Unrest and uncertainty in Canada, Louisiana and Delaware

Today the New York Times reports on what seems to be an urgent immigration problem for Canadian officials in Windsor, Ontario, as hundreds of illegal Mexican immigrants to the United States flee to Canada to seek asylum. The article considers many sides of the issue: that of the immigrants themselves, that of the perplexed Canadian officials and that of the community center in Florida that seems to be providing Mexicans with false information. There is a suggestion that the Jerusalem Haitian Community Center in Naples, Florida, may be scamming the asylum-seekers by promising something they have no reason to guarantee, but the vague comments of the center’s director and the overly hopeful quotes from the Mexicans who used it seem to cancel one another out without offering reasons behind the conflicting information.

While Mexican migrants seek support in Canada, six teenagers from Jena, Louisiana, found thousands in sympathy with their plight as marchers converged on the southern town and in cities across the country to protest the allegedly racially-motivated criminal charges brought against the black teenagers. The Washington Post article does well to frame the incident as something that has become larger than the community in which it originated: quotes from residents of Jena at the end of the article suggest some people are blowing the episode out of proportion, while a Southern minister feels nostalgic about the rally. While conveying the scale of the protests through clear details about the crowds in Jena, the article also suggests that this incident is part of a larger cause of civil rights that some Americans are eager to take up again.

The Delaware News Journal has the most comprehensive coverage so far of breaking news from Delaware State University, where two students were shot at 1 a.m. today. The article discloses the injuries sustained by two students and what is known of their present condition, as well as describing the ways in which the campus is currently locked down and how the area around the campus has been affected. A series of articles details news as it breaks, although the quick filing of these stories gives more importance to individual anecdotes than a more comprehensive story published tomorrow will likely do. References to the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this year abound, and it is clear that the coverage is influenced by that incident, as stories focus in on how students on campus are finding out about the shooting.