Sunday, June 8, 2014
Cleveland Clinic leader Cosgrove drops from competition to run Veterans Affairs
Bailey: "Could you blame the guy, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole!"
A top Obama administration prospect to run the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs withdrew his name for the job Saturday.
Cleveland Clinic chief executive Dr. Toby Cosgrove acknowledged he had been contacted by the administration but said he wants to remain at his current job to complete his work.
“This has been an extraordinarily difficult decision, but I have decided to withdraw from consideration … due to the commitment I have made to the organization, our patients and the work that still needs to be done here," said Cosgrove, a decorated Vietnam veteran.
President Obama has been looking for a replacement for department Secretary Eric Shinseki since accepting his May 30 resignation, which followed an inspector general’s report concluding widespread problems with providing veterans prompt medical care and "systemic" problems with clinics misrepresenting patient wait times.
Cosgrove's decision is a signal of the difficulties the Obama administration may face in finding someone willing and able to tackle the VA's entrenched problems.
The report came weeks after allegations surfaced about “secret” waiting lists at a VA medical clinic in Phoenix, which resulted in a growing chorus of Democratic and Republican lawmakers calling for Shinseki’s resignation.
"I am humbled and honored to have been considered for the opportunity to help veterans across the United States,” Cosgrove also said. “This is an enormous responsibility and one that deserved careful thought and consideration.”
Considered one of the country’s premiere medical-research facilities and health-care providers, the Cleveland Clinic has been a favorite for Obama.
The announcement comes just days after President Obama's choice to be the top health official at the VA withdrew his nomination Thursday, saying he feared his confirmation could spark a prolonged political battle.
Jeffrey Murawsky, health care chief for the VA's Chicago-based regional office, was nominated last month to be the department's new undersecretary for health care, replacing Robert Petzel, who resigned under pressure. Petzel had been scheduled to retire later this year but was asked to leave early amid a firestorm over delays in patient care and preventable deaths at veterans hospitals.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A top Obama administration prospect to run the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs withdrew his name for the job Saturday.
Cleveland Clinic chief executive Dr. Toby Cosgrove acknowledged he had been contacted by the administration but said he wants to remain at his current job to complete his work.
“This has been an extraordinarily difficult decision, but I have decided to withdraw from consideration … due to the commitment I have made to the organization, our patients and the work that still needs to be done here," said Cosgrove, a decorated Vietnam veteran.
President Obama has been looking for a replacement for department Secretary Eric Shinseki since accepting his May 30 resignation, which followed an inspector general’s report concluding widespread problems with providing veterans prompt medical care and "systemic" problems with clinics misrepresenting patient wait times.
Cosgrove's decision is a signal of the difficulties the Obama administration may face in finding someone willing and able to tackle the VA's entrenched problems.
The report came weeks after allegations surfaced about “secret” waiting lists at a VA medical clinic in Phoenix, which resulted in a growing chorus of Democratic and Republican lawmakers calling for Shinseki’s resignation.
"I am humbled and honored to have been considered for the opportunity to help veterans across the United States,” Cosgrove also said. “This is an enormous responsibility and one that deserved careful thought and consideration.”
Considered one of the country’s premiere medical-research facilities and health-care providers, the Cleveland Clinic has been a favorite for Obama.
The announcement comes just days after President Obama's choice to be the top health official at the VA withdrew his nomination Thursday, saying he feared his confirmation could spark a prolonged political battle.
Jeffrey Murawsky, health care chief for the VA's Chicago-based regional office, was nominated last month to be the department's new undersecretary for health care, replacing Robert Petzel, who resigned under pressure. Petzel had been scheduled to retire later this year but was asked to leave early amid a firestorm over delays in patient care and preventable deaths at veterans hospitals.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ukraine energy firm hiring Biden’s son raises ethical concerns
(Bailey) "Good old Democratic Party, has more crooks then a dog has fleas on it's a**."
Vice President Joe Biden’s visit Saturday to Ukraine in support of the country's new democratic government is renewing concerns about his youngest son being hired by a Ukraine company promoting energy independence from Moscow.
Hunter Biden will be working for the company while his father and others in the Obama administration attempt to influence energy policies and other issues of the new government, which is gripped in a struggle with Russia and pro-Russian separatists to control the county.
The company, Burisma Holdings Limited, says it wants to reduce Ukraine's dependence on Russian gas and oil, a goal that parallels U.S. efforts to aid Ukraine's energy industry.
The other major issues are Hunter Biden’s new employer leases natural gas fields in Crimea, an eastern Ukraine peninsula being controlled by Russia in the country’s months-long political upheaval. And the company is owned by a former Ukraine government minister, Nikolai Zlochevskyi, who has ties to the country's ousted pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The 44-year-old Biden was hired in April and will be a director and lawyer for the company.
American conflict-of-interest laws and federal ethics rules essentially do not regulate the business activities of adult relatives of those who work in the White House, and there’s no indication that the situation crosses legal or ethical lines.
But ethics experts appear divided over the implications.
"The primary problem here is the fact that Hunter Biden has set up a financial arrangement with someone who might have business pending before this administration," said Craig Holman, an ethics expert with Public Citizen, a Washington-based government reform organization.
Joe Biden led the U.S. delegation at Saturday's inauguration of Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko, and announced $48 million in additional aid for the Kiev government. Biden met Poroshenko and said "there is a window for peace and you know as well as anyone that it will not stay open indefinitely ... America is with you."
The Office of the Vice President said some of the money will help Ukraine “enhance its energy security.”
Ukraine is an important natural-gas and petroleum-liquids transit country. Two major pipeline systems carry Russian gas through Ukraine to Western Europe.
At least two oil and natural gas fields leased by subsidiaries of Burisma are in Ukrainian territories where pro-Russian sentiments remain strong, according to government and media releases, independent energy maps and Burisma's website.
One is in the breakaway Russian-backed state of Crimea. The other is in the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region. Instability there could force the younger Biden's new company to coordinate with pro-Russian separatists whom the U.S. considers illegitimate.
White House officials declined to comment on Hunter Biden's association with Burisma and the company's holdings in Crimea and east Ukraine.
The vice president's spokeswoman, Kendra Barkoff, previously said that Biden's son is a private citizen and a lawyer, and that Joe Biden "does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."
Presidents and vice presidents have long been vexed by relatives rewarded for family ties.
Political loan troubles shadowed Vice President Richard Nixon's brother, Donald, during the 1960 election, and President Jimmy Carter's brother, Billy, who accepted a $220,000 stipend in 1981 from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.
In recent years, several Bush and Clinton relatives were caught in a string of murky financial and political dealings.
But "unless there's solid evidence that Hunter Biden got his job to influence American foreign policy, there's no clear line that's been crossed," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
A former Washington lobbyist, the vice president's son is effectively exempt from most rules that would require him to describe publicly the legal work he does on behalf of Burisma.
Zlochevskyi's name is missing from Burisma's web site, but financial documents in Cyprus as well as U.S. Securities and Exchange records show that he owns the bulk of Burisma's shares. Zlochevskyi's Cyprus-based Brociti Investments Limited controls Burisma.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Vice President Joe Biden’s visit Saturday to Ukraine in support of the country's new democratic government is renewing concerns about his youngest son being hired by a Ukraine company promoting energy independence from Moscow.
Hunter Biden will be working for the company while his father and others in the Obama administration attempt to influence energy policies and other issues of the new government, which is gripped in a struggle with Russia and pro-Russian separatists to control the county.
The company, Burisma Holdings Limited, says it wants to reduce Ukraine's dependence on Russian gas and oil, a goal that parallels U.S. efforts to aid Ukraine's energy industry.
The other major issues are Hunter Biden’s new employer leases natural gas fields in Crimea, an eastern Ukraine peninsula being controlled by Russia in the country’s months-long political upheaval. And the company is owned by a former Ukraine government minister, Nikolai Zlochevskyi, who has ties to the country's ousted pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The 44-year-old Biden was hired in April and will be a director and lawyer for the company.
American conflict-of-interest laws and federal ethics rules essentially do not regulate the business activities of adult relatives of those who work in the White House, and there’s no indication that the situation crosses legal or ethical lines.
But ethics experts appear divided over the implications.
"The primary problem here is the fact that Hunter Biden has set up a financial arrangement with someone who might have business pending before this administration," said Craig Holman, an ethics expert with Public Citizen, a Washington-based government reform organization.
Joe Biden led the U.S. delegation at Saturday's inauguration of Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko, and announced $48 million in additional aid for the Kiev government. Biden met Poroshenko and said "there is a window for peace and you know as well as anyone that it will not stay open indefinitely ... America is with you."
The Office of the Vice President said some of the money will help Ukraine “enhance its energy security.”
Ukraine is an important natural-gas and petroleum-liquids transit country. Two major pipeline systems carry Russian gas through Ukraine to Western Europe.
At least two oil and natural gas fields leased by subsidiaries of Burisma are in Ukrainian territories where pro-Russian sentiments remain strong, according to government and media releases, independent energy maps and Burisma's website.
One is in the breakaway Russian-backed state of Crimea. The other is in the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region. Instability there could force the younger Biden's new company to coordinate with pro-Russian separatists whom the U.S. considers illegitimate.
White House officials declined to comment on Hunter Biden's association with Burisma and the company's holdings in Crimea and east Ukraine.
The vice president's spokeswoman, Kendra Barkoff, previously said that Biden's son is a private citizen and a lawyer, and that Joe Biden "does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."
Presidents and vice presidents have long been vexed by relatives rewarded for family ties.
Political loan troubles shadowed Vice President Richard Nixon's brother, Donald, during the 1960 election, and President Jimmy Carter's brother, Billy, who accepted a $220,000 stipend in 1981 from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.
In recent years, several Bush and Clinton relatives were caught in a string of murky financial and political dealings.
But "unless there's solid evidence that Hunter Biden got his job to influence American foreign policy, there's no clear line that's been crossed," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
A former Washington lobbyist, the vice president's son is effectively exempt from most rules that would require him to describe publicly the legal work he does on behalf of Burisma.
Zlochevskyi's name is missing from Burisma's web site, but financial documents in Cyprus as well as U.S. Securities and Exchange records show that he owns the bulk of Burisma's shares. Zlochevskyi's Cyprus-based Brociti Investments Limited controls Burisma.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Ariz. rushes supplies to site holding migrant kids
(Bailey) "This is Obama's Government doing the dumping of kids, not the State of Arizona".
PHOENIX (AP) — Angry about the
federal government sending from Texas to Arizona immigrants who are in
the country illegally, Arizona officials say they are rushing federal
supplies to a makeshift holding center in the southern part of the state
that's housing hundreds of migrant children and is running low on the
basics.
Gov. Jan
Brewer's spokesman, Andrew Wilder, said Friday that conditions at the
holding center are so dire that federal officials have asked the state
to immediately ship the medical supplies to the center in Nogales.
A
Homeland Security Department official told The Associated Press that
about 700 children were sleeping on plastic cots Friday and about 2,000
mattresses have been ordered, and portable toilets and showers have been
brought to the holding center — a warehouse that has not been used for
detention in years.
The
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no
authorization to discuss the matter publicly, said the Nogales holding
center opened for children because the Department of Health and Human
Services had nowhere to turn.
"They became so overwhelmed and haven't kept up with planning," the official said.
U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has said the immigrants were
mostly families from Central America fleeing extreme poverty and
violence.
The Homeland
Security official said the number of children at the warehouse was
expected to double to around 1,400. The warehouse has a capacity of
about 1,500.
The station
began housing children flown from South Texas last Saturday. About 400
were scheduled to arrive Friday but, due to mechanical issues with the
planes, only about 60 came, the Homeland Security official said.
Saturday's flights were canceled, also due to mechanical problems. There
are flights scheduled through mid-June.
Federal
authorities plan to use the Nogales facility as a way station, where
the children will be vaccinated and checked medically. They will then be
sent to facilities being set up in Ventura, California, San Antonio,
Texas, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
The
Homeland Security official said that the children would be moved out of
the Nogales site as soon as Health and Human Services finds places for
them. But the official said: "As quickly as we move them out, we get
more. We believe this is just a start."
The children being held in Nogales are 17 or younger. The official estimated three of every four were at least 16.
Wilder said reports from
consulates that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was stopping
the program to fly migrant families to Arizona and then bus them to
Phoenix were incorrect. Instead, the program that has shipped unknown
thousands of adult migrants and their children to Arizona since last
month shows no sign of stopping, he said.
"The
adults, the adults with children, families — that continues unfettered
and we have no idea where they are going," Wilder said.
In
a statement Friday, Homeland Security officials said "appropriate
custody determinations will be made on a case by case basis" for
migrants apprehended in South Texas. The department declined to comment
on the reports that the program of flying migrant families to Arizona
was being halted.
Homeland
Security started flying immigrants to Arizona from the Rio Grande Valley
in Texas last month after the number of immigrants, including more than
48,000 children traveling on their own, overwhelmed the Border Patrol
there.
The immigrant children
were flown from Texas, released in Arizona, and told to report to an
ICE office near where they were traveling within 15 days.
Brewer
sent an angry letter to President Barack Obama on Monday demanding that
the program of dropping off families at bus stations in Phoenix stop
immediately. She called the program dangerous and unconscionable, asked
for details and demanded to know why state authorities weren't consulted
or even informed.
The governor said she hadn't received a response to her letter by Friday.
"I
have reached out to Federal Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson for
answers. Meanwhile, I reiterate my call on President Obama to secure our
southern border and terminate this operation immediately," Brewer said
in a statement.
Brewer's
staff spent Friday in a series of calls with officials from FEMA,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security.
Wilder
said FEMA's Region 9 administrator was being sent to the holding center
in Nogales on Saturday to oversee efforts to deal with the hundreds of
arriving children.
The
federal emergency supplies are held in Arizona warehouses, and Wilder
said the state is working to send them to the holding center.
On
Friday night, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that young
lawyers and paralegals are being sought for the community service
program AmeriCorps to provide legal assistance in immigration
proceedings to children who come to the U.S. illegally. Officials say
about 100 lawyers and paralegals will be enrolled as members of
AmeriCorps in a new division called "justice AmeriCorps."
Immigration
officials can immediately return Mexican immigrants to the border, but
they are much more hard-pressed to deal with Central American migrants
who illegally cross into the U.S. In recent months, waves of migrants
from nations south of Mexico have arrived in Texas.
The
Homeland Security official said that legally, only their parents or
guardians can take custody if the government makes the children eligible
for release.
Officials in
Central America and Mexico have noticed a recent increase in women and
children crossing the border. Father Heyman Vazquez, the director of a
migrant shelter in Huixtla in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, said
he and others advise children that it's too dangerous. Yet, Vazquez is
seeing more and more youths heading north.
"I
remember a little boy of 9 years old and I asked if he was going to go
meet someone and he told me 'No, I'm just going hand myself over because
I hear they help kids," Vazquez said.
The
perception that some immigrants could be getting a free pass into the
U.S. could lead to more attempts to cross the border. Illegal
immigration increased heavily under a "catch-and-release" strategy
during the George W. Bush administration. Under that policy the
government issued notices to appear in immigration court to migrants
from countries other than Mexico until Bush stopped the practice.
Federal
officials established a 210-mile stretch of the Texas-Mexico border as a
zero-tolerance zone for illegal immigration. Instead of merely getting
sent back home, migrants were arrested, prosecuted and sometimes
sentenced to prison before being formally kicked out of the country. By
August 2006, border agents in the Del Rio, Texas, sector said daily
arrests had dropped from 500 to fewer than 100.
___
Spagat reported from Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.
France Will Arm Russian Navy Despite U.S. Objections
So much for curbing Russia's newfangled expansionism. One of the French-made warships will help Russia defend the territory it just conquered from Ukraine.
(Bailey) America's best friend. Yeah, right!
France may have agreed to impose sanctions against Russia for its March military occupation of Crimea, but that won’t stop it from selling warships to the same Russian force that carried out the occupation.
The decision flies in the face of direct U.S. pressure on France to halt the sale. Hours before arriving in Paris on Thursday night, President Barack Obama told reporters in Brussels that it “would have been preferable to press the pause button” on the military contract. “I have expressed some concerns, and I don’t think I am alone,” Obama said.
Indeed, various members of the NATO alliance, as well as the leaders of Ukraine, have called on France to stop the sale of the Mistral warships to Russia. Their concerns stem in large part from the fact that at least one of the ships will to be stationed in Crimea as part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the very same force that led the Russian takeover of that southern Ukrainian peninsula.
“Russian generals have already said what these ships will be used for – to threaten Russia’s neighbors in the Black Sea, and that means Europe’s partners,” Radek Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland, a NATO ally, said earlier this week. “I don’t think France would want to be in the position of supplying efficient weapons to an aggressor,” Sikorski told French newspaper Le Monde.
Other NATO allies, particularly Germany, have defended France’s right to sell the ships, as Russia is not under any Western military embargo. Dozens of Russian officials, as well as pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, have been hit with Western travel bans and asset freezes. But the U.S. and E.U. have shelved a further round of sanctions against the Russian economy, in particular its energy and weapons industries, in order to give Russia a chance to back off of Ukraine.
Still, the French arms deal seems to have tainted Obama’s attempts to isolate Russia in response to the Crimean crisis, as have some elements of French diplomacy. On Thursday night, French President Francois Hollande, who is hosting more than a dozen world leaders for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings on Friday, held two separate dinners with his American and Russian counterparts – the first with Obama and the second, two hours later, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the eve of his departure for Paris, Putin told French media that he was confident the weapons deal with France would move ahead. “I believe we are living in a civilized world and we will all continue to fulfill our obligations and contractual commitments,” Putin said. “If everything goes as we agreed, we will not rule out the possibility of further orders – and not necessarily in naval shipbuilding.”
That promise of further weapons deals hits at the core of Putin’s strategy toward the West. Even as he thumbs his nose at Western condemnations over Crimea, Putin has moved ahead with lucrative partnerships with individual European states and major corporations. In effect, this has created a powerful lobby within Europe that opposes any Western actions against Russia, and the Mistral deal has benefitted accordingly.
At a time of stubbornly high unemployment in France, that deal has created a thousand jobs in French shipyards, forcing Paris to choose between its economic priorities at home and its solidarity with foreign allies. With the choice clear after Fabius’ Friday tweet, Russian troops are expected to go ahead with a planned training mission to France, where they will reportedly be taught how to use their new warships later this month. The West can only hope they won’t use that knowledge for another land grab in Eastern Europe.
Military officials urged Obama not to trade Taliban ‘4-star generals,’ source says
Senior military officials had advised President Obama not to make the Taliban-for-Bergdahl trade, a senior Defense official told Fox News, likening it to "handing over five four-star generals of the Taliban."
The claim adds to the picture that is emerging about the tense internal debate over whether to proceed with freeing five hardened Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's release.
Sources told Fox News earlier this week that the Obama administration largely bypassed the intelligence community to green-light the swap, after such an exchange was first floated several years ago.
The Defense official, in explaining internal military opposition to the exchange, said many in the military considered Bergdahl to be a traitor -- a reference to allegations that he deliberately abandoned his post in 2009.
Yet on the other end of the trade were five high-value, sought-after Taliban leaders. The U.S. government's own records show some of them had ties to top terror figures including Mullah Omar and Usama bin Laden. Many Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that their freedom poses a major national security risk
"You've just released five extremely dangerous people, who in my opinion ... will rejoin the battlefield," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Fox News.
New details are also emerging about Bergdahl's conditions in captivity, offering a complicated portrait of his five years with his Haqqani captors.
According to secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account and obtained by Fox News, Bergdahl at one point during his captivity converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a "mujahid," or warrior for Islam.
Yet the documents also show that Bergdahl at one point escaped his captors for five days and was kept, upon his re-capture, in a metal cage, like an animal. In addition, the reports detail discussions of prisoner swaps and other attempts at a negotiated resolution to the case that appear to have commenced as early as the fall of 2009.
The reports indicate that Bergdahl's relations with his Haqqani captors morphed over time, from periods of hostility, where he was treated very much like a hostage, to periods where, as one source told Fox News, "he became much more of an accepted fellow" than is popularly understood. He even reportedly was allowed to carry a gun at times.
The dispatches were generated by the Eclipse Group, a private firm of former intelligence officers and operatives that has subcontracted with the Defense Department and prominent corporations to deliver granular intelligence on terrorist activities and other security-related topics.
The group is run by Duane R. ("Dewey") Clarridge, a former senior operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s best known for having been indicted for lying to Congress about his role in the tangled set of events that became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. He was pardoned by the first President Bush in December 1992 while on trial.
Amid concerns that the Bergdahl trade has created huge security risks, President Obama said earlier this week that the U.S. would be "keeping eyes" on the Taliban members while they spend the next year in Qatar.
At the same time, he acknowledged there's "absolutely" a risk that the former Guantanamo inmates will try to return to the battlefield.
Some of them reportedly already have made that vow. NBC reported Friday that Noorullah Noori, one of the freed prisoners, pledged to return and fight Americans in Afghanistan, according to a Taliban commander.
Feds say no end in sight for policy of 'dumping' illegal immigrants in Arizona, Gov. Brewer says
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday she is “disturbed and outraged” after she was informed by federal officials that not only has the government been shipping illegal immigrants out of Texas and “dumping” them in her state, it has no plans to stop.
Federal officials told Brewer Friday that the practice will continue for the foreseeable future, and this weekend more than 1,000 illegal immigrant children will be “dumped” in Arizona. Adults and family units will also arrive, though Brewer was not told how many, her office said.
Reports first surfaced last week that scores of illegal immigrants in Texas were being flown, bused and then abandoned out of state in Arizona and elsewhere. After learning of the practice, Brewer sent a scathing letter to the president on Monday posing a string of questions about the policy. Brewer said Friday what little she has learned since then has made her even more concerned.
“This is a crisis of the federal government’s creation, and the fact that the border remains unsecure – now apparently intentionally - while this operation continues full-steam ahead is deplorable,” she said in a statement.
Brewer said the federal government never formally informed her administration of the practice and has never explained it.
Brewer said she has demanded answers from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and is again calling on President Obama to terminate the practice.
“I am disturbed and outraged that President Obama’s administration continues to implement this dangerous and inhumane policy, meanwhile neglecting to answer crucial questions our citizens demand and deserve," she said.
The illegal immigrants in question come from Central America and have flooded into Texas via the Rio Grande Valley. The number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley has shot up in recent years, with south Texas now the main gateway for illegal immigration along the southwest border with Mexico.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector apprehended 154,453 immigrants last year -- up from 97,762 the previous year.
More shockingly, some say, is the unprecedented surge of children making the more than 1,000-mile journey from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border to escape violence in their home countries.
Obama on Monday described the surge in children crossing the border as an "urgent humanitarian situation," appointing FEMA head Craig Fugate to lead an effort addressing the crisis. The White House is also seeking an additional $1.4 billion from Congress to deal with the influx.
"This is a humanitarian crisis and it requires a humanitarian response," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., told Reuters.
Most of the families apprehended so far in Texas have been flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at stations in Phoenix and Tucson. They've also been sent to New York and Maryland.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it does not want to lock up minors in detention centers or split up families.
Those sent to Arizona are expected to check in on their own once their deportation process nears completion in an honor system of sorts.
"After screening by DHS authorities, the family units will be released under supervision and required to report in to a local ICE office near their destination address within 15 days, where their cases will be managed in accordance with current ICE enforcement priorities," according to an ICE statement.
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