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      In Wake of Election Defeat, Germany’s Olaf Scholz Will Slog On

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      Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his governing coalition emerged battered from the vote for the European Parliament. But a snap election seems unlikely.Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany heads to the Group of 7 summit meeting in Italy on Thursday as a diminished leader after Sunday’s battering in elections for the European Parliament.All three of the parties in his coalition government earned fewer votes than the conservative opposition — combined. The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, showed itself to be the country’s second-most popular party.While an even worse defeat in France for President Emmanuel Macron at the hands of the far right prompted him to call fresh elections for the National Assembly, no such outcome is expected in Germany, where the results reverberate differently.Here’s a look at why.Snap Elections Are RareSome opposition leaders said the results showed such a lack of confidence in the chancellor and his coalition that he, too, should call new federal elections.The government replied definitively: no.The reason could be as simple as the difference between the French and German systems. Whereas President Macron could call a new election for the French Parliament, a new vote in Germany can only happen at the end of a complicated procedure triggered by a parliamentary majority vote of no confidence in the chancellor. That makes snap elections extremely rare in Germany — happening only three times in the 75-year history of the Federal Republic.While the three parties in the coalition government took a beating on the E.U. level, at home they still have a majority of seats in the German Parliament. As unpopular as the coalition is, then, it is most likely to slog on, and hope that it can turn things around before the next regular federal election in 2025.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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      EE. UU. estudia proteger a cónyuges indocumentados de ciudadanos

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      Entre las medidas que se estudian figuran proteger a los cónyuges de la deportación y facilitarles el acceso a permisos de trabajo, según funcionarios con conocimiento de las conversaciones.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El gobierno de Joe Biden está estudiando una propuesta para proteger de la deportación a los cónyuges indocumentados de ciudadanos estadounidenses y permitirles trabajar de manera legal en el país, según cuatro funcionarios que conocen las conversaciones al respecto.Los funcionarios, que hablaron con la condición de mantener su anonimato para poder discutir el asunto, dijeron que no se había tomado una decisión final y que la forma que adoptaría esa política aún no ha sido definida. Un programa de este tipo podría facilitar que algunos cónyuges obtengan la nacionalidad estadounidense.Esta propuesta surge mientras el presidente Biden ha tratado de enfrentar los problemas políticos de su estrategia migratoria en los últimos días.La semana pasada propuso prohibir el asilo a los inmigrantes que cruzan hacia Estados Unidos como parte de un esfuerzo por endurecer el control fronterizo, lo que suscitó las críticas de miembros de su propio partido. Y ahora, una medida para proteger a los inmigrantes indocumentados en el país podría ayudarlo a enfrentar algo de la feroz resistencia que suscitó esa orden y cimentar el apoyo entre los defensores de los inmigrantes, los votantes latinos y su base progresista.El programa que se está considerando se conoce como “permiso de permanencia temporal en el lugar”, que se ha utilizado en el pasado para otras poblaciones, como las familias de los miembros de las fuerzas armadas. Eso le ofrece a los inmigrantes indocumentados en Estados Unidos una protección frente a la deportación durante un determinado periodo de tiempo y acceso a un permiso de trabajo.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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      Macron’s Early Election Call After EU Vote Is a Huge Gamble

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      The president has challenged voters to test the sincerity of their support for the far right in European elections. Were the French letting off steam, or did they really mean it?On the face of it, there is little logic in calling an election from a position of great weakness. But that is what President Emmanuel Macron has done by calling a snap parliamentary election in France on the back of a humiliation by the far right.After the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and her popular protégé Jordan Bardella handed him a crushing defeat on Sunday in elections for the European Parliament, Mr. Macron might have done nothing, reshuffled his government, or simply altered course through stricter controls on immigration and by renouncing contested plans to tighten rules on unemployment benefits.Instead, Mr. Macron, who became president at 39 in 2017 by being a risk taker, chose to gamble that France, having voted one way on Sunday, will vote another in a few weeks.“I am astonished, like almost everyone else,” said Alain Duhamel, the prominent author of “Emmanuel the Bold,” a book about Mr. Macron. “It’s not madness, it’s not despair, but it is a huge risk from an impetuous man who prefers taking the initiative to being subjected to events.”Shock coursed through France on Monday. The stock market plunged. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, a city that will host the Olympic Games in just over six weeks, said she was “stunned” by an “unsettling” decision. “A thunderbolt,” thundered Le Parisien, a daily newspaper, across its front page.For Le Monde, it was “a jump in the void.” Raphaël Glucksmann, who guided the revived center-left socialists to third place among French parties in the European vote, accused Mr. Macron of “a dangerous game.”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 Administration Considers Protection for Undocumented Spouses of U.S. Citizens

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      The steps under consideration include protecting them from deportation and providing access to work permits, according to three officials with knowledge of the discussions.The Biden administration is considering a proposal to protect undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation and allow them to work in the country legally, according to four officials with knowledge of the discussions.The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said that no final decision had been made and that the shape of the policy was unclear. Any such program could also provide some spouses an easier route to obtain U.S. citizenship.The proposal comes as President Biden has moved to address political liabilities in his immigration policy in recent days.Last week, he moved to bar asylum for migrants crossing into the United States as part of an effort to toughen border enforcement, eliciting criticism from members of his own party. And now, a move to protect undocumented immigrants in the United States could help Mr. Biden address some of the fierce resistance that order elicited and shore up support among immigrant advocates, Latino voters and his progressive base.The program said to be under consideration is known as “parole in place,” which has been used in the past for other populations, like families of military members. It gives undocumented immigrants in the United States protection from deportation for a certain period of time and access to a work permit.Crucially, it also makes it easier for some undocumented immigrants to gain new access to a green card and a path to U.S. citizenship.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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      Days After Border Closes for Most Migrants, Manageable Crowds but More Anxiety

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      On a hot and humid morning in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, less than a mile from the Rio Grande, one question seemed to linger in the minds of hundreds of people who had arrived Saturday at a shelter for migrants.When would they be able to cross into the United States?The answer remained elusive. At least 1,100 men, women and children, a majority of them from Central America and Venezuela, had arrived at Senda de Vida, a sprawling respite center consisting of makeshift tents and temporary wooden rooms, with hopes of reaching the United States. Instead, many felt stuck in limbo after President Biden signed an executive order that prevents migrants from seeking asylum along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge.The order effectively closed the U.S. border for nearly all asylum seekers as of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday.Jorge Gomez, 34, from Honduras, rested on Saturday near the U.S.-Mexico border.Paul Ratje for The New York TimesThe full effect of the new rule was difficult to assess three days after Mr. Biden’s announcement, but, as of Saturday, the number of migrants massing at the border showed signs of stabilizing, at least for now, compared with previous years, as many migrants appeared to be heeding the warning that they would be turned away, said Héctor Silva de Luna, a pastor who runs the shelter.During the height of the migration crisis, he welcomed more than 7,000 people, he said. Many now appear to be waiting in the interior of Mexico, in cities like Monterrey and Mexico City, to see what happens. But the migrants at the border like the ones at Mr. de Luna’s shelter are “the ones that will pay the price,” he said, because they are being rejected.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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      San Diego Is Once Again a Top Migrant Entry Point

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      Asylum seekers from around the world are trying to enter the United States through California, and immigrant traffic there has reached its highest level in decades.From sunrise to sunset, the U.S. Border Patrol buses arrived every hour at a sunbaked parking lot in San Diego.Dozens of migrants stepped outside each time, many seeming to be confused about what was happening at this trolley hub on a recent weekend. There were no local officials to answer questions. No services. And few ways to reach their next destination in the United States.For the first time in 25 years, the San Diego region has become a top destination for migrants along the southern United States border, surpassing the number of illegal crossings at areas in Arizona and Texas for several weeks this year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.It has been a surprising turn for a border spot that was the focal point of the bitter national debate over immigration decades ago, before falling out of the spotlight as migrant flows shifted eastward. The recent surge in San Diego has been overwhelming enough that a government-funded welcome center exhausted its budget and had to close in February. Since then, the United States Border Patrol has bused migrants to a trolley center and sent them on their way.After being dropped off at the Iris Avenue Transit Center, many of the migrants head to the San Diego International Airport or find shelter provided by churches or nonprofit organizations in the San Diego area.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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      Art and the Power to Heal

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      Artists and community organizations around the world are increasingly turning to art to create positive social change.Using her arms as a makeshift clapboard, a Sudanese woman in a black hijab and black-and-white caftan clapped her hands together, signaling the beginning of the rehearsal. The other amateur Thespians, wearing comic stick-on mustaches, moved to their marks, improvising a scene in a women’s beauty salon where one patron’s hair is accidentally dyed blue.As the scene ended, all the women were in hysterics, ribbing each other over how they could better play their parts next time. Scenes like this are common at the Kuluhenna Creative Workshop, which is held at a community clubhouse on the outskirts of this Yorkshire city. The workshop is open to all local women, but with a focus on immigrant communities, including refugees and asylum seekers.The 90-minute class, which the Mafwa Theater has held since 2019, is a happy space. Each week, some 15 women gather to tell stories, dance, act and gossip. They are provided with bus passes, a play area for their young children and an on-site health worker in case any of the women want to talk.Eman Elsayed, a mother of three originally from Egypt, said before she joined the workshop in 2020, she was “depressed, isolated and fed up” with her life in Leeds. But eventually, especially after joining Mafwa Theater’s associate artists program in 2021, she felt her life change.“Art, it’s a magic wand,” said Elsayed, who now has a paid job doing community outreach for the program. “But you need to believe, and you need to take the time to see what it will do.”Mafwa’s project is just one example of a larger trend — as more and more groups and individuals worldwide are using the arts to empower, unite and even help heal people who have suffered trauma, from war and natural disaster, or discrimination, poverty and displacement.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