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      Homeland Security Announces Panel on Trump Assassination Attempt

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      Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said the bipartisan group of experts would get to the bottom of decisions that allowed a gunman to wound the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania.The homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, on Sunday announced the members of a panel to conduct an independent review into security failures after a gunman was able to wound former President Donald J. Trump last weekend at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.The Secret Service, which answers to Mr. Mayorkas, is facing criticism for its decisions in planning security for the event, and Republican leaders have called for the agency’s director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to resign. Mr. Mayorkas’s announcement on Sunday promised that the panel would get to the bottom of what went wrong and what changes the Secret Service should make to protect the country’s leaders.“This independent review will examine what happened and provide actionable recommendations to ensure they carry out their no-fail mission most effectively and to prevent something like this from ever happening again,” Mr. Mayorkas said in a statement.The panel — described by Mr. Mayorkas as bipartisan — that will be conducting the 45-day review will be made up of Janet Napolitano, a former homeland security secretary; Frances Townsend, a former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush; Mark Filip, a former federal judge and a deputy attorney general under Mr. Bush; and David Mitchell, a former secretary of the Delaware Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security. Mr. Mayorkas said he could invite additional experts to join the panel in the coming days.Ms. Cheatle said in a statement on Sunday that she was eager to cooperate with the review.The announcement comes as Mr. Mayorkas is under scrutiny for his handling of the events surrounding the assassination attempt, especially whether he has been able to get adequate answers from Ms. Cheatle. Her tenure grew more tenuous over the weekend after the Secret Service revised public comments that it had not denied requests for additional security for Mr. Trump the past two years.Ms. Cheatle is expected to testify on Monday before the House Oversight Committee and will face a barrage of questions about the Secret Service’s decisions before, during and immediately after the failed assassination on July 13. It is likely to be a pivotal moment in the search for what happened at the campaign rally and how federal law enforcement was unable to protect the former president.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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      Secret Service Says It Denied Earlier Trump Requests for More Federal Resources

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      In a reversal, a spokesman said the service had turned down requests from former President Donald J. Trump’s team over the past two years, though he said the requests did not include the recent rally in Pennsylvania.The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by former President Donald J. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination last week, a reversal from earlier statements by the agency denying that such requests had been rebuffed.Almost immediately after a gunman shot at Mr. Trump from a nearby warehouse roof while he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend, the Secret Service faced accusations from Republicans and anonymous law enforcement officials that it had turned down requests for additional agents to secure Mr. Trump’s rallies.“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional resources and that those were rebuffed,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said last Sunday, the day after the shooting.Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, said on Monday that the accusation that he had issued the denials was “a baseless and irresponsible statement and it is one that is unequivocally false.”On Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi acknowledged that the Secret Service had turned down some requests for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump’s detail. Two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Mr. Trump had been out of office. The denied requests for additional resources were not specifically for the rally in Butler, Mr. Guglielmi said.U.S. officials previously said the Secret Service had enhanced security for the former president before the Butler rally because it had received information from U.S. intelligence agencies about a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump.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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      Bidens Border Crackdown Could Disproportionately Affect Families

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      Parents with children represent 40 percent of migrants who crossed the southern border this year. Now, they will be turned back within days, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.A new border crackdown unveiled by the Biden administration this week is likely to disproportionately affect families, whose soaring numbers in the last decade have drastically changed the profile of the population crossing the southern border.Family units have come to represent a substantial share of border crossers, accounting for about 40 percent of all migrants who have entered the United States this year. Families generally have been released into the country quickly because of legal constraints that prevent children from being detained for extended periods.They then join the millions of undocumented people who stay in the United States indefinitely, under the radar of the U.S. authorities, as they wait for court dates years in the future.But according to a memo issued by the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The New York Times, families will be returned to their home countries within days under President Biden’s new border policy, which temporarily closed the U.S.-Mexico border to most asylum seekers as of 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.The implications of the new policy are enormous for families, who are some of the most vulnerable groups making the journey to the United States. Advocates warn that it could have dangerous repercussions, making parents more likely to separate from their children or send them alone to the border, because unaccompanied minors are exempt from the new policy.The vast majority of families seeking asylum are from Central America and Mexico, which places them in a category described in the memo as “easily removable,” akin to single adults from those regions. The memo lays out how the authorities are to carry out the new policy.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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      Biden Shut the Border to Asylum Seekers. The Question Is Whether the Order Can Be Enforced.

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      There are still ways for people to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, particularly without any new resources to help guard the 2,000-mile frontier.As of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, the U.S. border with Mexico was shut down to nearly all migrants seeking asylum in the United States.The drastic action, the result of an executive order signed by President Biden, was designed to keep the border closed at least through Election Day and defuse one of the president’s biggest vulnerabilities in his campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.The question is how broadly it can be enforced, especially along a 2,000-mile border that does not have nearly the capacity to manage the number of people who want to enter the United States.As of Wednesday morning and into Thursday, the order appeared to be working, although it was still too early to make a real assessment. Migrants in the border towns of Mexicali and Ciudad Juárez were being turned away, and the word was spreading.In Mexicali, Guadalupe Olmos, a 33-year-old mother, said that when she heard about the new policy, she wept, and said it was now pointless to try to enter the United States. Last year, she said, gunmen shot up her car, killing her husband. She and her three children survived and have been trying to get out of Mexico.“It is not going to happen anymore,” Ms. Olmos said. “Yesterday, they told us that this is over.”Before the new restrictions went into effect, migrants would seek out border agents and surrender, knowing that anyone who stepped foot on U.S. soil could ask for asylum. Often, they would be released into the United States to wait, sometimes for years, for their cases to come up.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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      Kennedy Calls for Secret Service Detail on Anniversary of Father’s Killing

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      On the 56th anniversary of his father’s assassination, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, again pleaded on Wednesday to be granted Secret Service protection, arguing in an interview on Fox News that he was at an elevated risk of being targeted because of his family history.“I was with my dad when he died in Los Angeles in 1968,” said Mr. Kennedy, who was 14 at the time of the shooting. He then asserted that the White House “is involved in this decision” to deny his requests for Secret Service protection and argued that his campaign was significant enough to deserve that protection.A spokesman for the White House declined to comment.Mr. Kennedy has made requests for Secret Service protection for more than a year, predating his independent candidacy. Last July, when he was still running against President Biden in the Democratic primaries, he said a request for a Secret Service detail had been denied by Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, who has the authority to approve those requests.Mr. Kennedy has since repeatedly made the request, circulating an online petition in support of it, and has been denied each time. In his interview on Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy pointed to several incidents that demonstrated his need for additional security, including break-ins at his home in California and an episode in September in which an armed man was arrested at a campaign event and charged with gun crimes after he tried to meet Mr. Kennedy.Mr. Mayorkas has previously said that he has declined Mr. Kennedy’s requests at the recommendation of a panel of top congressional leaders.“It is ultimately my decision, but I have followed their recommendation each time,” he said in May.Mr. Mayorkas can consider several factors in determining who should receive protection, and those criteria give preferential treatment to major-party candidates. Before Nikki Haley ended her Republican presidential campaign, the congressional panel recommended that she receive Secret Service protection, in part for her strength in national polling. The Secret Service also notes that “some candidates have received protection earlier in the campaign pursuant to presidential memoranda.”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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      Biden Expected to Sign Executive Order Restricting Asylum

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      The move, expected on Tuesday, would allow the president to temporarily seal the border and suspend longtime protections for asylum seekers in the United States.President Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday allowing him to temporarily seal the U.S. border with Mexico to migrants when crossings surge, a move that would suspend longtime protections for asylum seekers in the United States.Mr. Biden’s senior aides have briefed members of Congress in recent days on the forthcoming action and told them to expect the president to sign the order alongside mayors from South Texas, according to several people familiar with the plans.“I’ve been briefed on the pending executive order,” said Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas who previously criticized Mr. Biden for not bolstering enforcement at the border earlier in his presidency. “I certainly support it because I’ve been advocating for these measures for years. While the order is yet to be released, I am supportive of the details provided to me thus far.”The order would represent the single most restrictive border policy instituted by Mr. Biden, or any modern Democrat, and echoes a 2018 effort by President Donald J. Trump to block migration that was assailed by Democrats and blocked by federal courts.Although the executive action is almost certain to face legal challenges, Mr. Biden is under intense political pressure to address illegal migration, a top concern of voters ahead of the presidential election this year.The decision shows how the politics of immigration have tilted sharply to the right over the course of Mr. Biden’s presidency. Polls suggest growing support, even inside the president’s party, for border measures that once Democrats denounced and Mr. Trump championed.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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      Biden y López Obrador prometen una acción conjunta para abordar la migración ilegal

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      En una declaración conjunta, los presidentes de EE. UU. y de México se comprometieron a abordar la migración no autorizada, pero no especificaron ninguna acción concreta.El presidente Joe Biden y el mandatario de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, prometieron el lunes una acción combinada para prevenir la migración ilegal. Biden se encuentra bajo una intensa presión política desde todos los bandos para enfrentar el impacto del aumento de los cruces fronterizos antes de las elecciones presidenciales de este año.En una declaración conjunta, Biden y López Obrador afirmaron que habían ordenado a sus asesores de seguridad nacional “trabajar juntos para implementar de inmediato medidas concretas para reducir significativamente los cruces fronterizos irregulares y al mismo tiempo proteger los derechos humanos”.La declaración, que se produjo luego de que ambos líderes conversaron telefónicamente el domingo, no especificó ninguna acción concreta. Un alto funcionario gubernamental se negó a dar detalles sobre lo que Estados Unidos y México podrían “implementar inmediatamente”. Pero el funcionario dijo que, entre las posibilidades que se están analizando, hay medidas coercitivas más estrictas para impedir que se utilicen ferrocarriles, autobuses y aeropuertos para el cruce ilegal de fronteras y más vuelos que regresen a los inmigrantes a sus países de origen.Este tema podría ser decisivo para la permanencia de Biden en la Casa Blanca durante otros cuatro años. Las encuestas realizadas en los últimos meses, tanto a republicanos como a demócratas, indican que la situación en la frontera genera gran preocupación. Incluso algunos de los más fervientes partidarios del presidente en ciudades liberales le están exigiendo que haga algo para frenar el flujo de inmigrantes.El más reciente plan del presidente al respecto —con un proyecto de ley de migración muy restrictivo que contaba con cierto apoyo bipartidista— se estancó en los últimos meses tras ser bloqueado por los republicanos en la Cámara de Representantes. Biden había pedido que la legislación se aprobara junto con la ayuda financiera para Israel, Ucrania y Taiwán, pero cuando el Congreso llegó a un acuerdo sobre la financiación a principios de este mes, la legislación fronteriza no estaba incluida.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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      Why Is Sean Combs the Subject of a Homeland Security Investigation?

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      The department has a division that often directs inquiries into sex trafficking allegations, like those cited in recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs.The raids of Sean Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area this week raised a barrage of questions about the nature of the inquiry, which a federal official said was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.The government has said little about the basis for the search warrants, but the raids came after five civil lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs in recent months that accused him of violating sex trafficking laws. In four of the suits women accused him of rape, and in one a man accused him of unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Combs, a hip-hop impresario known as Puff Daddy and Diddy who has been a high-profile figure in the music industry since the 1990s, has vehemently denied all of the allegations, calling them “sickening.” Officials have not publicly named him as a target of any prosecution.As the civil suits against Mr. Combs illustrate, the term human or sex trafficking has a broader meaning in the law than perhaps the more popularly understood image of organized crime and forced prostitution rings.“Traditionally you think of trafficking as a pimp who has a stable of victims and then is trafficking them in the traditional sense of the word, for money,” said Jim Cole, a former supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations who oversaw human trafficking cases, “but there are lots of forms of trafficking.”The breadth of trafficking investigations has grown with the recent uptick in sexual abuse claims and the use of the internet by traffickers. Homeland Security Investigations often leads such criminal investigations, although the department is most commonly associated with immigration and transnational issues.In the current inquiry, federal investigators in New York have been interviewing potential witnesses about sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Combs for several months, according to a person familiar with the interviews. Some of the questions involved the solicitation and transportation of prostitutes, as well as any payments or promises associated with sex acts, the person said.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