Free Republic

...says she's in Texas with her mother The father of the little girl on the US-Mexico border, whose distraught face came to symbolise the plight of families separated by the Trump administration, has said that his daughter and wife are together, and doing well. Denis Javier Varela Hernandez, 32, said that his two-year-old daughter Yanela was with his wife Sandra in a shelter. Mr Varela Hernandez, a ship’s captain from Puerto Cortes, Honduras, said he had not spoken to them, but was informed on Wednesday that they were in custody in Texas. “My heart broke because it's my little girl,”...

The people-smuggling masterminds behind the upsurge in illegal boat arrivals to Australia often carry out their illicit activities unchecked because of loopholes in Indonesia's criminal code, experts say. Few high-level people-smugglers are arrested on Indonesian soil and fewer still ever face an Australian courtroom, with the majority of prosecutions over here netting poor Indonesian villagers enlisted only to crew refugee boats into Australian waters, sometimes for as little as $50. The federal government recently pledged $654 million over the next six years to combat the rise in maritime people smuggling and improve border protection, with $48 million going to the...