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      New York’s Migrant Crisis Is Growing. So Are Democrats’ Anxieties.

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      The influx of asylum seekers has the makings of a potent political force, and Republicans are ready to test it in key 2024 house races.Republicans successfully made crime the defining issue of the 2022 midterm elections in New York, fanning fears about public safety to rout suburban Democrats and help secure the party its House majority.Barely a year later, as another critical election season begins to take shape, they appear to be aggressively testing a similar strategy, hoping that the state’s growing migrant crisis will prove as potent a political force in 2024.The rapid arrival in New York of more than 100,000 asylum seekers is already wreaking havoc on government budgets, testing the city’s safety net and turning Democratic allies against one another. Now, otherwise vulnerable Republicans in a half dozen closely watched districts have begun grabbing onto all of it as a lifeline to portray Democrats as out of touch and unable to govern.“This is a crisis of their own making,” said Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican fighting to hold a suburban district Mr. Biden won by 10 points.“It’s very similar to cashless bail,” Mr. Lawler said. “When you create a sanctuary city policy that invites migrants to come regardless of their status, you are going to get a lot of people coming, and now they can’t handle the influx.”Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican fighting to hold a suburban district President Biden won by 10 points, said the migrant crisis was of Democrats’ “own making.”Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesHearing the same echoes, Democrats are determined not to be caught flat-footed as they were a year ago. From the suburbs of Long Island to here in the Hudson Valley, their candidates are spending late summer openly clashing not just with Republicans who say they are to blame, but also with their own party leaders, including President Biden.In one of the most closely watched contests, Representative Pat Ryan, the lone frontline Democrat to survive the Republican suburban demolition last year, has teamed up with two Republicans to demand that Mr. Biden declare a state of emergency, and broke with his party to support a bill to discourage schools from sheltering migrants.“The No. 1 thing I learned as an Army officer: When in charge, take charge,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview. “We are in a crisis, the president is in charge, and he and his team need to take charge.”He is far from alone. Josh Riley, a Democrat who is trying to flip a neighboring district, called the president’s aloofness on the issue “offensive.”Mondaire Jones, a former Democratic congressman mounting a comeback attempt further down the Hudson, warned of “consequences at the polls” if his party does not step up.And his primary opponent, Liz Whitmer Gereghty, said Democrats across New York should be responding in lock step. “It kind of feels like we’re not,” she said.Both parties caution that the reality on the ground, where 2,900 migrants arrived just last week, is shifting too quickly for them to know exactly where the battle lines will be by next fall, when voters will also be weighing abortion rights and the criminal trials of former President Donald J. Trump, currently the leading Republican candidate.Republicans have been using fears about immigrants pouring across the border for years with only mixed success. And unlike a year ago, Democrats are trying to go on offense, accusing Republicans like Mr. Lawler of engaging in demagogy and reminding voters that his party helped stall a major immigration overhaul in Washington that they say might have prevented the latest influx.“Everybody understands this is a potential liability,” said Tim Persico, a Democratic consultant who oversaw the party’s House campaign operation last cycle. “I know there’s been a lot of finger pointing and kerfuffles, but there’s also pretty good evidence the mayor and the governor are trying to figure out how to solve this.”Still, there is little doubt that New York, a city known as a bastion for immigrants, is in the midst of a challenge to its political system with few modern parallels. Privately, Democratic pollsters and strategists are beginning to use focus groups and polls to test possible defenses on an issue they view as a tinderbox capable of igniting new political fires, fast.New York is housing roughly 59,000 asylum seekers a night because of a unique right-to-shelter mandate that dates back decades and is preparing to enroll some 19,000 migrant children in public schools this fall. An archipelago of temporary shelters has cropped up in hotels, parks and on public land, prompting increasingly raucous protests.And Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly warned of budget cuts as the cost of caring for the newcomers spikes into the billions of dollars — taxpayer money that Republicans are quick to point out could otherwise be used to help New Yorkers.As the numbers keep climbing, Democratic leaders have been forced to choose from unpalatable policy responses.Mr. Adams, for instance, has repeatedly demanded that Gov. Kathy Hochul force reluctant counties outside the city to help shelter migrants. But doing so would prompt fierce backlash in many of the communities Democrats need in order to win the House, and the governor, who was already blamed for Democrats’ 2022 losses, has refused.On the other hand, any attempt by the city or state to drastically curtail the services it offers migrants would meet blowback from the left.The governor and mayor — along with congressional Democrats as ideologically diverse as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Ryan — are united in demanding more help from Mr. Biden. But push too hard and they risk bloodying their party’s standard-bearer heading into an election year.The White House did announce on Wednesday that it would dedicate personnel to help New York process work papers for asylum seekers and request additional federal funds from Congress to help the state. But Mr. Biden, who has to make his own national political calculations around immigration, appears to have little interest in taking a more visible role.Voters are watching. A recent poll conducted by Siena College found that 82 percent of registered voters view the influx as a “serious” problem, and a majority said that the state had “already done enough” for the asylum seekers and should focus on slowing their arrivals. The same poll showed nearly every major Democrat, including Mr. Biden, underwater among suburban voters.In many ways, those poor ratings have freed Democrats facing competitive races to distance themselves from their party in ways that telegraph to voters their understanding of the problem while differentiating themselves from Republicans’ more hard-line views on immigrants.It is a tricky balancing act. At the same time Mr. Ryan is locking arms with Republicans to pressure his own party, he is also trying to shift responsibility onto Republicans and defend himself against their attacks for making the county he once led a “sanctuary” for undocumented immigrants.“Where you really get yourself in trouble as an elected official is when you don’t listen,” Mr. Ryan said, adding: “For political purposes, the MAGA Republicans want divisions and chaos. They are not actually working to resolve problems.”The task may be easier for challengers who are taking on Republican incumbents whom they can blame for failing to enact the kind of changes to the immigration system that could curb illegal border crossings, speed up the asylum system and eventually relieve pressure on New York.“In my district, the one person sitting at the table to fix this problem is Anthony D’Esposito, and he is doing nothing,” said Laura Gillen, a Democrat seeking a rematch against Mr. D’Esposito, who represents the South Shore of Long Island. (He and other New York Republicans helped pass an aggressive but partisan border security bill in May.)But Ms. Gillen, who wants to represent a district Mr. Biden won by 14 points, said the president deserved blame, too. She called a letter last week from his homeland security secretary critiquing New York’s handling of the migrants as “irresponsible.”Laura Gillen, a Democrat, plans to challenge Anthony D’Esposito, who represents the South Shore of Long Island and has taken aim at his approach to the migrant crisis.Heather Walsh for The New York TimesMr. Riley is taking a similar “all our politicians are failing us” approach, knocking both Mr. Biden and Representative Marc Molinaro, his Republican opponent.“Look, this is a federal problem and it requires a federal response, and I think President Biden needs to get his act together and help solve it,” he said.It is too soon to know whether the approach is working. In Mr. Ryan’s district, the views of voters interviewed near a hotel housing migrants appeared to break down on familiar lines. Dozens of voters, when asked by a reporter, voiced dissatisfaction with how migrants had been bused up from New York City, but they disagreed on who was to blame.“Not just the county but the country can handle this,” said Faith Frishberg, a Democrat, outside a waterfront restaurant in Newburgh. “Most of this failure is a failure to not address the immigration policy.”But there may also be a distinct drawback over time.Blaming Democratic leaders like Mr. Adams or Mr. Biden may be expedient short-term politics. But it risks reinforcing the notion that Democrats cannot govern — a potentially powerful boomerang effect in a state that has registered some signs of weariness of one-party rule in recent years.Republicans already appear eager to reinforce it.“I have not seen a less coordinated, less competent way of dealing with human lives,” Mr. Molinaro said. “I know the reporting today has become a little bit about how the president is pointing at the governor, the governor at the mayor. The story line is Democrat leaders are pointing at each other.”Timmy Facciola contributed reporting from Newburgh, N.Y., and More

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      Zimbabwe’s Neighbors Cast Doubt on Elections That Gave Mnangagwa the Win

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      The main regional bloc in southern Africa and the African Union declined to rubber stamp the elections and cast doubt on a vote that led to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s re-election.The presidential election in Zimbabwe last week that kept the governing party in power and was widely criticized as dubious is likely to isolate the country further from the United States and other Western nations. But it has also exposed Zimbabwe to increased scrutiny and pressure from a surprising place: its neighbors in southern Africa.Before President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner of a second term on Saturday, the Southern African Development Community and the African Union publicly questioned the legitimacy of Zimbabwe’s elections for the first time.While Zimbabwe has chalked up criticism from the West as colonial gripes, condemnation from other leaders on the continent may not be so easily brushed off, analysts say, particularly when it comes from countries that have to absorb the effects of Zimbabwe’s economic and social turmoil.On Sunday, speaking for the first time since his victory, Mr. Mnangagwa dismissed his African critics.“As a sovereign state, we continue to call on all our guests to respect our national institutions, as they conclude their work,” he said. “I think those who feel the race was not run properly should know where to go to complain. I’m so happy that the race was run peacefully, transparently and fairly in broad daylight.”Southern Africa has long prided itself on relative stability and on being generally free of the coups and terrorism that have plagued other parts of the continent. Countries like South Africa and Botswana boast economic muscle, while Zambia and Malawi have celebrated positive strides in democracy through elections in recent years.Zimbabwe, in contrast, has been seen as a drag on the region, analysts say, with an economic and political crisis that stretches back two decades under the rule of Robert Mugabe and that has led to sanctions and isolation by the United States and other Western nations. The West has demanded clean elections along with governing and human rights reforms from Zimbabwean leaders in exchange for helping the country address its economic woes, including $18 billion of debt.Supporters of Mr. Mnangagwa celebrated after he was declared the winner in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Saturday.Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated PressThe Southern African Development Community, or S.A.D.C., observer mission criticized laws in Zimbabwe that restricted free speech, voter intimidation by the governing ZANU-PF party and mismanagement by the country’s chief electoral body, most notably the long voting delays because many polling stations did not get ballots in time. The mission also denounced the arrest on election night of dozens of members of a local electoral watchdog that has for years independently verified the results announced by the government.While the election was peaceful, some aspects “fell short of the requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe” and regional standards, said Nevers Mumba, a former Zambian vice president who led the mission.That statement was a sharp departure from years past, when S.A.D.C. missions essentially rubber-stamped questionable Zimbabwean elections, analysts said. It could be a sign of the changing times.Governing parties in southern Africa generally share tight bonds, forged during their days as liberation movements battling white colonial rule. In the past, regional observers, perhaps influenced by those historic allegiances, may have been prone to give Zimbabwe a pass, experts said.But Zambia’s president, Hakainde Hichilema, who leads the S.A.D.C. body overseeing elections and appointed Mr. Mumba to lead the observer mission, is not from a liberation party, is close to the West and is heralded as a champion of democracy. Those credentials, experts say, may have produced a more objective assessment of the election.Chipo Dendere, a political science professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, said she saw a broader shift among regional bodies across the continent that want to promote stability.They are acknowledging that “the impact of colonialism is there, but we also have to look inward and think, ‘What are we doing as African governments to move the continent forward?’” said Ms. Dendere, who has researched Zimbabwe extensively.But political party officials in other parts of southern Africa don’t seem ready to give up on their longtime allies just yet.The ZANU-PF conference hall in Harare, where portraits of former party leaders and freedom fighters are displayed. Nelson Chamisa, who finished second behind Mr. Mnangagwa, rejected the results on Sunday.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFikile Mbalula, secretary general of the African National Congress, the liberation party that has governed South Africa since 1994, posted glowing tweets on Saturday night applauding Mr. Mnangagwa’s victory — despite the fact that South Africa has the most to lose from Zimbabwe’s challenges.As Zimbabwe has grappled with astronomical inflation, a severe lack of jobs and a repressive government, hundreds of thousands (and potentially millions) of its citizens have fled to neighboring South Africa over the years. The large exodus has fueled deep anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa, which is dealing with its own social and economic crisis.Nelson Chamisa, who finished second behind Mr. Mnangagwa, with 44 percent of the votes, rejected the results during a news conference on Sunday. Mr. Chamisa, the leader of Citizens Coalition for Change, claimed that the vote tally released by the electoral commission was false and that his party had the vote tally sheets recorded at polling stations that showed he had actually won.Speaking from a heavily guarded private residence in Harare, the capital, after several hotels refused to allow him to use their properties because of security concerns, Mr. Chamisa said he would take action to make sure the right results were known. But he did not specify if that meant going to the courts or protesting in the streets.“It is important that whoever sits on the throne of this country is aligned with legitimacy,” he said.It remains questionable whether S.A.D.C.’s tough assessment of Zimbabwe’s elections will lead to changes in the country.African countries could impose economic or administrative penalties — such as visa restrictions — on Zimbabwe if it fails to introduce reforms to improve its economy and transparency. But experts say that is highly unlikely. African leaders prefer one-on-one talks to work out their issues, but even then, they do not have a track record of holding one another accountable, analysts said.John Eligon More

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      Questions for Republican Debate: What Readers Want to Learn

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      More than 850 readers sent us their questions for the Republican candidates. Donald Trump was a hot topic, but not the only: “I don’t want to ask about the past,” one said.As the first Republican presidential debate nears on Wednesday night, we asked our readers a few simple things: What questions would you like to hear? What issues should be discussed? How will you judge the candidates?We heard from more than 850 readers, including devoted supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, Republicans who voted for him in the past but are now skeptical, die-hard Democrats and independents who said they were unsatisfied with all of their options in the 2024 race.Not surprisingly, Mr. Trump loomed large — even in his expected absence onstage. But many Republicans were also eager to hear how the candidates would handle policy issues including the war in Ukraine and migration at the nation’s southern border.Others were eager to hear what the candidates would do to bridge the country’s deep partisan divide. The responses have been lightly edited for clarity.Everyone wants to know about Trump.The former president has said he will not participate on Wednesday, but many readers wanted him — and his four criminal indictments — to be a major topic of conversation.For Democrats, the top concern was some version of the blunt question from Kerry Reardon in Fleming Island, Fla: “Yes or no, do you believe that the Democrats stole the 2020 election?”But Republican supporters had another question for Mr. Trump’s rivals: “What makes them able to defeat Trump, then Biden later on?” asked Austin Moon in Greenville, N.C.“What makes you think you are as tough as Trump?” asked Loretta Houdeshell, a Republican from Greenbrier, Tenn.Others wanted a simple yes-or-no answer to the following question: “Will you support the 2024 Republican nominee for president?”But skepticism about Mr. Trump also crept into Republicans’ questions. Kathryn Byrd, a Republican who voted for Mr. Trump in Missouri in 2020, wanted to know if the candidates thought that “those involved in the Jan. 6 riots should be held accountable, including but not limited to, former President Donald Trump?”Shannon Swindle, a Republican from Georgia, worried about the toll of nominating a candidate with legal baggage and wanted to hear candidates’ views.“How will they address the Trump indictments and what do they have to say if Trump is the Republican nominee, which I personally hope he is not. How do we move forward as a legitimate democracy when the Democratic Party is trying to imprison their main political opponent? What should we do to move forward?”Moving forward was a common theme for many voters, including Peter J. Cotch of Naples, Fla., who hoped the moderators would ask about the “impact of Trumpism on the public image of the Republican Party” and added that he was “a third-generation registered Republican” who had always supported the party’s nominee, but “couldn’t do it this time if it’s Trump.”Immigration and the war in UkraineRepublican readers had priorities beyond Mr. Trump. They often raised questions about the candidates’ positions on continuing to build a border wall and ending birthright citizenship (a change that would require a constitutional amendment).“How would you handle the border crisis moving forward and what would you do with the huge number of immigrants residing in the U.S. currently that arrived outside of our immigration laws?” asked Jane Roberts, a Republican in Florida.Asked what issues he would most like to hear about, Mark Greenstone of Winter Springs, Fla., wrote, “How will they specifically resolve preventing illegal immigrants from entering our country?”“Not just closing the border,” wrote Larry O’Neal of Tuscaloosa, Ala. “But actual changes to the immigration system.”Like many other voters, Mr. O’Neal was also eager to hear about the candidates’ views on the war in Ukraine, a conflict that has divided the G.O.P. between traditionalists and a new guard deeply skeptical of U.S. intervention overseas. Mr. O’Neal wanted to hear about “the risks and rewards by your position.”Josh Sacks, an independent voter in Falls Church, Va., said that he hoped to hear Republicans talk about the “limits of America’s commitment to Ukraine.”Can we all come together?A few Republican respondents asked what the candidates could do to bring their party together, but even more raised questions about national unity.“How are you going to help rebuild trust in our democratic system?” asked Nancy Parlette, a Republican in Maryland who said she wrote in the name of Larry Hogan, the state’s moderate G.O.P. governor at the time, for president in 2020 because she “couldn’t find anyone worth voting for.”“People are sick of all the hate, slander and backbiting,” Ms. Parlette added. “We want to be able to trust our president and our Congress to actually care about America more than about making themselves look great.”Susan Pichoff, a Republican from Alabama, said, “I don’t want to ask about the past.” Instead, she said: “I want to ask about, what are we doing to encourage people and unite this country? Because we are so divided and it’s sad.”George Adkins, an independent voter in Houston who voted for Mr. Trump, had a similar thought: “How do you plan to lessen the divide among Americans in both politics and race?”Ditch the talking pointsAnd, in what might be a perennial request, many voters said they wanted to be leveled with. Mr. Greenstone said he would judge candidates “by how direct and specific they answer questions as opposed to just providing answers that are scripted and vague.”“I will be turned off by a bombastic approach,” wrote Douglas Greenlee, of Huntersville, N.C. “I will respect a thoughtful approach even if the candidate says they do not have the plan developed as yet, but lay out parameters for what they would think about.”But few voters of any political stripe expressed high hopes for the night. Catherine O’Keefe of Hopewell Junction, N.Y., said she expected that “not a single candidate will say anything useful that is not a campaigned-approved talking point, nor will they provide an actual answer to any direct question.”Ms. O’Keefe, a Republican who voted for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, added, “Candidates will just try to score one-liners against each other.” More

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      Debbie Mucarsel-Powell Challenges Rick Scott for Senate in Florida

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      Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, the first South American immigrant elected to the House, is one of several Democrats who have entered the 2024 race.Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat who represented Miami for one term in the House after immigrating to the United States from Ecuador, stepped forward on Tuesday to challenge the incumbent Republican, Rick Scott, for the Senate in 2024.Flipping the seat could be crucial for Democrats to keep their narrow majority in the Senate, but their path to victory in what was once a quintessential battleground state appears to be difficult, according to independent projections.Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, 52, is seeking to become only the second Latina elected to the Senate, after Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Democrat of Nevada.In 2018, Ms. Mucarsel-Powell upset Carlos Curbelo, a two-term Republican incumbent in Florida’s 26th District. She lost the seat in 2020 to Carlos Gimenez, who was mayor of Miami-Dade County.In a campaign introduction video posted on social media, she sought to cast Mr. Scott as a hard-line opponent of women’s reproductive rights who would seek to ban abortion nationally. She also criticized his past support for cutting Social Security and Medicare as a way to balance the federal budget and rein in the national debt. He later reversed that position.“Ya no más,” she said in Spanish in the video, meaning “no more,” and later added, “I’ve already fought guys like Rick Scott, and beat them.”Noting that she was the first South American immigrant elected to Congress and that she once worked for minimum wage at a doughnut shop, Ms. Mucarsel-Powell sought to draw an economic and cultural contrast to Mr. Scott.A former associate dean at Florida International University, she is the latest prominent Democrat to join the race, which includes Alan Grayson, a former representative, and Phil Ehr, a U.S. Navy veteran who unsuccessfully challenged Representative Matt Gaetz in 2020.Mr. Scott, 70, who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress, served two terms as governor before being elected to the Senate in 2018. Last year, he was the chairman of the Senate Republican campaign arm, but his long-shot bid to dislodge Senator Mitch McConnell as the minority leader fizzled.“We’d like to welcome yet another failed congressional candidate to the crowded Democrat primary,” Priscilla Ivasco, a spokeswoman for Mr. Scott’s campaign, said in a statement.Momentum in Florida has favored Republicans, who hold the governor’s office, the Legislature and both Senate seats. And in otherwise disappointing midterm elections for the G.O.P. last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected in a landslide that laid the groundwork for his presidential candidacy. More

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      Zimbabwe Voters to Elect President While Trained Workers Flee

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      Nurses, doctors and workers of all kinds are seeking to escape the country’s economic turmoil, an issue that has become a central theme in the election scheduled for Wednesday.The hospital where Warren George worked as a nurse in Zimbabwe was so short of basic supplies, like plaster, that he could not make casts to treat people with broken bones. He soon sought to join the exodus of more than 4,000 nurses who have fled the southern African nation in the past two years.But the government has refused to give him and many others the documents they would need to work in, say, Britain or Canada. He says that he now earns only about $500 a month as a traveling nurse and has to pick up extra shifts on his days off to ensure his family has enough to eat.Zimbabweans are scheduled to go to the polls on Wednesday in only the second election since Robert Mugabe, the liberation leader turned strongman president, was ousted in a coup.The vote amounts to a referendum on President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is seeking a second term after, critics say, failing to steady the economy or stop the flight of workers, including a crippling “brain drain” of educated professionals. The departure of nurses and doctors has increased since the Covid pandemic, contributing to a widespread shortage of health workers on the African continent.Mr. Mnangagwa at an election rally in Harare this month. He is seeking a second term.Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated PressTriple-digit inflation has become the norm — it spiked to 176 percent in June. The country is $18 billion in debt and cannot get international loans because of political instability. Jobs are sparse, with economists estimating that 90 percent of work is informal. The local currency has become so worthless that the price grocery stores charge for bread has skyrocketed to 12,000 Zimbabwean dollars from 860 in April. Many use the U.S. dollar instead, when they can.“Everyone you meet in the streets, they are desperate to leave the country,” said Dr. Norman Matara, head of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, an advocacy organization.“Some of our colleagues have gone outside — you see them doing well in South Africa, in the U.K., in Canada,” he added. “You get the motivation to also leave because, honestly, we are just wasting our time.”This election, like past ones, is taking place in a jittery environment with fears of violence and of vote-rigging in favor of ZANU-PF, the party of Mr. Mnangagwa, which has governed Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.Mr. Mnangagwa came to power through a coup in 2017 that unseated Mr. Mugabe, who became increasingly autocratic during his nearly four decades in power. In the 2018 election, Mr. Mnangagwa eked out a victory, winning 50.8 percent of the vote over his closest rival, Nelson Chamisa, who is now president of the main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change.Makeshift polling stations in Mbare, a township in Harare, on Monday.Siphiwe Sibeko/ReutersThis election is a rematch, and while polls suggest a tight race, many international and domestic observers doubt that the election will be free and fair.“It’s history repeating itself, except that ZANU-PF has perfected the system of rigging,” said Ibbo Mandaza, a political analyst in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, who runs an independent social-science think tank.The police have shut down dozens of rallies of the Citizens Coalition for Change and arrested dozens of its supporters. A new law that could result in the death penalty for Zimbabweans deemed to have betrayed the national interest has made many fearful to share their views.Even so, in surveys, Zimbabweans overwhelmingly say that they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country and the economy under Mr. Mnangagwa. If he prevails, political analysts say, there could be a surge in mass migration of Zimbabweans, straining other countries in the region — especially South Africa, where a struggling economy of its own has fueled violence against immigrants. Harare on Saturday. While polls suggest a tight vote, many international and domestic observers doubt that the election will be free and fair.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMany African countries are short on health workers, more than any other region. The continent produces about 150,000 trained medical workers a year, but one in three cannot get jobs because there is not enough money to fund positions, according to James Avoka Asamani, who leads the World Health Organization’s work force team for Africa. The W.H.O. has identified 55 nations with critical shortages of health workers and suggests that foreign countries should not recruit from them. Thirty-seven of those nations are in Africa, including Zimbabwe, added this year, where the government estimates that the country will need at least an additional 69,000 medical workers by 2030.When Angela Khulu, an 84-year-old grandmother, was hit by a car recently and stumbled into a hospital in Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe’s south, most of the administrative nurses and hospital clerks were already ending their day shifts. She waited in a long line while the few medical workers on duty bounced between patients.Praying for a peaceful election during a church service in Harare on Sunday.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAfter two hours, with pain radiating down her left side, she was seen by a doctor, who recommended checking for internal bleeding. But the hospital, Mpilo Central, did not have enough radiographers — or X-ray films — so, despite her serious symptoms, she was sent home and told to come back the following day.Dr. Tawanda Mapfumo, who works at Mpilo Central, says he has become accustomed to the chaos at the hospital, where about three dozen patients cram onto wooden benches in the corridors and waiting rooms. He says he cannot shake the guilt of seeing patients die because there are no resources to treat them.Those trying conditions have created an opening for Britain, in particular, to lure away Zimbabwean health workers. Nearly 22,000 Zimbabweans have received health care work visas from Britain over the past three years (though not everyone who receives one actually moves).Britain’s recruitment has drawn the ire of Zimbabwe’s government. In April, the vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the health minister, suggested introducing a law to criminalize the recruitment of Zimbabwean health workers by foreign countries. No law has been formally introduced yet.But within the past two years, health workers in Zimbabwe said, the Health Ministry has made it more difficult for them to get the letters of good standing they need to be hired abroad.A 31-year-old doctor, who requested anonymity to avoid trouble with the Zimbabwean government, said that in 2020, when he applied for his letter to move to Namibia to practice, he paid $40 and received the letter the same day.But when he sought another letter from the Zimbabwean authorities in early 2021 to move from Namibia to South Africa for more training, he was confronted with a fee of $150 and a five-page form with questions he considered intrusive. He filled out the form and paid but has still not received his letter.A hospital in Harare last year. The W.H.O. has identified 55 nations with critical shortages of health workers. Thirty-seven of those countries are in Africa, including Zimbabwe.Jekesai Njikizana/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNonetheless, he said he was fortunate because he still works in Namibia, where his $3,000 monthly salary is roughly 10 times what he made in Zimbabwe.“It’s not worth your time or dignity,” he said, referring to the poor pay in Zimbabwe.The Zimbabwean Health Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Christopher Mutsvangwa, spokesman for ZANU-PF, said that the government was not opposed to citizens going abroad for jobs but that it needed to control the flow to ensure that some skilled workers remained.Despite the government’s barriers, Zimbabweans are still finding ways to flee.Wynter Banda swapped her life as a hairdresser in Harare to become a nursing home aide in Britain. She and her husband, Godwill, a teacher, sold their car and borrowed from friends to come up with the $5,000 she needed for the visa fee and other moving expenses.Her husband eventually joined her and works as a science teacher. Things are tight, she said, because of debt and high rent. Still, she said they had made the right decision.“Even though it’s not easy and the working hours are very long and stressful, I can’t imagine going back to Zimbabwe,” she said. “We suffered there.”Studying during a power cut in Harare last year. Critics say that Mr. Mnangagwa’s government has failed to steady the economy or stop the flight of workers.Associated PressJeffrey Moyo More

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      Compassionate Release for Those Aging Behind Bars

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      More from our inbox:Living Well, and Pursuing One’s Passion, With Parkinson’sThe ‘Absurd Contradictions’ of the Migrant SystemA Civilized Argument A Debate QuestionCecilia CarlstedtTo the Editor: Re “Inside a Dementia Unit in a Federal Prison” (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 13):Katie Engelhart vividly describes the absurdity and cruelty of incarcerating frail elders with debilitating dementia. It would be a mistake, though, to conclude simply that expanding compassionate release is the answer. Certainly, that’s warranted, but policymakers should be proactive, not just reactive.As a former parole commissioner, I know that dementia is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem of mass aging behind bars.Countless people (not just men) effectively face a slow death penalty behind bars because of extreme sentences or repeated denials of parole release despite these individuals’ complete transformations. Far from being helpless, many are violence interrupters, mentors, scholars and artists, including people previously convicted of causing serious harm. They have changed.Enacting elder parole bills, which do not guarantee release based on age but rather allow older adults to be individually considered for release by a parole board, can help resolve the crisis of aging behind bars, save substantial money, and return people to the community to repair the harm they long ago caused — before they are on death’s doorstep.Carol ShapiroNew YorkTo the Editor:Dementia units in prisons should primarily serve as a conduit to helping achieve compassionate release. As physicians volunteering with the Medical Justice Alliance, we review the medical care of numerous patients with dementia who are undiagnosed and untreated in the prison system. Patients wake up unsure why they are in prison, hoping that President Nixon might pardon them.We must consider the high cost of normalizing the imprisonment of elderly patients with dementia. Financially, developing “dementia-friendly” prison units incurs significant costs; that money could instead be used to improve community resources such as nursing facilities. Ethically, we must grapple with punishing people who do not pose a threat to others and are unable to understand why they are being punished.Compassionate release laws at the state and federal levels should make dementia an explicit criterion for early release. Facilities should also screen older patients for dementia on a regular basis and develop protocols for requesting compassionate release and expediting placement in memory care facilities. The U.S. prison population is aging and change is urgently needed.Caitlin FarrellNicole MusheroWilliam WeberTo the Editor:As a person who has served three federal prison terms for antiwar protests for a total of almost three years, I found myself shaking my head that the Federal Bureau of Prisons maintains Federal Medical Center Devens to hold men with dementia.The essay noted that most of the men in the dementia unit have no memories of their crimes or why they are incarcerated, yet few are deemed eligible for compassionate release. The United States incarcerates nearly two million people in our thousands of jails and prisons. The U.S. prison system is primitive, lacks redemption and only metes out punishment. The term rehabilitation is simply not part of this cruel system.In my time in more than a half dozen federal prisons, I never met a man I would not have to my home as a dinner guest. Our jails and prisons are filled mostly with people convicted of nonviolent crimes. Many — perhaps the majority — of incarcerated people are poor, mentally ill or substance abusers. Most need medical treatment, not incarceration.I agree with F.M.C. Devens’s clinical director, Dr. Patricia Ruze, who thinks it would be “totally appropriate” to release the whole unit on compassionate grounds and relocate the men to community nursing homes.I’d go one step further: Let’s release all nonviolent people from prison with appropriate community support to help them prosper and avoid recidivism, as well as offer programs of human uplift to the remaining prisoners using the money we save by closing the prisons we will no longer need.Patrick O’NeillGarner, N.C.Living Well, and Pursuing One’s Passion, With Parkinson’sThe pianist Nicolas Hodges has continued to perform and record — with alterations and tough decisions — after receiving a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.Roderick Aichinger for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Pianist Adapts His Life to Parkinson’s” (Arts & Leisure, Aug. 13):Thank you for demonstrating how the pianist Nicolas Hodges is adapting to life with Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Hodges is testament to the fact that it is possible to continue to live well with Parkinson’s, and the article highlights two key ways to manage symptoms: consistently taking medications (dopamine) and reducing commitments or stress. Exercise and physical activity are also critical to managing symptoms.Recent research published by the Parkinson’s Foundation shows that the number of people in the U.S. diagnosed with Parkinson’s annually has increased by 50 percent, from approximately 60,000 to 90,000. This means that every six minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with the disease and may encounter similar challenges to those faced by Mr. Hodges.Further funding to support research and drug development are needed in order to find a cure, and the Parkinson’s Foundation and other organizations work tirelessly to advance this.In the meantime, we applaud Mr. Hodges for speaking about his experience with the disease and continuing to pursue his passion. Play on, Mr. Hodges.John L. LehrNew YorkThe writer is president and C.E.O. of the Parkinson’s Foundation.The ‘Absurd Contradictions’ of the Migrant SystemTo the Editor: We have millions of square feet of office space no longer being used and tens of thousands of homeless people and displaced immigrants needing shelter. Many employers cannot fill open jobs while the talents and proven determination of immigrants sit untapped in detention.We can strengthen our economy and confirm our commitment to human dignity and decency by correcting these absurd contradictions.It would be far more cost-effective to use the migrant detention system funds to create a system where people can be quickly helped and trained to be productive contributors to society instead of expensive drains on us all.Even if common decency is not a motivation, pure selfish economic need dictates that we end the waste and do the right thing.Michael E. MakoverGreat Neck, N.Y.A Civilized Argument Christopher Smith for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Imagining the Face-Off in Trump’s Jan. 6 Case,” by David French (column, Aug. 12):I started feeling odd as I read Mr. French’s column. It was so quiet! Two measured, rational voices speaking through the ink, each backing up their arguments with researchable references and free of bitter, ad hominem jabs. A few bits of pique and tooth grinding to humanize both the defense and the prosecution, but all for the sake of clarifying a complex position.How civilized! How rare! It’s a shame that the essay was the voice of one man working his careful way through a thicket of legal complexity and not a real-life exchange of ideas in search of a mutually arrived at truth.Leslie BellDavenport, IowaA Debate QuestionTo the Editor: At the Republican debate I would like to see the moderator ask each of the participants if as president they would pardon Donald Trump if he is convicted of federal crimes.Walter RonaghanHarrison, N.Y. More

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      Stuart Delery Stepping Down as White House Counsel

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      Stuart Delery, who has been President Biden’s chief official lawyer since last year, helped develop strategies to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, forgive student loans and revamp immigration rules.Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who has helped usher in some of President Biden’s most important policies while defending him against Republican attacks, announced on Thursday that he plans to step down as the West Wing shapes its staff for the final 15-month sprint to next year’s election.Mr. Delery had indicated to colleagues a few months ago that he would be ready to leave by fall after nearly three years in the White House and the pre-inaugural transition that have been all consuming. Since Republicans took over the House in January, the counsel’s office has been the command post for the White House’s response to a multitude of congressional investigations.No successor was named on Thursday, but a new counsel was expected to be in place by the time Mr. Delery formally leaves next month. Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff who took over the president’s team six months ago, has asked cabinet secretaries to decide in the coming weeks whether they plan to depart or will commit to staying through the November 2024 election to avoid distracting confirmations heading into the campaign season.Mr. Biden’s White House team has been steadier than most, especially compared with the one under his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump, who burned through aides at a frenetic pace. Although a number of top officials have left Mr. Biden’s administration, the total turnover of 56 percent remains below the modern average, and his cabinet is the most stable going back at least seven administrations, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution.Susan E. Rice, the president’s domestic policy adviser, left in May and was replaced by Neera Tanden, the staff secretary, who in turn was replaced by Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide. Julie Chávez Rodríguez stepped down as director of intergovernmental affairs to take over as campaign manager and was succeeded by Tom Perez, a former labor secretary. Louisa Terrell, the director of legislative affairs who helped coordinate debt ceiling negotiations, announced her departure last month and was replaced by Shuwanza Goff, the president’s liaison to the House.But the president’s core inner circle of Mr. Zients and advisers like Steven J. Ricchetti, Anita Dunn, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Bruce Reed is expected to remain intact through the election, as is his top national security team led by Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer. Some colleagues have speculated about whether Michael Donilon, one of Mr. Biden’s closest advisers and the author of many of his major speeches, will move over to the campaign or stay inside the White House.Mr. Delery, 54, served as acting associate attorney general, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, under President Barack Obama and joined the Biden team as deputy White House counsel before taking over the top legal job in the White House a little over a year ago. He is the first openly gay man to serve as counsel to the president.“Stuart Delery has been a trusted adviser and a constant source of innovative legal thinking since Day 1 of my administration,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. Mr. Delery, a low-key and studious Yale Law School graduate, was among the legal architects of some of Mr. Biden’s most important initiatives, including strategies to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt and to revamp immigration after the expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era measure.When the Supreme Court overruled the president’s original student loan plan, his team quickly developed new ways to try to accomplish the same goals. When Republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling, Mr. Delery developed options for Mr. Biden to do so on his own authority, although it proved unnecessary when a bipartisan deal was struck.Mr. Delery also oversaw a drive to install as many judges as possible. During his tenure, 20 nominees were confirmed to federal appeals courts and 51 to federal district courts. The slate of new judges has been the most diverse in history.“Stuart Delery was a historic counsel for an administration getting historic things done,” Mr. Zients said in a statement. “His work in support of President Biden and Vice President Harris will shape the country for the better for decades to come.” More

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      Mayor Adams Turns His Back on Immigrants and New York’s Legacy

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      Since last year, tens of thousands of asylum seekers have arrived in New York City from the southern border and around the world, seeking a better life in a place that has welcomed generations of immigrants since its founding.What many of those migrants have found instead is a tepid welcome amid a housing crisis that has left the city barely equipped to offer them more than a meal in the hotels used to house a booming homeless population. They are lucky if they get a bed.In recent days, the slapdash system the city has built to address the crisis has broken down completely, leaving migrants sleeping on Midtown streets. The city says there is no more room for them, but advocates say it needs to try harder.And on Sunday, The Times reported that a shady contractor tapped by New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, to send asylum seekers upstate and provide them with services harassed them instead. The city’s taxpayers are footing the bill for this abuse, to the tune of $432 million. The curiously large, no-bid contract with DocGo, a medical services company, should never have been signed and needs to be terminated.It’s true, as Mr. Adams has repeatedly said, that this crisis is a national issue and requires action from the White House and Congress. Cities like New York, which has more than 100,000 people living in shelters, cannot be expected to welcome asylum seekers on their own. More than 90,000 migrants have arrived in New York City over the past year, many as part of a political stunt by Texas, Florida and Arizona. Though immigrants strengthen the U.S. economy and are a vital part of the fabric of the democracy, local governments can’t simply absorb tens of thousands of people without help — especially for housing — and their taxpayers, in New York and elsewhere, shouldn’t be expected to foot the bill.Still, there is something particularly disappointing about New York City’s official response to the asylum seekers, unfolding under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. Nearly four in 10 city residents were born outside the United States. Waves of immigrants — Dutch, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, Latino and Afro-Caribbean immigrants, along with many others — helped build this city. So did millions of Black Americans who chased dreams in the city after fleeing the tyranny of the Jim Crow South.That rich legacy doesn’t seem to be on Mr. Adams’s mind. Since the moment the migrants began showing up last spring, he has made clear he wants little to do with the practical or humanitarian issues their arrival has raised. The mayor has provided basic services for the migrants, and rightly so. But at every turn, he has done so grudgingly.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesMr. Adams has complained loudly that the immigrants were a “burden” on the city’s resources. His administration shut down a welcome center at the Port Authority bus terminal where volunteers had for months helped connect asylum seekers to services.He said the migrants would cost the city $4.3 billion over the next two fiscal years, a figure New York’s nonpartisan budget watchdog said is probably $1.2 billion too high. He tried to undo a 1981 court decree that requires the city to provide shelter to anyone who needs it.He erected giant tents — now dismantled — to house the migrants in remote areas of the city inaccessible to public transit, then made it exceedingly difficult for nonprofit groups to provide critical services to this vulnerable population, like legal assistance and even help navigating the city and its laws. Such services could help migrants acclimate to life in New York City and could ease complaints from neighbors of the hotels the city is using to house many migrants.The Adams administration has been warehousing asylum seekers instead of putting the country’s largest municipal government to work helping them build new lives, in New York or wherever else they may want to go. This summer the Adams administration printed fliers to dissuade migrants from seeking new lives in New York, leaflets that sum up the mayor’s overall approach and betray the promise and spirit of New York as a home for people from around the world.New York’s leaders are supposed to be different. The city’s voters didn’t intend to elect a mayor who acted like Greg Abbott, the Texas governor who sent migrants to cities across the country, including New York. Nor did they vote for someone like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the presidential candidate who used asylum seekers for political sport, flying them to the resort island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts at taxpayer expense just to own the libs.New York can do better.First, it seems clear that Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York needs to step in and demonstrate the concern lacking from City Hall. It may be in the best interest of both taxpayers and the asylum seekers for the governor to name an expert manager to oversee the crisis, which is clearly too much for the mayor to handle — a kind of New York asylum czar.That wouldn’t free Mr. Adams to simply throw up his hands and walk away from the obligations the city has to these tens of thousands of people, whether they turn out to be temporary guests or newly minted New Yorkers.The mayor could make a big difference quickly by welcoming established nonprofit groups — not no-bid profiteers — to provide critical services where migrants are being housed. Those services should include English-language classes, as well as basic job certification courses to help asylum seekers find work.Despite Mr. Adams’s cold approach, many nonprofits and private volunteers and some municipal workers are engaged in this humanitarian work. In one small example, Dr. Theodore G. Long, a senior vice president at the city’s public hospital system, noticed many meals at the facilities used to house migrants weren’t being eaten, so he conducted a survey to find out why. The results? “We swapped out roast beef and did Italian food instead,” he told me. “I figured, let’s ask people what they want instead of guessing.”That’s the kind of welcome a city of immigrants provides.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More