JUÁREZ, Mexico — Carlos left a wife and seven children behind in Nicaragua. Fleeing gang violence, he now stays here in an old factory converted into a migrant shelter. He sits on a white plastic chair next to the only son who made the trek to Mexico with him. “We don’t feel safe in Mexico,” he tells CQ Roll Call reporters.
The Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, more commonly known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, initially began in January in San Diego and El Paso, and has contributed to a surge of cases in courts across the border. Many advocates are calling for MPP to be rolled back. After making the trip north from Nicaragua, with a final destination of the U.S., Carlos says he feels like he is still in danger as he awaits his November court date.
Advocates such as immigration lawyer Nicholas Palazzo say migrants like Carlos commonly wait for months in Mexico for their court date. “Unfortunately, nine times out of 10, the people I come across in MPP in Juárez, are telling me, ‘Please help me. I’d rather be in ICE custody in a detention center than in Juárez,” Palazzo tells CQ Roll Call. Carlos sits in a shelter next to one of his eight children. One of hundreds of migrants in the cement and cinderblock structure, his son alternates between fidgeting and shedding tears as Carlos says he doesn’t have the money to go home.
SAN ANTONIO — The woman wearing a black blouse, jeans and sunglasses resting on top of her head walked toward the dirt road between a waste management company and the train tracks on the city’s outskirts, the place where an employee of a nearby business had found the bodies of dozens of migrants inside a trailer four days earlier. She was accompanied by a family member who lives in the area and Alex Salgado, a Houston-based immigrant rights advocate, who held an umbrella over her head to cover her from the blazing July sun.
The trailer had already been hauled away. So she sat on a chair in front of a growing memorial adorned with plush teddy bears, flowers and gallons of water laid below a long line of 6-foot-tall crosses with the names of the victims of the nation’s deadliest migrant smuggling tragedy.
As artist Roberto Márquez hung a Honduran flag on one of the crosses he’d erected on this semi-rural road, the woman rose from her seat and rested her hand on it. The cross was embossed with her daughter’s name: Adela Betulia Ramírez Quezada.
Gloria Quezada began to cry uncontrollably.
Text by Mark Satter
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Spc. Marquise Gabriel Elliot survived an eight-month tour in Afghanistan in 2017 and 2018, collecting several awards for his Army service, including the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. The 25-year-old North Carolina native returned to the United States and was stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, an assignment that thrilled the avid hiker. Elliot dreamed of one day opening a barbershop with his father, possibly even in Alaska. But in June 2019, just over a year after returning from Afghanistan, Elliot was killed when his Humvee rolled over during an exercise at the Yukon Training Area.
Another passenger in the vehicle suffered minor injuries. Elliot’s death isn’t unique, or even unusual. At least two other soldiers died in rollovers during stateside training in the weeks before Elliot’s death.
In 2019 alone, at least 15 service members died in military vehicle accidents. So far this year, at least 10 have been killed in vehicle-related training accidents. In the past 14 years, nearly four times as many service members have died in training accidents as in combat, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Many of these accidents involve the kind of rollover that killed Elliot, accidents the families of the deceased say are preventable. These families are now banding together to rewrite military policies, but they argue the Defense Department has moved slowly to institute change, and the issue is only starting to percolate and the response is not yet consistent on Capitol Hill.
Published Sept. 28, 2020
Text by Mark Satter
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the late 1980s, Chuck Leek was an aviation electrician stationed at Naval Base San Diego, home of the
Pacific Fleet. There, he worked on electrical systems that ran through Navy helicopters. He says he was a
“full-on skinhead.”
Leek, now 54, has cut ties with the white supremacist movement and works to bring others out of it.
While in the military in California, Leek and two other neo-Nazis he met while in training formed a
skinhead gang, rented a house together, and began working to recruit other active-duty service members.
While in the military in California, Leek and two other neo-Nazis he met while in training formed a
skinhead gang, rented a house together, and began working to recruit other active-duty service members.
Military commanders largely looked the other way. Watch as Leek speaks with CQ Roll Call about his experience in the Navy.
Published May 13, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It's unlikely Congress will have a final defense authorization bill before the elections. That means the timeline for transferring the chief management officer's (CMO) responsibilities, reforming the bureaucracy, is up in the air.
It's easy to find experts united behind the need for Defense Department business reform, and that evaluating the CMO's efficacy is basically useless after Congress did an about-face and no longer favored the position. But opinions diverge on the correct path forward for finding a new spot for the CMO's duties.
In 2007 the secretary of defense designated his deputy, Gordon England, the additional responsibility of chief management officer after a Government Accountability Officer's report asserted a CMO as a critical need.
Despite the report, the Defense Department did not agree with the GAO's belief that
a separate CMO position is necessary for business reform, the position was not
created until 2017.
a separate CMO position is necessary for business reform, the position was not
created until 2017.
The back and forth continues today.
Watch CQ Roll Call's interviews with experts on the CMO position, restrictions, and
what could be next.
