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    Biden Expresses Regret for Calling an Undocumented Immigrant ‘an Illegal’

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    President Biden expressed regret on Saturday for using the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented immigrant who has been charged in the killing of a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia, agreeing with his progressive critics that it was an inappropriate term.Mr. Biden used the word during an unscripted colloquy with Republicans during his State of the Union address on Thursday night, and then came under fire from immigration supporters who consider the term dehumanizing. Among those who said he should not have used it were several congressional Democrats.“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal’; it’s ‘undocumented,’” Mr. Biden said on Saturday in an interview with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC, during which he addressed his disagreements with former President Donald J. Trump.“And look, when I spoke about the difference between Trump and me, one of the things I talked about in the border was his, the way he talks about ‘vermin,’ the way he talks about these people ‘polluting the blood,’ ” he said, adding, “I talked about what I’m not going to do. What I won’t do. I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect.”He continued: “Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing. We have to control the border and more orderly flow, but I don’t share his view at all.”Mr. Capehart asked if that meant he regretted using the word “illegal.”“Yes,” Mr. Biden answered.The president’s reply went further than when he was first asked about the matter by reporters on Friday. He did not explicitly take back the term at that point, noting that the immigrant charged in the murder in Georgia was “technically not supposed to be here.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Illegal Border Crossings Plummeted in January

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      The number of people crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico has dropped by 50 percent in the past month, authorities said on Tuesday, as President Biden comes under growing pressure from both parties over security at the border.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had encountered migrants between ports of entry 124,220 times in January, down from more than 249,000 the previous month.The figures do not change the fact that the number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels during the Biden administration, and crossings typically dip in January. Immigration trends are affected by weather patterns and other issues, making it difficult to draw conclusions from monthly numbers.But the drop in crossings was a glimmer of good news for the Biden administration as House Republicans impeached Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, on Tuesday on charges of willfully refusing to enforce border laws. (Their first attempt ended in defeat.)The figures also amounted to a respite for some large American cities grappling with the burden of sheltering migrants during the wintertime.In New York City, which is housing more than 65,000 migrants in hotels, shelters and tents, the number of migrants entering the city’s care over the last month plunged to about 1,600 per week, down 55 percent from 3,600 per week in December.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fact-Checking Claims That Senate Bill Allows 5,000 Unauthorized Immigrants a Day

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      Republican critics are misrepresenting one provision of a bipartisan deal to suggest that it permits 5,000 illegal crossings a day.Republican critics have quickly twisted one element of a bipartisan compromise bill unveiled on Sunday to misleadingly suggest that it permits 5,000 migrants to enter the country illegally every day.The legislation, which links additional funding in military aid for Ukraine with immigration policy, would more aggressively tamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico.The claim has become a popular talking point, reflecting broader pushback by Republicans who have seized on the border security provisions in the $118.3 billion bill and derided them as too lax.But the bill does not, in fact, authorize immigrants to cross the border illegally. Instead, among other provisions, it would give officials the authority to summarily remove migrants, with little recourse, after a certain number cross: an average of 5,000 encounters per day for a week, or 8,500 in a single day.Here’s a fact check.WHAT WAS SAID“The Biden/Schumer Open Border Bill allows 5,000 immigrants a day into our country.”— House Republicans in a social media post on Monday“Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients — a magnet for more illegal immigration.”— Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, in a social media post on SundayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Texas Will Expand Effort to Control Land Along Mexican Border, Abbott Says

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      Flanked by Republican governors, Gov. Greg Abbott said that Texas would expand the immigration enforcement efforts at the center of a legal confrontation with the federal government.Locked in a legal battle with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said on Sunday that he was expanding his effort to establish state control over areas near the Rio Grande in an effort to deter migrants.Mr. Abbott, flanked by 13 other Republican governors, said that Texas would not limit its high-intensity efforts to the small municipal park along the river in Eagle Pass where the state has taken over and limited access for federal agents. A top Texas official said state law enforcement officers were also looking to move in on riverside ranch land north of the city that migrants have continued to use for crossing.Texas has deployed National Guard troops and state police officers up and down the Texas border since 2021, and began stringing concertina wire along the banks of the river the next year. What changed last month in the park, known as Shelby Park, is that Texas began preventing federal agents from routine access to the riverbank or from using the park to detain and process large numbers of migrants.“As we speak right now, the Texas National Guard, they’re undertaking operations to expand this effort,” Mr. Abbott said during a news conference at the park. “We’re not going to contain ourselves to this park. We are expanding to further areas to make sure we expand our level of deterrence and denial of illegal entry into the United States.”Mr. Abbott described the arrival of migrants as an “invasion” that permitted Texas, under the U.S. Constitution, to take on the job of enforcing immigration laws, an area that the Supreme Court has in the past left to the federal government. Whether he has the power to do so is being contested in court by the Biden administration.A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The agency has previously said that it, not the state, is responsible for detaining and processing those who have crossed the border illegally.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fact-Checking Trump’s Recent Immigration Claims

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      As President Biden grapples with an unwieldy crisis at the southern border, his likely 2024 rival has leveled many criticisms — including some baseless and misleading claims.Former President Donald J. Trump has drawn widespread censure after reprising a line that casts undocumented immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.”The remark underscored Mr. Trump’s hard-line approach to immigration, which has been central to his platform since he made his first bid for president in 2015. If elected again, he has vowed to carry out mass deportations and enact other strict policies.He and his Republican rivals have pointed to the surge of migrants at the southern border to make their political case. Some Democrats, too, have been critical of the Biden administration’s approach toward immigration.But even with legitimate lines of attack, Mr. Trump has at times turned to baseless and misleading claims during rallies in recent months.Here’s a fact check.WHAT WAS SAID“I read an article recently in a paper … about a man who runs a mental institution in South America, and by the way they’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from Africa, from Asia, all over, but this happened to be in South America. And he was sitting, the picture was — sitting, reading a newspaper, sort of leisurely, and they were asking him, what are you doing? He goes, I was very busy all my life. I was very proud. I worked 24 hours a day. I was so busy all the time. But now I’m in this mental institution — where he’s been for years — and I’m in the mental institution and I worked very hard on my patients but now we don’t have any patients. They’ve all been brought to the United States.”— during a rally in Nevada this monthThis lacks evidence. Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that immigrants crossing the border are coming from “mental institutions” and jails. This particular story would seem to offer specific facts behind that assertion, but there is no evidence that such a report exists.The New York Times could not find any such news account from the start of Mr. Biden’s tenure in January 2021 to March, when Mr. Trump told the same story at a Texas rally.The Trump campaign did not respond when repeatedly asked about the source of this claim. But pressed this year by CNN for factual support for the tale, the campaign provided links that did not corroborate it.Likewise, there is no support for Mr. Trump’s broader claim that countries are “dumping” their prisoners and psychiatric patients in the United States.“We are unaware of any effort by any country or other jurisdiction to empty its mental-health institutions or its jails and prisons to send people with mental-health issues or criminals to the U.S.,” Michelle Mittelstadt, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan research organization Migration Policy Institute, said in an email.The claim evokes elements of a mass exodus that occurred more than 40 years ago in Cuba, Ms. Mittelstadt noted: the Mariel boatlift of 1980. Some 125,000 people fled to the United States, including inmates from jails and patients from mental health institutions freed by the Cuban leader Fidel Castro.“But there has been no present-day effort by any country, to our knowledge, or any credible reporting by media or others that anything of the like is taking place,” Ms. Mittelstadt said.WHAT WAS SAID“They’ve allowed, I believe, 15 million people into the country from all of these different places like jails, mental institutions, and wait till you see what’s going to happen with all those people.”— during a rally in October in New HampshireThis lacks evidence. Setting aside the baseless suggestion that all undocumented immigrants entering the country are coming from jails and mental institutions, Mr. Trump’s estimate of 15 million is not supported by the data.Customs and Border Protection data shows that U.S. officials recorded nearly eight million encounters at its borders from February 2021, the first full month of Mr. Biden’s presidency, to October 2023.But even then, “encounter does not mean admittance,” Tom Wong, an associate professor of political science and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, said in an email. “In fact, most encounters lead to expulsions.”For example, C.B.P. data shows that about 2.5 million expulsions occurred under Title 42, a health rule that used the coronavirus as grounds for turning back immigrants illegally crossing the border, from February 2021 until the policy ended in May.Former President Donald J. Trump has at times turned to baseless and misleading claims about immigration in recent months.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesThe number of encounters also are based on events, not people, and therefore could include the same person more than once.The exact number of people who have entered the country without authorization is hard to pin down because there are also “gotaways” — people who crossed into the country illegally and evaded authorities.But the federal, observational estimates of such people also would not support Mr. Trump’s claim. The secretary of homeland security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, estimated at a recent hearing that there had been more than 600,000 gotaways in fiscal year 2023, which ended in September. That is also the estimate for fiscal year 2022, according to an inspector general report. And there were more than 391,300 in fiscal year 2021, which began in October 2020 under Mr. Trump and ended in September 2021 under Mr. Biden.In terms of migrants with criminal records, officials encountered nearly 45,000 at ports of entry since the start of fiscal year 2021. Between ports of entry in that period, officials encountered another 40,000 noncitizens with criminal records.While Mr. Trump in this instance claimed the country had allowed 15 million migrants to enter, he has at other times predicted that would be the total figure by the end of Mr. Biden’s term. That would be larger than the estimated total population of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States — about 10.5 million in 2021, according to the Pew Research Center.WHAT WAS SAID“In the past three years, Biden has spent over $1 billion to put up illegal aliens in hotels, some of the most luxurious hotels in the country. Meanwhile, we have 33,000 homeless American veterans. Can you believe it?”— during a rally in November in New HampshireThis needs context. Mr. Trump’s figure of homeless veterans refers to a 2022 estimate by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That number includes about 19,500 veterans who were in shelters when the count was conducted. And both the 2022 estimate and a new tally for 2023 — which reported nearly 35,600 homeless veterans — are actually down slightly from when Mr. Trump was in office, continuing an overall downward trend since 2009.As for migrant housing, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted in 2021 with a nonprofit group to house border arrivals at a handful of hotels in Texas and Arizona, as a 2022 homeland security inspector general report details. The contract totaled more than $130 million and ended in 2022. The Trump administration also turned to hotels in 2020 to hold migrant children and families before expelling them.The Biden administration has not directly spent $1 billion to place immigrants in hotels. But cities are indeed facing steep costs for sheltering and caring for border arrivals — including through hotels. The Trump campaign did not indicate where Mr. Trump had obtained the $1 billion figure, but it is possible he was referring to a federal initiative that provides funding to local governments and nongovernment groups to help offset those costs.The program was in fact first authorized through 2019 legislation signed by Mr. Trump. While it allows nonfederal entities to seek grants for housing migrants in hotels and motels, it is not exclusive to that. Congress provided the program $110 million in fiscal year 2021 and $150 million in fiscal year 2022.Lawmakers recently replaced the initiative with a new shelter and services program. For fiscal year 2023, officials earmarked $425 million for the old program and $363.8 million for the new one.All told, the federal government has allocated about $1 billion since fiscal year 2021, which includes the last few months under the Trump administration, toward local efforts to feed and shelter migrants around the country — not only hotel expenses.While FEMA discloses recipients of the funding, it does not say how much each grant is used specifically on hotel costs.WHAT WAS SAID“We cannot forget that the same people that attacked Israel are right now pouring in at levels that nobody can believe into our beautiful U.S.A. through our totally open border.”— during a rally in Iowa in OctoberThis lacks evidence. Mr. Trump offered no evidence that people affiliated with Hamas, the militant group that staged a brutal assault on Israel in early October, are “pouring” into the country at record levels. And experts say they are unaware of data that would support that contention.If the former president’s statement was meant to convey that terrorists more generally are “pouring in” at the border, he could be referring to the rising number of encounters at the southern border with people on a terrorism watch list. The list includes known and suspected terrorists as well as people affiliated with them.A total of 169 noncitizens on that list tried to illegally enter the United States at the southern border in fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, up from three in fiscal year 2020, according to C.B.P. statistics.Still, it is unclear what that says about the terrorism threat, said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. There is no record of a terrorist attack being committed on American soil by an immigrant who crossed the southern border illegally. (In 2008, three brothers who had come to the United States illegally years earlier as children, from Yugoslavia, were convicted of conspiring to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.)Apprehended individuals on the list are supposed to remain in government custody as they await removal proceedings, Mr. Nowrasteh said.Curious about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com. More

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      The Political Calculations Behind DeSantis’s Migrant Flights North

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent migrants to Massachusetts. He aimed to make a point about President Biden, but immigration issues are nothing new.Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, one-upped his Texas counterpart, Greg Abbott, this week by sending two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts — the cherry on top of a monthslong campaign to essentially troll liberal cities and states by transferring many asylum seekers to those communities.The airlift, a spokeswoman for DeSantis said in a statement, “was part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”She added: “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies.”Of course, there is no such “open border.” Many of these migrants are utilizing U.S. asylum laws that afford them the opportunity for a court hearing to determine whether they qualify to stay in the United States, just as thousands did during the Trump administration and the Obama administration before that. And in most cases, they were apprehended by federal law enforcement agents or turned themselves in, enabling DeSantis to bundle them onto planes in the first place.“Playing politics with people’s lives is what governors like George Wallace did during segregation,” Representative Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said. “Ron DeSantis is trying to earn George Wallace’s legacy.” Moulton was referring to the “reverse freedom rides” of 1962, when segregationists used false promises of jobs and housing to trick Black Southerners into moving north. Moulton, who ran briefly for president in 2020, accused Republicans more generally of using immigration as a “political football.”The deeper issue is this: For decades, Congress has failed to overhaul the country’s immigration laws, which both parties acknowledge are badly out of step with what is happening along the U.S.-Mexico border. They just differ wildly on the proposed remedies.But the political calculations for DeSantis and Abbott are pretty clear. Immigration is a powerful motivating issue for Republican-base voters, nationally and especially in border states like Arizona and Texas.My colleague Astead Herndon discusses this topic in the latest episode of his podcast, The Run-Up. It’s a deep dive on the 10th anniversary of the so-called Republican autopsy of the 2012 election, in which G.O.P. insiders argued for a complete rethinking of their party’s strategy on immigration and Latino voters.As DeSantis surely knows — and by all accounts he’s a canny politician who has his ear attuned to the id of the G.O.P. grass roots — Donald Trump did basically the opposite of what that autopsy recommended. He made frequent and aggressive political use of Latino migrants during his run for the presidency in 2016 and long thereafter, casting many of them as “criminals” and “rapists” during his presidential announcement at Trump Tower.And DeSantis, who seems likely to waltz to re-election in the fall, is busy amassing a formidable war chest for purposes that remain both opaque and obvious. For months, he has been quietly courting Trump donors under the guise of bringing them into his campaign for governor while being careful never to stick his head too far above the parapet — lest Trump try to knock it off his proverbial shoulders.More on Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.Eyeing 2024: Mr. DeSantis, who appears to be preparing to run for president in 2024, has been signaling his desire to take over former President Donald J. Trump’s political movement. But is that what Republican voters want?Voter Fraud: Mr. DeSantis established one of the nation’s first elections security offices in Florida, dedicated to pursuing election crimes, but many of its first cases seem to be falling apart.Policy and Education: New laws championed by Mr. DeSantis, including the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, have left Florida teachers feeling fear, uncertainty and confusion.Rick Tyler, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, said the flights to Martha’s Vineyard by DeSantis were “perhaps” smart politics in the context of a Republican primary, but he added, “I find it cynical to be using real human beings as political stunt pawns for positioning in a presidential chess game.”Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, sharply rebuked the Texas and Florida governors for deliberately trying to “create chaos and confusion” in a way that is “disrespectful to humanity.” She said that Fox News was given advance notice while the White House was not.“It is a political stunt,” she said. “That’s what we’re seeing from governors, Republican governors, in particular. It is a cruel, inhumane way of treating people who are fleeing communism, people who are — and we’re not just talking about people, we’re talking about children, we’re talking about families.”A report in The Vineyard Gazette, a local newspaper, recounts how the migrants arrived on the island and were greeted by “a coalition of emergency management officials, faith groups, nonprofit agencies and county and town officials” that organized food and shelter for the new arrivals.A man who was among the migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard flashed a thumbs-up in Edgartown, Mass.Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette, via Associated PressOther Democratic-led enclaves, such as Washington, D.C., and New York City, have petitioned the federal government for help in processing and housing the thousands of migrants that DeSantis and Abbott have theatrically thrust upon them. Last week, Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, declared a state of emergency over the nearly 10,000 migrants who had been bused there from Texas. Eric Adams, her counterpart in New York, said on Wednesday that the city’s shelter system was “nearing its breaking point.”On Thursday morning, two buses dropped off a group of 101 migrants outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris — a poisoned political chalice sent by Abbott, who tweeted, “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In an indicator of just how potent Republicans believe this issue to be among their voters, even Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, a relative moderate who stood up to Trump over his false stolen election claims in 2020, is now getting in on the game. Ducey, who declined heavy pressure from Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, to run for Senate, is thought to harbor presidential aspirations of his own.The Massachusetts press cast the move by DeSantis as a challenge to Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican whose future plans remain in flux. Baker, a northeastern moderate in the mold of past G.O.P. governors of the Bay State, such as Mitt Romney and Bill Weld, would have little hope in a presidential primary against DeSantis or, for that matter, Trump.The trolling is a novel political tactic. But the general phenomenon of distributing migrants around the country isn’t entirely new, as my colleague Zolan Kanno-Youngs has written. When the Obama administration faced a tide of unaccompanied minors that overwhelmed facilities along the border in places like McAllen, Texas, the Department of Health and Human Services placed thousands of the children in cities across the country.And after the 2011 protest movement in Syria devolved into a vicious civil war, many Republican governors began objecting to having refugees placed in their states.Trump also seized on that issue, calling for a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” — then sought to enact that policy in one of his first moves as president.Gil Kerlikowske, a former Customs and Border Protection commissioner in the Obama administration, woke up on Thursday morning to find that border politics had followed him to his home on Martha’s Vineyard.Kerlikowske learned that migrants had been dropped off on the island when he went to the barbershop on Thursday morning and overheard people questioning why the United States was unable to secure the southwest border.He reminded the fellow customers that thousands of migrants crossed over the border during the George W. Bush administration as well.“It just kind of shows the ignorance of DeSantis,” Kerlikowske said, advising the governor to pressure members of Florida’s congressional delegation to pass new immigration laws instead. “If he wanted to highlight where the problem is, he should have sent them to Marco Rubio and Rick Scott’s homes.”President Biden has faced pushback from those on his left for, in the view of some advocacy groups, continuing Trump’s immigration policies. On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Biden after a Reuters report revealed that the administration had been urging Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a policy put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for the DeSantis campaign, said, “The governor has spoken publicly about transporting illegal migrants to sanctuary jurisdictions for months.” She noted that DeSantis had requested $12 million from the Florida Legislature in this year’s state budget for the transfers.“But we in the campaign didn’t know the destination would be Martha’s Vineyard or that it would happen yesterday,” Pushaw said. “We found out from media reports.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More