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      Republicans and Democrats send dueling delegations to US border

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      Republicans and Democrats sent dueling delegations to the southern US border on Friday, in an attempt to frame perceptions of the Biden administration’s immigration policy amid an uptick in recent weeks in border crossings by undocumented migrants.A group of Republican senators led by Ted Cruz of Texas presented their trip as an exposé of dire circumstances, with Cruz sharing video of himself on Thursday night standing in darkness next to the Rio Grande river and falsely warning about a “flood” of human smuggling.A group of Democratic members of the House of Representatives led by Joaquín Castro of Texas described a different vulnerability at the border, that of unaccompanied children held by the US government.The Democratic delegation planned on Friday to visit children at a Department of Health and Human Services facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, to ensure “that they’re treated humanely”, Castro said.Beto O’Rourke, the former representative from El Paso, Texas, blasted Cruz on Twitter on Friday for what O’Rourke implied was a political charade designed to slow the momentum of Joe Biden, who has presided over a successful coronavirus vaccine rollout, signed an $1.9tn economic relief package and announced plans for a similar big spend on infrastructure.“The truth is, the number of individual asylum seekers and immigrants seeking to come to this country is the SAME or LOWER than it was in 2019 when [Donald] Trump was President (and you were, apparently, Senator),” O’Rourke sniped at Cruz. “This isn’t any more of a crisis today than it was then.”After two election cycles in which the former president’s strategy of fearmongering about supposed pressure on the border produced a Republican rout in midterm elections and then his own defeat, Cruz and colleagues returned to the strategy once again with a two-day, high-profile tour of border areas that included almost one quarter of the party’s senators.One member of the delegation, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, tweeted video from a visibly crowded border detention facility on Friday, claiming the facility was holding almost 10 times its intended capacity.Cruz was trying on Friday to get the hashtag “#Bidenbordercrisis” going on Twitter.Biden said in a news conference on Thursday: “I’m ready to work with any Republican who wants to help solve the problem. Or make the situation better.”But the president sought to draw a sharp line between his border policies and those of his predecessor.“The idea that I’m going to say, which I would never do, ‘If an unaccompanied child ends up at the border, we’re just going to let him starve to death and stay on the other side’ – no previous administration did that either, except Trump,” Biden said. “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it.”Trump enacted a policy of family separation at the border, taking more than 5,500 children from their parents and then failing to keep track of the separated families, ultimately stranding hundreds of children whose parents could not be found, according to court documents.Biden has placed Kamala Harris in charge of addressing the situation on the border. In an interview earlier this week the vice-president said that she and Biden would “absolutely” visit the border in person.“They should all be going back. All be going back,” Biden said of people crossing the border. “The only people we are not going to leave sitting there on the other side of the Rio Grande with no help are children.”Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said a nine-year-old child from Mexico died last week while trying to reach the US border.“US border patrol agents assigned to Del Rio sector’s marine unit rescued two migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande, March 20,” the agency said in a statement released on Thursday. “US border patrol marine unit agents responded to assist three individuals stranded on an island on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River.”Border agents administered first aid to the three migrants. Two of them, a woman from Guatemala and her three-year-old child, regained consciousness, but the third, a child from Mexico, did not and was later pronounced dead by medical officials.“We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of this small child,” the Del Rio sector chief patrol agent, Austin L Skero II, said in the statement.A member of the Democratic border delegation, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, spotlighted the plight of children held in US border detention facilities.“Heading to the southern border with 7 year old Jakelin Caal on my mind,” Tlaib tweeted on Friday morning. “She died in detention, in our care, in 2018. I want to make sure no child dies like this, with conditions that we control.” More

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      Biden pushed on immigration in press conference but provides no clear answers – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      California expands vaccine access to everyone 16 and older starting April 15

      3.56pm EDT
      15:56

      Biden says he expects US troops to leave Afghanistan by next year

      2.42pm EDT
      14:42

      Biden press conference summary

      2.07pm EDT
      14:07

      Biden says he plans to run for re-election in 2024

      1.29pm EDT
      13:29

      Biden announces goal of 200 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days

      12.30pm EDT
      12:30

      Today so far

      Live feed

      Show

      5.44pm EDT
      17:44

      The West Virginia house passed legislation today that would ban transgender students from playing on the sports teams that match their gender, part of a wave of Republican bills across the country that target trans children.
      The bill, which heads to the state’s senate, is one of more than 80 proposed bills so far this year that seek to restrict trans rights – most that would limit youth access to sports and block trans kids’ use of gender-affirming care.
      Arkansas is close to passing legislation that would outlaw affirming-care for youth and punish doctors who treat trans kids, despite the fact that major medical associations recommend this care as the best practice. That state bill would also prohibit health insurance from covering certain care for all trans people.
      Mississippi signed a sports ban bill this month, and the legislatures in Tennessee and Arkansas both sent similar proposals to their governors earlier this week.
      More reading here on how trans children became the target in the GOP’s culture wars:

      And more reading on the proposed healthcare bans:

      Updated
      at 5.52pm EDT

      5.12pm EDT
      17:12

      Hello – Sam Levin in Los Angeles, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day. My California colleagues Abené Clayton and Lois Beckett, who have been reporting on gun violence for years, have written about all the ways our current gun debate in America is wrong:

      Lois Beckett
      (@loisbeckett)
      Between us, @abene_writes and I have been covering gun violence in America for more than a decade. We wrote about why America’s current gun debate makes us so angry–and why this debate will never make us safer. https://t.co/6bePzC2nc4 pic.twitter.com/xyQp1kq2S4

      March 25, 2021

      The “solutions” offered today would do little to stem the daily death toll. The assault rifle bans and universal background checks reflexively supported by progressives will do little to decrease the bulk of shooting incidents: suicides and community violence. Approaches that have stronger evidence of saving lives, like intensive city-level support programs for the men and boys most at risk of being shot or becoming shooters, hospital-based violence intervention programs, or even more effective policing strategies, rarely get discussed on a national level. Even Democrats seem to prefer fighting a high-profile, losing battle with Republicans over gun control laws, rather than devoting time and focus to less partisan prevention efforts.

      More here:

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague Sam Levin will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Joe Biden was grilled on his immigration policies during his first presidential press conference. The president attempted to downplay the recent increase in migrants attempting to enter the US, noting that the country usually sees a seasonal fluctuation in border arrival numbers. However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track to record the highest number of migrant arrivals in two decades. Biden said of his immigration policies, “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better.”
      Biden pledged to administer 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses over his first 100 days in office, doubling his initial pledge of 100 million doses. The Biden administration hit that initial goal on Friday, weeks ahead of schedule, and the US has administered about 2.5 million vaccine doses a day over the past week. “I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close, not even close to what we are doing,” Biden said. “I think we can do it.”
      Biden said he expected to run for re-election in 2024. “My plan is to run for re-election,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.” But when pressed on whether he would commit to running for a second term, the president gave himself some wiggle room, saying he could not predict the future.
      The president said he expected all US troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by next year. “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” Biden said. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.” When asked if US troops would be in Afghanistan next year, the president replied, “I can’t picture that being the case.”
      The Boulder shooting suspect made his first appearance in court. The attorney of Ahmad Alissa requested a mental health assessment for her client, who will be held without bail as he faces 10 counts of first-degree murder.
      The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before the House for a hearing on online disinformation. The energy and commerce committee hearing marked the first time that the CEOs – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – have testified before Congress since the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

      Sam will having more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.09pm EDT

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      California expands vaccine access to everyone 16 and older starting April 15

      All Californians aged 16 and older will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine starting 15 April, the state’s governor just announced.
      “With vaccine supply increasing and by expanding eligibility to more Californians, the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter,” Democrat Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
      “We remain focused on equity as we extend vaccine eligibility to those 50 and over starting April 1, and those 16 and older starting April 15. This is possible thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration and the countless public health officials across the state who have stepped up to get shots into arms.”

      Gavin Newsom
      (@GavinNewsom)
      NEW: CA is expanding eligibility for the #COVID19 vaccine.Beginning April 1, Californians 50+ will be able to sign up for an appointment.Beginning April 15, eligibility will be expanded to everyone 16 and older.The light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter.

      March 25, 2021

      Newsom said that he expected California to be administering more than 3 million vaccine doses a week in the second half of April.
      Newsom’s announcement comes on the heels of other states, including Georgia and North Carolina, announcing that coronavirus vaccines will soon be made available to all adult residents.
      Joe Biden said earlier this month that he expected all American adults to be eligible to receive a vaccine by 1 May. During his press conference today, the president set a goal of administering 200 million vaccine doses over his first 100 days in office, doubling his initial promise of administering 100 million doses.

      Updated
      at 5.10pm EDT

      4.24pm EDT
      16:24

      David Smith

      Has the fever in American politics finally broken? After a sickness that lasted four long years, it seems the patient is on the road to recovery.
      That was the impression of Joe Biden’s first presidential press conference on Thursday. For a start, there were no lies or insults or speculations about the medicinal benefits of bleach. Sometimes Biden was earnest, sometimes he was dull, sometimes he offered an avuncular chuckle. He was solid.
      But equally telling were the questions from 10 reporters in the White House press corps. No look-in for the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed half a million Americans. Not much about the fragile nature of democracy except for Republicans’ assault on voting rights – a phenomenon that predates Donald Trump.
      Instead the main focus at the hour-long event were hardy perennials about the US-Mexico border, the war in Afghanistan, relations with China, infrastructure, the next election and the filibuster, a Senate parliamentary procedure unlikely to excite the rest of the world.
      In short, it was another victory for Biden in his quest to snap American political life back to normal and create the perception that the Trump years were a nightmare from which America has awoken. He seeks to replace it with a group yawn. That is why cable news ratings and news site traffic have plummeted since January. That is why people in Washington speak of having weekends again instead of jumping at every presidential tweet.
      It is not that Biden has been idle. His $1.9tn coronavirus relief package was passed by Democrats in Congress without Republican support and is truly historic. But he has done without shouting from the rooftops or trying to dominate every news cycle.

      4.05pm EDT
      16:05

      The White House has formally withdrawn the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
      The White House’s statement comes three weeks after Joe Biden announced Tanden’s nomination would be withdrawn, due to bipartisan opposition in the Senate over her past controversial tweets.

      Joan Greve
      (@joanegreve)
      The White House makes it official: the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget has been withdrawn. pic.twitter.com/CjD8YExpgU

      March 25, 2021

      Biden has not yet announced whom he will nominate to lead the OMB in Tanden’s place, but many Democrats are pushing him to select Shalanda Young.
      Young was confirmed as deputy OMB director earlier this week, and she is now serving as acting director of the agency until a full-time replacement is confirmed.
      If she were nominated and confirmed, Young would be the first African American woman to serve as OMB director.

      Updated
      at 4.26pm EDT

      3.56pm EDT
      15:56

      Biden says he expects US troops to leave Afghanistan by next year

      During his first presidential press conference, Joe Biden acknowledged it would be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, which was set by Donald Trump.
      “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” Biden said. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.”
      When asked if US troops would be in Afghanistan next year, the president replied, “I can’t picture that being the case.”

      CNN
      (@CNN)
      President Biden says it will be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline that the Trump administration had negotiated with the Taliban to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan https://t.co/uJ0J3QqO6h pic.twitter.com/Br3al3n89I

      March 25, 2021

      When Biden was vice-president, he said US troops would leave Afghanistan by 2014, as an AP reporter noted.
      Seven years later, that goal appears to finally be coming to fruition.

      James LaPorta
      (@JimLaPorta)
      President Biden as Vice President said in 2012 that we will leave Afghanistan in 2014. 7 years later, we’re still there. Maybe this is an area we should press for more answers? https://t.co/nYLdmFt9Tl pic.twitter.com/beWYO46tUM

      March 25, 2021

      3.31pm EDT
      15:31

      As Joe Biden held his first press conference as president, the House energy and commerce committee continued its hearing with the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter.
      The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:

      After a number of hate crimes against Asian Americans in recent weeks, Democratic representative Doris Matsui of California has directly asked Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg what they are doing to address anti-Asian hate on platforms. She also asked why they took so long to remove racist hashtags that promoted blame for the coronavirus pandemic on Asian Americans, citing the recent attack on Asian women in Atlanta as a consequence of these policies.
      ‘The issues we are discussing here are not abstract,’ she said. ‘They have real world consequences and implications that are too often measured in human lives.’
      She also cited a study that showed a substantial rise in hate speech the week after Donald Trump first used the term China flu in a tweet. Matsui suggested revisiting Section 230 protections.
      Dorsey said he will not ban the racist hashtags outright because ‘a lot of these hashtags contain counter speech’, or posts refuting the racism the hashtags initiated. Zuckerberg similarly said that hate speech policies at Facebook are ‘nuanced’ and that they have an obligation to protect free speech.

      For more updates and analysis from the hearing, follow Kari’s live blog:

      3.08pm EDT
      15:08

      Joe Biden sharply criticized Republican legislators attempting to pass voting restrictions after suffering losses in the November elections.
      “What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is,” Biden said during his press conference. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”

      CNN
      (@CNN)
      President Biden compares Republican efforts to restrict voting in many states to Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the South.”What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is,” he says. “It’s sick.” https://t.co/pMGX9DNjaT pic.twitter.com/zSjb779qZD

      March 25, 2021

      The president also made this confusing comment, comparing the Republican proposals to racial segregation laws: “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”
      The Guardian’s Sam Levine has more details on Republicans’ efforts to curtail voting rights:

      Seizing on Donald Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election, Republicans have launched a brazen attack on voting, part of an effort to entrench control over a rapidly changing electorate by changing the rules of democracy. As of mid-February, 253 bills were pending to restrict voting in 43 states. Many of those restrictions take direct aim at mail-in and early voting, the very policies that led to November’s record turnout.
      ‘The fragility of democracy has been exposed at levels that I think even white America was blind to,’ said [LaTosha] Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

      2.55pm EDT
      14:55

      During his first presidential press conference, Joe Biden was repeatedly pressed on the situation at the border, where officials have reported an increase in the number of migrants attempting to enter the country.

      Good Morning America
      (@GMA)
      .@CeciliaVega asks Pres. Biden if it’s acceptable that Donna, TX Customs and Border facility is at 1556% capacity, filled with mostly minors: “We’re going to be moving 1,000 of those kids out quickly…that is totally unacceptable.” https://t.co/SAQIOCZmGm pic.twitter.com/Pz8T6ePI6L

      March 25, 2021

      An ABC News reporter noted one customs and border patrol facility holding unaccompanied migrant children is at 1556% capacity. She asked Biden if he considered that to be acceptable.
      “That’s a serious question, right? Is it acceptable to me? Come on,” Biden said. “That’s why we’re going to be moving 1,000 of those kids out quickly.”
      The president expressed sympathy with parents who felt their best option was to send children off on the treacherous journey to the US, and he argued that trend demonstrated the need to address the underlying issues fueling this increase in migration.

      2.42pm EDT
      14:42

      Biden press conference summary

      Joe Biden has just wrapped up his first press conference as president. Here’s what happened:

      Biden set a new goal of administering 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses over his first 100 days as president. The announcement came a week after the White House announced it had already met Biden’s initial goal of administering 100 million doses over his first 100 days.
      The president said he planned to run for reelection in 2024. “My plan is to run for reelection,” Biden said. “That’s my expectation.” But when pressed on whether he would commit to running for a second term, the president gave himself some wiggle room, saying he could not predict the future.
      Biden faced a number of questions about the recent increase in migrants attempting to enter the US. The president attempted to downplay the recent increase, noting that the country usually sees a seasonal fluctuation in border numbers. However, the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said the US is on track to record the highest number of migrant arrivals in two decades. At the end of his press conference, Biden said of his immigration policies, “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better.”
      The president delivered some of his most critical comments yet on the Senate filibuster. Biden reiterated his proposal to reform the filibuster into a “talking filibuster” to discourage its widespread use. But the president then went a step further, telling reporters, “If we have to, if there’s complete lockdown and chaos as a result of the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I’m talking about.” Biden also said he agreed with Barack Obama’s assessment that the filibuster is a relic of the Jim Crow era.
      Reporters did not ask a single question about the coronavirus pandemic. Commentators quickly criticized reporters’ oversight, given that the pandemic has already claimed more than 500,000 American lives.

      The blog will have more analysis coming up, so stay tuned.

      2.34pm EDT
      14:34

      Joe Biden concluded his press conference after about an hour, having taken questions from 10 reporters.
      The final question the president took had to do with the situation at the southern border. A Univision reporter noted that US customs and border patrol has not been notifying migrant children’s family members about their arrival to the US in a timely manner.
      Biden acknowledged that it will take time for his administration to improve communications and processes within the immigration system.
      “I can’t guarantee we’re going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we’re going to make it better,” Biden said.
      Asked whether he would be able to work with Republicans on immigration reform, Biden said, “They have to posture for a while. They’ve just got to get it out of their system.”

      2.26pm EDT
      14:26

      Joe Biden was asked whether he would take executive action to address gun violence, after the recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder.
      “It’s all about timing,” the president said of potential executive orders.
      Biden then quickly pivoted to discussing infrastructure, saying that would be his next primary focus after signing the coronavirus relief bill.
      The president is scheduled to deliver remarks on his “Build Back Better” agenda in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, next week.

      2.21pm EDT
      14:21

      Joe Biden was asked about the US-Chinese relationship, and he noted he plans to soon invite an “alliance of democracies” to Washington to discuss matters related to China.
      Biden said that Chinese President Xi Jinping “doesn’t have a democratic — with a small ‘d’ — bone in his body, but he’s a smart, smart guy.”
      The president pledged to continue to highlight human rights abuses in China “in an unrelenting way,” as long as they continue. More

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      Mayorkas blames Trump for border woes as Republicans attack Biden

      by

      The Biden administration is facing mounting pressure over a surge of unaccompanied migrant children crossing into the US, with the numbers seeking asylum at a 20-year high that is placing federal facilities and shelters under immense strain.The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, took to the political talk show circuit on Sunday to press the administration’s case that it is doing all it can. He continued to refer to the problem as a “challenge” not a “crisis”, attempting to put blame squarely on the previous incumbent of the White House, Donald Trump.“It is taking time and it is difficult because the entire system was dismantled by the prior administration,” Mayorkas told CNN’s State of the Union. “There was a system in place that was torn down by the Trump administration.”On ABC’s This Week, Mayorkas highlighted the tougher aspects of Joe Biden’s border policy, stressing that the administration was still expelling families and single adults under a regulation known as Title 42. He insisted largely Central American migrants arriving in increasing numbers were being given a clear message: “Do not come. The border is closed. The border is secure.”But prominent Republicans have seized on the border difficulties as an opportunity to attack Biden for being soft on immigration.There was a system in place that was torn down by the Trump administration“This is a crisis,” Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, has said. “I don’t care what the administration wants to call it – it is a crisis.”Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas and ardent Trump loyalist, lambasted the secretary’s position as “nonsense”.In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Cotton characterized the Biden administration’s stance as “basically saying the United States will not secure the border, and that’s a big welcome sign to migrants from across the world [saying] the border is wide open”.He went on to make lurid allegations, backed up with no evidence, that the focus on unaccompanied children at the border was allowing criminals smuggling fentanyl and other drugs as well as people on “terrorist watch lists” to slip into the US undetected.Political steam over border affairs has been building for two months. In one of his first acts as president, Biden scrapped Trump’s hardline policy of sending unaccompanied children seeking asylum back to Mexico.Under Biden’s guidelines, unaccompanied minors were exempted from the Title 42 rules and shielded from expulsion. That was deemed in line with the president’s pledge to achieve a “fair, safe and orderly” immigration system.On Sunday, Mayorkas said the new approach addressed the humanitarian needs of migrant children “in a way that reflects our values and principles as a country”. But in the past few weeks, the numbers of minors seeking asylum has grown so rapidly that it has outpaced capacity to process the children in line with immigration laws.He is basically saying the United States will not secure the borderMore than 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children are being detained in Custom and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in Texas and Arizona. As a backlog of cases has built up, more than 500 have been kept in custody for more than 10 days, well beyond the 72 hours allowed under immigration law.There have been reports of overcrowding and harsh conditions in federal facilities in Texas. The Associated Press reported that some children were said by immigration lawyers to be sleeping on the floor after bedding ran out.The government has tried to move as many children as possible into shelters run by the US Refugee Office, but they in turn have become stressed. There are now more than 9,500 children in shelters and short-term housing along the border. Non-governmental groups working with migrants and refugees have been forced to scramble to deal with the sudden demand for shelter.As the administration struggles to keep a grip on events, it is also coming under criticism from Republicans and media outlets for refusing to allow reporters inside the beleaguered CBP facilities where children are being held. On Friday, Mayorkas visited El Paso in Texas with a bipartisan congressional delegation. Reporters were not allowed to follow them.The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz, called the move “outrageous and unacceptable”. In a tweet, he said: “No press. No cameras. What is Biden hiding?”Quizzed by Fox News Sunday about the apparent lack of accountability, despite Biden’s promise to bring “trust and transparency” back to public affairs, Mayorkas said the administration was “working on providing access” to border patrol stations.But he added: “First things first – we are focused on operations and executing our plans.”While the political heat is rising at the border, moves are under way in Washington to try and find a longer-term fix to the age-old immigration conundrum. Last week the House of Representatives passed a bill that would give “Dreamers”, undocumented migrants brought to the US as children, a pathway to citizenship.The legislation has an uncertain future in the Senate, given its 50-50 split and the need to reach 60 votes to pass most major legislation.Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois who has introduced a similar Dream Act to the Senate five times in the past 20 years, told CNN that he thought he was close to securing the necessary 60 votes. He also decried the current debate about whether there was a “crisis” or “challenge” at the border.“We need to address our immigration laws in this country that are broken,” he said. “What you see at the border is one piece of evidence of that, but there’s much more.” More

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      US to house some migrant families in hotels in shift by Biden administration

      by

      Some migrant families arriving in the US will be housed in hotels under a new program managed by nonprofit organizations, according to two people familiar with the plans, a move away from for-profit detention centers criticized by Democrats and health experts.Endeavors, a San Antonio-based organization, will oversee what it calls “family reception sites” at hotels in Texas and Arizona, the sources said. The organization, in partnership with other nonprofits, will initially provide up to 1,400 beds in seven different brand-name hotels for families deemed vulnerable.The opening of the reception centers would mark a significant shift by the administration of Joe Biden. In January, Biden issued an order directing the justice department not to renew its contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. However, the order did not address immigration jails run by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Roughly 1,200 migrants were being held in two family detention centers in Texas as of Wednesday, according to an Ice spokeswoman. A third center in Pennsylvania is no longer being used to hold families. The spokeswoman did not comment on the plan to house families in hotels.The number of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border has climbed as Biden has rolled back some of the hardline policies of former president Donald Trump. Biden, who took office on 20 January, has faced criticism from Republicans. Some Democrats opposed re-opening a Trump-era emergency shelter for children.The hotel sites, set to open in April, will offer Covid-19 testing, medical care, food services, social workers and case managers to help with travel and onward destinations, according to the two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter. Staff will be trained to work with children.It remained unclear whether migrants would be required to wear ankle bracelets or be subject to any other form of monitoring, the people said.The families will arrive at border patrol stations and then be sent to the hotel sites to continue immigration paperwork, the two sources said. They could leave the reception centers as soon as six hours after arrival if paperwork is completed, they test negative for Covid-19 and transportation has been arranged.Biden officials have said migrant families will be “expelled” to Mexico or their home countries under a Trump-era health order known as Title 42. But more than half of the 19,000 family members caught at the border in February were not expelled, with many released into the US.The housing of some migrants in hotels was reported by Axios earlier on Saturday.Endeavors will also operate a new 2,000-bed shelter for unaccompanied children in Texas, the sources said.The Biden administration has struggled to house a rising number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the US-Mexico border. More than 500 children were stuck in crowded border stations for more than 10 days as of Thursday.The new family and child facilities are expected to ramp up bed capacity gradually, the people familiar with the effort said. More

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      'Blindsided': Biden faces tough test in reversing Trump's cruel border legacy

      by

      Lauded for his human touch, Joe Biden is facing an early political and moral test over how his government treats thousands of migrant children who make the dangerous journey to America alone.

      Officials say the number of people caught attempting to cross the US-Mexico border is on pace to hit its highest number for 20 years. Single adults and families are being expelled under coronavirus safety rules inherited from Donald Trump.
      But a growing number of children, some as young as six years old, from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are arriving at the southern border without parents or guardians. These minors are brought to border patrol facilities – where many languish in cramped, prison-like conditions for days on end.
      The fast-developing humanitarian emergency shows how Biden’s determination to break from Trump’s harsh, nativist crackdown in favour of a more compassionate approach has collided with the reality of finite resources and a broken system.
      “I do think that they were blindsided by this surge,” said María Teresa Kumar, founding president of the grassroots political organisation Voto Latino. “As someone that monitored this a lot, I didn’t see that coming and I don’t think the community saw that coming. It took everybody by surprise.
      “It is heart-wrenching knowing that there are children that are cold and don’t have family. It’s one of these cases where there seems to be no right answers. Knowing the people inside the administration are very much on the side of immigrants speaks to me that there are real moral dilemmas happening right now and I would not want to be in that position.”

      Democrats have called the situation a “challenge” and “problem” and blamed Trump’s legacy. Republicans have rushed to brand it the first “crisis” and “disaster” of Biden’s presidency. The battle is proof that border access remains one of the most complex, emotive and radioactive issues in American politics.
      Trump launched his campaign for the presidency by promising to build a wall, routinely vilified migrants and, ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, spoke often of an “invasion”. Biden stopped construction of the wall and promised to unwind Trump’s zero-tolerance policies.
      The number of “encounters” between migrants and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has increased every month since April 2020. But when 100,441 migrants were reported attempting to cross the border last month, it was the highest level since March 2019 and included a particular rise in unaccompanied children.
      Many such children head to the US to reunite with family members or escape poverty, crime and violence. Central America has been hit by hurricanes and the economic fallout of Covid-19. In an ABC interview this week, Biden denied that more migrants were coming because he is “a nice guy”, insisting: “They come because their circumstance is so bad.”
      Under Trump, unaccompanied children were sent straight back to Mexico. Biden decided they should go to a border patrol facility and, within 72 hours, be transferred to the health department with a view to being placed with a family member or sponsor.
      However, it has quickly become clear the system is not fit for purpose, leaving about 4,500 children stuck in facilities designed for adult men. Lawyers who visited one facility in Texas described seeing children sleeping on the floor or on metal benches and being allowed outside for a few minutes every few days.
      The administration is scrambling to find more capacity, opening emergency shelters and using a convention centre in Dallas to house up to 3,000 teenage boys. It also deployed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which typically responds to floods, storms and other disasters, to help shelter and transport children at least until early June.
      Republicans seized on that move as evidence a disaster is unfolding. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, led a delegation of a dozen Republicans to El Paso, Texas, and spoke of “the Biden border crisis”, adding: “It’s more than a crisis. This is human heartbreak.”
      The message has resounded through a conservative media that finds Biden an elusive target. Trump made wildly exaggerated claims in a Fox News interview: “They’re destroying our country. People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, And, frankly, our country can’t handle it. It is a crisis like we have rarely had and, certainly, we have never had on the border.”
      For Republicans, reeling from election defeat, internal divisions and failure to block Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill, the border offers a political lifeline.
      Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “If the numbers go down next month this isn’t a crisis, but I think what they are expecting is that they’re not going to go down and that this is going to be something that will be an enduring and endemic problem.
      “It’s something that energises and unites the Trump voting coalition and could easily be seen as a failure on behalf of the administration by just enough of the people who voted for him but aren’t hardcore Democrats. So I think it’s a very smart move by Republicans to play this out and Biden needs to figure out how you can be compassionate while not being naively welcoming. He has not yet figured out how to do that.”

      Others, however, regard the Republican response as predictable ploy by a party obsessed with demonising migrants. Kumar said: “They’re phonies and it is coldly calculated because they know they have problems with suburban white women voters, and they are trying to make a case for it for the midterms.
      “It’s cynical and gross because when children were literally dying at the border, when they had a president that was teargassing refugees, not one of them stood up. It’s callous and cold political expediency and it’s shameful.”
      The White House has pointed out that the Trump administration forcibly separated nearly 3,000 children from parents, with no system in place to reunite them. Alejandro Mayorkas, the first migrant and first Latino in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress: “A crisis is when a nation is willing to rip a nine-year-old child out of the hands of his or her parent and separate that family to deter future migration. That, to me, is a humanitarian crisis.”
      Mayorkas argues that Trump’s decision to cut staffing, bed capacity and other resources was reckless given the likelihood that the number of migrants would rise again as the pandemic waned.
      “The system was gutted,” he said, “facilities were closed and they cruelly expelled young children into the hands of traffickers. We have had to rebuild the entire system, including the policies and procedures required to administer the asylum laws that Congress passed long ago.” More

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      Is there a crisis at the border?: a look at both sides of the immigration argument

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      Along the winding road which follows the Rio Grande west from Mission, Texas, dozens of armed border patrol agents, state troopers, soldiers, and state and local police are dotted about to catch undocumented migrants entering the country from Mexico.This is a so-called hotspot for irregular migration – folks crossing the border river without permission to enter the US – in what the Republican party and anti-immigrant activists are calling a crisis at the border. During one afternoon this week, there were more law enforcement vehicles cruising along this dusty 15-mile stretch towards Los Ebanos, a tiny border community connected to Mexico by a hand operated cable ferry, than there was local traffic.For a couple of hours nothing much happens, until agents chase down a group – six men, and one woman – trying to hide in the dry vegetation.They are handcuffed and processed on the side of the road, each giving their name, age and country of origin to a bilingual border patrol agent, before placing personal belongings – wallet, jewellery and phone – into individual plastic bags. The sun is piercing; the migrants look exhausted.Christian, a lanky 20-year-old from Santa Bárbara,Honduras, seems utterly bewildered by what’s just gone down. His family’s crops were destroyed last November when two deadly hurricanes – Eta and Iota – struck within two weeks of each other. The land was flooded for two months, leaving them no harvest and unable to prepare for next season. “There are no jobs, and we have no money or food,” he said, shaking his head.Christian is among a rapidly rising number of climate refugees from Central America – one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the impacts of global heating.Emerson, 25, a member of the indigenous Maya Q’eqchi community from Puerto Barrios in Izabal, Guatemala, left behind his wife and two young daughters, hoping to find work. “I’m a machinery mechanic, but the work went down with the pandemic and then things got much worse with Hurricane Eta.”Ingrid, one of two Salvadorans, said she’s 18 but looks much younger. She’s wearing two plastic wristbands – one red, the other white – which reports suggest are used by coyotes (smugglers or guides) to indicate payments had been made to organized crime groups who control the border.Ingrid lived with her uncle in Ilopango, a sprawling town on the outskirts of the Salvadoran capital with high levels of gang violence and police brutality, but said she’d come looking for work and a better life after the pandemic left them struggling to make ends meet. Covid has deepened poverty and hunger across Central America and Mexico, and governments have failed to provide adequate, if any, relief.The migrants were given disposable face masks before being searched and loaded into a green and white border patrol van. They will be expelled; some of them will undoubtedly try to cross again.The border patrol agents won’t answer any questions, but one said to his colleagues: “This is a good day’s work.” Another said he hoped we would give them good publicity.After four years of racist, chaotic, anti-immigration policies by the Trump administration – as well as growing desperation fuelled by the pandemic and extreme climate events – the number of people seeking to enter the US is rising.But advocates in the Rio Grande Valley, where undocumented migrants have long been relied upon for cheap farm labour, reject incendiary claims that the numbers are overwhelming.“Migration goes up and down, that’s the reality of the border. Biden has different values and has given people hope, but there’s no border crisis, to say so is political manipulation,” said Ramona Casas, director of the migrant advocacy group Arise. “We need to address the root causes and transform the broken immigration system, not more militarization.”The current uptick started before Biden’s election, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures.Jenn Budd, a former senior border patrol agent turned whistleblower, said: “The only crisis at the border is the children, which the administration is trying to deal with, anything else is simply not true and an attempt to play politics, make Biden look bad and ensure the money keeps flowing to the border security industry.”In 2000, a total of 9,212 border patrol agents detained an average of almost 137,000 undocumented migrants per month on the southern border. In the 2021 fiscal year until February, the average was just over 76,000 per month, but the number of agents is more than double compared to 2000.Earlier this month, the Texas governor Greg Abbott deployed state troopers and the national guard to the border after claiming, without evidence, that illegal immigrants were spreading the coronavirus.“The Biden administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have Covid into Texas communities,” said Abbott in a tweet on 3 March.But illegal or undocumented migrants are not being released into the US. The two groups being allowed in are some existing asylum seekers, thanks to the repeal of Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, and some new arrivals presenting at legal ports of entry, including unaccompanied children and young families, who have been permitted to remain in the country pending asylum court hearings. In Texas, everyone else continues to be turned back, say advocates.Abbott’s unsubstantiated Covid claims came shortly after he announced plans to end the state mask mandate and ordered businesses to reopen at 100% capacity. Texas has one of the slowest vaccination rates in the country. The White House has called out Abbott for refusing federal funds to pay for Covid mitigation measures for migrants.Last week, speaking at a press conference in Mission, Abbott said he’d seen people crossing the river illegally during an aerial tour of the area. “There is a crisis on the Texas border right now with the overwhelming number of people who are coming across the border. This crisis is a result of President Biden’s open border policies,” he said.A couple of days later CNN and Breitbart reported a story after coming across an alleged human trafficking incident within minutes of setting off on the river, from a launchpad behind the wall south-east of Mission where access is controlled by border patrol, which multiple advocates claim was staged to fuel rightwing propaganda.In the video, a man wearing a black balaclava is seen bringing a handful of migrants wearing facemasks and life vests across the river in a raft, with scores more lined up on the Mexican side, waiting to cross. The so-called smuggler then sets off to bring over another load.In general, smugglers try to blend in and so do not cover their faces, in order to pass off as a migrant and avoid trafficking charges if caught. The Guardian travelled 20 miles along the river, which is full of sensors, cameras, and other tracking devices, as well as regular patrols on the levy and river, making it unlikely that such a large group of people could go undetected. The Guardian did not see any people crossing the river.In downtown McAllen, the biggest city in the Rio Grande Valley, a young female volunteer gripping a clipboard leads a small group of Central American families from the Covid rapid testing site to the Catholic Charities respite center where they can shower, rest, make phone calls and eat a modest meal before heading to be with relatives with whom they should stay until their asylum case is ruled on by an immigration court.CBP has released a hundred or more new arrivals every day – all families with children under the age of six seeking asylum at a port of entry – for the past few weeks compared to just a handful before Biden took office.The largest Rio Grande Valley detention center is closed for remodeling, which along with Covid restrictions has reduced capacity and partially explains the transfer of unaccompanied children to other sectors and the release of families into the care of relatives.The rise is significant but manageable, according to Norma Pimentel, director of the respite center.On arrival, the exhausted families are ushered into large white tents erected opposite the bustling bus terminal, where everyone is tested for Covid – a service run by local health officials. Anyone who tests positive must quarantine in a local hotel for two weeks.“There’s a pandemic, so of course some migrants will have Covid, that’s why we’re testing them to keep everyone safe. If the governor cares about the community, why did he refuse federal funds? He’s not interested in solving the problem, he’d rather spend money militarizing our communities and creating an illusion of war,” said Pimentel. “Everyone should be given a fair chance to claim asylum safely, but we need to address the root causes, we will never fix this at the border.”CBP did not respond to questions. As the partisan finger pointing intensifies, desperate people try to change their lives.On a bench in front of the respite center, Alicia Barrios, 31, from Guatemala City, cannot hold back the tears. Barrios, who is seven months pregnant, arrived at the border last week with her husband Nelson Gonzales, 27, and four-year-old daughter Brittany, after a gruelling, four-week overland journey through Mexico. Both have lost weight, and Barrios recalls long nights sleeping in the open air, comforting her daughter as she cried because she was hungry and cold.In Guatemala, they barely had enough to eat over the past year as the economy collapsed and a strict curfew made many odd jobs impossible; Barrios hasn’t had any antenatal care as the hospitals are overwhelmed. She’s waiting for her brother in Houston to send them bus fare, and doesn’t yet understand the lengthy legal process which lies ahead.“The journey was very hard, but we don’t want our children to suffer like we did. I’m so grateful that we made it.” More

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      US House passes bill that would give Dreamers a path to citizenship

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would give undocumented immigrants, including “Dreamers”, a pathway to citizenship. The House on Thursday voted 228 to 197, largely along party lines, to set up a legal pathway to citizenship for Dreamers – people who came to the US as undocumented minors and who received temporary protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program.The bill, called the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021, would also grant green cards for many immigrants who have fled war or natural disasters and are residing in the US with a temporary protected status. In all, it could make 4.4 million people eligible for permanent residence in the US, according to the Migration Policy Institute.Nine Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure.Representatives also voted 247-174 Thursday on a second bill, which would grant legal status for undocumented farmworkers. Both measures passed in 2019, as well, with some Republican support – but the measures are likely to join a growing list of legislation that will hit a wall in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans have vowed to block proposals with the filibuster.The measures are among several attempts by Democrats to reverse Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies. They also coincide with Joe Biden’s efforts to address the number of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border, many of whom are fleeing dangerous conditions in Central America.The Dreamer bill would grant conditional legal status for 10 years to many undocumented immigrants who were brought into the US as children. During Thursday’s debate, the Democratic representative Pramila Jayapal noted she had come from India to the US alone at the age of 16, saying: “Let’s stop the hypocrisy of criminalizing immigrants.”Immigrant rights groups celebrated the news of its passage. “This is a result of years of organizing and pressure from the immigrant rights movement, but we’ll continue to hold our celebration until the very end,” tweeted the advocacy group Raices.As president, Trump rescinded the Obama-era Daca program, which offered temporary protection from deportation to Dreamers. However, the supreme court ruled in 2020 that Trump’s move had been unlawful.The Biden White House backed both bills. But it also urged lawmakers to adopt broader reforms in Biden’s sweeping immigration bill introduced last month, saying this would secure the border and “address the root causes of instability and unsafe conditions causing migration from Central America”.“We can’t keep waiting,” Biden wrote on Twitter. “I urge Congress to come together to find long term solutions to our entire immigration system so we can create a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system, tackle the root causes of migration and legalize the undocumented population in the United States.”Biden’s wide-ranging plan would provide a path to US citizenship to the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. But the Senate’s No 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, said this week that goal does not have enough support in the House or Senate.The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, panned the House efforts on Thursday, saying they would exacerbate problems at the border, further dimming prospects in that chamber, where a supermajority of at least 60 of 100 members are needed for most legislation to advance.And even if the Dreamers bill were to pass the Senate, it would still have limitations, including provisions around criminal history that could bar some young immigrants from legal status if they have committed a misdemeanor. It also gives the Department of Homeland Security discretion over which youths can be excluded from the path to citizenship, based on alleged gang affiliation or dispositions in juvenile court.Human Rights Watch and other groups have written to Democratic legislators asking them to strike provisions that would bar young immigrants who have been criminalized from becoming citizens.“If we learned anything in 2020, it’s that the policing and mass incarceration systems in this country are fundamentally rigged against Black and Latinx people,” said Jacinta González, the senior campaign organizer for the advocacy group Mijente, who criticised the bill for being “designed to strip access to Biden’s promise of immigration reform from people who have experienced police contact. Criminalization born of a racist system cannot be the measure by which we determine who belongs and who goes.” More

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      Biden tells migrants 'don't come over' US border as he tackles inherited 'mess'

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      Joe Biden told immigrants making the difficult journey to the US-Mexico border “don’t come over” as the administration attempts to respond to an increase of unaccompanied children seeking asylum.In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, aired in full on Wednesday morning, the US president also discussed vaccines, Vladimir Putin and the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo.Biden said his plan for the immediate issue of children needing safety at the border was to increase the number of beds available and speed up the process of placing children with sponsors in the US while their legal cases play out.“We will have, I believe by next month, enough of those beds to take care of these children who have no place to go,” Biden said.In the interview Biden was also critical of the existing process for migrants. “You have to try and get control of the mess that was inherited,” Biden said.Longer-term, Biden said his plan for the border included creating programs to address the factors driving people from their home countries – including violence, poverty, corruption and the climate crisis – and to allow children to apply for asylum from those countries, instead of at the border. “They come because their circumstance is so bad,” Biden said.But he emphasized that the US was still blocking most asylum-seeking adults and many families from pursuing their claims at the border. “I can say quite clearly: don’t come over,” Biden said.Stephanopoulos also pressed Biden on his vaccine plan, asking when things would return to normal. Biden said his previously stated goal of getting things close to normal by the Fourth of July holiday wouldn’t happen unless people wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands.Biden also said he was surprised that the conversation about vaccines had been politicized.“I honest to God thought we had it out,” Biden said. “I honest to God thought that, once we guaranteed we had enough vaccine for everybody, things would start to calm down. Well, they have calmed down a great deal. But I don’t quite understand – you know – I just don’t understand this sort of macho thing about, ‘I’m not gonna get the vaccine. I have a right as an American, my freedom to not do it.’ Well, why don’t you be a patriot? Protect other people.”Biden said that since being vaccinated, he has been able to hug his grandchildren and see them in his home.The pair also discussed Biden’s foreign policy plans and the president said he was currently reviewing the deal made by Donald Trump with the Taliban to have the US pull its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May.“I’m in the process of making that decision now as to when they’ll leave,” Biden said. “The fact is that, that was not a very solidly negotiated deal that the president – the former president – worked out. And so we’re in consultation with our allies as well as the government, and that decision’s going to be – it’s in process now.”Biden said it would be “tough” for all service members to leave by the May deadline.“It could happen,” he said, “but it is tough.”Stephanopoulos asked Biden if the Russian president would “pay” after the US chief intelligence office found that Putin had overseen efforts aimed at “denigrating” Biden’s candidacy in the 2020 presidential election.“He will pay a price,” Biden said, noting that the two leaders had spoken in January about Putin’s election meddling.“The conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.’”Stephanopoulos asked: “So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?”“Mmm hmm, I do,” Biden replied.Biden was also asked about US leaders, including the allegations that Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed several women. The state attorney general is investigating the claims and several prominent New York politicians have called for the Democratic governor to step down.Stephanopoulos asked Biden: “If the investigation confirms the claims of the women, should he resign?”“Yes,” Biden replied. “I think he’ll probably end up being prosecuted, too.”The interview concluded with Stephanopoulos asking Biden about his dog, Major, who the White House recently announced had caused “a minor injury” to someone on the property. After, Major was brought to the Biden home in Delaware, where he is now being trained.Biden said Major did not bite someone and break their skin and only went to the Delaware home because he and his wife, Jill Biden, were going to be away for a few days. The new environment of the White House startled Major, Biden said.“You turn a corner, and there’s two people you don’t know at all,” Biden said. “And he moves to protect. But he’s a sweet dog. Eighty-five per cent of the people there love him. He just – all he does is lick them and wag his tail.” More