The post Biden will face impeachment under a Republican majority for border crisis: GOP lawmaker first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

During her daily news briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that since Sunday, 12 “repatriation flights” had ferried 1,401 undocumented immigrants back home to Haiti.

Psaki said another 3,206 Haitians “have been moved” from their massive makeshift encampment under the Del Rio International Bridge into the custody of US Customs and Border Protection “or to other sectors of the United States border.”

There, Psaki said, they face immediate expulsion, “if possible,” under a federal public-health law, known as Title 42, or else deportation proceedings in US Immigration Court.

“Therefore, there remain less than 5,000 migrants in the Del Rio sector,” Psaki noted.

A Haitian migrant talks to with a Mexican police officer blocking access to the Rio Grande. Felix Marquez/AP

But Psaki’s calculations— which accounted for no more than 9,606 migrants — appeared to dramatically discount an estimate by The Associated Press that there were 15,000 gathered under and around the bridge on Saturday.

If the AP is accurate, that would mean around 5,400 are now unaccounted for — and may have disappeared into the US without notice.

Psaki was pressed on the discrepancy by a Fox News reporter who asked, “Where’s everybody else?”

“I’m happy to get you a more fruitful rundown for you, if helpful, from the Department of Homeland Security,” she answered.

Migrants, most from Haiti, cross the Rio Grande towards Del Rio, Texas, from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. Felix Marquez/AP

DHS didn’t respond to a request from The Post for additional information.

However, in a Thursday evening appearance on CNN, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas again claimed he did not know how many migrants had been released into the US under direct questioning from host Wolf Blitzer.

“We believe it is a very small percentage of the total that assembled in Del Rio, Texas, and that will be removed,” Mayorkas said.

“Well, what does that mean?” a befuddled Blizter asked. “About 15,000, I have, showed up [in Del Rio]. I take it 1,400 have been sent back to Haiti. What about the rest?”

“Wolf, if it’s 10 percent or 15 percent, I don’t have the precise numbers,” Mayorkas admitted. “I assure you it’s a minority of the individuals … and they are placed in immigration enforcement proceedings, where they are able, where they appear before a judge and if, in fact, they make a valid claim to remain in the United States, and of course, we honor that. And if not, they are removed as well.”

Also Thursday, DHS updated their statistics to note that 1,949 migrants had been flown back to Haiti since Sunday, while 3,901 had been moved to CBP custody or other border sectors. The department estimated that 3,100 migrants remained under the Del Rio bridge, leaving a gap of more than 6,000 between the total number accounted for by DHS and the top-end estimate reported by AP.

On Wednesday, the AP reported that a US official said illegal immigrants nabbed in Del Rio amid the crisis had been released on a “very, very large scale” — possibly reaching into the thousands — and simply told to report to an immigration office within 60 days.

Some were put on buses to El Paso, Laredo and other locations along the Texas border with Mexico, and others were flown to Tucson, Ariz., according to the report.

Meanwhile, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times reported that thousands of the mostly Haitian migrants still in Del Rio had been given color-coded tickets by immigration officials and told to await processing.

Tickets that are blue or yellow — which are issued to families and pregnant women, respectively — will allow holders to enter the United States legally and seek permission to stay, according to the LA Times. But red or green tickets — for single men and single women, respectively — will likely result in a trip back to Haiti.

A boy walks at a migrant camp in Ciudad Acuña. Felix Marquez/AP

Haitian migrant Pedro Fisime, 24, said he received a blue ticket after spending six days in the squalid encampment with his 10-year-old daughter, Reyna.

“It’s a very difficult process for all of us,” he told the LA Times.

“I had faith and I made it to the US,” he said. “You have to try.”

The tickets are numbered — and Border Patrol agents use the digits to summon migrants to buses and vans that will carry them to the airport for flights back to Haiti or for processing and release into the United States, according to the LA Times.

But some migrants who were handed the prized blue and yellow tickets were apparently unaware of their good fortune and instead thought it meant they faced expulsion.

So they headed for the Rio Grande to try to make the treacherous crossing back into Mexico.

Jen Psaki said there have been over 1,400 undocumented immigrants sent back to Haiti since Sunday. Evan Vucci/AP

Another Haitian migrant, Fabricio Jean, told the AP that he made his way from Chile to Del Rio by following detailed instructions that his brother sent to him via the encrypted WhatsApp cellphone application.

Jean said that his brother, who recently made the trip and is currently living in New Jersey, warned him to stay away from areas in Mexico with lots of immigration officials and also wired him money for bus fares.

“You will need about 20,000 pesos (about $1,000 U.S. dollars) for the buses,” the brother reportedly wrote him. “You need to take this bus to this location and then take another bus.”

Source: https://nypost.com/2021/09/23/thousands-of-haitian-migrants-vanish-via-white-houses-math/

The post Thousands of Haitian migrants vanish via White House’s math first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

FILE – In this Sept. 18, 2021, file photo Haitian migrants use a dam to cross into the United States from Mexico in Del Rio, Texas. President Joe Biden embraced major progressive policy goals on immigration after he won the Democratic nomination, and he has begun enacting some. But his administration has been forced to confront unusually high numbers of migrants trying to enter the country along the U.S.-Mexico border and the federal response has inflamed both critics and allies. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing bipartisan criticism over its approach to immigration, the Biden administration on Thursday announced new rules that require authorities to only pursue migrants who recently crossed into the country without permission or are deemed to pose a threat to public safety.

The new guidelines replace interim rules issued in February that were initially blocked by a federal judge in August as part of a lawsuit brought by Texas and Louisiana. They break from a more aggressive approach to immigration enforcement under former President Donald Trump, who early in his presidency directed authorities to apprehend anyone who was illegally in the country.

The release comes as President Joe Biden has come under fire from allies for his reliance on a Trump-era public health authority to rapidly expel migrants encountered on the U.S.-Mexico border while also facing Republican criticism that he hasn’t done enough to counter a sharp increase in migrants seeking to enter the country.

The Biden administration has expelled about 5,000 Haitians who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at Del Rio, Texas, in recent weeks. A federal appeals court in Washington on Thursday cleared the administration to continue expelling families under the public-health authority known as Title 42. The appeals court put on hold a lower court order barring the expulsions of families hours before the ban was to take effect.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the new policy was based on the reality that the U.S. can’t go after all people in the country without legal status and shouldn’t try because many “have been contributing members of our communities for years.”

Authorities will be directed to focus on noncitizens who have crossed recently, defined as after Nov. 1, 2020, or who determined to be a threat because of national security or “serious criminal activity.” Homeland Security includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

Unlike the interim rules, the criminal activity is not limited to the category known in legal terms as an aggravated felony but will depend on the “totality of the facts and circumstances,” Mayorkas said. Anyone would be considered a priority if they are engaged or even suspected of terrorism or espionage, according to the memo. The new rules take effect Nov. 29.

Immigration authorities would be prohibited from arresting and seeking to deport someone in retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights, such as joining a protest or taking part in union activities.

“We are requiring and frankly empowering our workforce, critically empowering our workforce, to exercise their judgment, their law enforcement judgment,” the secretary said.

Advocates for strict immigration enforcement have criticized the interim guidelines, which were similar in intent as the newly released rules, because they were seen as a top-down approach and one that precluded low-level arrests that might yield investigative leads into bigger cases or help serve as a deterrent to illegal immigration.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on Twitter that Biden has “welcomed” the migrants who have crossed and would now promise those already in the country that “they may stay in the U.S. without repercussions” with the new rules.

Immigrant advocates, including some who have in the past called for eliminating ICE and immigrant detention altogether, welcomed limits on enforcement but are wary given the rapid detention and expulsion of thousands of Haitians at Del Rio.

“This policy is only going to be as good as the results,” said Jacinta Gonzalez, senior campaign organizer of Mijente. “If detention numbers continue to rise, as deportations continue to happen, if we still see human rights abuses at the border, this policy won’t mean anything.”

A federal judge in Texas blocked the interim rules in August, ruling that the administration did not have discretion to choose which migrants to detain, but a federal appeals court allowed the guidelines to take effect while the lawsuit proceeds.

Mayorkas said it makes little sense to pursue all of the estimated 11 million people in the country without legal status, even if the U.S. had the law enforcement capacity to do so.

“They contribute to the well-being of our country and justice requires that we exercise our discretion accordingly,” he said. “The fact that an individual is a removeable non-citizen should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.”

Trump’s administration took hundreds of measures to restrict both legal and illegal immigration, including a zero-tolerance policy on border crossings that resulted in the forcible separation of thousands of families and requiring asylum seekers to await the processing of their cases in Mexico.

In the end, total deportations were higher under the first term of President Barack Obama, who enacted enforcement priorities similar to Biden’s, than under Trump. That was due in part to a lack of cooperation from many cities and states whose leaders opposed Trump’s immigration policies.

__

Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

Source:  https://apnews.com/article/immigration-donald-trump-joe-biden-mexico-arrests-af64610730b9c603b592101e4a7ddfa8

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The post Sec. Mayorkas says border crisis ‘unsustainable’ and ‘we’re going to lose’ in leaked audio first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Over the span of about a week, Texas received $459,000 in private donations for the state’s planned wall at the southern border, the governor’s office said Wednesday.

This comes after Gov. Greg Abbott said he would reallocate $250 million in state funds as a “down payment” for the project — while crowdfunding some of the remaining costs.

The identities of the donors and how much they donated to the wall construction are not readily available and can only be obtained through public information requests, a spokesperson for Abbott said. Eventually, Abbott’s office said, the total donations figure will be available online on a website that currently solicits people to donate.

Abbott has not given an estimate of the project’s total costs or details of how long the wall will be or where it will be located but said he expected it to be “hundreds of miles” long. He directed the Texas Facilities Commission to hire a program manager who will lead efforts to determine those factors.

The commission said in a statement Thursday it began work on creating a request for proposal for the program manager position, saying it would remain “transparent and compliant with State competitive bidding standards.”

Abbott also said he expects Texans to volunteer their land for the project and said he would send a letter to President Joe Biden asking the federal government to return land the Trump administration took from private property owners in Texas to build a border wall.

The Trump administration had met fierce resistance from private property owners unwilling to allow the federal government to build on their land. Land Commissioner George P. Bush said last week he would grant emergency authorization for the building of the wall on state lands, which makes up approximately 591,595 surface acres along the border.

Promises and calls for a border wall between Mexico and the U.S. were a hallmark of former President Donald Trump and his supporters, both during his campaigns and his presidency. Trump’s administration built about 450 miles of barrier, mostly in Arizona, according to The Washington Post. Trump is set to tour the border with Abbott next week. Vice President Kamala Harris will head to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday.

Construction on the federal wall largely stopped after Biden in January ordered federal agencies to pause construction on the barrier where possible. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told House lawmakers DHS is not requesting further border wall funding in its 2022 budget proposal to Congress.

Tensions over border security have risen between the Democrat president and the two-term Republican governor. Abbott has blamed Biden’s immigration policies for the increase of immigrants on the state’s southern border, saying in a disaster declaration that new federal policies have paved the way for “dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities.” Abbott has announced a partnership with the state of Arizona calling for other states to send law enforcement officials to help border states arrest and jail immigrants crossing the border.

There were 180,034 border crossings last month, compared to fewer than 25,000 border crossings in late 2020, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. During the Trump administration, the highest recorded number of apprehensions was nearly 150,000.

The post Texas border wall project receives over $450K in donations, a week after Gov. Greg Abbott announced plans first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit El Paso on Friday. Credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to visit El Paso on June 25, her chief spokesperson confirmed Wednesday in a statement.

There are still no exact details or agenda for the visit, but according to the statement, the goal is to “address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”

The vice president was just in Guatemala and Mexico earlier this month in her first trip overseas since taking office. The trip was met with a whirlwind of criticism from all sides of the political aisle. Conservatives, particularly U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas, accused Harris of having her attention set on the wrong border, while progressives lambasted Harris after a video of her urging Guatemalan migrants to not come to the United States went viral — and questioned why Harris, a daughter of immigrants herself, would make such a remark.

The vice president will be accompanied by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the statement confirmed. It’s her first visit to the border since becoming vice president.

Conservatives have been pushing Harris to visit the border for weeks as they raise alarm over what they have described as a crisis. Gov. Greg Abbott has blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for the increase of immigrants on the state’s southern border, saying in an earlier disaster declaration that new federal policies have paved the way for “dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities.” He announced earlier this month that Texas will take steps to build its own border wall.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Abbott called Harris the “Border Czar,” and touted Operation Lone Star — an initiative to amp upstate law enforcement presence at the border.

Cornyn said in a statement Wednesday, before the trip was announced, that any reluctance to do so is “willful ignorance.”

“Despite what Kamala Harris said in Central America when she said, ‘Do not come,’ the people who are coming are talking to friends and relatives in the United States, they see what’s happening on TV, and the cartels are whispering in their ear,” Cornyn said.

Cruz accused the Biden-Harris administration of being “the last mile of a human trafficking and illegal drug network that cartels are exploiting.”

“It only took more than half a million illegal immigrants entering the United States, more than 400,000 pounds of drugs seized, 19 U.S. Senators traveling to the southern border and 92 days after being appointed border crisis czar for Kamala Harris to visit the southern border,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has disputed the idea of a crisis on the border, as NBC News reported, and has said that any ongoing problems at the border are to be blamed on the Trump administration for refusing to cooperate during the presidential transition period.

Harris is not the only major politician making news for planning a visit down to the border. Former President Donald Trump plans on touring Texas’ southern border with Abbott.

The Department of Homeland Security did not return any requests for comment.

Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/23/kamal-harris-el-paso-border/

The post Kamala Harris to visit El Paso on Friday in first trip to U.S.-Mexico border as vice president first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Biden invited a group of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients in the Oval Office Friday amid a push for immigration reform in Washington.

Biden, facing a mounting migrant crisis at the southern border, is working to extend the DACA program, an Obama-era effort to protect people who were brought to the U.S. as children, which came under fire during the Trump administration.

Six DACA recipients, sometimes called “Dreamers,” were invited to the White House meeting.

Maria Praeli, a self-described “undocumented American,” was among those invited. She shared numerous photos from the trip to Twitter throughout the day under the hashtag, “#WeAreHome,” including one taken just outside of the West Wing.

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The U.S. Supreme Court building at sunset. Credit: REUTERS/Erin Scott

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The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won’t hear a case filed by Texas and 13 other states that seeks to revive a Trump-era “public charge” immigration rule, stating they need an opinion from a lower court first.

The issue before the courts stems from the Trump administration’s decision to broaden the definition of the term “public charge” in 2019 to include non-citizens who rely, or will likely rely, on Medicaid, food assistance such as food stamps, housing assistance, and prescription drug benefits through Medicare Part D.

Under current law, a public charge is any noncitizen who will likely become “primarily” reliant on certain government assistance programs — meaning that the programs provide more than half of their income. Immigrants deemed a public charge cannot receive a green card for citizenship.

The post U.S. Supreme Court rejects Texas-led lawsuit seeking to protect a Trump immigration policy first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The moves are part of a plan by the administration of President Joe Biden to end the program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), an effort complicated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and concerns over illegal immigration.

The Trump administration launched the program in 2019 as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on the ability to seek asylum in the United States, which Trump officials depicted as rife with fraud and meritless claims.

The initiative forced more than 65,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers back across the border to wait for their U.S. court hearings, although far fewer are believed to still be waiting in Mexico.

The Biden administration will begin by working to process about 25,000 migrants with active claims in the program, officials said on Thursday. The new guidelines will require migrants to register online or via phone, be tested for the coronavirus in Mexico and then come to a U.S. port of entry on a specific day.

The news was welcomed with relief in a sprawling migrant camp in the Mexican city of Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

“I’ve been reading all the articles,” said Salvadoran asylum seeker Sandra Andrade, who has been waiting in Mexico for over a year to resolve her U.S. court case. “Honestly, I have no words for how I’m feeling right now!”

Biden vowed on the campaign trail to roll back restrictive Trump-era immigration policies, including MPP, which is informally known as “remain in Mexico.” His administration suspended new entries into the program when he took office on Jan. 20, but did not immediately put forward a plan to bring the people enrolled in it into the United States. Some have been waiting for as long as two years.

Republicans embracing Trump’s hardline immigration views have criticized the ending of MPP and could use it as fuel for political attacks if illegal border crossings increase on Biden’s watch.

Top Biden officials have stressed in recent weeks that migrants should not attempt to enter the United States, saying they need time to build up the capacity to process more asylum seekers.

“Individuals who are not eligible under this initial phase should wait for further instructions and not travel to the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement accompanying the MPP announcement. “Due to the current pandemic, restrictions at the border remain in place and will be enforced.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador echoed that message on Friday, saying migrants should not think “the gates of the northern border are open” or believe human smugglers who say as much.

During a call with reporters on Thursday evening, three Biden administration officials described the plans to process MPP enrollees, with the first phase beginning on Feb. 19.

The officials, all of whom requested anonymity, only outlined procedures for people with active cases in U.S. immigration courts. Those with non-active cases, many of whom may have returned to their home countries, “will have other opportunities,” one of the officials said.

Under the plan, migrants will need to register with international organizations over the internet or by phone and await instructions. One of the organizations will also handle coronavirus testing in Mexico, another official said.

Biden officials declined to identify the organizations on Thursday. However, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the refugee agency would work with both the U.S. and Mexican governments to ensure migrants in the program could safely enter the United States.

STARTING SMALL

The migrants’ claims will initially be heard at three ports of entry along the border, with organizations working to identify those in line the longest and those deemed particularly vulnerable.

At two of the ports, the Biden administration expects to process 300 people per day at each port. The effort will expand to additional ports over time.

“We will start small,” said one of the officials.

The Biden officials declined to name the ports where the administration planned to begin processing, citing concerns that people would rush to those locations.

Migrants entering the United States through the program will not be placed in detention centers, but could be subject to an alternative form of monitoring, including ankle bracelets.

The United States developed the strategy in close coordination with Mexican authorities, the official said.

Even while Biden moves to end one Trump program, he faces growing pressure from advocates to end another known as Title 42. The pandemic-era order allows U.S. authorities to rapidly expel to Mexico migrants caught crossing the border illegally, a practice advocates say bypasses due process.

The Biden administration has not said whether it will end that program. More than 400,000 migrants have been expelled under the measure since it became effective in March 2020, although many of those caught are repeat border crossers and therefore counted multiple times.

The effort to process MPP enrollees comes as arrests of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border have been increasing after a steep drop at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

The post Biden to bring in asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico under Trump program first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.