Migrants Camped at Border Worry Caravans Will Shut Them Out

Matamoros, Mexico — Waiting on the southern end of a bridge that leads to the United States, Humberto Alvarez Gonzalez warily follows the progress of the caravan winding through Mexico with the goal of reaching the border.

Alvarez and about two dozen other people are waiting in Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, because U.S. customs officers say there’s no space to process them. They sleep on cots near the bridge and rely on donors who bring them food and clothing. Some have waited for two weeks.

Now, Alvarez, a 32-year-old from Cuba, is worried that large waves of migrants in a caravan still more than 800 miles away from the border might provoke the U.S. government to reject them altogether.

“Our idea is to enter before the caravan,” he said. “We are afraid that the group of migrants will reach us and that they will judge us together with them.”

Asylum seekers already camping at border crossings worry that how the Trump administration responds to the caravan of some 4,000 Central American migrants and three much smaller ones hundreds of miles behind it could leave them shut out. President Donald Trump last week threatened to detain asylum seekers in large tents and send as many as 15,000 active-duty soldiers to the border. He’s also spoken of closing the border.

Man Said He Wrestled With Gunman During Yoga Studio Shooting

Tallahassee, Fla. — A man trying to stop a shooting attack on a Florida yoga studio said Sunday that he wrestled with the attacker after his gun jammed, a move credited with giving others time to flee the rampage that killed two people and wounded six others.

Yoga student Joshua Quick spoke to ABC’s Good Morning America on Sunday and said he grabbed Scott Paul Beierle’s gun after it jammed, and hit him.

Tallahassee Police have identified Beierle as the man who posed as a customer to get into the studio Hot Yoga Tallahassee during a Friday night class and started shooting. Police said Beierle, 40, then turned the gun on himself but authorities have offered no motive in the attack.

Quick said Beierle was able to grab the gun back and then pistol-whipped him.

“I jumped up as quickly as I could,” said Quick, who had visible facial injuries. “I ran back over and the next thing I know I’m grabbing a broom, the only thing I can, and I hit him again.”

Minimum Wage Increases on Ballot In Arkansas, Missouri

Voters in Arkansas and Missouri will decide Tuesday whether to significantly raise the minimum wage in their state. The two states offer a test case of whether there is appetite in solidly red states for a minimum wage above $10.

Arkansas will vote on whether to gradually raise its current minimum wage of $8.50 an hour to $11 an hour by 2021. Missouri voters are deciding whether to steadily increase the state’s minimum wage of $7.85 an hour to $12 an hour by 2023. Arizona, which did not vote as strongly for Trump, is the only other red state with a higher minimum wage (voters there approved raising the state’s $10.50 minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020).There’s a good chance that Arkansas and Missouri will approve the higher wages, even though most Democratic candidates in the two states support it and most Republican candidates do not. Since 1996, no state has voted down a minimum wage increase that has appeared on a statewide ballot, a signal of the appeal for raises across the political spectrum.

— Wire reports

The federal minimum wage – $7.25 an hour – hasn’t been increased since 2009,