August 13, 2014

Maliki’s Bid to Keep Power in Iraq Collapses / U.S. Speeds the Path to Deportation.


Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq warned that insurgents could take advantage of the current political crisis and increase instability in the country.
By Reuters on August 12, 2014. Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters                           
N.Y. TIMES
 Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s defiant fight to retain power in Iraq  collapsed after his former backers in Iran, the military and his own party all signaled that he could no longer expect their support.

He issued a statement saying that the security forces, which he had deployed around the capital on Monday in what some took to be preparations for a coup, should stay out of politics. And the conversation in Baghdad shifted to how he would leave office and on what terms.
The shift came after Mr. Maliki made several last-ditch efforts to shore up support, only to be confronted late Monday night with delegations of officials, all pleading with him to back down for the good of the country.
The next morning, an important Iraqi Army general in Baghdad reached out to Iraq’s new president, Fuad Masum, and the man he nominated to be the next prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, and delivered the message that the military would not stand by Mr. Maliki, according to a senior Iraqi official.

Some Iraqis said privately that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric, also played an important role in orchestrating Mr. Maliki’s retreat, dispatching emissaries to Iran and successfully seeking the government’s cooperation in pressuring Mr. Maliki.  
Ayatollah Sistani was known to have been increasingly vexed over the political paralysis in Baghdad as militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, were gaining ground. 
 
The Obama administration, which has deployed United States warplanes to help the Iraqi government battle a marauding force of Sunni militants in northern and western Iraq, has been pressing Mr. Maliki to move aside. President Obama and his top aide congratulated Mr. Abadi on Monday and exhorted him to quickly form an inclusive government that would depart from Mr. Maliki’s polarizing policies, which have alienated many in the Sunni and Kurd minorities.
 
Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the United States would consider expanding military and political support for Iraq if Mr. Abadi assumed the duties of prime minister and formed a more inclusive government.

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Central American migrants released by the authorities last month. Officials are moving swiftly to expand family detention. John Moore/Getty Images        
N.Y. TIMES

After declaring the surge of Central American migrants crossing the border a humanitarian crisis, the Obama administration shifted sharply to a strategy of deterrence, moving families to isolated facilities and placing them on a fast track for deportation to send a blunt message back home that those caught entering illegally will not be permitted to stay.
 
In a far corner of the New Mexico desert, in the town of Artesia, more than 600 women and children are being held in an emergency detention center that opened in late June. On Friday, officials began filling up a new center in Karnes City, Tex., for up to 532 adults and children, and they are adding beds to a center for families in Pennsylvania that now holds about 95 people.
 
Most of the debate over the illegal influx has centered on about 57,000 unaccompanied minors apprehended since October. But the number of minors with parents has increased even faster, nearly tripling to more than 22,000 so far this year from about 8,500 in all of 2013, according to the Pew Research Center. More than 40,000 adults and their children — an unprecedented number — were caught along the southwest border, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
 
Until recently, most families were released to remain in the United States while their deportation cases moved slowly through the courts. But that policy fueled rumors reaching Central America that if parents arrived with young children, they would be given permits to stay. To stop such talk, officials said, they are moving swiftly to expand family detention.