Mexico will host its first high-profile Donald Trump envoys this week with at least one consolation: the proposed border wall is itself walled in, for now, by Washington bureaucracy.  Federal agencies are reportedly resisting the idea and Congress is hesitant to fund it, leaving the president fighting a lonely battle to keep his campaign promise.

Instead of a 2,000-mile “big, beautiful wall”, Trump may emerge from Washington’s policy labyrinth with a fence covering a few hundred miles. “He hasn’t made any progress other than to say ‘we’re going to do it’,” said Seth Stodder, a former senior homeland security official who focused on border security under the Obama and Bush administrations. “They’re pretty far away. I don’t think they’ve made much progress.”(the guardian)…[+]

Tony Blair has denied that a Labour government paid compensation to the former Guantánamo Bay detainee who went on to blow himself up in Iraq, in a strongly worded statement in which he accused the Daily Mail of hypocritical coverage over the Manchester-born jihadi’s death. The former prime minister said that compensation – thought to amount to £1m – was paid out under the Conservative-led coalition government in 2010 – and criticised the tabloid for blaming him and Labour instead. “He was not paid compensation by my government,” Blair said. “The compensation was agreed in 2010 by the Conservative government.”On Wednesday morning, the Daily Mail front-page story was the death of Jamal al-Harith – who changed his name from Ronald Fiddler after converting to Islam in his 20s but most recently went by the nom de guerre Abu-Zakariya al-Britani – in which Blair’s government was singled out for “intense lobbying” for his release.(The guardian)…[+]

A British Muslim schoolteacher travelling to New York last week as a member of a school party from south Wales was denied entry to the United States.

Juhel Miah and a group of children and other teachers were about to take off from Iceland on 16 February on their way to the US when he was removed from the plane at Reykjavik. The previous week, on the 10 February, a US appeals court had upheld a decision to suspend Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily banned entry to the country from seven Muslim-majority countries.The trip proceeded as planned but pupils and colleagues from Llangatwg comprehensive in Aberdulais were left shocked and distressed after the maths teacher, who had valid visa documentation, was escorted from the aircraft by security personnel. Miah, 25, from Swansea, said he was made to feel like a criminal and was so worried by what happened to him that he did not eat or sleep for two days. He told Wales Online that shortly before the flight was due to leave he was approached by an official who told him he could not board the plane.(The guardian)…[+]