US to resume mass fly-backs of illegal Mexican immigrants News
US to resume mass fly-backs of illegal Mexican immigrants

[JURIST] In a program set to begin again this year on Friday, the US government plans to fly close to 34,000 illegal Mexican immigrants back to their home country [CBP press release] in what officials describe as an effort to reduce deaths resulting from human smuggling. Rights groups have charged that the $14.2 million dollar program does not effectively stop or slow illegal immigration. Customs and Border Protection [official website] Commissioner Robert Bonner [official profile] said Wednesday that the program, which drops immigrants back at their hometowns and is now entering its second year, is effective because it kept them away from the border and out of the hands of smugglers seeking to send them back into the US. Twice-daily flights from southern Arizona will run through the summer. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.