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      Title 42 migration restrictions have ended, but Biden’s new policy is tougher

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      As the Title 42 pandemic-era rule ended at midnight on Thursday, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security and a former Cuban refugee, issued a stern warning to would-be migrants, saying: “People who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum.”In many ways, Mayorkas’s statement directly contradicted some of the promises Joe Biden made as a candidate during the 2020 presidential election. Then Biden had pledged to dismantle Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, calling the numerous restrictions his rival enacted to shut off access to the US asylum system “cruel”.After taking office, Biden reversed some of Trump’s border policies, including a program that required asylum-seekers to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities while their cases were reviewed by US courts.But for more than a year, Biden kept, and defended in court, Trump’s most sweeping border restriction: the Title 42 emergency order that allowed agents to cite the Covid-19 pandemic to quickly expel migrants without hearing asylum claims.The Biden administration in 2022 tried to phase out Title 42, but was blocked by a lawsuit filed by Republicans in 19 states. By the time it ended – due to the expiration of the Covid-19 public health emergency – Title 42 had been used to expel migrants over 2.7m times from the US southern border, according to government statistics.But Biden is now replacing Title 42 with an arguably tougher, more restrictive policy. His administration on Friday started implementing a rule barring migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US.Advocates suggested that such a restriction mimics two Trump-era policies known as the “entry” and “transit” asylum bans which were consequently blocked by courts. As a result, the new restrictive border control has already been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrants’ rights groups in federal court.“This new rule is no less illegal or harmful. It will effectively eliminate asylum for nearly all non-Mexican asylum seekers who enter between designated ports of entry, and even for those who present at a port without first securing an appointment,” the complaint says.Thousands of migrants anticipating the end of Title 42 crossed into the US in record numbers this week along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. They gathered on the banks of the Rio Grande and gates near the border wall, waiting for their turn to be let into US soil.Nestor Quintero, who crossed the US border near El Paso, Texas, only to be expelled to Tijuana, recently returned to Ciudad Juárez, scared that once Title 42 was lifted, his chances to give his daughters a “better and safer life” would be diminished.Unable to secure an appointment using a government cellphone app known as CBP One for over a month, the Venezuelan decided to surrender himself along with his family at gate 47 at the border wall in El Paso last week.“We were detained for six days and then were given documents by the [immigration] officials,” said Quintero, 35, who left Venezuela after an opposition politician he had worked for disappeared.“We have a [court] date in September this year, but now we only worry about eating. We have no money and we are hungry.”Biden’s asylum restriction, announced the same day Quintero’s family was released from border patrol custody, could have led to them being deported and banned from entering the US for five years. If they attempted to re-enter the US, they would have faced criminal prosecution.One of the only ways to avoid facing deportation under the strict asylum rule is to secure an appointment to enter the US through the government app. In its first four months, over 83,000 individuals have successfully scheduled an appointment through CBP One, a DHS official told the Guardian.CBP recently announced changes to the app, increasing the number of appointments available to approximately 1,000 a day from 740. That could be an option for some of the estimated 60,000 migrants who the border patrol chief, Raul Ortiz, said are waiting in northern Mexico, but it is unclear how many are willing to wait.The number of migrants stranded in Mexico could also increase further due to the new policies. The Mexican government has agreed to continue accepting tens of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan deportees from the US.Shelter directors in Mexico told the Guardian they are at capacity.“This agreement means that more than 360,000 people could come to a country that doesn’t have a federal or state system to help everyone,” said Rafael Velásquez, the country director for Mexico at the International Refugee Committee.In its effort to dissuade migrants from travelling north, the Biden administration has also partnered with the Colombian and Panamanian governments to create regional processing centers to screen migrants who could be eligible to enter the US legally. The White House is also allowing up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly to the US each month, as long as they have American financial supporters.Just before Mayorkas’s statement on the termination of Title 42, a federal judge in Florida blocked a Biden policy of expediting the release of some migrants to prevent overcrowding in porder patrol facilities. The agency said it had nearly 25,000 migrants in custody on Thursday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said it will increase the number of beds by several thousand.On the evening of 11 May, Quintero, who along with his wife and daughters were released from a detention center in El Paso, reached out to the Venezuelan relative he left behind in Ciudad Juárez, worried about his whereabouts.“He was sad because he is now alone in Mexico,” said Quintero, whose final destination is Chicago, but his court appointment is in Texas. “He thinks he got deported because he came by himself, with no children, to the US.” More

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      Situation at US-Mexico border ahead of end of asylum limits ‘very challenging’

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      The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said on Friday that immigration authorities faced “extremely challenging” circumstances along the border with Mexico days before the end of asylum restrictions implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic.A surge of Venezuelan migrants through south Texas, particularly in and around the border community of Brownsville, has occurred over the last two weeks for reasons that Mayorkas said were unclear. On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in border patrol custody in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelan.Mayorkas noted that Mexico agreed this week to continue taking back Venezuelans who enter the US illegally after asylum restrictions end on 11 May, along with Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. Migrants have been expelled from the US more than 2.8m times since March 2020 under the authority of what is known as Title 42.The secretary reaffirmed plans to finalize a new policy by Thursday that will make it extremely difficult for migrants to seek asylum if they pass through another country, like Mexico, on their way to the US border.“The situation at the border is a very serious one, a very challenging one and a very difficult one,” Mayorkas said.Illegal crossings tumbled after the Joe Biden White House announced asylum restrictions in January, but they have risen since mid-April. The president of the National Border Patrol Council, Brandon Judd, said this week they have been hovering at about 7,200 daily, up from about 5,200 in March.Border patrol chief Raul Ortiz said 1,500 active-duty troops are planning to be dispatched to El Paso, Texas, adding to 2,500 national guard troops already positioned across the border. Ortiz said El Paso was chosen because it has been a busy corridor for illegal crossings over the last six months. The troop deployment was announced this week but not the location.Mayorkas, on his second day of a visit to the Rio Grande Valley, said smugglers were deceiving migrants and luring them on a dangerous journey. “The border is not open, it has not been open, and it will not be open” after 11 May, he said.The Mexican foreign affairs secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, echoed Mayorkas’s sentiment about smugglers spreading misinformation.“We’re seeing a very significant flow (of migrants) in recent days on the basis of a hoax,” Ebrard said at a news conference. He said smugglers are saying: “Hurry up to get to the United States by crossing Mexico because … they’re going to end Title 42” on 11 May.“It’s a trick and they’re at risk,” Ebrard said.The Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged those who want to migrate to follow legal pathways, such as applying in US processing centers scheduled to open in Guatemala and Colombia. He said Mexico was not making special preparations for the end of Title 42 because he did not expect a surge.“A lot of people won’t let themselves be tricked,” the president said.Mayorkas touted new legal pathways, which include parole for up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans a month who apply online with a financial sponsor. But he said the Biden administration could only do so much without Congress.“We have a plan – we are executing on that plan,” Mayorkas said. “Fundamentally, however, we are working within a broken immigration system that for decades has been in dire need of reform.”US customs and border protection said on Friday that it is raising the number of people admitted to the country at land crossings with Mexico to 1,000 a day from 740 using a mobile app called CBP One that was extended in January to asylum-seekers. Demand has far outweighed available slots.The administration faced a setback, at least a temporary one, when Colombia said on Thursday it suspended deportation flights from the US due to “cruel and degrading” treatment of migrants. Colombia’s immigration agency said it canceled returns of 1,200 Colombians after complaints about conditions in US detention centers and on the flights. More

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      ‘He feels unstoppable’: DeSantis plans to export his chilling immigration policies to the nation

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      A popular political souvenir in Florida currently is a range of merchandise touting the services of a nonexistent travel company named DeSantis Airlines.T-shirts, drinks glasses and car decals alike bear the motto “Bringing the border to you”, a mocking commemoration of the time last year when Ron DeSantis, the state’s Republican governor, baited a load of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers on to two chartered planes in Texas with false promises of jobs and housing in Boston, then promptly dumped them in Martha’s Vineyard.The stunt, paid for by Florida taxpayers, was branded cruel and heartless by analysts, political opponents and immigration advocates, and lauded by DeSantis’s supporters as another successful “owning” of liberals.But beyond the politically charged rhetoric, the episode was further proof that immigration, and the demonizing of immigrants, are top priorities for DeSantis while he prepares his likely run at the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.That might seem a curiosity, given that his state is so reliant on immigrant labor, and that almost 3 million workers, comprising more than a quarter of Florida’s entire workforce, were born overseas, according to the American Immigration Council. They fill jobs vital to Florida’s key dollar-generating industries including agriculture, construction, tourism and transportation.Yet to observers of DeSantis’s “anti-woke” world, where liberalism is the enemy, and hard-right ideology eclipses all else, it comes as little surprise.“It’s a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook, a play to elevate his national profile by using this issue to mobilize the base and get his soundbites on Fox News,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigrant advocacy organization America’s Voice.“He is using immigration as a tool to create anger, a very motivating emotion, and elevate his national profile. It’s about amplifying the narratives of chaos, of fear and, really, hate, which is damaging not just to the politics of our country, but also to the policy advancement of the issue.”Advocates in Florida are angered by the governor’s progressively hardline stance in a catalog of legislative measures that might not have drawn the same headline publicity as the Massachusetts flights, yet signal the priorities and policies he would probably pursue from the White House.DeSantis has a long history of picking fights with the Biden administration over the southern border and pursuing legal challenges to federal immigration policies.Closer to home, he and his willing Republican-dominated legislature passed a law in 2019 banning perceived sanctuary cities he believed were shielding migrants from national immigration laws. That case is still tied up in the appeals court after a federal judge ruled parts of it unconstitutional.Last year, DeSantis signed a bill mandating law enforcement to fully implement federal policies and blocking local authorities from contracting with companies that have transported undocumented aliens.But in the weeks since his landslide re-election in November, Florida’s governor has really cut loose on immigration, expanding his migrant removal program, then unveiling measures billed as his response to “Biden’s border crisis” that many consider his most extreme package yet.One part, removing in-state university tuition rates for undocumented students, put him at odds with his own party’s lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez, who sponsored the 2014 bill introducing the tuition discounts, and his Republican predecessor Rick Scott who signed it. While Scott has said he would do so again, the ever-loyal Nuñez has reversed her position.Florida’s business leaders are also concerned by a new requirement to use the internet-based E-Verify employment checking system to deny jobs to those who are undocumented, while those without papers would be denied ID cards and driver’s licenses.Another alarming strand, flagged this week by the New York Times, would require hospitals to establish and report to the state a patient’s immigration status.Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, is worried by the proposed felony criminalization and lengthy prison sentences for anyone who “harbors or transports” an undocumented alien knowingly. She said it could affect parents whose child invites an undocumented classmate to their birthday party, or a carer who took an undocumented senior to a medical appointment.“It’s government overreach. He’s using a facade of protection for government overreach and fascism, controlling every part of everybody’s life,” she said.The effect of DeSantis’s immigration crackdown has been chilling. Rubén Ortiz, a pastor in DeLand whose congregation is almost exclusively from South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, says they are “terrified”.“I’m getting calls saying: ‘Pastor, can you find someone to take care of our kids if we are deported?’ Others are looking to return to their own country,” he said.“They can call us if they have any incident with the police, a traffic stop or whatever, and now they say: ‘Will the future be worse?’ It’s not only going to school with the kids, it’s if we get sick, and it’s mandatory for hospitals to verify legal status.“People are basically living in the shadows. These people are just looking for a better life, a better place to live. They already had a horrible journey to the US, they’re established and flourishing right now. This is repeating their nightmare and affecting their ability to dream.”The economic impact of DeSantis’s policies is also a concern for Cárdenas, of America’s Voice.“Immigrants contribute like $600m in taxes at the state and local level, 36% of businesses are immigrant owned, so once the business community starts thinking about the implications of what DeSantis is proposing, it’s going to be eye-opening,” she said.“It’s really out of step with our economic needs, which is a top issue for every voter.”She pointed to the rejection of Trump-style immigration extremism in the midterms as a warning for DeSantis. “The majority of the electorate supports immigration and a progressive vision when it comes to policy. They’re Americans who recognize the important place immigrants play in our economy, they want us to have a compassionate system, and they really value our heritage as a nation of immigrants.“It’s such a disservice to the issues Americans care about when we have these kinds of leaders who are amplifying again not just hateful rhetoric that hurts immigrants, but also is not in the best interest of our nation.”Petit, meanwhile, is certain DeSantis will try to project his agenda on to the national stage, noting that he won re-election as governor by 19 points last year and that his Republican legislative supermajority in Florida has left him in effect untouchable.“He’s gotten to the point where there’s a part of his form of governance that is showing up because he has become too empowered. He feels unstoppable,” she said.“It’s what his governance could look like in 2024 for the United States, should he get elected, so people need to pay attention to what he’s doing.”DeSantis, who has previously sent Florida law enforcement officials to help patrol the US southern border with Mexico, continues to paint the immigration debate as a national crisis. He says the nearly 11,000 migrants repatriated from his state since last August are a consequence of the Biden administration “losing control” of the country’s borders.“As Biden’s border crisis continues unabated, my administration is working hard to protect our communities and businesses from the many threats posed by illegal immigration,” he said in a statement announcing his latest crackdown in February.Petit isn’t buying it, and sees DeSantis’s actions as a performance designed to capture Trump’s hardline base for his own presidential ambitions.“I think he realized that when Trump was president people wanted to see a strong presidency, and the fact Trump was a bully got everybody excited,” she said.“He wants to be a bully, except the danger is he’s much more subtle. He’s doing the same things in a much more subtle way and using immigrants as pawns to advance his popularity.” More

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      ‘Help us fight’: California farmers ask for more aid after deadly storms

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      ‘Help us fight’: California farmers ask for more aid after deadly stormsDespite a new relief fund in Sonoma county, farm workers face economic catastrophe when storms and fires strikeAs a series of deadly storms whipped through California’s wine country, liquefying fields and turning vineyards into wading pools, thousands of farm workers in the region were forced to stay home. Though the power has been long since restored and roads reopened – many of them are still confronting an economic catastrophe.For Isidro Rodriguez, the storms caused him to lose half his monthly income – about $1,100.TopicsCaliforniaClimate crisisWorkers’ rightsFarmingMigrationUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Arizona improves college access for undocumented students. Activists say it’s a ‘first step’

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      Arizona improves college access for undocumented students. Activists say it’s a ‘first step’Proposition 308 now makes higher education more affordable for undocumented immigrantsAndrea Vasquez, a social worker at a high school in Tucson, Arizona, was approached by a student in her senior year. She was asked how difficult it would be to attend college as an undocumented immigrant.Vasquez, 29, immediately flashed back to a younger version of herself, studying at the school where she now works, Palo Verde Magnet high school, and remembering her own struggle to get to college while being undocumented.More than a decade later, she has better news for the latest generation.“Her dream is going to a four-year university,” Vasquez said.In last November’s elections, voters in Arizona, who typically support anti-immigrant policies, narrowly approved ballot measure Proposition 308 to make undocumented immigrants eligible for the same fees and state financial aid at state universities and community colleges as local US citizens.Previously, despite growing up in Arizona’s state public school system, undocumented youth wouldn’t have been able to apply for state aid for higher education and would be classed as out-of-state students, who pay much higher fees. This was the fate imposed on Vasquez when she was graduating high school.Vasquez recalled that as a teen applying for college, the base out-of-state tuition at the time could exceed $16,000 annually at a state university. That made financial means rather than academic performance the gateway to higher education for people like her.Vasquez, who was brought to the US from her native Mexico as a migrant at the age of two, said: “I was fourth in my graduating class, I played sports, did community service [but] I couldn’t afford a four-year university.”Revealed: Trump secretly donated $1m to discredited Arizona election ‘audit’ Read moreShe cleaned houses with her mother to pay for two years at Tucson’s Pima Community College.“I wish this Proposition [308] happened when I graduated high school,” she said.In 2011, when she was in high school, Arizona adopted the strictest anti-immigration state law in the country. It allowed local law enforcement to ask anyone suspected of being in the country unlawfully to present proof of legal immigration status during routine traffic stops. It made it an offense to be caught without those papers.Arizona’s large Hispanic communities effectively lived under siege, with the law championed by hard-right Republican governor Jan Brewer, notorious Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio and the late state senator, Russell Pearce.Then, in 2012, US president Barack Obama turned Vasquez and other migrants brought to the US as minors into Dreamers – the scheme now under threat because of legislative inertia and legal fights that started during the Trump administration.Dreamers became eligible for work permits and renewable protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program. Nevertheless, higher education barriers persisted nationwide – especially in Arizona.Until Proposition 308, Arizona was one of three states, alongside Georgia and Indiana, that barred undocumented immigrants from in-state tuition.In her first State of the State speech last month, Katie Hobbs, the first Democratic governor elected in Arizona in 16 years, celebrated Proposition 308 and pledged to expand opportunities by allocating $40m to a new fund, the Promise for Dreamers Scholarship Program.“I was so pleased that the governor and her budget included the program, which wouldn’t even ask for a citizenship requirement,” said Raquel Terán, an Arizona state senator and a proponent of Proposition 308.“It’s unfair that many of the students who have been part of our education system, part of our communities, had to pay three times the in-state tuition,” she added.The American Immigration Council advocacy group issued a report supporting Proposition 308, noting: “The state is facing critical workforce shortages across the skills spectrum … Arizona will need … global talent to complement US-born workers [and to] build career pathways for immigrants already living in the state.”At her high school, Vasquez tells undocumented students about Proposition 308 but adds that they’re still ineligible for federal aid. Every year, more than 3,600 undocumented students graduate high school in Arizona.Ex-Arizona governor’s illegal makeshift border wall is torn down – but at what cost?Read moreMeanwhile, another hurdle faces Fernando Contreras, 19, as he aspires to become a doctor. Arizona is struggling with critical healthcare staff shortages exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. But when he was still a senior at Mountain View high school in Mesa, he found out most medical internships that he would need on the way to getting licensed require a social security number. He doesn’t have one: he arrived from Mexico at the age of 12 without documentation.For now, Contreras is studying at Pima Community College and is enrolled at Grand Canyon University, a private Christian school where Proposition 308 doesn’t apply, while working numerous jobs including babysitting.“The biggest downside is knowing you have to work twice as hard as anybody else to achieve what you want,” he said.Since the ballot measure passed, fees have dipped at the community college and he’s looking into whether it would be possible to transfer to Arizona State University.Jose Patiño, a 33-year-old Daca recipient and vice-president of education and external affairs at Aliento, a youth-led organization that advocated for the passing of Proposition 308, said that Contreras and many like him need a law like HB2796. It’s a bill that was introduced recently by Democratic state representative Flavio Bravo, allowing undocumented students to get licensed in the medical field by submitting a federal tax identification number in lieu of a social security number.But the bill never made it out of committee and died in the state legislature.“It’s unfortunate but there is very little understanding of the urgency of a bill like this one,” Bravo said.Patiño is still encouraged by Proposition 308, however.“The change in Arizona is partly because many of us were afraid for so long and now we are fighting back,” said Patiño, who was born in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1990 and brought to the US six years later.“Proposition 308 is the first step, but we have to keep fighting. We have learned from this country that nothing is going to be given to you.”TopicsArizonaMigrationMigration and developmentUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      US turns back growing number of undocumented people after arduous sea journeys

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      US turns back growing number of undocumented people after arduous sea journeysBiden shifts toward political center as likely presidential rival Ron DeSantis calls out national guard Authorities in Florida have been turning back growing numbers of undocumented Cubans and Haitians arriving by sea in recent weeks as more attempt to seek haven in the US.Local US residents on jet skis have been helping some of the migrants who attempted to swim ashore after making arduous, life-threateningand days-long journeys in makeshift vessels.Joe Biden’s turn to the center over immigration comes as Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, attempts to plot his own strategy for handling a sensitive situation in the south of his state, calling out national guard troops in a hardline approach.Last Thursday, the US Coast Guard returned another 177 Cuban migrants to their island nation, while scores of Haitians who swam ashore in Miami were taken into custody by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).As the Cuban exodus continues, Biden adjusts immigration policyRead moreThe coastguard says that since 1 October, it has intercepted and returned more than 4,900 Cubans at sea, compared with about 6,100 in the 12 months to 30 September.DeSantis, seen as a likely contender for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, has taken swipes at the White House for what he claims are Biden’s “lawless” immigration policies and perceived open borders.The Biden administration has hit back, accusing DeSantis of “making a mockery” of the immigration system by staging his own series of political stunts, including an episode last year in which he sent a planeload of mostly Venezuelan migrants to Massachusetts, flying them from Texas at Florida taxpayers’ expense.The governor is under criminal investigation in Texas and defending a separate lawsuit over the flight, and another to Biden’s home state of Delaware that was canceled, which reports said involved covert operatives linked to DeSantis recruiting migrants at a San Antonio motel with false promises of housing and jobs.In the latest incidents of migrants attempting to land in south Florida, the TV station WPLG spotted city of Miami marine patrol jet skis rescuing at least two people found swimming in the ocean, and a CBP spokesperson, Michael Selva, said beachgoers on Virginia Key had helped others ashore on Thursday using small boats and jet skis.Two days earlier, another group of about 25 people made landfall near Fort Lauderdale. Authorities arrested 12, while others ran away.Increasing numbers of people are risking their lives to reach the US despite stricter policies from the Biden administration intended to deter irregular immigration and increase humanitarian visa numbers for Cubans, and others, to enter legally – but with a high bar to entry unattainable to many of the thousands fleeing existential threats including extreme violence, political oppression, severe poverty and hardships exacerbated by the climate crisis or failed states.Biden has responded to conservative voices inside the Democratic party and Republicans calling for a tougher stance. But critics say the president’s new “carrot and stick” approach, cracking down on undocumented immigration while appearing to offer an olive branch of more visas, presents obstacles that most migrants would struggle to overcome.Biden’s ‘carrot and stick’ approach to deter migrants met with angerRead moreThe White House says up to 30,000 people a month from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will be admitted to the US, but only if they apply online, can pay their own airfare and find a financial sponsor.Writing in the Guardian last week, Moustafa Bayoumi, immigration author and professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, said Biden was “throwing migrants under the bus”.“This is a program obviously designed to favor those with means and pre-established connections in the US, and it’s hard to imagine it as anything but meaningless for those forced to flee for their lives without money or planning,” he said.DeSantis, seeking to build political capital from a president many expect him to challenge for the White House in 2024, accused Biden of under-resourcing the federal response to the Florida arrivals and placing a burden on local law enforcement.Meanwhile, the impact of the recent increase in migrant landing attempts continues to be felt in south Florida. The Dry Tortugas national park, off the Florida Keys, has only just reopened after being turned into a makeshift processing center for hundreds of people earlier this month.TopicsUS immigrationFloridaJoe BidenRon DeSantisUS politicsMigrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden is throwing migrants under the bus to appease Republican fearmongering | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      Biden is throwing migrants under the bus to appease Republican fearmongeringMoustafa BayoumiThe Biden administration criticizes conservatives as anti-immigrant – yet pursues policies not so different from Trump’s Imagine for a moment you are a dissident citizen of Nicaragua. Forced out of bed in the middle of the night and hounded out of your homeland because of your political activities, you have been deprived of all chances to work, let alone live, in the country you’ve always called home. Your opposition to Daniel Ortega’s regime has put your life and your family’s lives in danger. You must find safety immediately.You know that, despite its long history of meddling in your country, the United States also has laws and traditions that enable people in your position to seek asylum. It may be far away, but the US is also the closest country where you believe you can truly feel safe. You must find a way there – any way at all – and it has to be quick.Biden visits border for first time as critics condemn his migrant crackdownRead moreNow, according to new rules just announced by the Biden administration, up to 30,000 Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians may soon be able to apply for “humanitarian parole” to the US, expanding a program that had previously been directed solely at Venezuelans. What a relief! you might think, until you discover more about the proposed program, which requires: a valid passport, a plane ticket, the ability and permission to travel to the US by plane, a US-based sponsor, a cell phone that can download a specific app that requires two-factor authentication, and a host of other requirements.This is a program obviously designed to favor those with means and pre-established connections in the US, and it’s hard to imagine it as anything but meaningless for those forced to flee for their lives without money or planning. As Human Rights Watch explains, Biden’s proposed program is “contrary to international refugee law and international human rights law which prohibits discrimination in accessing asylum, including based on financial means”. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has also stated that the new measures are “not in line with international standards”.Yet this problematic humanitarian parole provision is in fact the proverbial carrot of Biden’s proposed border program. The dreaded stick, found in how the administration now plans on processing asylum claims made at the border, is much worse. The opportunity to have your asylum claim heard if you’re a citizen from one of these four countries – all countries with deep legacies of American political interference, it should be pointed out – will now be severely curtailed, according to the proposed rules.For one thing, the administration will require these asylum seekers to request refuge in the first country they cross into, similar to Trump-era “transit ban” policies which led to widespread human rights abuses in countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador.If these asylum seekers somehow make it to the US’s southern border, they must claim asylum at an official port of entry at a previously scheduled time, even though, per US law, “you may apply for asylum regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status”, as the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website states. Those who try to cross the border would also be subject to “expedited removal”, with Mexico accepting 30,000 of them each month, and be subject to a five-year ban from re-entry to the US.The plan also expands the Biden administration’s use of Title 42, a rarely used clause of the 1944 Public Health Services Law that allows the government to take emergency action “to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries.” Through their own anti-immigrant hocus-pocus, the Trump administration conjured Title 42 as a quick and easy way to deport people at the US’s southern border.Though Biden, as recently as last Thursday, has said that he doesn’t “like Title 42,” his administration continues to use the code to prevent people from entering the US. Since March 2020, almost 2.5 million people have been expelled, most of them during the Biden administration. And the new rules will translate into many more expulsions for asylum seekers from these four countries.Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey got it right. “The Biden administration’s decision to expand Title 42, a disastrous and inhumane relic of the Trump Administration’s racist immigration agenda, is an affront to restoring rule of law at the border,” he said in a statement. “Ultimately, this use of the parole authority is merely an attempt to replace our asylum laws, and thousands of asylum seekers waiting to present their cases will be hurt as a result.”What’s going on here? There’s no question that the current situation presents all kinds of challenges at the border. The US government recorded almost 2.4m encounters with migrants at the border last fiscal year, a record number. Extreme climate events, political corruption, and economic instability all play a role, and the US shares some responsibility in all those arenas. But it’s also clear that Biden feels compelled to get in front of the border issue ahead of Republican fearmongering (hence his visit Sunday to the border).“Immigration is a political issue that extreme Republicans are always going to run on,” the president said. “But now they have a choice: They can keep using immigration to try to score political points or they can help solve the problem.”But, in this terrible move rightward on the issue of border enforcement, Biden has proposed solutions that seem devised more to quell Republican objections (which, let’s face it, can never be mollified) rather than to take humanitarian and legal concerns to heart and turn them into workable policy. The proposed changes are also certain to bring greater chaos, confusion, and misery to the border.I’m all in favor of foregrounding Republican obstructionism when necessary, and Republicans halted Biden’s proposed comprehensive immigration reforms from the moment they were announced, almost two years ago. But Biden can’t accuse his Republican opponents of exploiting immigration and then turn around and lean on their misbegotten policies. Not only is that playing politics with people’s lives, but it’s also playing with fire. If Biden’s proposed rule changes go through, we should worry for all those – Biden included – who are about to get burned.
      Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York
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      US immigration laws should be enforced with discretion. That’s common sense | Robert Reich

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      US immigration laws should be enforced with discretion. That’s common senseRobert ReichBiden ordered officials to focus on deporting immigrants convicted of felonies, rather than undocumented people en masse. I applaud that decision Texas has sued the Biden administration over its order to immigration agents to prioritize undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies rather than deport all undocumented immigrants.Texas argues that federal immigration law requires the government to deport every undocumented immigrant. The Biden administration says it doesn’t have the resources to deport the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, so it must develop priorities.The Crypto Crash: all Ponzi schemes topple eventually | Robert ReichRead moreThe controversy reminds me of something that happened 30 years ago.Child labor laws bar 14-year-olds from working past 7pm on school nights. Weeks before I became the US secretary of labor, in 1992, a vigilant labor department investigator discovered that the Savannah Cardinals, a Class A farm team of the Atlanta Braves, had hired 14-year-old Tommy McCoy to be their batboy. On balmy evenings extending beyond sunset, Tommy selected each player’s favorite bat and proudly delivered it to him in the batter’s box. Next morning, Tommy went to school.The investigator threatened the team with a stiff fine. The team did what it had to do: it fired little Tommy.Tommy liked being a batboy. His parents were proud of their son. The team was fond of him. The fans loved him. As long as anyone could remember, every kid in Savannah had coveted the job. Tommy did well in school.But now little Tommy was out of a job.Well, you can imagine the furor. It seemed as if the whole city of Savannah was up in arms. The Cardinals were staging a “Save Tommy’s Job Night” rally, featuring balloons, buttons, placards and a petition signed by the fans demanding that Tommy be rehired.ABC News was doing a story on the controversy, which is how I first heard about it. ABC wanted me to do an on-camera interview that evening, explaining why Tommy couldn’t be a batboy.What was I to do? ABC couldn’t wait to show America the stupidity of the government (and its new secretary of labor).The labor department’s chief inspectors, sitting around a large round table in my office, didn’t want me to back down. After all, they said, the law was clear: Children under 14 could not work past 7pm on school nights. Besides, child labor was a serious problem. Children were getting injured working long hours.“If you back down, it will look like you’re caving in to public opinion,” one of the chief inspectors told me.“But,” I asked, “isn’t it the public whom we’re here to serve?”“The Savannah team broke the law and it was our responsibility to enforce the law.”“But who says the law has to be enforced this way?” I asked. “Don’t we have some discretion over how we enforce the law? We have only a limited number of inspectors. Shouldn’t we have priorities? I can understand hitting a building contractor who’s hiring kids to put on roofing, but why are we going after batboys and girls?”They warned me that if I didn’t support the department’s investigators, the staff would become demoralized.“Good! If they become demoralized and stop enforcing the law nonsensically, so much the better,” I said.They warned that if I backed down, the labor department would lose credibility.“We’ll lose even more credibility if we stick with this outrageous decision,” I said.They said there was nothing we could do. The law was the law.“Nonsense,” I said. “We can change the regulation to make an exception for kids at sporting events.”But that would invite all sorts of abuses, they argued. Vendors would exploit young kids on school nights to sell peanuts and popcorn, stadiums would hire young children to clean the locker rooms, parking lots would use children to collect money.“OK,” I said, “so we draw the exemption tighter, and limit it to batboys and batgirls.”I was getting nowhere. In minutes I’d have to appear on World News Tonight and defend the indefensible.Then it hit me, like a fastball slamming into my thick head: I was secretary of labor. I could decide this by myself.“I’ve heard enough,” I said, standing.I turned to my assistant, “We’re going to tell the Savannah team they can keep Tommy. We’ll change the regulation to allow batboys and girls. Put out a press release right now. Call the producers for World News Tonight and tell them I’ve decided to let Tommy keep his batboy job. Tell them our investigator was way off base!”“But World News Tonight is already on the air!” my assistant said.“Call them now!”I turned on the TV in the corner of my office. Peter Jennings was reading the news from his monitor. Within moments he said:The United States Department of Labor has decided that a 14-year-old named Tommy McCoy cannot serve as batboy for the Atlanta Braves farm team in Savannah, Georgia. The decision has provoked outrage from the fans. Here’s more from …As he turned it over to ABC’s Atlanta correspondent, Jennings appeared to be smirking.I was dead, politically.I looked around the table at the inspectors. Did they understand that in 7m living rooms across America people were now saying to each other “How dumb can government get?”After two excruciating minutes during which ABC’s Atlanta correspondent detailed the story of little Tommy, it was back to Jennings:But this tale has a happy ending.My heart skipped a beat.The labor department reports that Tommy will get his job back. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has decided that the department was – quote – off-base in invoking child labor regulations under these circumstances.I was still alive, politically.But the inspectors sitting around my table were dismayed.I tried to explain to them exactly what the Biden administration is now trying to explain to the courts and to Republicans in Congress.Laws cannot be enforced without setting priorities for enforcement. Inevitably – intentionally or unintentionally – the people in charge of enforcing laws determine which cases merit their attention and resources.So enforcers must use common sense. Prioritize targeting employers who are hiring young children and putting them in dangerous jobs over, say, a farm team hiring a kid as a batboy.Prioritize undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies over, say, a Dreamer who was brought to America as an infant and has been hardworking and law-abiding for her whole life.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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