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      House G.O.P. Moves to Crack Down on Noncitizen Voting, Sowing False Narrative

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      The bills under consideration have virtually no chance of becoming law, but Republicans are using them to amplify Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread illegal voting by noncitizens.Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, which happens rarely and is already illegal in federal elections, in a move that reinforces former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the 2024 results if he loses.This week, House Republicans plan to vote on a bill that would roll back a District of Columbia law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, which they contend is needed to prevent Democrats from expanding the practice to other jurisdictions. And they are advancing another measure that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering a person to vote.The legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law, but it serves to amplify one of Mr. Trump’s favorite pre-emptive claims of election fraud. It also underscores Republicans’ embrace of a groundless narrative — one that echoes the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory — that Democrats are intentionally allowing migrants to stream into the United States illegally in order to dilute the voting power of American citizens and lock in electoral victories for themselves.Speaker Mike Johnson recently appeared alongside Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida resort and residence, to announce a pledge to get tough on migrants flowing across the border, suggesting with no evidence that they were coming in unchecked as part of a plot to vote for President Biden.“There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system — and that is the threat of noncitizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections,” Mr. Johnson warned during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol this month.But he conceded that he had no evidence to support that assertion.“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable,” Mr. Johnson said. “We don’t have that number.”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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      Here’s Why Republicans Are Focusing on Voting by Noncitizens

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      House Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, which is allowed in some local elections but illegal — and exceedingly rare — at the federal level.House Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, part of an effort to sow doubts about the election outcome and take aim at immigrants who they say have no business participating in elections in the United States.They are planning to push through a bill this week that would roll back a Washington, D.C., law allowing noncitizen residents of the nation’s capital to vote in local elections. And they are pushing legislation that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, in person when registering an individual to vote and require states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls.Neither is likely to pass the Democratic-led Senate or be signed by President Biden, but both are ways for Republicans to call attention to their false claims of widespread illegal voting by noncitizens.Former President Donald J. Trump has long claimed in the face of evidence to the contrary that presidential and congressional elections are susceptible to widespread voter fraud and illegal voting by undocumented immigrants who have skewed the outcomes in favor of Democrats — a charge that House Republicans have echoed.Here are the facts about noncitizen voting and the false claims that foreign nationals swing close elections in one party’s favor.More than a dozen cities and towns across the country allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.There has long been a policy debate in the United States about whether voting rights should be afforded at the municipal level to foreign nationals regardless of immigration status, as most of them pay comparable levels of taxes to U.S. citizens, contribute to their local economies and send their children to local schools.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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      Schumer Announces Senate Will Vote Again on Border Bill

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      The bipartisan border enforcement compromise, blocked by Republicans in February, is all but certain to be thwarted again. Democrats aim to tag the G.O.P. as the culprit in its failure.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, plans to push forward this week with a second vote on a bipartisan border enforcement bill that Senate Republicans killed earlier this year at the urging of former President Donald J. Trump.The measure is almost certain to be blocked again, but Democrats hope to use the failed vote to sharpen an election-year contrast with the G.O.P. on a critical issue that polls show is a major potential liability for President Biden and their candidates.Democrats will aim to neutralize the issue by showing voters that they and Mr. Biden have tried to get migration at the U.S. border with Mexico under control, but have been thwarted repeatedly by Republicans following the lead of Mr. Trump.“The former president made clear he would rather preserve the issue for his campaign than solve the issue in a bipartisan fashion,” Mr. Schumer wrote in a letter to colleagues that heralded the bill’s provisions and outlined his plans. “On cue, many of our Republican colleagues abruptly reversed course on their prior support, announcing their newfound opposition to the bipartisan proposal.”After months of negotiation, Republicans and Democrats reached an improbable immigration compromise in February — one that G.O.P. lawmakers had insisted was a prerequisite for providing additional aid to Ukraine — that appeared to have a chance at passage. But Mr. Trump called it too weak and instructed his allies in Congress to vote it down. The measure failed when it fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, with all but four Republicans voting to block it. (In the 50-to-49 vote, three Democrats and one independent also voted “no,” denying the measure even a simple majority.)Mr. Biden, whose team helped hammer out the deal, urged support for it on Monday in a statement from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, that said, “We strongly support this legislation and call on every senator to put partisan politics aside and vote to secure the border.”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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      Trump, Bashing Migrants, Likens Them to Hannibal Lecter, Movie Cannibal

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      In an extended riff at his rally on Saturday in New Jersey, former President Donald J. Trump returned to a reference that has become a staple of his stump speech, comparing migrants to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer and cannibal from “The Silence of the Lambs,” as he aims to stoke anger and fear over migration in advance of the election.“Has anyone ever seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man,” Mr. Trump said in Wildwood, N.J. “He often times would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? ‘Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by. ‘I’m about to have a friend for dinner.’ But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter.”He continued: “We have people that have been released into our country that we don’t want in our country, and they’re coming in totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And we can’t let this happen. They’re destroying our country, and we’re sitting back and we better damn well win this election, because if we don’t, our country is going to be doomed. It’s going to be doomed.”Mr. Trump, beginning with his announcement for the presidency in 2015, has frequently claimed that those crossing the border are violent criminals or mentally ill people who have been sent to the United States by other countries. There is no evidence to back his assertion, and border authorities have said that most migrants who cross the border are vulnerable families fleeing poverty and violence.But that has not kept Mr. Trump from saying that migrants come from “mental institutions” or “insane asylums,” and comparing them to the fictional psychopath.Mr. Trump, who often veers into asides during his stump speech, then returned immediately to decrying the migrant crisis and criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of it.Throughout his campaign this year, Mr. Trump has frequently brought up Hannibal Lecter, once calling him “legendary” and another time referring to him as a nice fellow. In Wildwood, he spoke on the 1991 movie longer than he generally does.Hannibal Lecter, a fictional psychopath who paired human organs with fava beans and an Italian red, was played memorably by Anthony Hopkins, winning an Oscar for his performance.It is not clear what Mr. Trump meant by “late, great,” given that neither the character — nor the actor who played the role — have died, in person, film or the books the character originated from.“The Silence of the Lambs” is one of several references that Mr. Trump frequently invokes during his rallies.Another favorite is the gangster Al Capone, to whom Mr. Trump often compares himself.“I’ve been indicted more than the great Alphonse Capone. Scarface,” Mr. Trump said incredulously on Saturday. “Al Capone was so mean that if you went to dinner with him and he didn’t like you, you’d be dead the next morning. And I got indicted more than him.” More

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      In Rome, Adams Sees a Model for Helping Migrants Assimilate

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      The mayor praised the work of a migrant welcome center, which he visited at the end of a three-day trip, during which he also met with Pope Francis.It didn’t take long for Mayor Eric Adams of New York to articulate what he liked about a welcome center for migrants and asylum seekers that he visited on Sunday in Rocca di Papa, a town about 15 miles outside Rome.“In two months they’re going from migrant to participating in society,” Mr. Adams said after a 30-minute tour of the center, where migrants from countries including Syria and Sudan are processed, take Italian lessons and receive health care before being sent out for job opportunities.The mayor, who has called on the federal government to expedite work permits and relocation assistance for migrants, repeated that appeal after visiting the center, which is run by the Red Cross and receives funding from the Italian government. He said he wanted help from the Biden administration to develop something similar in New York, where more than 190,000 migrants have arrived over the last two years.Mr. Adams’s visit came on the last day of a three-day trip to Rome, where he met Pope Francis at the Vatican and spoke at an international conference on peace. The trip was a brief respite from varied troubles at home — protests over the Israel-Hamas war, a federal investigation into his campaign’s fund-raising, lagging poll numbers and possible challengers in next year’s primary — and Mr. Adams said it had inspired him and given him ideas that he would use in New York.“The big takeaway for me is the similarities of these cities,” he said.Mr. Adams met with Victor Fadlun, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, a nonprofit organization, in the city’s Jewish Quarter.Alessandro Penso for The New York TimesThe mayor was received warmly in Rome: On Saturday, his often-used line comparing New York to other cities — in this case, “New York is the Rome of America” — drew applause. On Sunday, a child asked for his autograph.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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      Rishi Sunak’s Dismal Task: Leading U.K. Conservatives to Likely Defeat

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      After 14 years of Conservative government, Britain’s voters appear hungry for change. And Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seems unable to persuade them otherwise.A few days before Britain’s Conservative Party suffered a stinging setback in local elections on Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recorded a short video to promote some good news from his government. In the eight-second clip, Mr. Sunak poured milk from a pint bottle into a tall glass, filled with a steaming dark beverage and bearing the scribbled figure of 900 pounds on the side.“Pay day is coming,” Mr. Sunak posted, referring to the savings that an average wage earner would supposedly reap from a cut in mandatory contributions to Britain’s national insurance system.The mockery soon started. He’d added too much milk, some said. His numbers didn’t add up, said others. And why, asked one critic, would Mr. Sunak choose a pint bottle as a prop days after the opposition Labour Party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, had skewered him in Parliament as a “pint-size loser?”However partisan her jab, loser is a label that Mr. Sunak is finding increasingly hard to shake, even among his members of his own party. In the 18 months since he replaced his failed predecessor, Liz Truss, Mr. Sunak, 43, has lost seven special parliamentary elections and back-to-back local elections.This past week’s local elections, in which the Conservatives lost about 40 percent of the 985 seats they were defending, were merely the latest signpost on what analysts say is a road to thumping defeat in a general election. National polls show the Labour Party leading the Conservatives by more than 20 percentage points, a stubborn gap that the prime minister has been unable to close.The drumbeat of bad news is casting fresh scrutiny on Mr. Sunak’s leadership and the future of his party, which has been in power for 14 years but faces what could be a long stretch in the political wilderness.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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      The Three Faces of Don

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      When I worked at Time magazine in the early ’80s, I bought a frame at the company gift shop that was a mock-up of the Time Man of the Year cover, but it was Mother of the Year. I put in a picture of my mom, looking chic in a suit, holding me as a baby.I gave it to her for Mother’s Day as a goof.But for Donald Trump, whose office at Trump Tower was an infinity mirror of his magazine covers, the annual Time rite has always been a serious obsession. He complained after it was changed in 1999. He asked women at a rally in 2016, “What sounds better, Person of the Year or Man of the Year?”In 2015, when Time made Angela Merkel Person of the Year, he whined that he wasn’t the choice. “They picked person who is ruining Germany,” he sour-grapes tweeted.Even though the prestige of the once-mighty Time had dwindled, Trump was thrilled when he finally got Person of the Year in 2016. About the cover line, “President of the Divided States of America,” he demurred that the country would be “well healed” under his leadership.Well, turns out he was just a heel.In 2017, David Fahrenthold revealed in The Washington Post that the framed copies of Trump on the cover of Time, hung in at least five of the president’s golf clubs from Florida to Scotland, were fakes.The red border of the faux covers was skinnier; even my Mother of the Year frame got that detail right.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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      Arizona Rancher Accused of Killing Migrant Won’t Be Retried After Mistrial

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      George Alan Kelly was accused of murdering Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, an unarmed migrant from Mexico, on his 170-acre ranch in Kino Springs, Ariz., last year.Prosecutors in Arizona said on Monday that they would not retry a rancher who was charged with murdering an unarmed migrant on his property last year after a mistrial was declared last week.Jurors were not able to reach a unanimous verdict in the case against George Kelly, 75, who fatally shot at Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, on his 170-acre ranch in Kino Springs, Ariz., after Mr. Cuen-Buitimea crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in January 2023. Judge Thomas Fink of Santa Cruz County Superior Court declared a mistrial on April 22.The Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office said in a statement on Monday that “because of the unique circumstances and challenges surrounding” the case, Mr. Kelly would not be retried.“However, our office’s decision in this case should not be construed as a position on future cases of this type,” the office said. “Our office is mandated by statute to prosecute criminal acts, and we take that statutory mandate seriously.”Brenna Larkin, a lawyer for Mr. Kelly, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.Ms. Larkin said last week that there had been a hung jury in the case, and that the final count had been 7-1 in favor of finding Mr. Kelly not guilty.Mr. Cuen-Buitimea was part of a group of undocumented migrants who were crossing the high desert in Kino Springs, Ariz., near the border with Mexico on Jan. 30, 2023, when they were spotted by Border Patrol and fled, according to the authorities. Mr. Cuen-Buitimea and another man, Daniel Ramirez, ran onto Mr. Kelly’s ranch, which is when Mr. Kelly fired an AK-47-style rifle at them, the authorities said.Mr. Cuen-Buitimea was struck in the back and died, law enforcement officials said.Mr. Kelly was charged in February 2023 with one count of second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault.The case emboldened immigration critics and conservative ranchers, who said that Mr. Kelly had been a victim, while others were horrified by the shooting.Ms. Larkin said in court documents that Mr. Kelly had been eating lunch the day of the shooting when he and his wife saw several men armed with rifles near his home.“Mr. Kelly responded by firing several warning shots over the heads of the group,” she wrote in court documents.Michael Jette, a deputy Santa Cruz County attorney, said during closing arguments on April 18 that Mr. Kelly had fired his gun “without verbal warning, without a shout, without any indication,” The Associated Press reported.Before the case went to trial in March, Mr. Kelly rejected a plea agreement that would have reduced the charges to one count of negligent homicide. More