 10 years. Unlike other plans, it prevents interest from snowballing as long as borrowers make their monthly payments.

The plan’s provisions are being phased in this year, and the quicker path to cancellation was originally scheduled to take effect later this summer. But the Biden administration accelerated that benefit and started canceling loans for some borrowers in February.

Biden said it was meant “to give more borrowers breathing room so they can get out from under the burden of student loan debt.”

Instead of creating a new plan from scratch, the Education Department amended existing plans through federal regulation. Supporters saw it as a legal maneuver that put the plan on firmer grounding, anticipating a challenge from Republicans.

But in the new lawsuit, Kobach argues that Biden needed to go through Congress to make such significant changes.

The states argue that Biden’s plan will harm them in many ways.

With such a generous repayment plan, fewer borrowers will have an incentive to go into public service and pursue the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, the states argue. They predict more state employees will leave their jobs, and it will worsen public schools’ struggles to recruit and retain teachers.

They argue the plan will inject hundreds of billions of dollars in loan relief into the U.S. economy, which would require states to increase fraud protection efforts. The plan “will create enormous opportunities for fraudsters to exploit student debt borrowers that would not otherwise exist,” according to the suit.

If successful, it would effectively kill the last remnant of Biden’s first attempt at widespread student loan relief. After the Supreme Court blocked his wider plan last year, Biden ordered the Education Department to craft a new plan using a different legal justification. The agency is now pursuing a more limited plan for mass cancellation.

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Binkley reported from Washington

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


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Biden restores endangered species protections rolled back by Trump

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) – The Biden administration on Thursday restored some protections under the Endangered Species Act rolled back under former President Donald Trump, giving the federal government more leeway to designate plants or animals as threatened or endangered.

The 51-year-old Endangered Species Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973, is credited with helping to save the bald eagle, the California condor and numerous other animals and plants on the brink of extinction.

In 2019, the Trump administration ordered changes to the law to ease costs to the taxpayer and businesses. Those changes gave consideration to the economic costs on industries such as mining and timber of decisions to designate a species as threatened or endangered.

The reversal will mean “listing decisions and critical habitat designations are based on the best available science,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement on Thursday.

“These revisions underscore our commitment to using all of the tools available to help halt declines and stabilize populations of the species most at risk,” said the agency’s director Martha Williams.

The move by the Trump administration had been criticized by environmental groups for putting money over science.

Then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told the media at the time that the revisions fit squarely within Trump’s mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public, without sacrificing protection and recovery goals.

The Biden administration also restored the so-called “blanket rule” that gives the same protection to species and habitats designated as threatened as those under the higher designation of endangered, when appropriate, the wildlife service said.

John Calvelli, executive vice president of public affairs at the non-profit environmental group Wildlife Conservation Society, applauded the move.

“Conservation work is never done, as 1 million species are at risk of extinction,” he said in an interview. “The Biden-Harris administration’s steps today to strengthen the Endangered Species Act, ensuring science is at the center of decisions to protect wildlife, is great news for all of nature.”

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)


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House Speaker Mike Johnson will send Mayorkas impeachment to the Senate next month

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday indicated he will send articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate shortly after Congress returns to Washington next month.

The Republican speaker said he would send the two articles on April 10. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to swear in senators as jurors in the trial the next day, according to his office. The House impeached Mayorkas on a razor-thin party-line vote in February, but Johnson had delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate while Congress addressed funding for the government.

Impeachment for Mayorkas, who would be the first Cabinet secretary to receive the punishment in nearly 150 years, is expected to quickly fizzle in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Republicans took the action against Mayorkas to rebuke his handling of the nation’s southern border, but critics, including a few Republicans, say the House did not demonstrate that the Cabinet secretary’s actions reached the Constitution’s bar of high crimes and misdemeanors.

“House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense,” Schumer said after the House acted.

But Johnson argued in a statement that Mayorkas has “violated the public trust and willfully refused to follow federal immigration laws.”

“He deserves to be impeached and the American people demand that those responsible for the border crisis be held accountable,” Johnson said.

Still, some GOP senators have expressed skepticism about the House argument, and a conviction is highly unlikely. Two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to convict as opposed to the simple majority needed to impeach in the House. That means all Republicans as well as a substantial number of Democrats would have to vote to convict Mayorkas.

However, a comprehensive trial would allow Republicans to continue to hammer on the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Johnson urged Schumer to hold “a full public trial” to show he cared about “ending the devastation caused by Biden’s border catastrophe.”


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Trump backers try again to recall Wisconsin GOP Assembly speaker as first effort stalls

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Backers of former President Donald Trump are launching a second effort to recall Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office after the first attempt appears to have failed.

Recall organizers filed paperwork to start a second recall effort on Wednesday, just a day after they asked a court to give them more time to rehabilitate signatures that Vos challenged on the first recall petition. Organizers on Thursday said they weren’t giving up hope on the first attempt, calling the new one a “concurrent” effort.

Vos was initially targeted for recall because he refused to impeach the state’s top elections official or proceed with attempting to decertify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin. His actions angered Trump, who accused Vos of covering up election corruption, while Trump’s followers mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge in 2022 and are now trying to force a recall election.

The second recall effort says he should be recalled because of his “tacit support for the Chinese Communist Party,” lack of commitment to election integrity, bocking lower prescription drug costs and “flagrant disrespect for his own constituents by calling them ‘whack-jobs, morons and idiots.’”

Vos made that comment last week when deriding the recall effort, including mocking their claims that he is secretly working for the Chinese government.

“The whack jobs who are running the recall against me said I am agent of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said at a WisPolitics.com luncheon. “That was the last text that they sent out in desperation to show people somehow that I am not a conservative Republican.

Vos, the longest serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin history, declined Thursday to comment on the latest recall effort.

Recall organizer Matthew Snorek did not return an email seeking comment. Recall organizers said in a statement Thursday that their goal was “to fortify the integrity of the recall process, ensuring that each step we take is marked by precision, transparency, and trust.”

Ultimately, it’s up to the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission to determine whether enough valid signatures are gathered to force a recall election. The commission has not voted on the first filing, but its initial review found that not enough valid signatures collected from residents of the district Vos was elected to represent.

But because Vos now lives in a different district under new maps the Legislature passed, the elections commission has asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to clarify where any recall would take place. Determining that would also dictate where petition signatures must come from and how many need to be collected.

The Supreme Court has not said yet whether it will rule on that question or when.

Recall organizers faced a Tuesday deadline to rebut challenges Vos made to their signatures. Instead, they asked the Dane County circuit court to give it more time to review the challenges. In a court filing, organizers asked that they have until five days after the Supreme Court rules on which district boundary is in effect.

The circuit court scheduled a Friday hearing in that case.

Vos has said the first recall petition fell “woefully short” of the signatures needed, no matter what legislative district is used, and was rife with fraud and criminal activity. The Racine County district attorney was also investigating claims that the petitions included names of people who did not sign it.

The elections commission has until April 11 to decide whether there are enough valid signatures on the original petition to order a recall election. Its decision can be appealed in court. If successful, the recall is likely to be scheduled in June.

The new recall petition would be due May 28, which means any recall election likely wouldn’t be until September. That would put it after the Aug. 13 primary, where Vos could face a challenge ahead of the November general election.


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Green Day will headline United Nations-backed global climate concert in San Francisco

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Green Day will headline a United Nations Human Rights-backed global climate concert on Tuesday at the famed Fillmore in San Francisco.

The intimate event, which is co-hosted by the Recording Academy, aims to bring attention to the inequalities exacerbated by climate change.

Ultra Q, an alternative rock band fronted by Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s son Jakob Danger, will open.

Proceeds from the concert will go to United Nations Human Rights climate justice initiatives and a MusiCares climate fund to benefit musicians affected by climate change.

The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance will honor Green Day for their “commitment to social justice and environmental causes,” according to a press release.

“As world renowned artists and activists, Green Day continues to leverage its major influence and platform to bring awareness to the impact of climate change on the people and the environment,” Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

“The United Nations was founded in San Francisco almost 80 years ago to safeguard human rights and dignity from crisis and tragedy. It is only fitting that we are back in San Francisco,” he said.

“Music is one of humanity’s greatest resources. It moves the world,” Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, added. “And we are grateful for Green Day’s longstanding dedication to promoting social justice.”

Tickets will become available for purchase on Friday at 12 p.m. PDT via Ticketmaster.


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West Virginia bill adding work search to unemployment, freezing benefits made law without signature

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia’s unemployed people will need to do more to prove they are searching for jobs to collect state benefits under a new law that will take effect later this year.

A controversial bill passed by the GOP-majority Legislature on the final day of the 60-day legislative session went into law without Republican Gov. Jim Justice’s signature Thursday. Justice did not comment on why he didn’t sign or veto the bill before the midnight deadline.

The legislation contains provisions that will go into effect July 1 requiring that people receiving unemployment benefits in the state must complete at least four work-search activities a week. Those activities could include applying for jobs or taking a civil service examination.

The law also freezes the rates people receiving unemployment benefits are paid at the current maximum of $622 a week, instead of a system adjusting with inflation. People also would be able to work part time while receiving unemployment and searching for full-time work. Current average benefits are around $420 a week.

Those in support of the measure said they were concerned about the long-term solvency of the state’s unemployment trust fund. Others said the fund is doing well and that they didn’t understand why the move was necessary.

Speaking on the House floor March 9, Democratic Del. Shawn Fluharty said he didn’t like the message the legislation sends.

“Here we are, just year in and year out, finding ways to chip away at who actually built this state: the blue-collar worker,” Fluharty said.

The legislation ultimately passed was a compromise between the House of Delegates and the Senate. An earlier version of the bill passed by the Senate would have drawn back benefit coverage from 26 to 24 weeks.

Under the Senate bill, an unemployed person would have started by receiving weekly checks amounting to $712 — an increase from the current maximum rate of $662 — or 70% of their original wage. Those checks would have been reduced by 5% every four weeks until the fourth sixth-week period, when the checks would amount to 45% of a person’s original wage.


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Immigrants killed in Baltimore bridge collapse died doing job ‘others do not want to do’

By Gabriella Borter

BALTIMORE (Reuters) -They came to the United States for a chance at a better life. They found work filling pot holes on a bridge in the middle of the night, and they ended up dead in the Baltimore harbor.

The six victims of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse were all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, doing the kind of grueling work that many immigrants take on, when a container ship crashed into a support pillar at 1:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday and sent them plunging into the icy Patapsco River.

Divers pulled the bodies of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and Dorlian Castillo from a red pickup truck 25 feet underwater the following day. 

Four are missing and presumed dead: Maynor Suazo from Honduras; Jose Lopez from Guatemala; Miguel Luna from El Salvador; and another whose name has not been released. Another two workers were rescued.

The news rippled quickly through Baltimore’s Hispanic community, which has nearly doubled in size in recent years, transforming the modest rowhouse neighborhoods near the sprawling port complex. Churches held vigils for the missing workers, and advocacy groups quickly raised $98,000 for the victims’ families.

Some said they were not surprised that all of the victims were immigrants, even though they account for less than 10% of the population in Maryland’s largest city.

“One of the reasons Latinos were involved in this accident is because Latinos do the work that others do not want to do. We have to do it, because we come here for a better life. We do not come to invade the country,” said Lucia Islas, president of Comité Latino de Baltimore, a nonprofit group.

Hispanic workers are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to die on the job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with construction being a particularly deadly industry. 

Government and industry figures show that Hispanics are over-represented in high-risk jobs: 51% of construction workers, 34% of slaughterhouse workers and 61% of landscaping workers. 

The workers on the Key Bridge were employed by Brawner Builders Inc., a local construction company that has done extensive work for the state and has been cited seven times since 2018 for safety violations. Company officials have said they are devastated by the loss, and declined comment when contacted by Reuters. 

Community leaders said many Hispanics in the city take low-paying work that provides scant benefits.

“The only choice is to work, when you don’t have the same salary that a citizen might earn,” said Carlos Crespo, 53, a mechanic from Mexico.   

“Many don’t value our Hispanic community. They see us as animals or think that we live off the government. But that is not true, we pay our taxes too,” he said.

Crespo and others involved in the fundraising effort said it was built on years of similar attempts to help provide a safety net for people who struggle to find affordable health care and adequate housing or navigate services that are only provided in English.  

‘A GOOD SON’

“We go from one crisis to another,” said Susana Barrios, vice president of the Latino Racial Justice Circle.

The disaster comes in the middle of a U.S. presidential election in which immigration is once again a top concern for voters, as Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration has struggled to manage a recent record number of border crossings.

Republican candidate Donald Trump has employed racist rhetoric against immigrants, referring to them as “animals” and “not people” on the campaign trail and has said he would dramatically ramp up deportation if re-elected on Nov. 5.

Baltimore, which has struggled with high crime and a poverty rate nearly double the national average, historically hasn’t been home to a large Hispanic population, but the community has grown in recent years. Hispanics made up 7.8% of the city’s population in 2020, up from 4.2% in 2010, according to U.S. Census figures.

Nelson Amaya, a pastor of a Pentecostal church in the nearby suburb of Severn, said many Central American immigrants have moved from nearby Washington, D.C., suburbs in search of jobs and more affordable housing. Many Hispanic markets, restaurants and other businesses have opened in recent years, he said. 

“In more or less the last five years, the Hispanic population here has grown a lot,” he said. “That has a big, big impact on the economy.”

The White House said on Thursday existing immigration rules could allow for relatives of the victims who are abroad to visit the United States.

In the meantime, some struggled to come to grips with their loss.     

“My son was a good son, he went to the United States and said he was going to help his family,” Nora Lopez, the mother of missing victim Jose Lopez, told Univision TV through tears in Camotan, Guatemala

She said he had been in the United States 19 years and had two children. 

“I hope they find my son alive,” she said. 

(Additional reporting by Ted Hesson, Mica Rosenberg, Kristina Cooke and Andy Sullivan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Kat Stafford and Aurora Ellis)


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