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      Cameron warns failure to supply arms to Ukraine will harm US security

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      David Cameron has said that the continued US failure to supply arms to Ukraine would undermine its own security, strengthen China and cast doubt on America’s reliability as an ally around the world.The UK foreign secretary, who attended the G20 meeting in Brazil earlier in the week, admitted that the effort to rally global support for the Ukrainian cause had been “damaged” by the fact that neither the US nor the UK had voted for a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. But he argued the damage had been mitigated by the UK’s clarification of its position.Cameron was speaking in New York on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine at a time when the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is blocking a substantial package of military aid to Kyiv, leading to a severe ammunition shortage for Ukrainian troops.The foreign secretary was flanked by his German and Polish counterparts, Annalena Baerbock and Radek Sikorski, who made their own calls for US supplies to be resumed at a meeting organised in New York by the Wall Street Journal ahead of a UN security council meeting on Ukraine on Friday afternoon.Earlier in the day, Joe Biden had announced 500 new sanctions on Russia and a further 100 entities around the world for providing support to Russia, in an effort to squeeze Moscow’s revenues. But the foreign ministers made clear that arms supplies were the key in the struggle with Russia in Ukraine.Cameron sought to frame his argument in terms of competition with China, one of the few issues that unites Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress.“I know that lots of people in Congress are hugely concerned about the role of China and if you’re concerned about the role of China, you must make sure that Putin doesn’t win,” he said.He added that Beijing was enjoying “the fact that we’re, we’re not as united as we should be. I think that’s why the American package is so important.”In its relations with countries around the world, Cameron argued, China was saying “come have a relationship with us. America isn’t reliable.”The end of US military support to Ukraine, he added “would strengthen that argument they make in an enormous way”.Baerbock said the blockage of US aid “will be the biggest gift for Putin and will be the biggest gift for China”.“The Ukrainians are fighting like lions, but you cannot fight with bare hands,” Sikorski said. “They are running out of ammunition for anti-aircraft missiles that are protecting cities and when soldiers don’t have artillery shells, they have to do close combat fighting. That means that Ukrainian casualties are greater.”The European ministers face an uphill task persuading a Republican congressional leadership that is under the powerful sway of Donald Trump, an opponent of Ukrainian aid, and also resistant to allied pressure. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican congresswoman, responded to an earlier effort by Cameron to persuade Congress in Ukraine’s favour that the foreign secretary could “kiss my ass”.“I’m not trying to lecture or tell American congressmen what to do,” Cameron insisted on Friday. “I love my own country but I love America too. I think this is really important for America, for American security.”He admitted that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and western positions on the conflict had complicated efforts to build global solidarity against Russia. Earlier this week, the US vetoed a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire for the third time, and the UK abstained.“The fact that we haven’t signed up for some of these resolutions and what have you, it does do some damage. There is no doubt about that,” Cameron said. “But I think when you explain how we really want to stop the fighting right now and have got a plan to do it, I think that helps to build some faith between the Arab world and what foreign ministers like myself and others say.”As European ministers sought to change minds in the Republican party, Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with a US congressional delegation in Lviv. The group – led by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer – said it wanted to show that the US had not abandoned “the Ukrainian people”, or its Nato allies in Europe.Schumer said he and his fellow Democrats would “not stop fighting” until $61bn in military funding for Ukraine was delivered. House Republicans are currently blocking the assistance package, despite a 64-19 Senate vote in favour.View image in fullscreen“We believe we are at an inflection point in history and we must make it clear to our friends and allies around the globe that the US does not back away from our responsibilities,” Schumer said. The consequences of walking away would be “severe”, he warned, saying he would “make this clear” to the Republican speaker and to others obstructing aid back in Washington.Schumer told the Associated Press opposition to the national security package “may be the view of Donald Trump and some of the hard-right zealots. But it is not the view of the American people, and I don’t think it’s the view of the majority of people in the House or Senate.”Ukrainian commanders say with no new US weapons deliveries they are facing serious problems on the battlefield. They say that Ukrainian soldiers were forced to withdraw from the eastern city of Avdiivka last week because of an acute shortage of shells and ammunition. Further Russian gains were likely if no more aid arrived, they admitted.Ukraine is also running out of western-supplied interceptor missiles. A Russian drone strike killed three people early on Friday in the Black Sea port of Odesa, the regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said. Ukrainian air defences were only able to shoot down 23 out of 31 drones – a significantly lower number than in attacks last year.Earlier in Lviv Zelenskiy met with Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. The country has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest European allies. Frederiksen recently pledged to give all of Denmark’s artillery reserves to Ukraine and on Friday signed a long-term security agreement with Kyiv. It envisages giving €1.8bn ($1.9bn) in support.The two leaders visited Lviv’s Lychakiv cemetery and laid flowers at the grave of a Ukrainian soldier. Many hundreds of service personnel have been buried there since Russia’s full-scale invasion two years ago. More

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      Russia-linked Biden accuser charged with lying? Who cares, Republicans say

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      Congress should publicly investigate the case of Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant charged with lying about corruption involving Joe Biden and linked to Russian intelligence, a leading lawyer said, adding that senior Republicans who pushed Smirnov’s claims should be forced to testify.“The Senate should open an immediate investigation into the Alexander Smirnov scandal – with public hearings,“ said Tristan Snell, formerly a prosecutor on the Trump University fraud case, now author of Taking Down Trump, a book on the former president’s many legal challenges.“Bring Smirnov in to testify,” Snell added. “And then bring Jim Jordan, James Comer and Elise Stefanik in right behind him. This is a national security breach of the highest order.”Stefanik, from New York, is the Republican House conference chair and a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, the probable presidential nominee whose desire for revenge for his own impeachments is widely held to motivate Republican attempts to impeach Joe Biden in return.Jordan, from Ohio, is the House judiciary chair. On Wednesday, his committee and the oversight panel, chaired by Comer of Kentucky, interviewed James Biden about his business affairs and links to his older brother, the president. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, is due to be interviewed next week.The bombshell news of Smirnov’s ties to Russian intelligence exploded the night before, in filings related to his arrest in Nevada. After James Biden’s interview, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the oversight committee, told Republicans it was time to bring to an end the “circus” of attempts to impeach the president.Republicans were not listening. Charges against Smirnov and news of his links with Russian intelligence did not “change the fundamental facts” of the case, Jordan told reporters, rehashing claims about Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company and the supposed involvement of his father.One reporter, Manu Raju of CNN, pushed back, referring to an FBI document containing claims Smirnov is now charged with making up, possibly in connection with Russian intelligence, a document senior Republicans used eagerly as they pushed their claims.“You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have,” Raju said to Jordan. “But it’s not true!”Comer, the leader of the impeachment effort, also showed little sign of concern with the truth. Reaching for Trump-like language, he told the rightwing Newsmax network Democrats were “going to play the Russia card again”, a reference to investigations of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow which dogged Trump’s term in office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That’s what Dan Goldman’s done, that’s what Jamie Raskin’s done,” Comer said, referring to prominent Democratic voices calling for impeachment efforts to end.Goldman, from New York, told CNN: “Wittingly or unwittingly, House Republicans have been acting as an agent or an asset of Russian intelligence.”Raskin said Republicans “just say, ‘Russia hoax Russia hoax.’ What part of it is the hoax? Is it the war in Ukraine? Is it the death of [Alexander] Navalny? What is hoax-like about it?“The hoax is that there’s a Russian hoax. There’s not a Russian hoax. There has been a series of efforts by Vladimir Putin to destabilize and undermine American political democracy.” More

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      White House could use federal law to control US-Mexico border crossings

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      The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month, has been exploring options that Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, multiple officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are nowhere near finalized and it’s unclear how the administration would draft any such executive actions in a way that would survive the inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private White House discussions.The exploration of such avenues bythe president’s team underscores the pressure Biden faces this election year on immigration and the border, which have been among his biggest political liabilities since he took office. For now, the White House has been hammering congressional Republicans for refusing to act on border legislation that the GOP demanded, but the administration is also aware of the political perils that high numbers of migrants could pose for the president and is scrambling to figure out how Biden could ease the problem on his own.White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández stressed that “no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected”.“The administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “Congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, rejected what border agents have said they need, and then gave themselves a two-week vacation.”Arrests for illegal crossings on the US-Mexico border fell by half in January from record highs in December to the third lowest month of Biden’s presidency. But officials fear those figures could eventually rise again, particularly as the November presidential election nears.The immigration authority the administration has been looking into is outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives a president broad leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the US if it would be “detrimental” to the national interest of the country.Trump, who is the likely GOP candidate to face off against Biden this fall, repeatedly leaned on the 212(f) power while in office, including his controversial ban to bar travelers from Muslim-majority nations. Biden rescinded that ban on his first day in office through executive order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut now, how Biden would deploy that power to deal with his own immigration challenges is currently being considered, and it could be used in a variety of ways, according to the people familiar with the discussions. For example, the ban could kick in when border crossings hit a certain number. That echoes a provision in the Senate border deal, which would have activated expulsions of migrants if the number of illegal border crossings reached above 5,000 daily for a five-day average.Mike Johnson, the House Republican speaker, has also called on Biden to use the 212(f) authority. Yet the comprehensive immigration overhaul Biden also introduced on his first day in office – which the White House continues to tout – includes provisions that would effectively scale back a president’s powers to bar immigrants under that authority. More

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      Biden brother testifies as key witness’s Russia links cloud impeachment push

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      Joe Biden’s younger brother, James Biden, testified to the House oversight and judiciary committees on Wednesday, a closed-door session held even as Republican attempts to impeach the president for alleged corruption teetered on the edge of collapse.In a combative opening statement, released to the press, James Biden denied that his brother had ever been involved in his financial affairs and called anyone alleging otherwise “mistaken, ill-informed or flat-out lying”.Hunter Biden, the president’s son whose troubled personal life, legal jeopardy and complex business affairs provide the chief fuel for Republican allegations, is due to be interviewed in private next week.All the while, Washington will continue to digest and debate the news that a former FBI informant charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the Bidens and Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, had contacts with officials affiliated with Russian intelligence.Prosecutors revealed the alleged contact on Tuesday, as they urged a judge to keep Alexander Smirnov in custody before trial.Smirnov is charged with falsely reporting to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with Burisma paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 or 2016, when Joe Biden was vice-president to Barack Obama.Donald Trump’s first impeachment was fueled by his search for dirt on the Bidens related to Ukraine. Smirnov’s claim has been central to Republican attempts to impeach Biden in return, and was therefore eagerly promoted by senior Republicans and their rightwing media allies, particularly on Fox News.Smirnov was taken into custody at a facility in rural Pahrump, Nevada, west of Las Vegas, last week. Prosecutors said that before his arrest, Smirnov admitted “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden. They said Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials were recent and extensive and Smirnov had planned to meet one official on a future trip.They said Smirnov had numerous contacts with a person he described as the “son of a former high-ranking government official” and “someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service”.Prosecutors also said there was a serious risk Smirnov could flee. David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, defense attorneys, said they were asking for Smirnov’s release “so he can effectively fight the power of the government”. The judge ruled that Smirnov should be released on bond.The White House did not immediately comment. But Politico quoted “a person close to Joe Biden” as saying: “Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here. But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire [Republican party] and their enablers in rightwing media have become.“Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: an impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.”According to prosecutors, Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma, starting in 2017, when Joe Biden was out of office. Smirnov made the bribery allegations, prosecutors said, after “express[ing] bias” against Biden while he was a presidential candidate in 2020, against Trump.After Smirnov was indicted, Democrats called for an end to the impeachment inquiry. Republicans dsaid they would continue to “follow the facts”. However, James Comer, the oversight chair, is reportedly considering whether it to stage a vote on a Biden impeachment – particularly after the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, first failed then squeaked through by a single vote.On Wednesday, two far-right Republicans, Jim Jordan and Andy Biggs, told CNN the Smirnov revelations did not change their determination to push on. Biggs claimed: “We have lots of evidence.”CNN also quoted an aide to the impeachment inquiry as saying the inclusion then deletion of a reference to Smirnov in a letter to a potential witness, first reported by the Huffington Post, was simply a clerical error.James Biden, Republicans’ target on Wednesday, is a businessman long linked to his brother’s political career.Now 74, and known in the family as Jimmy, recent duties have included overseeing Oval Office decorations including a bust of the labour organiser Cesar Chavez, sketches of the anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, and a rugby ball from Rob and Dave Kearney, Biden cousins and international players for Ireland.Republicans allege personal cheques, addressed by James Biden to Joe Biden when the latter was out of office, represent evidence of corruption. Multiple news outlets have said the cheques simply repaid personal loans.In 2022, James Biden used a rare interview to say: “I’m the guy who assists in everything. When it comes to my family, I try to be as supportive as I can. But this notion of ‘fixer’, or any reference that has a negative connotation, is offensive.”According to the Washington Post, James Biden repeatedly said he should not be talking to a reporter while his wife, Sara, advised him to put down the phone.“Talk to a real person who knows me,” James Biden said. “Guess what? There’s not many who do.”On Wednesday, in his opening statement to the Republican-led committees, he outlined “four critical points.“One: I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures. Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.“Two: Because of my intimate knowledge of my brother’s personal integrity and character, as well as my own strong ethics, I have always kept my professional life separate from our close personal relationship.“Three: I never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates or anyone else.“Four: In every business venture in which I have been involved, I have relied on my own talent, judgment, skill and personal relationships and never my status as Joe Biden’s brother. Those who have said or thought otherwise were either mistaken, ill-informed or flat-out lying.”Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      ‘Dictators Do Not Go on Vacation,’ Zelensky Warns Washington and Europe

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      President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back against skepticism of a Ukraine victory, calling on world leaders not to ask when the war would end, but why Russia was still able to wage it.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called on world leaders not to abandon his country, citing the recent death of a Russian dissident as a reminder that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of would continue to test the international order, and pushing back against the idea of a negotiated resolution to the war.Mr. Zelensky, speaking on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, said that if Ukraine lost the war to Russia, it would be “catastrophic” not only for Kyiv, but for other nations as well.“Please do not ask Ukraine when the war will end,” he said. “Ask yourself why is Putin still able to continue it.”The two topics that have loomed over nearly every discussion at the yearly meeting of world leaders have been Russia and the potential weakening of trans-Atlantic relations, amid an increasingly pessimistic assessment of Kyiv’s ability to beat Moscow.Mr. Zelensky’s speech on Saturday came as Ukrainian forces retreated from a longtime stronghold, Avdiivka, giving Russian troops their first significant victory in almost a year.And it came a day after attendees of the conference were shaken by the news that the prominent dissident Aleksei A. Navalny had died in a Russian Arctic penal colony. It was a stark reminder, Mr. Zelensky warned, of how Moscow would continue to test the Western-backed international rules-based order.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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      House Republicans will hold hearing with Robert Hur over Biden report

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      House Republicans will hold a public hearing next month with special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after his vice-presidency, as the White House counsel reportedly wrote to the attorney general attacking Hur’s commentary on the US president’s memory as a violation of federal policy.The House judiciary committee, chaired by rightwing Republican Jim Jordan, will hear testimony from Hur on 12 March, two unnamed people familiar with the plans told the Associated Press on Thursday. The White House declined to comment on the plans.The committee has spearheaded much of the House GOP’s investigations into Biden, including the effort to impeach him. While that effort has floundered, Republicans want to hear from Hur after his report last week offered an unflattering assessment of Biden’s competency and age.Hur’s report concluded that criminal charges would not be warranted against Biden in relation to wrongly retaining classified material.But he elaborated by going on to describe vividly the president’s memory recall as vague and having “significant limitations”, while citing the possibility that Biden would present himself to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.Biden welcomed the fact that no charges were justified – even if he was out of office – but angrily pushed back on comments about his mental acuity and said his memory is fine, while allies slammed Hur’s focus on that as a “partisan hit job”.Hur was appointed under Donald Trump to be the US attorney in Maryland.Meanwhile, on Thursday, Politico reported that White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote to US attorney general Merrick Garland accusing Hur of “openly, obviously and blatantly” violating the Department of Justice’s policies by including his ad hominem negative conjecture alongside his legal conclusion about the president’s actions.Siskel wrote of Hur’s report, Politico reported, with a link to the letter, that: “We object to the multiple denigrating statements about President Biden’s memory which violate longstanding DOJ practice and policy. The Special Counsel can certainly and properly note that the President lacked memory of a specific fact or series of events. But his report goes further to include allegations that the President has a failing memory in a general sense, an allegation that has no law enforcement purpose.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe letter was one of several Biden’s lawyers sent before the report was published, pushing back and also comparing Hur’s tactic to that of James Comey in 2016. The then FBI director had investigated Hillary Clinton over her use of private email in office as secretary of state. Declining to indict, Comey chose instead to castigate Clinton’s character just before the 2016 election, where Donald Trump beat her and was later deemed by the department watchdog to have violated protocol.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene claims ‘bullshit’ as expert says Covid vaccine saved 14m lives

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      Responding to an expert’s statement that “about 3.2 million” American lives have been saved by vaccines against Covid, with “over 14 million lives” saved globally, the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene said: “I’m not a doctor, but I have a PhD in recognising bullshit when I hear it.”On Capitol Hill on Thursday, Greene attended a hearing staged by the House oversight select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic.The expert Greene responded to, Dr Peter Marks, the director of biologics evaluation and research at the Food and Drug Administration, also described how at the height of the pandemic in the US, “about 3,300 [people], about a World Trade Center disaster a day”, were dying of Covid-19, contributing to a death toll of more than 1.1m.Marks later apologised to viewers, after Greene claimed children should not be given Covid vaccines.Greene, from Georgia, is a former CrossFit gym owner, conspiracy theorist and controversialist who entered Congress in 2021 and has assumed an influential position in a House Republican caucus controlled by the far right.Touting herself as a possible vice-presidential pick for Donald Trump, she is set to act as a manager in the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, a process Greene drove in the House.Speaking after Marks answered questions from the Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, Greene first dismissed the doctor’s comments as “bullshit”.Then she used her allotted five minutes to deliver rambling remarks about “all kinds of injuries, miscarriages, heart attacks, myocarditis, permanent disability, neurological problems” that she said had arisen from “people being forced to take vaccines”.“There’s been thousands of peer-reviewed medical studies, thousands of them studying vaccine injuries,” Greene said. “They are real. People are dying.“People are having heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, and many other countries are dropping the Covid-19 vaccine and saying we shouldn’t give them to children. It’s time to be honest about the vaccine-injured and we need to stop allowing these Covid-19 vaccines to be given out to children.”The next speaker, the California Democrat Robert Garcia, said: “I’m sorry you all had to go through that. That was a lot of conspiracy theories and wild accusations, which we know have been debunked by medical science. We should be clear that vaccines work and have saved lives, and have saved millions of lives in this country.”Garcia displayed blow-ups of tweets and comments in which Greene has spread conspiracy theories and misinformation including comparing pandemic public health rules to the Holocaust, encouraging parents to deny Covid vaccines to children and claiming vaccines contribute to an increase in “turbo cancers”.As Greene indicated her displeasure, Garcia asked Dr Marks to “clarify once again for the American people, do the Covid vaccines cause ‘turbo cancers’?”“I’m a haematologist and oncologist that’s board certified,” Marks said. “I don’t know what a ‘turbo cancer’ is. It was a term that was used first in a paper on mouse experiments, describing an inflammatory response. We have not detected any increase in cancers with the Covid-19 vaccines.”As Garcia began to speak, Marks interjected.“May I just add something here,” he said. “I do need to apologise to the thousand or so parents of children under four years of age who have died of Covid-19, who were unvaccinated. Because there were deaths and there continue to be deaths among children, and that is the reason why they need to get vaccinated. Thank you.” More

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      ICE Considers Slashing Detention Capacity Because of Budget Shortfall

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      The agency has circulated a money-saving proposal after Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have provided billions in funding.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is considering a plan to reduce its detention capacity significantly after Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have provided the agency with more than $7 billion, officials said Wednesday.To stay within its current budget, ICE would need to cut detention levels by more than 10,000 spots within months, according to documents laying out the proposal, which were obtained by The New York Times. The agency could either release some of the 38,000 people currently in custody, or decline to fill vacant spots as cases get resolved.Three officials familiar with the plan said it was under active consideration within ICE. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they described as contingencies.Erin Heeter, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not comment on specifics of the proposal. “The fact that we are always considering options does not mean we will take action immediately, or at all,” she said.The proposal was first reported by The Washington Post.The plan comes at a moment of crisis over immigration in the United States, with record numbers of people crossing into the country and the asylum system all but broken. Bitter politics have paralyzed any movement on the issue, as Republicans seize on it as a political weapon against President Biden.Mr. Biden has implored Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would have clamped down on migration at the southern border. But his predecessor and likely challenger in this year’s election, former President Donald J. Trump, pressured Republicans to block the deal, saying it would be a “gift” to Democrats.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