A8 The BulleTin • Sunday, March 21, 2021
ICELAND
Volcano comes to life after 6,000 years
Associated Press
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — A long dor-
mant volcano on the Reykjanes Penin-
sula in southwestern Iceland flared to life
Friday night, spilling lava down two sides
in that area’s first volcanic eruption in
hundreds of years.
The glow from the lava could be seen
from the outskirts of Iceland’s capital,
Reykjavík, about 20 miles away.
The country was not anticipating evac-
uations because the volcano is in a re-
mote valley.
The Fagradals Mountain volcano had
been dormant for 6,000 years, and the
Reykjanes Peninsula hadn’t seen an erup-
tion of any volcano in 781 years. There
had been signs of a possible eruption re-
cently, with earthquakes occurring daily
for the past three weeks. But volcanolo-
gists were still taken by surprise because
the seismic activity had calmed down be-
fore the eruption.
Iceland, located above a volcanic
hotspot in the North Atlantic, averages
one eruption every four to five years. The
last one was at Holuhraun in 2014, when
a fissure eruption spread lava the size of
Manhattan over the interior highland
region.
In 2010, an eruption of the Eyjafjal-
lajokull volcano in Iceland sent clouds
of ash and dust into the atmosphere,
interrupting air travel between Europe
and North America because of con-
cerns the material could damage jet en-
gines. More than 100,000 flights were
grounded, stranding millions of passen-
gers.
But the Fagradals eruption shouldn’t
interfere with air travel, the Icelandic Me-
teorological Office said Saturday.
Icelandic Met Office via AP
The Fagradals Mountain volcano, on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, began erupting Friday.
U.S.-MEXICO BORDER
Crossings on pace for 2-decade high
as smugglers exploit hopes for Biden
Proudly Providing ENT Care for
our community Since 1970
We are Central Oregon’s premier
providers for ear, nose, and throat
and hearing care .
BY KATE LINTHICUM, MOLLY
HENNESSY-FISKE AND PATRICK
J. MCDONNELL
Los Angeles Times
MISSION, Texas — As dusk
closed in on the Texas border
with Mexico, Melania Rivera
and her 3-year-old twin boys
climbed up the banks of the
Rio Grande, at last setting foot
in the United States.
Her former partner and
their two older children had
been in the U.S. since 2019,
waiting for their asylum cases
to be heard. Rivera, whose
home in Honduras was de-
stroyed by a hurricane in No-
vember, set out to join them af-
ter a relative in Virginia urged
her to come quickly, saying
border restrictions had relaxed
under President Joe Biden.
“He told me there was an
opportunity,” said Rivera, 42,
who was intercepted south of
the city of Mission with seven
other migrants by local police
working with the Border Pa-
trol.
The belief that the end of
the Trump administration has
opened the border has spread
throughout the region along-
side another rumor: Young
children are the ticket in.
Human smugglers began
pushing those ideas soon after
Biden won the election in No-
vember, accelerating an exodus
from Central America that was
already underway after devas-
tating back-to-back hurricanes
and economic decline caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The message that now was a
propitious time to head north
was amplified on social media,
television and radio in Central
America.
Border crossings recorded
by U.S. authorities climbed
steadily through the summer
and fall as countries lifted coro-
navirus lockdowns, then rose
sharply this year, jumping from
78,442 in January to 100,441
SAME-DAY APPOINTMENTS
AVAILABLE FOR:
Julio Corte/AP
Migrants in custody wait Friday at a U.S. Customs and Border Protec-
tion processing area in Mission, Texas. The Biden administration is fac-
ing growing questions about why it wasn’t more prepared for an influx
of migrants at the southern border.
in February — nearly triple the
total for February 2020.
The increase is evident in
the streams of families trudg-
ing north through the jungles
of southern Mexico, in the
crowded shelters of northern
Mexican border cities and in
southern Texas, where in re-
cent days a constant flow of
people has crossed the swiftly
moving Rio Grande on rafts
and turned themselves in to
federal authorities.
Homeland Security Secre-
tary Alejandro Mayorkas said
that U.S. agents are on pace to
intercept more migrants on the
southwest border in 2021 than
they have in the last 20 years.
While the majority of those
crossing are single adults, as
has traditionally been the case,
there has been a dramatic spike
in the number of children
making the trip.
Last month, 9,457 people
under 18 arrived at the bor-
der without adults, up from
3,490 in February of last year
and, according to the Washing-
ton Office on Latin America
think tank, the fourth-highest
monthly total in a decade.
More children are also com-
ing with relatives. The number
of migrants arriving in “family
units” — which by government
definition include at least one
child — was 19,246 last month,
up from 7,117 a year earlier.
“A lot of them think that now
that Trump is gone, if they ar-
rive with children it will be easy
to cross into the United States,”
said Gabriel Romero, a Francis-
can priest who runs a shelter in
southern Mexico that assisted
about 6,000 migrants during
January and February — com-
pared with 4,000 all of last year.
“Easy” is an exaggeration,
but there is some truth to the
rumors.
Strict immigration policies
were a Trump hallmark, such
as a program known as Re-
main in Mexico that forced
70,000 asylum seekers to wait
in Tijuana, Juárez and other
Mexican border cities while
their cases wound through U.S.
courts.
Then there was the obscure
public health statute known
as Title 42 that the Trump ad-
ministration invoked last year
in response to the coronavirus
crisis. It directed border au-
thorities to rapidly expel hun-
dreds of thousands of people
with no due process or oppor-
tunity to pursue asylum.Biden
has maintained some of those
Trump restrictions, while loos-
ening others.
•
Ear/sinus issues
•
Vertigo episodes
•
Earwax removal
•
Abscesses
•
Nosebleeds
•
Hearing test
•
Allergy consultation
•
Telehealth appointments
541.526.1479
NO REFERRALS NEEDED!*
Central Oregon Ear, Nose & Throat
is excited to announce same-day
appointments available!
Myra Baker, PA | Physician’s Assistant
Bend | 2450 NE Mary Rose Pl, Ste 120
Redmond | 1020 SW Indian Ave, Ste 102
COENT.com | *Call for details
Post-Mastectomy Care
Compression, Bras, Hats, Wigs
Call for appointment 541.383.8085
345 NE Norton Ave., Bend, OR 97701 | mariposaoregon.com