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      Biden and Trump to visit US-Mexico border as immigration plays key role in election

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      Joe Biden and his all-but certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, will make dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election season clash over immigration.In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande, Biden is expected to hammer Republicans for blocking a bipartisan border security deal after Trump expressed his vocal opposition to the measure. Hundreds of miles north-west, Trump will deliver remarks from a state park in Eagle Pass, which has become the epicenter of a showdown between the Biden administration and the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.Hours before the president and former president arrived on the 2,000-mile stretch of border, a federal judge sided with the Biden administration and blocked a new Texas law that would give police power to arrest migrants suspected of entering the US unlawfully.Trump, who Republicans appear poised to choose as their nominee for a third consecutive time, has once again made immigration a centerpiece of his presidential campaign by describing the United States under Biden as overrun by undocumented immigrants who are “poisoning the blood of our country”, rhetoric that echoes white supremacists and Adolf Hitler. While in Texas, the former president is expected to lay out his plans for an immigration crackdown far beyond what he attempted in his first term.Immigration has become one of Biden’s most acute political vulnerabilities ahead of the 2024 election.Since Biden took office, a record number of migrants have crossed the southern border, driven by war, political upheaval, gang violence and climate change among other factors. Though the number of crossings dropped dramatically in January, according to border patrol data, there were record highs in December.Voters across the political spectrum have expressed growing concern over the situation at the border, and few, as little as 18% according to a survey by the Pew Research center, are pleased with the administration’s handling of it.In the survey, respondents most frequently cited “economic costs and burdens associated with the migration surge or concerns about security” as their top concerns related to migration.At the same time, a rise in immigration last year powered population growth and boosted the US economy.The White House threw its support behind a Senate effort to strike a compromise deal on the border, even endorsing an overhaul of the nation’s asylum system that immigration advocates and progressives denounced as Trump-like. But the deal fell apart amid Trump’s desire not to hand a political win to Biden on a key issue for his campaign. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said the bill would be dead on arrival.Biden vowed to remind voters of Trump’s interference.Republicans, led by Trump, have blamed Biden. In Congress, they have sought to punish his administration by impeaching the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, over alleged offenses that even conservative legal scholars said were related to matters of policy, not malfeasance. The Democratic-controlled Senate has signaled its intent to quickly dispatch the charges.In January, the Texas national guard seized control of Eagle Pass’s Shelby Park, in effect blocking federal border patrol agents from the 47-acre area. As part of Abbott’s border crackdown, they erected razor wire and closed access to the park. Amid the standoff, a mother and her two young children drowned in a nearby part of the Rio Grande. Texas authorities and the border patrol blamed each other for the tragedy.The supreme court temporarily allowed border patrol agents to remove the wire fence erected by Texas authorities. More

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      Biden and Trump to visit US-Mexico border on same day

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      Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both travel to the US border with Mexico on Thursday, dueling visits by the president and his probable opponent for re-election underlining the importance of immigration as an issue in the coming campaign.Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande valley, while his presidential predecessor will head for Eagle Pass, about 325 miles distant.Conditions at the southern border are widely held to represent a growing problem for the White House, both practically in terms of coping with record numbers of undocumented migrants arriving via Central America and politically in terms of defending against Republican attacks.Biden and other Democrats have attacked Trump and Republicans in Congress for sinking a bipartisan border and immigration deal in the Senate.Demanding a border bill regardless of such machinations by their party, House Republicans also managed, at the second attempt, to impeach Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas.Despite the widely held view that the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas do not come close to meeting the standard for conviction and removal from office, the process now moves to the Senate.Alarming leading progressives, Biden is reportedly weighing using executive orders to impose policy changes including restricting access to the US for migrants claiming asylum.On the campaign trail, Trump has upped his far-right, anti-migrant rhetoric, regularly claiming migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country.A new poll from Monmouth University on Monday said more than 80% of Americans now see undocumented migration as either a very serious problem (61%) or a somewhat serious problem (23%).A majority, 53%, said they supported building a wall on the border with Mexico. A promise to do so – and to have Mexico pay for it – was a main plank of Trump’s shock victory in the 2016 election. Failure to do so, and debate over the effectiveness and environmental impact of such barriers as were built or maintained, was a constant theme of his presidency.More than 60% of respondents to the Monmouth poll said they supported applicants for asylum having to remain in Mexico.On another central Trump campaign issue, crime, the pollsters said “about one in three (32%) think that illegal immigrants are more likely than other Americans to commit violent crimes like rape or murder”.The poll noted that 65% of Republicans – but only 12% of Democrats – held that belief.“Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.”In Brownsville on Thursday, Biden will meet border patrol agents, law enforcement officers and local political leaders.“He wants to make sure he puts his message out there to the American people,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said as the president traveled from Washington to New York for a campaign event.Trump will reportedly deliver remarks in Eagle Pass.On Monday, the former president used his Truth Social platform to say: “When I am your president, we will immediately seal the border, stop the invasion, and on day one, we will begin the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals in American history!”A Trump spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, accused Biden of making “a last-minute, insincere attempt to chase President Trump to the border”, which she said would not “cut it” with voters.The Guardian contacted the Biden campaign for comment.In a video released on Sunday by the president’s campaign, Biden was seen watching footage of Trump discussing why he leant on Senate Republicans to sink their own border deal.“It made it much better for the opposing side,” Trump told Fox News.“He just admitted it,” Biden said. “He sabotaged our bipartisan deal to secure the border … you know who the opposing side is? In this case, it’s America. Donald Trump roots against America every chance he gets.” More

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      Progressives lambast Biden over potential move to restrict asylum

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      Progressive lawmakers and advocates on Thursday pushed back strongly against Joe Biden amid reports that the White House is weighing unilateral action to sharply restrict access to claim asylum at the US-Mexico border – comparing the move to the hardline strategies of Donald Trump when he was president.The leading progressive congressional representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal criticized the US president for considering such executive action, while legislative efforts are stalled on Capitol Hill amid Republican resistance, after CNN first reported that Biden was considering the unilateral move.“Doing Trump impressions isn’t how we beat Trump,” Ocasio-Cortez said of Biden’s potential action, in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.The White House is reportedly considering actions aside from congressional legislation to restrict migrants’ access to the right to ask for asylum in the US if they cross the border from Mexico between official ports of entry, usually without the right papers or an appointment with US authorities.“Seeking asylum is a legal right of all people. In the face of authoritarian threat, we should not buckle on our principles – we should commit to them. The mere suggestion is outrageous and the President should refuse to sign it,” Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a New York district, added.Jayapal, who is chair of Congressional Progressive Caucus and represents a district in Washington state, said that Biden would be making a “mistake” if he took such unilateral action to restrict asylum seekers.“This would be an extremely disappointing mistake,” Jayapal said on X of Biden’s potential executive action.“Democrats cannot continue to take pages out of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s playbook – we need to lead with dignity and humanity,” she added.A representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told CBS News that Biden’s potential executive action could probably face legal challenges from the ACLU and other immigration rights groups.“An executive order denying asylum based on where one enters the country would just be another attempt at the exact policy Trump unsuccessfully tried and will undoubtedly end up in litigation,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told CBS.Amid more partisan takes, the South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn told CNN that he had concerns about Republicans “politicizing” the issue of immigration.Clyburn did not comment on Biden’s potential executive action during an interview with CNN on Thursday morning. But Clyburn said that House Republicans had caused a bipartisan immigration bill to fail earlier this month.“Why did they need this immigration issue as a political issue, rather than trying to solve the problem?” he added.Several officials familiar with the White House discussions said to CNN and the Associated Press that no final decisions had been made.In comments to CNN, a White House spokesperson did not address the potential executive action, but said that the White House was calling on Republicans to pass legislation that would address issues at the border.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected. We continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández said in a statement.The latest news comes as the Biden administration failed to pass the negotiated border bill , after Senate Republicans rejected the legislation.Republicans complained that the bill did not go far enough to address undocumented migration at the border, which many want effectively shut down.The Biden administration has received criticism from both political parties and negative feedback from voters responding to opinion polls on its handling of immigration issues, especially at the southern border.Meanwhile, progressives have criticized the Biden administration for not fulfilling campaign promises from the 2020 presidential election to implement a more humane and streamlined immigration system.Many municipal leaders, including Democrats, have also demanded help from the Biden administration to address an increase of arriving migrants as US cities struggle to accommodate them.Immigration remains a central issue ahead of the 2024 presidential election, in which Biden and Trump are expected to be the nominees for their political parties.A poll from earlier this month by Associated Press-NORC found that Republican and Democratic voters are increasingly concerned about immigration, the Associated Press reported. More

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      White House could use federal law to control US-Mexico border crossings

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      The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month, has been exploring options that Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, multiple officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are nowhere near finalized and it’s unclear how the administration would draft any such executive actions in a way that would survive the inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private White House discussions.The exploration of such avenues bythe president’s team underscores the pressure Biden faces this election year on immigration and the border, which have been among his biggest political liabilities since he took office. For now, the White House has been hammering congressional Republicans for refusing to act on border legislation that the GOP demanded, but the administration is also aware of the political perils that high numbers of migrants could pose for the president and is scrambling to figure out how Biden could ease the problem on his own.White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández stressed that “no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected”.“The administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “Congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, rejected what border agents have said they need, and then gave themselves a two-week vacation.”Arrests for illegal crossings on the US-Mexico border fell by half in January from record highs in December to the third lowest month of Biden’s presidency. But officials fear those figures could eventually rise again, particularly as the November presidential election nears.The immigration authority the administration has been looking into is outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives a president broad leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the US if it would be “detrimental” to the national interest of the country.Trump, who is the likely GOP candidate to face off against Biden this fall, repeatedly leaned on the 212(f) power while in office, including his controversial ban to bar travelers from Muslim-majority nations. Biden rescinded that ban on his first day in office through executive order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut now, how Biden would deploy that power to deal with his own immigration challenges is currently being considered, and it could be used in a variety of ways, according to the people familiar with the discussions. For example, the ban could kick in when border crossings hit a certain number. That echoes a provision in the Senate border deal, which would have activated expulsions of migrants if the number of illegal border crossings reached above 5,000 daily for a five-day average.Mike Johnson, the House Republican speaker, has also called on Biden to use the 212(f) authority. Yet the comprehensive immigration overhaul Biden also introduced on his first day in office – which the White House continues to tout – includes provisions that would effectively scale back a president’s powers to bar immigrants under that authority. More

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      Mike Johnson declares ‘no need for public alarm’ after national security warning, reports say – as it happened

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      House speaker Mike Johnson has reportedly declared “no need for public alarm” regarding House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner’s national security warning. “Steady hands are at the wheel, we’re working on it, there’s no need for alarm,” Johnson told media on Wednesday afternoon.His comments come after Turner issued a statement that Congress had been made aware of a “serious national security threat” and called on Joe Biden to “declassify all information” related to it.During a press briefing, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said he planned to meet with members of the House intelligence committee on Thursday.“We scheduled a briefing for the for House members of the Gang of Eight tomorrow,” said Sullivan. “I am a bit surprised that Congressman Turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to go sit with him alongside our intelligence and defense professionals tomorrow.”Turner’s concerns are reportedly related to Russian military capabilities.Thanks for following along today, live blog readers. As we close up for the day, here’s a quick summary of today’s developments in U.S. politics – including the fallout from Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment and cryptic warnings about a looming national security threat:
      Democrats reacted to the Tuesday vote to impeach Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – the first time in nearly 150 years that a Cabinet secretary has been impeached. “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship,” said Joe Biden, of the impeachment.
      The impeachment effort will almost certainly die in the senate, which would require a supermajority vote to impeach following a trial that begins in two weeks. Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has called the impeachment a “sham.”
      House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner warned in a cryptic statement of a national security threat, calling on Biden to “declassify all information related to this threat”. During a press briefing, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, declined to directly address the nature of the alleged threat and said he had “scheduled a briefing for House members of the Gang of Eight” on Thursday.
      The Washington Post reported that the security threat had been identified using surveillance permitted under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), a controversial provision that allows the government to surveil non-citizens abroad – but has also led to the surveillance of Americans’ phone calls, texts and emails. House Republicans are pushing to enact a version of Fisa that does not include a warrant requirement for the FBI – a reform critics of the legislation have long advocated.
      A Republican activist charged for his involvement in the fake elector scheme in Michigan testified today that he didn’t knowingly try to unlawfully subvert the results of the 2020 election. He was charged with creating a false public record.
      Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement on the topic of the alleged national security threat that the “most urgent national security threat facing the American people right now is the possibility that Congress abandons Ukraine and allows Vladimir Putin’s Russia to win”.The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh reports on Nato’s secretary general responding to Donald Trump’s disparaging comments about Nato countries: Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general, has accused Donald Trump of undermining the basis of the transatlantic alliance as he announced that 18 Nato members were expected to beat the target of spending more than 2% of GDP on defence.It was the second rebuke by the Nato chief to the Republican frontrunner in less than a week, reinforced by a declaration that Germany was among the countries planning to spend over the threshold for the first time in a generation.“We should not undermine the credibility of Nato’s deterrence,” Stoltenberg said on Wednesday as he responded to comments made by Trump at a campaign rally at the weekend. “Deterrence is in the mind of our adversaries,” he added.On Saturday, Trump caused outrage in Europe when he said he would “not protect” any Nato member that had failed to meet the 2% target – and added that he would even encourage Russia to continue attacking them.A day later, Stoltenberg said Trump’s rhetoric “puts American and European soldiers at increased risk”, while on Wednesday, before a meeting of defence ministers, the normally diplomatic secretary general returned to the theme, arguing: “We should leave no room for miscalculation or misunderstanding in Moscow.”The Washington Post reports that the alleged security threat that House intelligence committee chairman Mike Turner warned about in a cryptic statement today was likely identified using surveillance permitted under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), a controversial provision that allows the government to spy on non-citizens living abroad – and has also led to the surveillance of Americans’ phone calls, texts and emails.House Republicans are pushing for a new version of the bill that does not include a warrant requirement for the FBI – a key reform critics of the legislation have pushed for.House speaker Mike Johnson has said there is “no need for public alarm” regarding the unconfirmed national security threat.In a statement, the chair of the Senate select committee on intelligence, Mark Warner, and the vice-chair of the committee, Marco Rubio, said the committee “has the intelligence” that House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner referred to in a Wednesday statement warning of a national security threat.According to the statement, the committee “has been rigorously tracking this issue from the start”. The statement warned against “potentially disclosing sources and methods that may be key to preserving a range of options for US action”.CNN has reported the alleged threat is related to Russian military capabilities.Nikki Haley blasted Donald Trump for his comments on her husband, who is currently deployed overseas. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly puts Haley’s remarks in context:Donald Trump is “unhinged” and “diminished”, said Nikki Haley, the former president’s last rival for the Republican presidential nomination, on Wednesday.“To mock my husband, Michael and I can handle that,” the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador told NBC News’s Today, referring to comments by Trump about Michael Haley, a national guard officer deployed in Djibouti.“But you mock one member of the military, you mock all members of the military … Before, when he did it, it was during the 2016 election, and everybody thought, ‘Oh, did he have a slip? What did that mean?’ The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016. He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he was.”In the 2016 campaign, Trump mocked John McCain, an Arizona senator and former nominee for president who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Having avoided the draft for that war, Trump was expected to pay a heavy political price but did not, going on to attract controversy in office for allegedly deriding those who serve.House speaker Mike Johnson has reportedly declared “no need for public alarm” regarding House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner’s national security warning. “Steady hands are at the wheel, we’re working on it, there’s no need for alarm,” Johnson told media on Wednesday afternoon.His comments come after Turner issued a statement that Congress had been made aware of a “serious national security threat” and called on Joe Biden to “declassify all information” related to it.During a press briefing, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said he planned to meet with members of the House intelligence committee on Thursday.“We scheduled a briefing for the for House members of the Gang of Eight tomorrow,” said Sullivan. “I am a bit surprised that Congressman Turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to go sit with him alongside our intelligence and defense professionals tomorrow.”Turner’s concerns are reportedly related to Russian military capabilities.A Michigan Republican accused of participating in a fake elector plot after the 2020 presidential election testified on Wednesday that he did not know how the electoral process worked and never intended to make a false public record, the Associated Press reports.“We were told this was an appropriate process,” James Renner, 77, said during a preliminary hearing for a half-dozen other electors who face forgery and other charges.People who falsely posed as electors in a six-state scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election have been criminally charged in Georgia and Nevada. In Wisconsin, false electors agreed to a settlement in a civil case in December.“You have a majority of Americans who believe that we need to protect our democracy,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in response to a question about recent polling showing about 18% of Americans believe in the conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift is part of a plot by Democrats to deliver the 2024 presidential election to Joe Biden. That poll also found people who believe the Taylor Swift theory are also more likely to doubt the validity of the 2020 presidential election.The United States expects Israel to meet its commitment to allow a shipment of flour to be moved into Gaza, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Wednesday, Reuters reports.Sullivan was responding to a question about an Axios report on Tuesday that said the Israeli government was blocking a US-funded flour shipment to Gaza.Jake Sullivan has finished taking questions from the media and has left the west wing now. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will now take the briefing onto more domestic matters in US political news.Meanwhile, Axios wrote:
      Israeli ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is blocking a U.S.-funded flour shipment to Gaza because its recipient is the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), two Israeli and U.S. officials told Axios.
      U.S. officials said this is a violation of a commitment Benjamin Netanyahu personally made to President Biden several weeks ago and another reason the U.S. leader is frustrated with the Israeli prime minister.
      CNN reports the national security threat that Congressman Mike Turner called on Joe Biden to declassify is related to a “highly concerning and destabilizing” Russian military capability.During a press briefing, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, declined to comment on the specifics of the threat.“We scheduled a briefing for the for House members of the Gang of Eight tomorrow,” said Sullivan. “I am a bit surprised that Congressman Turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to go sit with him alongside our intelligence and defense professionals tomorrow.”National security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked at the White House press briefing about efforts to secure a “temporary pause” in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and how that might work.There are international talks under way in Egypt about a ceasefire in Gaza and a deal with Hamas to return hostages it took during its attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which provoked a crushing Israeli military response in Gaza. Our colleague Bethan McKernan reports that mediators are struggling to make progress in the face of a threatened Israeli offensive on Rafah, the Palestinian territory’s last place of relative safety.Sullivan described that a plan could “start with the temporary pause … The idea is that we have multiple phases as part of the hostage deal and we move from phase 1 to the next and we can extend the pause [in fighting] as more hostages come out.”He added: “What we would like to see is that Hamas is ultimately defeated, that peace and security come to Gaza, and then we work towards a longer term, two-state solution, with Gaza’s security guaranteed.”Our colleague Léonie Chao-Fong wrote this explainer piece over the weekend about the latest US push for a solution in the Middle East that would result in Israel and Palestine coexisting in peace. You can read it here.In a statement, Republican congressman Mike Turner, who chairs the House intelligence committee, warned that Congress had been alerted to a “serious national security threat” and called on Biden to “declassify all information related to this threat”. During a press briefing, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, declined to directly address the nature of the alleged threat and said that he had plans to meet with congressional intelligence lawmakers tomorrow. More

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      Mayorkas impeachment: petty, doomed … but still potentially damaging

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      In 1876, the last US cabinet official to be impeached, William Belknap, resigned before the House could vote on the matter. Ulysses S Grant’s secretary of war was tried in the Senate anyway, on charges of corruption, but escaped conviction.Nearly 150 years later, in the House on Tuesday and at the second time of asking, Republicans corralled just enough votes to ensure Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, suffered Belknap’s fate. But Mayorkas has not resigned – and nor is he likely to be convicted and removed.Democrats control the Senate, which means Mayorkas is all but certain to be acquitted at any trial, regardless of reported doubts among Republican senators about their party’s case.After the 214-213 vote to impeach, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, set out what will happen next. House managers will present the articles of impeachment after Monday’s President’s Day holiday. Senators will be sworn in as jurors. And Patty Murray of Washington state, the Democratic Senate president pro tempore, will preside thereafter.Schumer also issued a stinging statement.“This sham impeachment effort is another embarrassment for House Republicans,” the New Yorker said. “The one and only reason for this impeachment is for Speaker [Mike] Johnson to further appease Donald Trump.”The Mayorkas impeachment is of a kind with Senate Republicans’ decision last week to detonate their own hard-won border and immigration bill because Trump, their likely nominee for president, wants to campaign on the issue.Schumer continued: “House Republicans failed to produce any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed any crime. House Republicans failed to show he has violated the constitution. House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense. This is a new low for House Republicans.”Most observers agree that the charges against Mayorkas – basically, that he performed incompetently and violated immigration law regarding the southern border – do not remotely rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanours”, as constitutionally required for impeachment and removal.Perhaps with a nod to the unfortunate Belknap, the Biden White House weighed in, saying: “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games.”But history also records that all impeachments (and impeachment efforts, such as that mounted by Republicans against Biden himself) are inherently political, so this one could prove as politically potent as did those of Trump. Both Trump impeachments concerned behaviour – blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt and inciting the January 6 attack on Congress – much closer by any standard to the status of high crimes and misdemeanours. Regardless, Republicans ensured Trump was acquitted in both and have since fed Trump’s fierce desire for revenge.The Mayorkas impeachment was driven by Trump-aligned extremists prominently including Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.Speaking to reporters on the Capitol steps on Tuesday, the same day the Senate passed a $95bn national security package including funding for Ukraine in its war with Russia, Greene said she was “very thankful to our Republican Congress. We’re finally working together with the American people to send a message to the Biden administration that it’s our border that matters, not other countries’ borders. Our border matters.”Claiming Mayorkas was guilty of “willful betrayal of the American people and breaking federal immigration laws”, Greene also said the impeachment “sends a message to America that Republicans can get our job done when we work together and do what’s important and what the American people want us to do.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf there were any remaining doubt that Mayorkas was impeached in service of pure politics, Greene said senators set to sit as jurors should “look at the polling. They know that our border security is the No 1 issue in every single campaign in every single state, every single city, in every single community … They better pay attention to the American people.”It is not certain, however, that a trial will happen.Joshua Matz, a lawyer who has written extensively on impeachment and worked on both impeachments of Trump, recently told Politico: “Impeachment trials are meant to be deadly serious business for matters of state – not free publicity for the House majority to air policy attacks on the current administration.”The Mayorkas impeachment articles, Matz said, are “so manifestly about policy disagreement rather than anything that could arguably qualify as high crimes and misdemeanours, that it would be unwarranted to waste the Senate’s time with the trial on the matter.“The articles are formally deficient in so many ways that any trial would be flagrantly unfair and create such grave due process issues that it would be outrageous to even proceed.”Senate Democrats could bring up a simple motion to dismiss the Mayorkas charges, a gambit which would be likely to succeed, given indicated support from the West Virginia centrist Joe Manchin, a key swing vote in the narrowly divided chamber. Less starkly, Democrats could seek to tie proceedings up in procedure, options including sending the charges to a committee, there to sit in limbo throughout an election year.All choices carry political peril, however. On Wednesday, the news site Semafor quoted an unnamed Republican aide as saying: “If Democrats give Republicans the opportunity to say that they are sweeping this under the rug, we will gladly take it.“If this is the sham Democrats claim it is, why would they be afraid of holding a trial?” More

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      The unprecedented situation at the US-Mexico border – visualized

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      Record levels of migration are straining an immigration system left nearly broken by decades of congressional inaction.Republicans have spent years amplifying scenes of turmoil and tragedy at the southern border, but Democratic leaders are also worried now, particularly big-city mayors and blue state governors who are demanding more federal resources to shelter and feed an influx of migrants.With many voters now saying immigration is a top priority, what exactly is happening at the US border to make so many people concerned?There has been a surge of encounters at the US borderSince the pandemic there has been a spike in global migration, coinciding with Joe Biden’s presidency. Across the globe, people are fleeing war, political insecurity, violence, poverty and natural disasters. Many of those in Latin America, in particular, travel to the US in search of safety.View image in fullscreenIn the last three years, the number of people attempting to cross the US’s southern border into the country has risen to unprecedented levels.In the month of December 2023 alone, border patrol agents recorded 302,000 encounters (these include apprehensions and immediate expulsions), a new high. The monthly average from 2013 to 2019 was 39,000.Arrivals are coming from more countriesThe collapse of Venezuela, political instability in Haiti, violence in Ecuador, a crackdown in Nicaragua, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, repression in China and other conflicts have fueled a historic shift in migration patterns.Mexico was the single most common origin country for US border encounters in 2023, but Mexican nationals made up less than 30% of the total share, compared with more than 60% a decade ago.Their journey is more perilousNearly 9,000 people attempting to reach the US from the south have been recorded missing or dead in the Americas in the past 10 years, according to the Missing Migrants Project.Some never make it through the notorious Darién Gap at the southern end of Central America, where a US deal with Panama and Colombia to stop migrants in their tracks has caused an outcry.The vast majority of recorded fatalities (5,145), however, occur at the US-Mexico border crossing, according to the project’s data.Many of the deaths occurred in southern Arizona when people attempted to cross open desert, miles from any roads.Fatalities are also concentrated along the treacherous stretch of south-western Texas where the Rio Grande river becomes the borderline. Further inland, hundreds of deaths have been recorded in the sparse, humid scrubland around Falfurrias.View image in fullscreenTheir cases languish in courtsThe border rules are complicated: some people apprehended at the border will face expedited deportation, but others will enter formal deportation proceedings and qualify for temporary release into the US, with a date to appear before a judge.Resolving those immigration cases and asylum claims can take years. The backlog of immigration cases has grown steadily – there were an astounding 3.3m cases pending as of December 2023, but just 682 immigration judges. That means the average caseload is more than 4,500 per judge.In the meantime …People arriving often find themselves in unofficial camps all along the US border. Some are waiting to cross, others have been met by US border patrol, yet others have been turned away. Some border states such as Texas have put tens of thousands of people awaiting their asylum claims on buses and sent them to other states, including California and New York, without their knowledge or permission.As for Congress, it continues to argue over clamping down on unlawful border crossings and alleviating the deepening humanitarian crisis – an increasingly irreconcilable divide between those who want to expand the immigration system and those who want to restrict it.View image in fullscreen More

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      Biden blames Trump for imminent death of immigration bill – as it happened

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      In his speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused Republicans of caving to Donald Trump’s wishes and opposing a bill to tighten immigration policy that the party had demanded.“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor,” the president said.“Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump.”He continued:
      Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically, therefore … even if it helps the country, he’s not for it. He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. So for the last 24 hours, he’s done nothing, I’m told, than reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal. It looks like they’re caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right.
      Donald Trump’s strategy to get out of the charges brought against him for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election suffered a blow when a federal appeals court turned down his argument that he is immune from prosecution because he was acting in his capacity as president. Trump’s campaign vowed to appeal the three-judge panel’s unanimous decision. Meanwhile, the bipartisan bill to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine and also impose hardline immigration policies is on the verge of death. Republicans in the House and Senate are assailing the legislation, even though the party demanded it as their price to approve the military aid. In a speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused the GOP of “caving” to Trump, and vowed to campaign on the bill’s failure.Here’s what else happened:
      Republicans senators are reportedly interested in approving aid to Israel and Ukraine without changing immigration policy. Democrats tried to do that months ago, but were blocked by the GOP.
      House Republicans may not have enough support to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. A vote on the charges is expected later this afternoon.
      Trump’s allies in Congress are not pleased by the appeals court’s ruling against him.
      The judges who rejected Trump’s immunity claim said the former president was arguing to make it impossible to hold presidents to account.
      Will Trump and Biden debate? It’s not looking likely right now.
      The House has kicked off debate over impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, beginning with a procedural vote that succeeded:However, it remains unclear if the GOP has enough support to succeed in formally leveling charges against Mayorkas for his handling of the surge in migrants crossing the southern border during Joe Biden’s presidency. Two Republicans say they won’t vote for the articles, while others are reportedly on the fence, saying impeaching a cabinet secretary, which is already an exceedingly rare step, for policy issues rather than breaking the law is inappropriate.Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed that the chamber will vote on the articles later today. If they pass, they’ll go to the Senate, whose Democratic leaders are certain to reject them.With the immigration deal all but dead, the question becomes: can Congress pass aid to Ukraine and Israel?We may find out the answer to the latter question sometime this afternoon, when the House takes a vote on a standalone bill to fund Israel’s counterattack against Hamas. The legislation will need a two-thirds majority to pass, and seems unlikely to achieve that – Democrats are furious at the GOP for killing the immigration policy compromise, and their leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar earlier today announced they’d vote against the Israel aid bill. Here’s what they said:
      We are prepared to support any serious, bipartisan effort in connection with the special relationship between the United States and Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the standalone legislation introduced by House Republicans over the weekend, at the eleventh hour without notice or consultation, is not being offered in good faith. Rather, it is a nakedly obvious and cynical attempt by MAGA extremists to undermine the possibility of a comprehensive, bipartisan funding package that addresses America’s national security challenges in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region and throughout the world.
      And even if it were to pass, the White House says Joe Biden would veto it.As for Ukraine, funds for its defense against Russia face an even steeper hill to climb. Goaded on by Donald Trump, an increasing number of Republican lawmakers, particularly in the House, oppose assistance to Kyiv. However, Bloomberg News reports some Republicans senators are open to the idea – which is what Democrats called for months ago:
      Hawkish Republicans on Tuesday began discussing moving ahead on a Ukraine aid package without the border restrictions. Pairing the two had once been considered a way to sweeten the deal for House conservatives but has since proven divisive.
      Texas Republican John Cornyn, who has pushed for new border restrictions but opposes the latest deal, said he’d support moving forward with funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and that such a bill would pass the Senate.
      South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent Republican hawk, said he would vote for an aid package without US border provisions.
      “If we fail on the border, we put our country at risk. There is no use letting the world fall apart,” he said.
      The Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell told reporters this afternoon that he believes the immigration policy bill will fail to advance in tomorrow’s vote:McConnell had endorsed the legislation after its release this evening, but acknowledged his lawmakers won’t get behind it.Will Donald Trump, should he win the Republican presidential nomination, debate Joe Biden? The Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports that the chances are not looking great:Joe Biden has dismissed calls from his White House predecessor Donald Trump to “immediately” schedule a presidential debate.Trump skipped every debate this primary season. He continues to refuse to debate his former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, a long-shot contender for the GOP’s nomination.“Well, if I were him, I’d want to debate me, too,” Biden told reporters when asked about Trump’s challenge while the president was at a small Las Vegas boba tea shop during a campaign stop. With a bubble tea in hand, Biden added: “He’s got nothing else to do.”Although the primary season is not yet over, both Biden and Trump are considered their parties’ presumptive nominees and have a clear desire to turn their attention to the general election.Biden, who is technically also still in the primary season, has also refused to debate several distant rivals for the Democratic nomination.Trump made his debate challenge on The Dan Bongino Show, NBC reported. Bongino is a conservative talkshow host who for years has boosted Trump as well as Republican conspiracy theories – all widely discredited – that the 2020 election was “rigged”.Also happening today is Nevada’s presidential primary, though its outcome is not expected to be a surprise, and its significance is not particularly big, as the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports:The first presidential primary election contest in the western US is underway in Nevada.Although Nevada has backed Democrats in every presidential election since 2008, it recently elected a Republican governor and remains a key swing state where slight changes in turnout could flip outcomes.After Joe Biden secured a victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary over the weekend, he’s looking to build on his momentum in Nevada. More than 151,000 voters submitted early ballots, ahead of election day on Tuesday.Both Democrats and Republicans are holding presidential primaries on Tuesday, but the Republican competition will hold little meaning. The state’s GOP, which is led by a recently indicted fake Trump elector, will be allocating its delegates based on a separate caucus it is holding on Thursday, in which Donald Trump is the only major contender. Nikki Haley, who is running in the Republican primary but not in the caucus, is expected to grab a symbolic victory in the primaries, which her party is begrudgingly holding to comply with a state mandate.The two-track nomination scheme has been widely criticised as a confusing and cynical scheme to benefit the former president.Donald Trump’s strategy to get out of the charges brought against him for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election was dealt a blow when a federal appeals court turned down his argument that he is immune from prosecution because he was acting in his capacity as president. Trump’s campaign vowed to appeal the three-judge panel’s unanimous decision. Meanwhile, the bipartisan bill to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine and also impose hardline immigration policies is on the verge of death. Republicans in the House and Senate are assailing the legislation, even though the party demanded it as their price to approve the military aid. In a speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused the GOP of “caving” to Trump, and vowed to campaign on the bill’s failure.Here’s what else is going on:
      House Republicans may not have the votes to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. A vote on the charges is expected later this afternoon.
      Trump’s allies in Congress are not pleased by the appeals court’s ruling against him.
      The judges who rejected Trump’s immunity claim said the former president was essentially arguing to make it impossible to hold presidents to account.
      Joe Biden closed his speech by again making his point that Republicans are undermining border security simply to benefit Donald Trump.“I understand the former president is desperately trying to stop this bill, because he’s not interested in solving the border problem. He wants a political issue to run against me on. They’ve all but said that, across the board, no one really denies that, that I’m aware of,” Biden said.He then vowed to turn the immigration bill’s fate into a campaign issue:
      I’m calling on Congress to pass this bill, get it to my desk immediately. But if the bill fails, I want to be absolutely clear about something: the American people are going to know why it fails.
      I’ll be taking this issue to the country. And the voters are going to know that it’s just at the moment we’re going to secure the border and fund these other programs, Trump and the Maga Republicans said no. Because they’re afraid of Donald Trump. Afraid of Donald Trump.
      Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his Maga Republican friends. It’s time for Republicans in the Congress to show a little courage, to show a little spine, to make it clear to the American people that you work for them, not for anyone else.
      Republicans demanded passage of immigration policy reforms in exchange for their votes to fund Ukraine’s military. But now the GOP is rejecting the immigration bill and there’s no apparent path for another round of funding for Kyiv, even amid reports that its military is rationing ammunition it needs to defend against Russia’s invasion.“If we don’t stop Putin’s appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won’t limit himself to just Ukraine, and the costs for America and our allies and partners will rise,” Joe Biden warned in his speech.“For those Republicans in Congress who think they can oppose funding for Ukraine and not be held accountable: history is watching. History is watching. A failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”After going through the immigration bill’s provisions, Joe Biden noted that he still wants to pursue historic Democratic priorities such as resolving the status of undocumented migrants already living in the United States, and people brought to the country as children.“Now, it doesn’t address everything that I want. For example, we still need a path of documentation for those who are already here. And we’re not walking away from true immigration reform, including permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship for young Dreamers who came here when they were children and who have been good citizens that contribute so much to our country,” the president said. “But the reforms of this bill are essential for making our border more orderly, more humane and more secure.”Most of the immigration bill’s provisions are hardline reforms demanded by Republicans, which have attracted opposition from immigrant rights groups. Nonetheless, the GOP has largely rejected the legislation.In his speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused Republicans of caving to Donald Trump’s wishes and opposing a bill to tighten immigration policy that the party had demanded.“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor,” the president said.“Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump.”He continued:
      Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically, therefore … even if it helps the country, he’s not for it. He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. So for the last 24 hours, he’s done nothing, I’m told, than reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal. It looks like they’re caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right.
      Joe Biden is expected to at any moment speak from the White House about the Senate’s bipartisan proposal to approve military aid to Ukraine and Israel while also enacting hardline immigration policies Republicans have demanded.All signs point to the president giving the bill its eulogy. The GOP is in open revolt against the legislation, and CNN reports that John Thune, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the Senate, expects it to be voted down on Wednesday:In an interview with MSNBC, Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator who was his party’s lead negotiator on the bill, seemed resigned to the bill’s imminent death:Elise Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chair who is widely viewed as a contender to be Donald Trump’s running mate, echoed his campaign’s talking points as she condemned the failure of his immunity claim.“The precedent set today by the DC Circuit’s decision means that future presidents who leave office will likely face politicized prosecutions by the opposing party,” Stefanik said in a statement.“The President of the United States must have immunity, like Members of Congress and federal judges, which is necessary for any presidency to function properly. I fully support President Trump’s efforts to appeal this unconstitutional ruling to the Supreme Court, where I expect a thoughtful decision to overturn this dangerous precedent.”Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump’s allies in Congress are attacking the unanimous appeals court decision denying him immunity from the federal charges brought against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s Jim Jordan, the House judiciary committee chair and one of Trump’s best-known defenders:Without commenting on the decision, House speaker Mike Johnson condemned the prosecution as “lawfare”:As we await Joe Biden’s speech on the immigration and foreign aid bill, here’s the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell with a rundown of what we know about the appeals court’s decision in the foreign aid case, and how it may affect the start of his trial on election subversion charges:A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution on charges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results because it involved actions he took while president, declining to endorse such an expansive interpretation of executive power.The decision by a three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit took particular issue with Trump’s position that he could only be prosecuted if he had been convicted in a Senate impeachment trial first.“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power,” the unsigned but unanimous opinion from the three-judge panel said.“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three branches,” the opinion said. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”The defeat for Trump technically returns the case and jurisdiction to the trial court. But the adverse ruling paves the way for Trump to seek further appeals that could delay for weeks or months the start of the 4 March trial date set by US district judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington. More