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      Biden finally heads to border as critics condemn his migrant crackdown

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      Biden finally heads to border as critics condemn his migrant crackdown Advocates attack president’s failure to uphold campaign pledges ahead of first visit to southern border since he took officeUnder pressure to address a surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border, Joe Biden announced a far-reaching crackdown on migrants seeking asylum last week, expanding the use of a controversial public health measure known as Title 42 to restrict people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela from illegally entering the US, while offering those legally seeking relief a new pathway to America.Before the president’s first trip to the US-Mexico border since he took office in 2020, immigration advocates condemned the Biden administration’s decision to expand Title 42 as disheartening and a failure to uphold his campaign promises. They took some solace in the creation of a legal pathway to asylum for those in four countries, but still, for them, Biden’s actions were not enough – they leave out other migrants, and the parole program is beset by requirements that impose significant barriers to migrants without access to resources, perpetuating inequities within the US immigration system.In other words, immigration advocates say, the cost of expanded expulsion of migrants under the guise of public health without a clear path to asylum outweighs the promise of expanded refugee access and a legal outlet for asylum. “For a lot of us working in immigration justice, at the start of the administration, there was incredible hope that Title 42 would end and push forward to re-establish access to asylum,” the director of the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Justice Campaign, Alex Miller, said. “We’ve been disappointed.”The Biden administration’s so-called “carrot and stick” approach aims to deter the historic-high millions of migrants fleeing persecution from their home countries and seeking US asylum from entering the country illegally. Federal figures from the 2022 fiscal year show that US border agents stopped migrants more than 2m times along the southern border, setting an all-time record. They turned migrants away under the Title 42 provision more than 1m times.“The problem is the carrot is not universally accessible,” Miller added. “Legal access to asylum will be limited to those who are the right nationalities, have the right means and support, to apply for parole … The sticks they are offering are restricting access, and that’s not a fair trade.”Under the Biden administration’s new policy, if migrants from those countries pass background checks, buy a plane ticket, obtain financial sponsorship, and meet other requirements, they would be allowed to legally enter under the “parole program”. They would be authorized to live and work in the US for two years.But immigration advocates worry about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed rule – which they say is similar to the Donald Trump White House’s “transit ban” – because it would make migrants seeking asylum ineligible if they failed to seek protection in a third country before reaching the US and if they “circumvent available, established pathways to lawful migration,” as homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week.They also worried that the parole program’s requirements – modeled after the administration’s approach to refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Ukraine – impose barriers to migrants who lack the resources to buy flights and find a financial sponsor.On Twitter, United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led rights group, slammed Biden’s new policy “a racist and classist attack” on migrants. United We Dream’s deputy director of federal advocacy, Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s expansion of Title 42 would hurt “the same people seeking asylum that they purport to protect”.The American Civil Liberties Union’s director of border strategies, Jonathan Blazer, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s “knee-jerk expansion of Title 42 will put more lives in grave danger”, adding that his plan “ties his administration to the poisonous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era instead of restoring fair access to asylum protections”.“His commitments to people seeking safety will ring utterly hollow if he moves forward in substituting one illegal anti-asylum Trump policy for another,” Blazer said.Miller told the Guardian that the administration’s new proposals include allowing asylum seekers to use an app in English and Spanish to schedule appointments. That, the administration argues, will reduce “wait times and crowds at the US port of entry and allow for safe, orderly, and humane processing”. Miller said that effort makes the legal asylum seeking process harder for migrants who lack technological access and speak indigenous dialects beyond Spanish as well as for those who cannot obtain legal representation to help them navigate the process.Biden has said that Congress needs to enact a more comprehensive immigration reform. In the interim, the administration’s new parole process, which he described as “safe, orderly” and humane, would “make things better but will not fix the border problem completely”.The National Immigration Law Center’s vice-president of law and policy, Lisa Graybill, told the Guardian that while the administration’s creation of the asylum that gives 30,000 people access is better than nothing, its overall approach reflects seeing immigration enforcement and creating outlets for asylum as a “zero-sum game”. It’s a mistake presidents and politicians have made before, she said.She added that Biden had been “following an old playbook that does not work” by allocating resources toward enforcement rather than creating a “humane and orderly processing system that is built around recognizing the right to asylum instead of violating it”. Instead, the parole program as designed, she said, will hurt impoverished migrants and those who fled their countries in haste without meeting all requirements, acting as barriers to even those who have legitimate asylum claims while helping middle and higher income migrants with access to resources.The chief adviser for policy and partnerships at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Angela Kelley, said that Biden’s creation of the parole program was “smart” and reflected an attempt to use the “tools in his toolbox and use them in more creative ways”. She pointed out that the Biden administration aimed to triple the number of refugees resettled seeking asylum from Latin American and Caribbean countries. Yet, she added, the outdated US immigration laws have not kept up with who qualifies for asylum, such as those fleeing the damaging effects of climate change.“That’s the difference maker: under Trump, it was all about kicking out people – they were systematic in dismantling the refugee program, legal immigration channels of people coming for employment for families, for students. That’s not the approach of the Biden administration,” Kelley said, noting that it will take time to see the effects Biden’s actions will take on the migration system. “They’re restoring all of that. The unfortunate continued reliance on Title 42 is a monkey on their back that they have to figure out how to shake and use the resources you have … to try [to] manage the migration of people the best you can.”Title 42’s future is uncertain as the US supreme court in December stopped Biden’s administration from ending the program to give the justices more time to weigh in on whether states have the legal grounds to intervene in an ongoing case over the program.Kelley, who had previously done immigration work for Biden and the Barack Obama White House, saw the expansion of its Title 42 program as “worrisome” for vulnerable migrants who would be sent back to dangerous conditions in Mexico. She noted that by creating legal pathways to asylum, the administration is trying to “to ease the pressures” at the US border in the hope that they wouldn’t need the pandemic program any longer.“What is heartbreaking is that in an effort to limit the number of people who are coming, you are turning away asylum seekers, who are the migrants you want to protect,” Kelley said.Immigration advocates and Biden agree that long-term changes needed to come from Congress – a questionable prospect given that the Republican-controlled House struggled to elect its speaker, and past bipartisan efforts at immigration reform had also failed.Even so, some advocates say now it’s a question of where resources are sent: They called for more resources to be directed toward assisting nonprofits and NGO groups working with asylum seekers at the border, hiring more asylum officers and more immigration judges, and investing in more legal assistance for migrants unable to afford private attorneys.“For three years under Title 42, access to asylum has been undermined,” Miller said. “All of the documented evidence of kidnapping, rape, and extortion of migrants in Mexico, in particular at the border – it’s incredibly troubling that we’re expanding the expulsions of migrants to Mexico.“These are not just numbers, these are people with individual stories with their own lives they’re trying to defend. It’s really easy to get lost in the big picture. We’re talking about people here.”TopicsUS immigrationUS politicsUS-Mexico borderVenezuelaHaitiCubaNicaraguanewsReuse this content More

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      More migrants bussed to Kamala Harris’s home on Christmas Eve

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      More migrants bussed to Kamala Harris’s home on Christmas EveThree buses of Central and South American migrants arrived to the vice-president’s home from Texas Three busloads of migrants were dropped off outside the Washington DC home of US vice-president Kamala Harris late on Christmas Eve, the latest episode in an escalating battle between the Joe Biden White House and the governors of southern Republican states over federal immigration policy.‘A storm is coming’: migrants stuck on US-Mexico border as temperatures plummetRead moreThe Central and South American migrants, believed to be sent from Texas, were dropped off in below-freezing temperatures, with some wearing only sweatshirts and shorts.Texas’s far-right governor, Greg Abbott, has previously sent buses to Harris’s Naval Observatory home. An organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, Amy Fischer, told local news station ABC7 that Abbott orchestrated the drop off as a political stunt.“It really does show the cruelty behind governor Abbott and his insistence on continuing to bus people here without care about people arriving late at night on Christmas Eve when the weather is so cold,” Fischer said.The group took the travelers to the shelter of a local church where they were given warm food and clothes.Tatiana Laborde with Samu First Response, an aid group that was also there to meet the buses, said that similar drops had been made in Washington since April. “Christmas Eve and freezing cold weather is no different,” Laborde told CNN. “We are always here welcoming folks with open arms.”The arrivals were the latest salvo in an effort by Abbott to force the Biden administration to step up immigration controls at the US border with Mexico. Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis and Arizona’s governor Doug Ducey have also transported migrants to cities that are run by Democrats.“You and your administration must stop the lie that the border is secure and instead immediately deploy federal assets to address the dire problems you have caused,” Abbott wrote in a letter to Biden last week.Abbott added: “You must execute the duties that the US constitution mandates you perform and secure the southern border before more innocent lives are lost.”On Friday, US Customs and Border Protection reported that 233,740 migrants were apprehended at the southern border in November, marking the highest number ever recorded for the month. The border agency reported that of 204,000 “unique encounters”, 35% were from Cuba and Nicaragua.‘No money, nowhere to stay’: asylum seekers wait as Trump’s border restrictions drag onRead moreIn a statement released on Saturday, the federal homeland security department said it “continues to fully enforce our immigration and public health laws at the border”.“As temperatures remain dangerously low all along the border, no one should put their lives in the hands of smugglers, or risk life and limb attempting to cross only to be returned,” the Department of Homeland Security added, warning that “anyone attempting to enter without authorization is subject to expulsion” under the policy known as Title 42.Last week, the US supreme court temporarily suspended the expiration of the policy empowering border officials to turn away asylum seekers on public health grounds. The Trump White House imposed it during the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic.Days before Title 42 was due to expire, the border city of El Paso, Texas, declared a state of emergency after migrant numbers surged. If allowed to expire, Abbott has warned that the number of people entering the US illegally “will only increase”.TopicsUS immigrationUS politicsKamala HarrisBiden administrationWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘A storm is coming’: migrants stuck on US-Mexico border as temperatures plummet

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      ‘A storm is coming’: migrants stuck on US-Mexico border as temperatures plummet Trump’s pandemic-era immigration restrictions lock migrants on both sides of the border in perilous situationsChristmas was not uppermost in their minds. Bitter cold, uncertainty and urgency were.Just after 1am at an intersection in downtown El Paso on Thursday, Arturo folded a backpack to make a pillow on the street. The 22-year-old Venezuelan wore a sweater underneath an oversized hoodie wrapped around his face as the temperature plummeted.‘No money, nowhere to stay’: asylum seekers wait as Trump’s border restrictions drag onRead moreA fellow countryman huddling on the concrete nearby broke the news: “Se viene una tormenta” – a storm is coming. Hundreds stuck on both sides of the US-Mexico border are being blown every which way by a legal tempest, but this was a literal, Arctic-level storm.‘Once in a generation’ freeze for Christmas as bomb cyclone hits USRead moreArturo, who asked for his last name to be withheld out of fear of being expelled back across the border, looked up at the lights of one of the tallest buildings in this Texas city, a hotel that he couldn’t afford, and spoke of wishing for a warm bed.What little he had left after a long and dangerous overland journey, which included being robbed, he was planning to spend to get to Chicago, where compatriots have promised him a construction job, he said. The work will allow him to send money back to his home town of Yaracuy in western Venezuela, a nation barely functioning for many of its citizens. The money would go to his nine-month-old daughter who was born with respiratory issues.“Each medical exam was $30 and the medicine was around $25. I was making between $15 and $25 a week,” Arturo said, while showing a photograph of his daughter on his phone. “That’s why five days after my wedding, I decided to leave.”City authorities in El Paso have been unable to shelter many sleeping rough on the streets or at the bus station in recent days after crossing the border unlawfully amid US restrictions and crises in their home countries.Eight miles away from where Arturo was shivering, Samuel Zelaya stretched a thin blanket on the floor inside El Paso’s airport.The 32-year-old from Nicaragua said he would also have been sleeping outside if it wasn’t for another migrant who told him he could spend the night at the airport. This was the fourth night in a row and the American Red Cross was giving out some food and clothing.“It’s hard when a son tells you ‘Dad, I’m starving’ and you don’t have money, that’s why I am here,” Zelaya said softly, trying not to awaken an Ecuadorian migrant sleeping on the floor nearby.After quitting his job as a cook in the Nicaraguan capital Managua, Zelaya dared a brutal 16-day trek across Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. In Juarez, the Mexican sister city to El Paso, he and other migrants had to burn their own clothes and old car tires found in the streets to stay warm, before crossing into the US.More than 800 miles away, at the eastern end of the border, where the Mexican city of Matamoros sits across the international line from Brownsville, Texas, there was a different scene.Around 3,000 people fleeing chaos, hardship and danger, mainly in Venezuela or tumultuous Haiti, have formed the kind of makeshift camp near the international bridge that some border cities have become all too accustomed to.Many face a catch-22. Try to get your name on a list asking to bypass the border restriction known as Title 42 and claim asylum in the US – but probably be unsuccessful – or avoid barriers and closed border posts, cross unlawfully and turn yourself in to federal border agents, claim asylum and probably be expelled anyway. Either way, you end up stuck and at risk in Matamoros.Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of officeRead moreHundreds on Wednesday formed a line to put their details onto a list arranged by Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, a co-director of the Sidewalk School, a small organization that helps people in what she refers to as refugee camps there and in Reynosa a little to the west.She submits lists to border agents, who decide which few will be granted exemption from Title 42, can apply for asylum in the US and join the unprecedented 2 million-strong backlog of people waiting for a date in immigration court.Joe Biden pledged to end the use of Title 42, Republicans have sued to keep it in place and federal courts have gone back and forth. The rule was imposed in 2020 by Donald Trump to curb Covid-19, but critics say it soon became, and remains, just another anti-immigration tool.“You have to keep in mind the exemption process may end, but all this still serves a purpose,” Rangel-Samponaro said, indicating her list, as people thronged to add their names, while volunteers locked arms and formed a human perimeter to the process, to try to keep it orderly.“We are tired of waiting,” Marielysa Rodriguez, a 25-year-old mother of twofrom Venezuela, said on Wednesday. “Everything is a list.”Rodriguez, her husband and two young children had gotten themselves on the list to be considered for exemption, but had yet to receive further news. On Wednesday she considered the other option in Matamoros a Hobson’s choice.She approached the river, the Rio Grande that flows sometimes shallow and safe, sometimes deeper, fast and deadly between Texas and Mexico.“My husband is around. That’s why I haven’t crossed yet,” Rodriguez said, looking about her for him. On the riverbank, dozens of families and individuals were jumping into the water, struggling across and turning themselves in to US border agents.Nearly a hundred people from the camp were watching, some even climbed trees for a better view of the crossings, to see how things went for people.A man broke through the crowd on crutches. He took off a red sweatshirt and walked into the river wearing his prosthetic leg. He floundered, grabbed onto an inflatable mattress and made it to the other side.Aryelis, a 39-year-old, who allowed just her first name to be used, said disapprovingly of those plunging into the river: “I think they’re violating the rules of the United States.”She read about the US abruptly applying Title 42 restrictions to Venezuelans in October.But some parents grow desperate.“In the end, they don’t tell us if we’re crossing the border or not. If they [advocates or officials] talk to us clearly and tell us: ‘You’re going to cross,’ we’d wait,” Rodriguez said.She added: “We’re wasting time. The new year is coming and my children have a cold. They’ve gotten fever, diarrhea. They’ve picked up all kinds of illnesses during the journey.”Jose Baldayo, 24, also from Venezuela, and his wife, Iris Diaz Herrera, 25, their four-year-old twins and another daughter arrived in Matamoros about a month ago. As they joined the long line to sign the list, things got rowdy.“The disorder is the result of the desperation of families who think they won’t be able to get on the list,” Diaz said.The family lives day by day and Christmas was not on their minds, she said.“Taking a shower, eating, everything becomes a challenge. It becomes a goal for the day to be able to cook something,” Diaz said.Both El Paso and Matamoros authorities were talking this week of opening temporary shelters for warmth in the cold snap.Back at El Paso airport, Zelaya said that unlike so many other nationalities, he’d been released and allowed to head to his final American destination and check in with immigration officials there. And thanks to a donation from a Nicaraguan friend in the US, Zelaya planned to fly to New York on Saturday. He did think about Christmas, then, a bittersweet one.“My first Christmas without my family,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “I won’t have my daughter and my wife to give me a hug.”TopicsUS-Mexico borderTexasUS immigrationUS politicsMexicofeaturesReuse this content More

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      Arizona to remove wall of shipping containers on Mexico border

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      Arizona to remove wall of shipping containers on Mexico borderState to dismantle wall following lawsuit filed by US government alleging it was illegally built on federal lands Arizona will remove a wall of shipping containers along the state’s 370-mile border with Mexico following a lawsuit filed by the US government against the state that claimed that the makeshift wall is being illegally built on federal lands.Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of officeRead moreAccording to an agreement reached late Wednesday between federal and state authorities, Arizona will dismantle the wall, along with all related equipment by the beginning of next year.“By January 4, 2023, to the extent feasible and so as not to cause damage to United States’ lands, properties, and natural resources, Arizona will remove all previously installed shipping containers and associated equipment, materials, vehicles,” said the agreement.In August, Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, signed an executive order that directed a state agency to close the gaps in the border, saying: “Arizona has had enough … The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty.”“Our border communities are being used as the entryway to the United States, overwhelming law enforcement, hospitals, nonprofits and residents. It’s our responsibility to protect our citizens and law enforcement from this unprecedented crisis,” he added.Wednesday’s agreement comes two weeks before Arizona’s Democratic governor-elect, Katie Hobbs, is scheduled to take office. Hobbs has criticized the wall’s construction, saying: “I am very concerned about the liability to the state of Arizona for those shipping containers that they’re putting on federal land. There’s pictures of people climbing on top of them. I think that’s a huge liability and risk.”‘No money, nowhere to stay’: asylum seekers wait as Trump’s border restrictions drag onRead moreLast week, the federal government filed a lawsuit against Ducey and the rest of the state, requesting for the removal of the containers in remote San Rafael valley in the state’s easternmost Cochise county.“Officials from Reclamation and the Forest Service have notified Arizona that it is trespassing on federal lands,” said the complaint, adding, “This action also seeks damages for Arizona’s trespasses, to compensate the United States for any actions it needs to take to undo Arizona’s actions and to remediate – to the extent possible – any injuries to the United States’ properties and interests.”The complaint, filed by the justice department on behalf of the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Agriculture and the Forest Services, went on to cite the federal government’s operational and environmental concerns towards the makeshift wall. The $95m project of placing up to 3,000 containers along the border is approximately a third complete.The US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, criticized the project, saying that it “is not an effective barrier, it poses safety hazards to both the public and those working in the area and has significantly damaged public land”.“We need serious solutions at our border, with input from local leaders and communities. Stacking shipping containers is not a productive solution,” he added.In a statement released on Thursday and reported by CNN, Ducey spokesperson CJ Karamargin said: “Finally, after the situation on our border has turned into a full blown crisis, they’ve decided to act. Better late than never. We’re working with the federal government to ensure they can begin construction of this barrier with the urgency this problem demands.”TopicsArizonaUS-Mexico borderUS immigrationUS domestic policyUS politicsBiden administrationRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Senate passes $1.7tn funding bill to avert US government shutdown

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      Senate passes $1.7tn funding bill to avert US government shutdownBill includes $45bn in military aid to Ukraine after lawmakers reached agreement on a final series of votes The US Senate on Thursday passed a $1.7tn government spending bill, sending it to the House to approve and send to Joe Biden for his signature, averting a partial government shutdown.‘No money, nowhere to stay’: asylum seekers wait as Trump’s border restrictions drag onRead moreThe legislation provides funding through 30 September 2023, for the US military and an array of non-military programs.The legislation provides Ukraine with $44.9bn in wartime aid and bans the use of Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on federal government devices.Progress on the bill slowed after the conservative Republican Mike Lee introduced an amendment meant to slow immigration. That prompted Democrats to put forward a competing amendment that would boost funding for law enforcement agencies on the border. Both amendments failed, which allowed lawmakers to move forward.The massive bill includes about $772.5bn for non-defense programs and $858bn for defense. Lawmakers raced to get it approved, many anxious to complete the task before a deep freeze could leave them stranded in Washington for the holidays. Many also wanted to lock in funding before a new Republican-controlled House makes it harder to find compromise.On Wednesday night, senators heard from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, about the importance of US aid for the war with Russia.“Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way,” Zelenskiy said.The funding measure includes emergency assistance to Ukraine and Nato allies above Joe Biden’s request.The Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the worst thing Congress could do was give the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, any signal the US was wavering in its commitment to Ukraine. He also said he met Zelenskiy.“He made it clear that without this aid package, the Ukrainians will be in real trouble and could even lose the war,” Schumer said. “So that makes the urgency of getting this legislation done all the more important.”But when lawmakers left the chamber, prospects for a quick vote looked glum. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said the funding bill was “hanging by a thread”.Republicans were looking to ensure a vote on a proposed amendment from Lee, of Utah, seeking to extend coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions on asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, known as Title 42. Passage of the amendment would have doomed the bill in the Democratic-held House.“Senator Schumer doesn’t want to have a vote on Title 42 because he presumably knows it will pass,” said Mitt Romney, the other Utah Republican. But the House won’t go along in that case, he added, in which case “everything falls apart”.Lee told Fox News: “I insisted that we have at least one amendment, up-or-down vote, on whether to preserve Title 42. Because Title 42 is the one thing standing between us and utter chaos [at the border]. We already have mostly chaos. This would bring us to utter chaos if it expires, which it’s about to.”The spending bill was supported by Schumer and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, for different reasons.McConnell cited the bill’s 10% boost in defense spending but faced pushback from Republicans resenting being forced to vote on such a massive package with so little time before a shutdown and Christmas. It was expected, however, that enough Republicans agreed with McConnell that the bill would reach 60 votes.Schumer touted the bill as a win on the domestic front, saying: “Kids, parents, veterans, nurses, workers: these are just a few of the beneficiaries of our bipartisan funding package, so there is every reason in the world for the Senate to finish its work as soon as possible.”Lawmakers worked to stuff priorities into the package, which ran to 4,155 pages. It included $27bn in disaster funding and an overhaul of federal election law to prevent presidents or candidates trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul was a response to Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republicans to object to Biden’s victory.Hunter Biden hires Jared Kushner lawyer to face Republican investigatorsRead moreThe bill also contained policy changes lawmakers worked to include, to avoid having to start over in the new Congress next year. Examples included the provision from Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, to ban TikTok on government cellphones. A provision supported by Maine would aid the state’s lobster and Jonah crab fisheries, delaying regulations to help save North Atlantic right whales.On the healthcare front, the bill requires states to keep children enrolled in Medicaid on coverage for at least a year. Millions could still start to lose coverage on 1 April because the bill sunsets a requirement of the Covid-19 emergency that prohibited kicking people off Medicaid.The bill also provides roughly $15.3bn for more than 7,200 projects lawmakers sought for their states. Fiscal conservatives criticize such spending as unnecessary.The Senate appropriations committee chairman, Patrick Leahy, a Democrat retiring after nearly five decades in the chamber, praised bipartisan support for the measure following months of negotiations.His Republican counterpart, Richard Shelby, who also is retiring, said of the 4,155-page bill: “It’s got a lot of stuff in it. A lot of good stuff.”House Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, probably the next speaker, had asked colleagues in the Senate to support only a short-term extension. A notice sent by leadership to House members urged them to vote against the measure.TopicsUS CongressUS SenateUS politicsUS domestic policyUS foreign policyUS militaryUS healthcarenewsReuse this content More

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      Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of office

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      Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of office Critics say Republican Doug Ducey’s scheme is illegal because makeshift barrier is being erected on tribal and federal landA makeshift new barrier built with shipping containers is being illegally erected along part of the US-Mexico border by Arizona’s Republican governor – before he has to hand over the keys of his office to his Democratic successor in January.Doug Ducey is driving a project that is placing double-stacked old shipping containers through several miles of national forest, attempting to fill gaps in Donald Trump’s intermittent border fencing.The rusting hulks, topped with razor wire and with bits of metal jammed into gaps, stretch for more than three miles through Coronado national forest land, south of Tucson, and the governor has announced plans to extend that up to 10 miles, at a cost of $95m (£78m).Ducey’s shipping container wall on the AZ-MX border is worse than I imagined. I went down yesterday to see it myself for a Border Chronicle story. Imagine 10 miles of this through a national wildlife forest. This is happening right now👇👇 pic.twitter.com/mqCjVo59iA— Melissa del Bosque (@MelissaLaLinea) November 30, 2022
      The area, with mountain ranges rising abruptly from the desert and a diverse environment of plants and animals, is federal land maintained by the US Forest Service.Ducey had first experimented with a smattering of shipping containers in August in Yuma, in the south-west corner of the state, bordering California and Mexico, aiming to stop migrants and asylum seekers.Since Donald Trump implemented the Title 42 rule in 2020 when he was president, which closed ports of entry to most seeking asylum in the US, people have sought gaps in barriers elsewhere in order to request asylum from border agents. The rule appears still to be on track to end later this month although a long legal battle is taking place.Ducey issued an executive order in August to erect old shipping containers near Yuma, and 11 days later workers had installed 130 of what he described as “22ft-high, double stacked, state-owned, 8,800lb, 9x40ft containers, linked together and welded shut”.In October, Ducey filed a lawsuit in which he claimed that the federal land along the border known as the Roosevelt Reservation actually belongs to the state, not the US government, and that Arizona has the constitutional right to protect itself against what he termed an invasion, citing “countless migrants” resulting in “a mix of drug, crime and humanitarian issues”.US attorneys issued a withering response, refuting the claims.The US Bureau of Reclamation and the Cocopah tribal nation said that Ducey was violating federal law by placing the containers on federal and tribal land there. In a letter, the bureau demanded that the state remove the containers. But the state has not, and has since been emboldened to embark on the larger project now proceeding apace more than 300 miles to the east.The Cochise county sheriff, Mark Dannels, supports the new series of shipping containers being placed in his county, hoping “it will deter crime and stop criminal behavior”.But as the line of metal boxes snakes west towards adjacent Santa Cruz county, the sheriff there, David Hathaway, told the Nogales International newspaper that if anyone tries to put the containers in his jurisdiction they will be arrested for illegal dumping.Dinah Bear, an attorney and former general counsel for the council on environmental quality within the executive office of the White House said Ducey’s lawsuit was “shockingly bad” and “frivolous”.“There’s just no question that this is federal property,” she added, as well as being public land, meaning “there’s no legal difference between the land they’re putting the shipping containers on and Grand Canyon national park.”To block the project, she said US Forest Service agents “would definitely want a court order from a judge … They’re not going to go down to the border and have a shootout with state police or arrest the governor at the [state] capitol.”Federal judge David Campbell, based in Phoenix, is presiding over the case, but no hearing has been called yet.“The clock is ticking,” Bear said, with courts backed up and the holidays approaching.The incoming Arizona governor, Democrat Katie Hobbs, who will assume office on 2 January after beating Republican candidate Kari Lake in the midterm elections, has said she will remove the containers.Bear predicts Campbell will order the removal.But before that happens, they are being laid down by a contractor called AshBritt, a Florida-based disaster remediation firm. A local media investigation found that Ducey’s announced $6m cost for the Yuma barriers had actually cost $13m.Daily protests by locals alarmed at the project have slowed what was breakneck-speed installation, but not managed to halt it.Meanwhile, Mark Ruggiero, the former Sierra Vista district ranger for the US Forest Service in Cochise county, said the shipping containers are a hazard that jeopardize a binational firefighting agreement with Mexico.“I was shocked to see this barrier going in,” he said. “It’s an illegal action on public land.”As a barrier for humans, the double-stacked boxes are not much of an obstacle, but they are an existential threat to endangered migratory species, especially jaguars and ocelots, as well as being an eyesore. Emily Burns, program director for Sky Island Alliance, a binational conservation nonprofit that tracks wildlife in the Coronado national forest said: “There was no environmental review or planning or mitigation that was done.”The Center for Biological Diversity was allowed to join the federal government as a defendant in Ducey’s lawsuit and has slammed the barrier as damaging and a political stunt.Meanwhile, Burns noted that her organization has 70 wildlife cameras in this stretch of border and they rarely see migrants crossing there.TopicsArizonaUS-Mexico borderUS immigrationRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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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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      Ice inadvertently posted personal information of 6,252 people in custody

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      Ice inadvertently posted personal information of 6,252 people in custodyWorry after agency spreadsheet was erroneously posted online ‘while performing routine updates’ and was up for about five hours US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Wednesday that it had inadvertently posted to its website the personal information of more than 6,000 people in its custody.The information included names, nationalities, detention centers where the people were held and unique numbers used to identify them in government records, according to Human Rights First, an advocacy group that discovered the leak on Monday.All 6,252 people whose identities were exposed had earlier expressed fear of persecution if courts denied their bids to remain in the US and were returned home, according to Human Rights First.Eleanor Acer, the group’s senior director for refugee protection, said she worried that detainees or their families might be in danger in their home countries.“In some countries people are targeted, retaliated against for seeking asylum,” the Associated Press reported Acer saying.Ice said an Excel spreadsheet was erroneously posted “while performing routine updates” and was up for about five hours. It said it deleted the information 11 minutes after being notified.“Though unintentional, this release of information is a breach of policy and the agency is investigating the incident and taking all corrective actions necessary,” Ice said in a statement.It said it would tell detainees or their attorneys of the leak, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.“This will allow noncitizens or their attorneys-of-record to determine whether the disclosure may impact the merits of their protection claim,” an Ice spokesperson said.The Los Angeles Times also reported that the government will notify individuals who downloaded the information that they should delete it, and that Ice is monitoring the internet for potential reposting.Diana Rashid, a managing attorney of the National Immigrant Justice Center, told the paper her organization was concerned over the disclosure of the identity of one of her clients, a Mexican woman.“We are deeply concerned about our client’s safety after Ice publicly shared this very sensitive information about her and thousands of others like her,” Rashid said.“She is seeking protection from removal because she fears persecution if returned to her country of origin. Revealing this information makes her more vulnerable to the persecution and abuses she fears if deported.”Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, echoed similar sentiments, telling the paper: “The US government has a crucial obligation to hold asylum seekers’ names and information in confidence so they don’t face retaliation or further harm by the governments or individuals whose persecution they fled.“Ice’s publication of confidential data is illegal and ethically unconscionable, a mistake that must never be repeated.”TopicsUS immigrationUS-Mexico borderUS politicsnewsReuse this content More