Star Tribune
New U.S. Border Protection app for asylum seekers jammed by heavy use
A Russian native fleeing for a safe life in Minneapolis is losing hope.
Mikhail Savostin arrived in Mexico on May 7 on his journey to claim asylum in the United States and downloaded a new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app to schedule an appointment. But it hasn’t been working.
He registered for the CBP One app and found an available slot for this coming Tuesday at the Tijuana border crossing. Then the appointment disappeared in the system. Savostin checked the app 10 times an hour day after day. Nothing functioned. He could no longer see any open times, nor did he see anyone he could contact for help.
He is among countless numbers of migrants idled as they try to lawfully cross the border using the app. Savostin is trying to make his way north to build a new life amid other Russians who have formed a community here. While he struggles for answers and is running out of money in Mexico, his friend and potential sponsor Elena Mityushina of Maple Grove checks on him daily.
“He’s worried about being stuck there for a long time,” she said.
CBP recently launched the app in an effort to bring a more orderly method of processing the surge of migrants at the southern border. It upgraded the app this month to expand daily appointments from 740 to 1,000.
“Scheduling an appointment in CBP One provides a safe, orderly and humane process for noncitizens to access ports of entry rather than attempting to enter the United States irregularly,” the agency said.
But migrants like Savostin report that it’s plagued with glitches.
“I feel very frustrated,” the 46-year-old said on a video call from Mexico City.
He held up his phone to display the “system error” message on CBP One.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week in a White House news briefing that the government has identified glitches on the app.
“The greatest challenge with respect to the CBP One app is not a technological challenge but rather the fact that we have many more migrants than we have the capacity to make appointments for,” Mayorkas said.
“The greatest level of frustration is actually being able to make the appointment, not the utility of the CBP One app itself. That is, again, another example of a broken immigration system.”
Even after the app was launched in January, CBP reported encounters with 5,000 to 7,000 people a day on the southern border.
The increase of migrants there has contributed to the record-high pending immigration court cases in Minnesota and nationwide. The CBP reports 1.4 million encounters with migrants at the southern border for the first seven months of this fiscal year — compared with 2.8 million in 2022 and 1.7 million in 2021. Among them is a surge of Russians seeking asylum since the invasion of Ukraine.
Savostin was a political activist who spoke out against the Russian government and was jailed several times. He was named a political prisoner by Memorial, a human rights group in Moscow. Fearing more retaliation from law enforcement, he left for Cyprus in 2021. He connected with Mityushina, who leads a local group of antiwar Russians; she is helping Savostin and his friend reach Minnesota.
“I feel hopeless … there’s no structure or process,” Savostin said. “It’s just not working.”
A 20-year-old St. Paul man is now facing three murder charges in separate killings in Minneapolis in recent years.
Albert Jerome Lucas was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court in connection with the killing of 20-year-old Antonio Vernon Harper, of Minneapolis, on Nov. 6, 2023, in Minneapolis in the 3300 block of Dupont Avenue N.
Lucas, who has been jailed since May and remains held in lieu of $2 million bail, is scheduled to appear in court early Thursday afternoon. He does not yet have an attorney listed in court records for this latest charge.
According to Wednesday’s criminal complaint, which charges Lucas with one count of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder:
Officers arrived to the scene and saw Harper on the ground suffering from a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.
A witness told police that she saw three males “hugging” the side of home and looking toward Harper and two of his friends. Gunfire from Lucas erupted, hitting Harper, and the suspects fled in a car. One of Harper’s friends shared with officers that the shooting was gang-related.
Officers saw the vehicle two days later and determined it had been stolen in St. Paul. The driver fled police, but officers soon found the vehicle. DNA on a cigar wrapper inside the vehicle was tested and came back as a match for Lucas.
Star Tribune
Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza killed 15
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.
Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.
Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.
The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.
“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.
The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.
Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.
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