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Finding missing migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, the world's deadliest land migration route
CBSN
Ajo, Arizona — The search began with a prayer in the early morning hours, as the sun emerged from the mountains that adorn this picturesque, yet often deadly, landscape near the U.S.-Mexico border.
It was the third search that a grassroots group of volunteers known as the Armadillos had embarked on this summer with the hopes of finding José Salinas Pineda, a 21-year-old Mexican migrant who had been missing since early June.
Back in their homes in southern California, the volunteers are construction workers, gardeners and cablemen. Like the people they look for, most are also immigrants. But in the desolate Arizona desert, the volunteers share a humanitarian mission: to offer some closure to distraught families by finding the remains of their loved ones.
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More than 2 million federal employees face a looming deadline: By midnight on Thursday, they must decide whether to accept a "deferred resignation" offer from the Trump administration. If workers accept, according to a White House plan, they would continue getting paid through September but would be excused from reporting for duty. But if they opt to keep their jobs, they could get fired.
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More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
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In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.