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      House Republican leaders demand Senate reject immigration compromise; Haley joins opposition to deal – as it happened

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      In a just-released statement, the top Republicans in the House called on the Senate to vote down the bipartisan immigration policy legislation.“Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time. It is DEAD on arrival in the House. We encourage the U.S. Senate to reject it,” speaker Mike Johnson, majority leader Steve Scalise, whip Tom Emmer and conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik said.They instead called on Congress’s upper chamber to pass the Secure the Border Act, a package of hardline policies the House approved last year – among them, restarting construction of Donald Trump’s border wall – that Democrats have rejected.“Because President Biden has refused to utilize his broad executive authority to end the border catastrophe that he has created, the House led nine months ago with the passage of the Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2). That bill contains the necessary components to actually stem the flow of illegals and end the present crisis. The Senate must take it up immediately,” they said.A bill to enact hardline immigration policies and send aid to Israel and Ukraine’s militaries is not even 24 hours old, but is already facing opposition that appears insurmountable. The House’s Republican leaders called on the Senate to reject the measure, and said that even if the chamber passes the bill, they will not hold a vote on it. Back in the Senate, an increasing number of Republican lawmakers say they will not support the legislation. But the worst news of all for the nascent proposal may have arrived from GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, who called it “horrendous”.Here’s what else happened today:
      Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s majority leader, said the chamber will vote on the immigration bill Wednesday.
      Joe Biden remains supportive of the immigration proposal, saying, “doing nothing is not an option”.
      The special election to replace George Santos in a New York swing district could turn into a proxy battle over immigration reforms.
      James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican who was his party’s negotiator in the immigration talks, said voting down the proposal would amount to hypocrisy.
      Migrant aid groups as well as a major union spoke out against the immigration policy changes.
      The Senate’s Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber will vote on the bipartisan immigration policy bill Wednesday.The legislation also includes military aid for Ukraine and Israel, and is supported by Joe Biden, as well as the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell. But its prospects in the House appear dire, after speaker Mike Johnson said the legislation will not be considered. Meanwhile, a growing number of Senate Republicans as well as some Democrats have also spoken out against the bill.In a speech on the chamber’s floor, Schumer said Wednesday’s vote “will be the most important that the Senate has taken in a very long time”, and blamed attacks from Donald Trump and others for undermining the legislation’s prospects.“The $64,000 question now, is whether or not senators can drown out the outside noise, drown out people like Donald Trump who want chaos, and do the right thing for America,” Schumer said.“I urge senators of goodwill on both sides of the aisle to do the right thing and turn the chaos out. History is going to look over our shoulders and ask if the Senate rose to the occasion. We must, we must act.”Asked by reporters what he expected to happen next with the immigration policy bill, Joe Biden said: “Hopefully passage in the Senate.”The president is today in Las Vegas, where he met with unionized culinary workers. He’s heading back to Washington DC later in the day.Non-profits working with asylum seekers and migrants have also come out against the Senate’s immigration reform bill.Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, an El Paso-Texas based organization that provides legal services to migrants, said:
      Closing the border, creating a new ‘metering’ system, and debilitating our asylum laws will do nothing to address the underlying issues that force vulnerable children and families to flee their homes, seeking safety and a better life. Although the bill contains small silver linings, they come at too high a cost.
      Ayuda, which provides legal services to low-income immigrants in Washington DC and surrounding states, said:
      Amongst many of the draconian changes proposed, this legislation would create a new authority, with narrow exceptions, that would allow officials to summarily expel asylum seekers. It would also restrict screening standards for asylum seekers and expedite asylum claims to the extent that many will not be able to access counsel or adequately represent themselves.
      The Service Employees International Union opposed the bill as too extreme, with president Mary Kay Henry saying:
      Compromise is almost always necessary to achieve great goals, but the extreme Republicans who pushed this deal were never going to give up any of the items on their longstanding anti-immigrant wish list. From Trump on down, they have admitted that they see chaos as politically beneficial. We can support our international allies fighting for democracy without setting a dangerous precedent that does not reflect our values. Any Republican arguments to the contrary are in service of a political agenda and not of working people
      It’s not just members of Congress who are thinking about immigration. The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports that Latino voters in Nevada, a swing state where a Democratic senator is up for re-election in November, are also watching closely to see how Washington handles the issue:In East Las Vegas last week, there were few signs that Nevada was gearing up for the first presidential election contest in the western US, happening in mere days.The neighbourhood, the heart of the city’s Latino community, was bereft of lawn signs and campaign banners. There were no clipboard-wielding canvassers crowding its wide, palm-tree-lined streets. An occasional ad on the local Spanish-language radio station, encouraging listeners to vote, was one of the few signs that the presidential primaries were coming up.“Will I vote in the primaries? Yeah, maybe,” said Ruby Romero, 38, who owns a boutique in Vegas’s arts district. But, she admitted, she had almost forgotten about it.This week’s elections aren’t exactly competitive, and will inevitably move Joe Biden and Donald Trump toward a rematch in November.But in an election year that will determine the future of abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, the chances of meaningful climate action, the shape of the economy and perhaps even the fate of American democracy, voters here appeared particularly demoralised.Latinos make up one in five voters in the state, and in 2020 about 60% of Latino voters backed Joe Biden. It remains unclear, however, whether Democrats will be able to energise enough voters this year to replicate that feat.Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the last major Republican presidential contender whose name is not Donald Trump, joined the ranks of the objectors to the Senate’s immigration proposal:Perhaps the most telling part of her comments is right at the beginning, where she says “I don’t think you wait till an election to pass a border deal because we need to get something done immediately.” Republicans have demanded tighter border security for years, but now that a presidential election is nine months away, Haley appears to be suggesting that the party is wise to turn down the deal and hope that one of their own is elected in November.The Republican senator for South Carolina Lindsey Graham has thanked James Lankford for his role in negotiating the border bill, and said he is looking forward to making the bill “stronger”.In a statement posted to social media, Graham said he is “open-minded” on steps on how to improve the bill, adding that “something this significant cannot be rushed and jammed through”. He added:
      I am hopeful that Senator Schumer will allow an open amendment process to occur. If not, then the bill will die because of process.
      Nikki Haley raised $16.5m in January, her biggest monthly fundraising total to date, her presidential campaign said on Monday.The former South Carolina governor and last major challenger to Donald Trump brought in 69,274 new donors and $11.7m from “grassroots supporters” last month, the campaign said.The influx of cash comes amid growing calls from fellow Republicans that she withdraw from the race in order for the party to unite around a single candidate.“While Donald Trump blows $50 million of his donors’ money on his legal cases, Nikki Haley has been focused on talking to voters and saving our country,” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement, reported by the Washington Post.
      Hundreds of thousands of Americans are supporting Nikki’s campaign because they don’t want two grumpy old men and all their chaos, confusion, and grievances. They want a strong, conservative leader who will save this country.
      Democratic presidential challenger Dean Phillips defended continuing his longshot campaign despite a disappointing third-place finish in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, saying it was “a mission of principle”.The Minnesota congressman’s remarks about remaining in the race for the Oval Office came Sunday during an appearance on MSNBC’s The Weekend. Another guest on the show asked Phillips “what the hell are you doing” and “what’s being served here” with his presidential run, especially after Biden captured 96% of the votes cast in the previous day’s South Carolina primary. Phillips collected less than 2% of the vote and finished behind Williamson, a self-help author.“So what does your path look like at this point and why?” former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said to Phillips. Steele said Phillips, 55, was also prolonging narratives about the 81-year-old Biden’s age.“I know tradition dictates that you always protect the incumbent,” Phillips replied. But Phillips said challenging Biden was “a mission of principle”. He added:
      Someone’s got to do it.
      Phillips said he was also concerned that Biden’s unpopularity with the electorate could cost the Democrats the White House if he is nominated for another term in the fall.“We’re dumbfounded,” Phillips said.
      Yes, he’s got a commanding lead in the primaries – I get it. But look at the numbers. He is in a terrible position.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has urged Speaker Mike Johnson to take up the border bill to the House floor.“I’m confident – hopeful is the right word,” Schumer told MSNBC this morning when asked about the bill’s chances of passing in the Senate.
      This is hard. And our Republican senators – we need a bunch of them – are under a lot of pressure from right-wing Trump part of the party.
      He insisted that the bill would pass if it were brought to a vote. He addressed Johnson directly, urging him to “do the right thing.” He said:
      You know what the right thing to do is. You know we need to fix our border. You know that it has to be bipartisan. The bill that you passed didn’t get a single Democratic vote in the House or the Senate. How are you going to get anything done?
      A bill to enact hardline immigration policies and send aid to Israel and Ukraine’s militaries is not even 24 hours old, but is already facing opposition that appears insurmountable. The House’s Republican leaders called on the Senate to reject the measure, and said that even if the chamber passes the bill, they will not hold a vote on it. Back in the Senate, an increasing number of Republican lawmakers are coming out against the legislation. But the worst news of all for the nascent legislation may have arrived from GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, who called it “horrendous”.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Joe Biden remains supportive of the immigration bill, saying, “doing nothing is not an option”.
      The special election to replace George Santos in a New York swing district could turn into a proxy battle over immigration reforms.
      James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican who was his party’s negotiator in the immigration talks, said voting down the proposal would amount to hypocrisy.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has called on Congress to pass the immigration policy compromise, noting that its passage is tied to approving aid to Ukraine and Israel:Joe Biden also supports the beleaguered bill. After its release on Sunday, he said:
      If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option. Working with my administration, the United States Senate has done the hard work it takes to reach a bipartisan agreement. Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border? I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem. I’m ready to secure the border. And so are the American people. I know we have our divisions at home but we cannot let partisan politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation. I refuse to let that happen. In moments like these, we have to remember who we are. We’re the United States of America and there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together.I urge Congress to come together and swiftly pass this bipartisan agreement. Get it to my desk so I can sign it into law immediately. More

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      Nearly half of US wants Trump election subversion verdict before November, poll says

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      Nearly half of those in the US want to see Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion case resolved before the former president runs for the White House again in November, according to a poll published on Monday.Meanwhile, a quarter of Americans do not think Trump will ever concede if he loses a second time to Joe Biden, said the survey, commissioned by CNN.The survey in question found that 48% of those polled believed it was “essential” for there to be a verdict before November’s election. Another 16% said that they would at least prefer to see one.CNN’s poll also showed that expectations Trump would concede if he loses have dropped from 37% to 25% since October – and more than three-quarters (78%) think the former president would try to pardon himself of federal charges stemming from his presidency if he wins another stint in the Oval Office.Trump has been performing strongly in polls as compared with Biden. A survey by NBC News released on Sunday found that Biden is beset by a deficit of 20 percentage points against Trump in his handling of the economy, despite signs that the US may have achieved an almost unique “soft-landing” after a government and consumer spending boom during the Covid-19 pandemic.The poll also found that fewer than three in 10 voters approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war. And Biden lags Trump by 16 points on the perception of competence and effectiveness, a reversal from 2020.But the question of Trump’s legal quagmire hangs over Biden’s unfavorable polling. The former president is facing more than 90 criminal charges accusing him of trying to illegally nullify his defeat by Biden, illicitly retaining government secrets after leaving the White House and making illegal hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has claimed an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump.If Trump is convicted of a felony, the poll found, a five-point lead for Trump flips to a two-point lead for Biden.Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.On Friday, the US district judge Tanya Chutkan formally postponed the federal election interference case against Trump over which she is presiding. It was scheduled to begin in March, but that date has been pushed back while a Washington DC appeals court weighs arguments from the Trump legal team that he is immune from prosecution for actions taken while he was president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf the DC appeals court rejects Trump’s appeal, it will probably advance to the US supreme court, meaning further trial delays.Public desire for a resolution to that case before the November election comes as recent polling by Bloomberg found majorities of voters in seven key swing states would be unwilling to vote for Trump if he is convicted of a crime (53%) or sentenced to prison (55%) in one of the four cases against him overall.But, according to CNN, views of Trump’s efforts to stay in office despite his 2020 defeat in effect remain unchanged from the summer of 2022, with 45% of US adults saying he acted illegally, 32% unethically, and 23% that he did nothing wrong at all. More

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      Potential Trump running mate JD Vance says he still questions results of 2020 election

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      JD Vance, the Ohio senator who is being floated as a potential Republican running mate to Donald Trump, said on Sunday that he still questions the results of the 2020 election and that the votes should not have been immediately certified.“Do I think there were problems in 2020? Yes, I do,” Vance told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, adding it was “ridiculous” to ask if he would have certified the results as Mike Pence had done and told the host he was “obsessed with talking about this”.In a contentious interview, the senator also suggested that Trump should ignore “illegitimate” US supreme court rulings.That remark came after Vance was questioned about a 2021 podcast during which he said he would advise Trump to “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people” and ignore legal rulings against it.“We have a major problem here with administrators and bureaucrats in the government who don’t respond to the elected branches … If those people aren’t following the rules, then of course you’ve got to fire them, and of course the president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should,” Vance said.“The constitution says that the supreme court can make rulings … but if the supreme court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling,” added Vance, whose wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, has previously clerked for John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justices.Vance also argued that the civil claims and criminal cases against Trump were not legitimate efforts to prosecute the former president for wrongdoing, but “about throwing him off the ballot because Democrats feel that they can’t beat him at the ballot box. And so, they’re trying to defeat him in court.”The interview ended badly, with the network cutting to a commercial break after Stephanopoulos told Vance he had made it “very clear” he believed a president can defy the supreme court.“No, no, George …” Vance said before the sound was cut.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, was elected senator in 2022 after abandoning his past criticism of Trump, in which he had said the former president was “America’s Hitler”, “a total fraud” and “a moral disaster”.The reversal helped to secure Trump’s endorsement and his backing has not wavered since. He has described the legal claims against Trump, specifically E Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit that last week concluded with an $83m judgement against Trump, as “illustrative of what’s gone wrong in this country”. More

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      ‘The threat isn’t over’: the expert arguing to the supreme court Trump is an insurrectionist

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      When Jill Habig had an office down the hall from Kamala Harris in California, Barack Obama was US president, abortion was a constitutional right and January 6 was just another date on the calendar. A lot has happened since then.On Thursday Habig, now president of the non-profit Public Rights Project (PRP), hopes her arguments will persuade the supreme court that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who should be disqualified from the 2024 presidential election.Habig has filed an amicus brief on behalf of historians contending that section 3 of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which bars people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office, applies to Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.The brief gives the supreme court’s originalists, who believe the constitution should be interpreted as it would have been in the era it was written, a taste of their own medicine. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are self-declared originalists while Samuel Alito has described himself as a “practical originalist”.“Our goal was to bring an originalist historical perspective to the supreme court as it considered the meaning of section 3 of the 14th amendment,” Habig, a former special counsel to then California attorney general Harris, says by phone from Oakland. “The point we make with our historian colleagues is that the history of section 3 is actually very clear. It demonstrates that section 3 was intended to automatically disqualify insurrectionists.”The amicus brief, led by historians Jill Lepore of Harvard and David Blight of Yale, cites debates from the time in which senators made clear that their view that the provision that would not only apply for former Confederates but to the leaders of rebellions yet to come.View image in fullscreenHabig adds: “It was intended to apply not only to the civil war but also to future insurrections and it bars anyone who has betrayed an oath to uphold the constitution from becoming president of the United States.”The supreme court will hear arguments on a Colorado case in which Trump was stricken from the ballot; a decision in Maine is on hold. Other states have ruled in favor of keeping Trump on the ballot. The flurry of decisions have prompted debate over whether Trump can be fairly considered to have committed insurrection even though he has not been found guilty in a court of law – at least not yet.Habig, who founded the PRP in 2017, says yes. “It’s clear historically that there was no requirement of a conviction or even of charges, that the framers intended section 3 to be self-executing. The brief goes through a number of examples of people who had taken part in the secession and been on the Confederate side actually petitioning Congress for exceptions. There’s a lot of evidence that it was self-executing. There was no need for a particular conviction.”She adds: “The evidence that we have seen and heard and watched with our own eyes over the last few years has made it quite clear that President Trump lost an election in 2020 and has spent the months and years since then trying to overturn the results of that election in a variety of ways, including people marching to the Capitol and invading the Capitol.”Indeed, Blight has pointed out that the US Capitol was never breached during the civil war but was on January 6. Habig comments: “It’s difficult to argue with a straight face that these activities don’t qualify for section 3.”Still, there are plenty of Republicans, Democrats and neutrals who warn that the 14th amendment drive is politically counterproductive, fueling a Trumpian narrative that state institutions are out to stop him and that Joe Biden is the true threat to democracy. Let the people decide at the ballot box in November, they say.Habig counters: “It’s important to note that the American people did decide in 2020. We had a political process and then we had a president of the United States who attempted to overturn that political process. ”View image in fullscreenSpectacular as it was, the January 6 riot did not occur in a vacuum. Habig and her work at the PRP place it in a wider context of a growing movement to harass and threaten election officials and to interfere with the administration of elections. She perceives a direct line between Trump’s “big lie” and threats to democracy across the country today.“Regardless of this particular case, the threat isn’t over. It’s actually intensifying. We’re just seeing an array of efforts to rig the rules of the game against our democracy and it’s part of why we’re investing a lot of resources into protecting election officials this cycle, and to litigating and advancing voting rights and free and fair elections this year.”How did America get here? A turning point was the supreme court’s 5-4 decision in 2013 to strike down a formula at the heart of the Voting Rights Act, so that voters who are discriminated against now bear the burden of proving they are disenfranchised. Since then states have engaged in a barrage of gerrymandering – manipulating district boundaries so as to favor one party – and voter suppression.Habig reflects: “The gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the supreme court left states to themselves to rewrite the rules of the game in a variety of ways that disenfranchised voters and continued to rig maps against their systems and fair representation.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’ve seen the supreme court take itself out of the game of protecting other fundamental rights like abortion and throw that back into the states. What that’s creating is a lot of volatility at the state and local level as officials try to rewrite the rules or pick up the pieces and protect their constituents’ rights. What we’re trying to do is help state and local officials across the country use the power that they have to fight back and advance civil rights in all the ways that they can.”The PRP is building a rapid response hub to provide legal support for 200 election officials to combat harassment and intimidation and targeting election deniers. It is pursuing litigation against gerrymandering, the disqualification of legitimate ballots and state officials who try to prevent voters weighing in on ballot measures to advance abortion rights.“This is an all out effort to make sure that we don’t have death by a thousand cuts for our democracy this year,” Hebig says. “We are potentially less likely to see one central threat like we did on January 6 or even in the 2020 election. We’ve seen some of the larger counties like Maricopa county, Arizona, Philadelphia, Detroit et cetera, who have been targets in the past, have more resources to fight back.“What we’re most concerned about is the soft underbelly of our democracy, which is the smaller, less-resourced jurisdictions that just don’t have all of the capacity they need to push back against this harassment and intimidation. Because of our decentralised system, election deniers who are intent on disrupting our elections and disrupting the outcome of our election don’t have to mount a huge effort in one place.“They can pick apart jurisdiction by jurisdiction, invalidate 250 ballots here, and a thousand ballots there and 500 there, challenge absentee ballots, disrupt targeted polling places and that in the aggregate can actually change election results, sow disillusionment and distrust in our system and have the same or even worse aggregate outcome in terms of undermining the integrity of our election. That’s what we’re mobilising to prevent.”There was no greater measure of America’s ailing democracy than the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the ruling that effectively made abortion legal nationwide, by supreme court justices appointed by presidents who lost the national popular vote. But since then, in a series of ballot measures in individual states, abortion rights have prevailed.Habig reflects: “Every single time that has been put to voters, abortion rights have won. As a result, we’re actually starting to see a lot of overlap between the reproductive rights fight and the democracy fight because this battle over abortion is fuelling additional efforts to break the rules and prevent voters from having a meaningful say in their rights. We’re mobilising on both fronts because the future of both is interconnected.”View image in fullscreenPRP says it has worked with local elected officials to provide legal guidance and filed dozens of amicus briefs in key reproductive rights cases, secured legal access to abortion for 6.5 million people. Habig explains: “We’re working with state and local officials to overturn criminal abortion bans at the state level.“We’re working to poke holes in existing criminal bans when there’s not a path to overturn them right away. Then we’re working to hold crisis pregnancy centers accountable for deception of women and patients; these are anti-abortion centers that masquerade as health clinics that provide comprehensive healthcare. We’re looking at this multi-pronged approach state by state and across the country.”Habig, a political strategist who was deputy campaign manager for Harris’s first Senate election campaign in 2016, has no doubt that democracy and abortion rights will play a big part in the November election.“I appreciate President Biden’s clarity on democracy and the constitution and his leadership on the issue. I do think it’s important for people to understand what democracy means and for their real lives. It can sound abstract sometimes and like an academic debate but bringing it down to the level of, do you have autonomy over your future and your community, do you have autonomy over your own body, is important for people.”She adds: “That’s why we’ve seen in cases when we’re talking about the fundamental right to vote, people get that. When we’re talking about their autonomy, they get it. When they’re talking about their dignity in the workplace, people get that and feel that on a visceral level. It’s important that we work to build a democracy that actually delivers so that people can feel the value of it in their daily lives.” More

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      US Senate releases draft bill to toughen border measures while securing aid to Ukraine and Israel

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      US senators on Sunday evening released the details of a highly anticipated $118bn package that pairs federal enforcement policy on the US-Mexico border with wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and others, launching a long-shot effort to push the bill past sceptical, hard right House Republicans – whom Democrats accuse of politicizing immigration while being in thrall to Donald Trump.The proposal is the best chance for Joe Biden to bolster dwindling US wartime aid for Ukraine – a major foreign policy goal that is shared by both the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, and top Republican, Mitch McConnell. The Senate was expected this week to hold a key test vote on the legislation, but it faces a wall of opposition from conservatives.Joe Biden urged the US Congress to pass the legislation, for the sake of immigration reform and aid for US allies.The bill “includes the toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades,” he said in a statement issued by the White House.He added: “Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border? I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem.”Crucially, with Congress stalled on approving $60bn in Ukraine aid, the US has halted shipments of ammunition and missiles to Kyiv, leaving Ukrainian soldiers outgunned as they try to come out on top of a grinding stalemate with Russian troops.“The United States and our allies are facing multiple, complex and, in places, coordinated challenges from adversaries who seek to disrupt democracy and expand authoritarian influence around the globe,” Schumer said in a statement.In a bid to overcome opposition from House Republicans, McConnell had insisted last year that border policy changes be included in the national security funding package.The bill would overhaul the asylum system at the border with faster and tougher enforcement, as well as give presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if authorities deemed themselves overwhelmed with the number of undocumented people requesting asylum at the international boundary.The tough new measures discussed among select senators for months include a new federal requirement to “shut down” the US-Mexico border if more than 5,000 undocumented people cross into the US daily and plans to swiftly throw out economic migrants.Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who broke from the Democratic party in 2022 to become an independent, told CBS’s Face the Nation earlier on Sunday some of what she and other Senate negotiators have been working on.When the number of migrants crossing without an appointment with the US authorities approaches 4,000 people a day, the US government would be granted the power to voluntarily turn away all people presenting at border stations, to give time for the asylum application processing to catch up, she said.At other times, migrants would be taken into short-term detention as their claims for asylum were rapidly assessed. Anyone failing to meet the standards for a claim would be “swiftly returned to their home country”, Sinema said.“We believe that by quickly implementing this system, individuals who come for economic reasons will learn very quickly that this is not a path to enter our country and will not take the sometimes dangerous or treacherous trek to our border,” she told the Sunday morning TV show.Alongside the faster deportation provisions, the draft bill would also speed up the time needed to process successful asylum applications. “Folks who do qualify for asylum will be on a rapid path, six months or less, to start a new life in America,” Sinema said.The draft Senate bill meets several of the demands that have been raised by Republicans who have accused the Biden administration of failing to secure the US border. In particular, it proposes an end to the system of allowing people to remain in the US while their asylum applications are processed – a procedure Republicans dismissively call “catch and release”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs many as 10,000 migrants a day have been encountered crossing the US-Mexico border without necessary immigration papers or an appointment with the US authorities.But the Senate bill is likely to be blocked by Republican leaders in the US House who are following Donald Trump’s lead and opposing the deal. The former president, who is running for re-election, has made it clear that he does not want to see Biden presented with a legislative win on the border crisis.Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has said the Senate bill would be “dead on arrival” were it to reach his chamber. On Saturday he also made a pre-emptive move that could further imperil the chances of the Senate bill ever becoming law by announcing that he would bring to a vote on the House floor a separate $17.6bn military aid package for Israel.Johnson was asked by NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday whether his aid for Israel plan was a ruse to kill the Senate compromise deal on the border. He was also asked whether he was merely doing Trump’s bidding, with Trump “calling the shots”.“Of course not,” the speaker said. “He’s not calling the shots, I am calling the shots for the House – that’s our responsibility.”Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House, derided House Republicans, in interview on the ABC US network’s This Week Sunday show, as “wholly owned subsidiaries of Donald Trump”.With the numbers of migrants turning up at the border remaining high, and with the presidential election year getting under way, immigration is set to continue to cause ructions on both sides of the political aisle.On Sunday Nikki Haley, Trump’s only remaining rival in the race to secure the Republican nomination, accused Trump in a CNN interview of “playing politics” with the border with his attempt to scupper the Senate deal.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Nevada: rival primary and caucuses ensure confusion … and a Trump win

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      When Nevada Republicans started receiving their mail-in ballots for the state’s 6 February primary, Nikki Haley’s name was on them, but a key person was missing: Donald Trump. It’s not an accident.Instead of appearing on the primary ballot in the key swing state, Trump is participating in the separate Republican caucuses to take place two days after the primary, on 8 February. Haley isn’t participating in those caucuses. The bizarre set-up means that Nevada Republicans will be asked to vote in a primary on 6 February and then in caucuses two days later to choose their party’s nominee. Only the caucuses will determine how Nevada’s 26 delegates are awarded at the Republican national convention.The Nevada Republican party created the chaotic scheme, changing its nomination rules last year, in what many say is a thinly veiled effort to benefit Trump. The changes have made Nevada’s GOP nomination in the primary essentially irrelevant and left voters confused.“What it’s probably doing is a) creating a lot of confusion and b) gonna reduce turnout and participation, which totally undermines the purpose of the caucuses, which is for party building,” said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Michael McDonald, the head of the Nevada Republican party, was one of six fake Trump electors indicted by Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron Ford. Jesse Law, the chair of the Clark county Republican party who also served in the Trump administration, and Jim DeGraffenreid, a Nevada Republican National Committee member, were also charged.“​​They did it because they are controlled by Trump people, and Trump wouldn’t like it if anything were left to chance,” said Jon Ralston, a well-respected Nevada political commentator who is CEO of the Nevada Independent. “He would almost surely have won the primary, too, but with universal mail ballots and a much larger universe, it would not have been as big a margin, probably.”In 2021, Nevada lawmakers approved a measure requiring the state to hold a primary election for the presidential preference contest. But last year, the state Republican party decided it wanted to hold caucuses instead. The party said it would award all of its delegates to the winner of the caucus. It also barred anyone who participated in the primary from also participating in the caucuses. It imposed a $55,000 fee to participate and prohibited Super Pacs from intervening in the caucuses – widely seen as an attack on Ron DeSantis, who relied heavily on his Super Pac throughout his campaign before dropping out in January.Under Nevada law, all voters are automatically mailed a ballot for the primary unless they opt out. There is also in-person early voting that began on 27 January, and voters can register to vote at the polls. The caucuses, by contrast, will take place from 5pm to 7.30pm, and voters have to appear in person and show ID to participate. Unlike a primary, in which votes are cast by ballot over the course of an early voting period and entire election days, voters in a caucus must show up in person at a designated place with their neighbors, where they are then given a ballot, after which they submit it and can stay and watch it get counted.Publicly, Nevada Republicans have said the caucuses are needed to ensure the integrity of the vote, even though voter fraud is exceedingly rare. “The caucus, until we get voter ID, and we get the mail-in ballot situation under control – the only pure way to have this is through a caucus,” McDonald, the Nevada Republican chair, said in an October interview with the Nevada newsmakers podcast.McDonald, who said in 2015 he favored primaries because they increased participation, did not respond to a request for an interview.View image in fullscreenJoe Lombardo, Nevada’s Republican governor, has said he will caucus for Trump but has criticized the dual primary and caucus system as confusing and said it would disenfranchise voters.Ralston said the party’s election integrity concerns were nonsense. “They want only the base to turn out, and the smaller the turnout, the better Trump is likely to do, especially now with only [Ryan] Binkley against him and no ‘none of the above’ to choose,” he said, referring to the long-shot candidate.Haley, along with Mike Pence and Tim Scott, chose to participate in the primary last year. Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie all chose to participate in the caucuses. Because Haley is the only candidate left in the primary, she is guaranteed to win. Trump, similarly, is the only remaining major candidate in the caucuses and is guaranteed to win that contest.Haley has said she’s not participating in the caucuses because it was rigged for Trump. “I mean, talk to the people in Nevada. They will tell you the caucuses have been sealed off, bought and paid for for a long time. And so that’s why we got into the primary,” Haley told reporters during a campaign stop in Epping, New Hampshire, last month.And Trump’s campaign has gloated over its guaranteed win in the caucuses.“On February 8th, Nikki Haley will be handed her third straight loss – in Nevada. She inexplicably signed up to be included on the state Primary ballot despite the fact that she could not earn delegates in the Primary,” Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, who both lead Trump’s campaign, wrote in a memo on Monday.Still, Trump allies have spread misinformation falsely suggesting the primary is unauthorized and Trump was wrongfully excluded from it. The presidential primary is required by state law – but Trump chose not to participate in the primary so he could be a candidate in the caucuses.Voters are confused about the process and why Trump isn’t on the primary ballot, said Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s secretary of state.“Voters ask that question all the time,” he said in an interview. “It’s interesting because we did talk about it, we did address it, we tried to do as much mitigation as we could prior to the ballots being received. However, it’s human nature that the voter is only going to pay attention to what’s right in front of them at that moment in time.”The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that the primary is run by state officials and the caucuses are run entirely by the state GOP.Kerry Durmick, the Nevada state director for All Voting Is Local, a non-partisan group focused on expanding voting access, said she went to observe one of the first days of early voting and saw confusion.“I did see a lot of voters say, ‘Oh, I thought today was the caucus. Oh, I thought we were voting in February. Can I vote today or do I need to vote then?’” she said. “Legally the parties can handle the process however they want to. Where I’m frustrated, where All Voting Is Local is frustrated, is the lack of outreach that was done by this particular party around this particular process because this was the choice that they made.”Republicans are also reportedly still seeking volunteers to staff the caucus sites, which the party was still finalising less than a month ahead of the event, according to the Las Vegas Sun.There could be even more confusion if the dual contest system results in both candidates claiming victory in Nevada. After 6 February, Haley could claim she won the Nevada primary. Two days later, Trump will claim he won the caucuses.“To the degree that there’s any sort of media attention of the Tuesday results, it’s gonna be ‘Nikki Haley wins the Nevada primary. Oh, but Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot.’ That’s a more complicated soundbite but she can certainly spin that,” said Damore.During a rally in Las Vegas last weekend, Trump reminded his supporters to turn out, even though he’s guaranteed to win the contest. “We do want to get a good vote. We’re not going to have a lot of competition, I think. But it doesn’t matter. We want to get a great, beautiful mandate,” he said.“It’s very important for you to help educate all of our supporters that we’re not talking about the government-run, universal mail-in ballots. We don’t want mail-in ballot,” he added. “Do the caucus, not the primary. The primary is meaningless. I don’t know, maybe they’ll try and use it for public relations purposes.”Lauren Gambino contributed reporting More

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      ‘Being mean will only rally her fans’: Taylor Swift is winning whether she backs Biden or thumps Trump

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      The 2024 US presidential election campaign, lacking any defining story to tell and with a prevailing lack of enthusiasm in a rematch of candidates in their eighth and ninth decades, last week settled on Taylor Swift – and an endorsement she may or may not make – as its defining obsession.On one side, expectations emanating from the Biden re-election camp were that the 34-year-old superstar would cast her influence over tens of thousands of Swifties their way; on the other, furious Republicans who at first sought to denigrate and wrap her in conspiracy theories, and later thought better of the strategy.Rolling Stone reported that allies of Donald Trump were pledging a “holy war” against Swift if she sides with the Democrats in November. Some theorised that the National Football League is rigging games for Swift’s Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend, Travis Kelce, to sweeten the Democrats endorsement hopes.Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that the Shake It Off hitmaker had been converted into a psychological operations asset four years ago. The Pentagon hit back, saying: “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”However, not all Republicans are on board with the attacks on Swift. “I don’t know what the obsession is,” presidential candidate Nikki Haley told CNN. “Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend. Taylor Swift is a good artist. I have taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts. To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre. Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse, but I can’t believe that’s overtaken our national politics.”While many are preoccupied with whether Swift can cross nine time zones to make it back from an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo to see her boyfriend play in next weekend’s Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl in Las Vegas (she can), the intensity of political questions surrounding Swift mirrors the febrile nature of the election 10 months away.View image in fullscreenDoubtless, Swift could offer politicos lessons in values-based messaging, audience understanding and building genuine connections with fans or voters. Last week, Trump argued that he is more popular than her, even if the values-based narratives he presents are often more aligned with self-victimisation than self-empowerment.A survey last year by Morning Consult found 53% of American adults are Swift fans. There are almost as many men as women, almost as many Republicans as Democrats, including baby boomers, millennials, Gen Xers and young adults from Gen Z. In other words, a constituency that could make or break a national political campaign.The recent Republican primary in New Hampshire indicated Trump’s weaknesses with women, who make up much of Swift’s fanbase. But recent polling, too, has shown that Biden’s ratings and support among young voters has dropped and he’s now closely tied in the 18-34 demographic with Trump.“They’re not crazy about Biden,” says Democratic party consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “If they turn out at all, it may be to oppose Trump and with no intensity at all. But if you’re having trouble with younger people, and you need to do something, what better way to cure the problem, or at least show that you are sensitive to it, than to get Taylor Swift out?”David Allan, professor of marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, who teaches a Swift-focused course, says the Republicans will have to navigate the singer.“Republicans need to be careful with Taylor because she’s extremely popular with all-demographic women and some men. You don’t want to appear to be mean because it will only rally her fans,” he says. Conversely, attacking Swift could bring its own counter-intuitive, culture/class war rewards.“You know she’s having some effect if Fox News is attacking her,” Allan says. “For Trump, having Taylor Swift against him gives him something to talk about.” A salient lesson comes from the Dixie Chicks – now the Chicks – who wrecked their careers before the Iraq war when singer Natalie Maines said from a London stage they were ashamed to be that President George Bush was from Texas.In Swift’s documentary,Miss Americana, her father fretted that an overt political position could put her in the same position as the Chicks. But Swift is now believed to be too big to be commercially vulnerable.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs the music industry newsletter Hits Daily Double put it: “Her domination of the marketplace from every conceivable angle is next-level. But she just seems to get bigger, and to rule every area she enters – the rerecorded albums, the massive tour, the blockbuster movie of the tour, the NFL games where her mere presence changes the center of gravity.”Whether or not Swift goes two-feet in with Biden, Allan adds: “It’s getting to that point in the 60s that if Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell didn’t speak out about the Vietnam war it would hurt them with their fans. If she doesn’t do something, even if just to help to get out the vote, it will hurt her authenticity.” In September, Vote.org reported more than 35,000 new political registrations, a 23% jump over last year, after Swift urged her 280 million Instagram followers to sign up.Swift, who was politically cautious until she endorsed Tennessee Democratic senate candidate Phil Bredesen in 2018 (he lost) and then Biden in 2020, has not shown any interest in being adopted by political factions. A 5,000-word New York Times essay that claimed her as more than just queer-friendly was criticised for making overreaching assumptions.View image in fullscreenBut US candidates often seek show business endorsements. “The tradition goes back at least 60 years when [John F] Kennedy brought out Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Judy Garland and others to go stump for them, and country music stars, who have come out mostly for Republicans,” Sheinkopf notes.Other musical endorsements include the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd for Jimmy Carter. But musicians including Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga couldn’t push Hillary Clinton over the line in 2016, and it hasn’t hurt Trump to use Village People’s gay paradise anthem YMCA as a walk-off song, which crowds greatly appreciate.Swift might not even need to formally endorse Biden, Sheinkopf adds. “Even to put it out as rumour makes Biden look less like he’s 81 years old and more like he’s listening to younger people, their subcultural desires and what they feel about things.”For Swift, he says: “She gets to become a decision-maker, and an even larger figure in American and international life. Her public persona becomes as important as her music and that means she’ll make a lot more money.” More

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      US judge delays Trump’s federal 2020 election subversion trial

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      A US judge has formally postponed Donald Trump’s trial on federal charges that the former president sought to overturn the 2020 election results.The trial was due to start on 4 March in Washington before the delay ordered from the federal judge Tanya Chutkan.Trial delays in general are not unusual in court cases. The delay in Trump’s trial in particular stems from an appeal by the ex-president that claims he is immune to prosecution for actions taken while he was in the Oval Office.Chutkan had indicated in January that Trump’s original trial date – chosen last summer – would not hold because the case had been frozen by the former president’s appeal.The judge has prohibited prosecutors from filing motions while the appeal is pending and made clear that Trump’s legal team would get a full seven-month period to prepare for the trial. Any time between December and the end of the appeals process would not count against that preparation period, Chutkan has also said.Trump has been grappling with more than 90 criminal charges in various jurisdictions for subversion of the 2020 election, illegal retention of government secrets after he left the Oval Office, and hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has alleged extramarital sex with him.Separately, he has also been ordered to pay about $88m in damages to the former Elle columnist E Jean Carroll after having been found liable of sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s as well as defaming her.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionReuters contributed reporting More