Early Tuesday morning in the Capitol, Mayorkas walked into the lion’s den, taking a meeting with House GOP members of the “border security caucus” – a group of members particularly fired up over the announcement last week that the White House would lift Trump-era covid restrictions at the border, known as Title 42.

Republicans said they gave him an earful.

“It was a rough crowd, and you got to give him a lot of credit for picking the roughest crowd, going in, and listening to them,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who attended the private briefing, where Mayorkas appeared voluntarily. “Nothing was really resolved, other than he made a promise to give a number of follow-up pieces of information.”

Added Rep. Brian Babin of Texas, the co-chairman of the caucus: “We appreciated his courage to come in, knowing that we were opposed to him 100%. But we were not satisfied with the answers he gave us.”

When asked if impeachment proceedings could be launched against Mayorkas in a GOP majority, Babin replied, “Definitely on the table.”

As the thorny politics of immigration have caused a rift within the Democratic Party, with a number of the party’s most vulnerable members revolting against the Title 42 move, Republicans see the matter as a rallying cry that will be central to their push to take back the House and the Senate in the fall.

The Title 42 move has upended efforts to pass a $10 billion Covid-19 relief bill, forced the Biden administration to quietly attempt to calm nerves on Capitol Hill and could lead to a series of tough questions for Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Wednesday when he goes before the House Budget Committee. Republicans say they’re not done yet, planning theatrics this week to consume the House floor and try to force votes on the issue – all an attempt to put the squeeze on vulnerable Democrats.

While some leading Democrats say the policy must be lifted, they are uncertain about the political price they may pay for it.

“It’s the right thing to do, but I don’t know if it will be a political problem or not,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday.

The decision to end Title 42 – which allowed migrants to be turned away at the border instead of processed under normal immigration rules during the global pandemic – is already causing problems on the legislative front, potentially scuttling a push to pass $10 billion in long-sought aid to deal with the pandemic.

On Tuesday, Republicans blocked an effort to advance the Covid relief plan as they demanded votes on amendments – namely one to target the Title 42 policy. But unlike many vulnerable Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has backed the White House’s move on Title 42, saying the current policy “wreaked havoc on our asylum system.” And the New York Democrat is rejecting calls for a vote on an amendment over the issue, a fight that could stall the package for vaccines and therapeutics for weeks.

“The bottom line is this is a bipartisan agreement that does a whole lot of important good for the American people: vaccines, testing, therapeutics,” Schumer said. “It should not be held hostage for an extraneous issue.”

Democrats look to avoid tough vote
In a private lunch on Tuesday, one Senate Democrat told CNN that the consensus among Democrats was to try and avoid holding a vote on the measure at all. Such an amendment would divide Democrats – and could potentially pass the Senate – and threaten the White House’s immigration policies while embarrassing the President.

Democrats in competitive reelection battles are now racing to distance themselves from President Joe Biden’s decision-making and bracing for the possibility of a surge of migrants at the border, even as many acknowledge that the pandemic-era rule can’t remain in perpetuity as a way to control the surge at the Southern border.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat who is close to the White House but who also faces voters this year, made clear his displeasure with the administration’s move.

“I think this is the wrong time,” Warnock told CNN. “And I haven’t seen a plan.”

Several other Democrats in tough reelection battles echoed that sentiment.

“There are options,” Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat up for reelection in the fall, said when asked if he’d back an amendment on the issue.

“It’s obvious that there’s not a plan in place,” Kelly said. “This is a national security issue for the country, it’s a public health issue as well – not only for people in communities on the southern border, but for migrants. We need an orderly process.”

The administration says it does have a plan to deal with the expected surge.

Chris Magnus, commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, said once the policy ends May 23, they have taken a number of steps to prepare for an influx of migrants and beef up security at the border.

“We are doing everything we can to prepare for this increase, ensure we continue to process people humanely, and impose consequences on those who break the law,” Magnus said in a statement. “At the same time, we will continue to use all available resources to secure our borders. This includes the increased use of technology, on-ground monitoring, use of drones and additional support personnel to supplement (Border Patrol) agents and free them up from processing duties whenever possible.”

But both the House and Senate Democratic chairmen of the homeland security committees are not yet sold on the administration’s plan – even after getting briefed regularly by Mayorkas.

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but also is in charge of the Senate Democratic campaign committee, said Tuesday, “It’s important that the administration has a plan to deal with what will happen as a result of lifting” the policy even as he said he’s “confident” it ultimately will.

But asked if he supports lifting Title 42, Peters said: “I want to see the plan, but it’s still a work in progress.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, met Tuesday morning with Mayorkas to discuss the issue and warned that he still wanted to see a more robust plan for how the Homeland Security Department plans to combat a potential increase in border crossings this summer.

“Obviously, the administration has to come with policies that would convince the public that this issue will be managed. Not controlled, but managed,” Thompson said. “The policies have to be clear. … I am being told those policies are being worked on as we speak.”

Asked if he was convinced that the administration’s policies will be able to combat a surge, he said, “Well, I will wait until I see the policy.”

Conservative Democrats, too, are pushing back.

“Security of the border is everything,” said West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a leading moderate Democrat. “It’s everything. And we have to get our head straight about this and get secured borders.”

GOP plots midterm plans
House GOP leaders are eager to keep Title 42 in the spotlight, with a strategy that is largely centered around messaging.

The GOP leadership has encouraged Republicans to participate in a so-called conga line on Wednesday, according to GOP sources, in which members will line up on the House floor and repeatedly ask for unanimous consent to consider a bill from Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell of New Mexico that would keep the Trump-era policy in place.

And last week, sources said Republican leaders began officially whipping support for a “discharge petition” that would force a floor vote on that same bill if 218 lawmakers sign on to the effort. So far, 211 members have signed the petition: every single House Republican besides Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

Conservative Rep. Chip Roy of Texas filed the petition last year, but has been steadily building support for it ever since; the effort picked up new steam in the wake of Biden’s Title 42 announcement.

“What are they afraid of? Just put it on the floor,” Roy said. “If you think it’s bad policy, then put it up.”

When asked if he would support the discharge petition, Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat in a tough reelection race, said he would have to look at it. But Phillips also made clear he has concerns with Biden’s Title 42 decision, and said he has begun to express some of those worries to the White House.

“I’ve been to the southern border twice. It appalled me, as it should appall any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, and any American,” he said. “And I do concur that there should be a thoughtful, actionable plan in place before rescinding it. Plain and simple.”

“I would be shocked and dismayed if they don’t,” Phillips added. “Have I seen it? No.”

On Monday evening, the House Republican conference held a briefing with border patrol agents to hear how the end of Title 42 will impact their operations, then followed it up with a news conference in the Capitol afterward.

“You know, President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, said they would do something about this and they have not,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said. “They’ve only opened it up worse.”

Republicans have already taken dozens of trips to the southern border since last year, and there are more in the works in the near future: McCarthy said he will lead another border trip at the end of this month.

Republicans are confident that hammering Democrats over the border will not only energize their base, but also resonate with moderate and independent voters – especially since they have linked border security to the fentanyl crisis that has impacted communities all around the country.

“It’s far more than just aliens coming across, it’s far more than just the drugs coming across. This is a national security issue that’s gonna further get worse as time goes on this summer,” said Rep. John Katko of New York, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.

One reason the GOP feels like it has the political upper hand: the National Republican Congressional Committee has shown members internal polling that shows the border is a salient issue in battleground districts, according to GOP sources.

Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the head of the House GOP’s campaign arm, told CNN: “Democrats will pay a political price for their incompetence.”

CNN’s Ted Barrett and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/05/politics/title-42-gop-election-strategy/index.html

The post Biden’s immigration move divides Democrats as GOP plots election-year strategy first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Biden administration has recently relied on Mexican authorities to reduce the number of migrants reaching the U.S. southern border and is finalizing plans to reinstate a Trump-era policy that requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico.

But one senior U.S. official said during a background call with reporters on Wednesday that, “There’s not a real focus, this time around, on our borders.”

Instead, administration officials said the talks with Mexico’s delegation, which includes President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, will center on regional cooperation to address the “unprecedented displacement” of migrants in the Western Hemisphere.

The delegations will discuss efforts to mitigate poverty, violence and other “root causes” of migration that prompt migrants to leave their homelands, U.S. officials said. The talks, the officials added, will also focus on proposals to expand work visas, refugee spots and other legal immigration pathways for would-be migrants, including victims of trafficking.

An administration official said Thursday’s summit will be an opportunity to “lock arms with Canada and Mexico” which, along with the U.S., are “three of the top destination countries for migrants and asylum speakers” in the Americas.

This is the first time since 2016 that the leaders of North America’s three largest economies, dubbed the “Three Amigos,” have convened in a summit.

Administration officials told reporters this year’s meetings will also concentrate on economic cooperation; the COVID-19 pandemic (the U.S. has donated almost 11 million vaccine doses to Mexico alone); and efforts to address the climate crisis.

Mr. Biden’s sweeping legislative agenda and proposals for electric vehicle production in the U.S. have also been among those putting his policies at odds with his North American counterparts, especially López Obrador — his new energy initiative relies on state-owned companies and their higher utilization of coal.

Ebrard, the Mexican foreign minister, acknowledged there could be policy disagreements among the three countries.

“Our perspective is that we are going to have positive results,” he told reporters Wednesday. “We have an optimistic vision of this meeting. It does not mean that an issue cannot arise where there are different positions, but it does mean that it will be a positive environment.”

While the trilateral discussions will be likely more expansive, the bilateral meetings between Mr. Biden and his cohorts could be where issues like immigration will be hashed out, according to a senior White House official.

López Obrador is also slated to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tasked earlier this year with overseeing U.S. efforts to address the factors that fuel migration from Central America.

Even though U.S. officials said border policy will take a backseat during Thursday’s sessions, recent developments have highlighted Mexico’s powerful role in the U.S. addressing unauthorized migration to the southern border.

One administration official said the ongoing negotiations over the court-mandated revival of the Remain-in-Mexico program will not be “the subject” of Thursday’s summit.

But on Monday, Blas Nuñez-Neto, the top Homeland Security official overseeing border policy, said the U.S. was “close to finalizing” the negotiations over the policy, which the Trump administration used to require 70,000 migrants to wait in Mexico for their hearings on their requests for asylum in the U.S.

“We anticipate that the remaining issues will be resolved shortly and that reimplementation will begin within the coming weeks,” Nuñez-Neto said in a court declaration.

Mexico has also recently ramped up efforts to reduce the number of migrants heading to the U.S.

Apprehensions by Mexican immigration officials increased sharply in August and September, a trend that ran parallel with a steady decrease in migrant interdictions along the U.S. border, government data from both countries show.

Mexico recently agreed to U.S. requests to impose stricter visa requirements for Ecuadorians, who were apprehended in record numbers along the southern border this summer. In October, U.S. border officials reported a sharp decline in apprehensions of migrants from Ecuador.

Mexico’s government has also accepted the return of hundreds of thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants expelled by U.S. border officials under the coronavirus-era Title 42 policy, which the Biden administration has retained.

Asked about Mexico’s immigration enforcement efforts, a senior Biden administration official reiterated that Thursday’s talks will focus on addressing root causes of migration from Central America and southern Mexico.

“We know that with Mexico and with all governments in the region, we have to find ways that we can collaborate on migration management, on enforcing our immigration laws,” the official said Wednesday. “But as I mentioned, it’s not actually one of the themes or focuses of tomorrow.”

Camilo Montoya-Galvez
Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/three-way-summit-border-issues-biden-trudeau-andres-manuel-lopez-obrado/

The post U.S. officials say border policy won’t be focus of talks with Mexico at three-way summit, despite lingering issues first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Biden is struggling with a Gordian knot on immigration that there’s little he can do to untangle: The nation’s broken system is making it harder than it should be to manage the Afghan refugee crisis — and the Afghan refugee crisis is making it harder to fix the system.

By the numbers: If the military’s task of adding 50,000 spots to bases by mid-September to temporarily house Afghan refugees sounds like a lot, consider that there have been more than 1.2 million undocumented border crossings since last October.

• Meanwhile, pandemic protocols and disruptions have fueled so many backlogs that officials estimate that in the fiscal year closing at the end of this month, 100,000 green cards allotments could go to waste.

The big picture: The crisis around the U.S. withdrawal, fall of the Afghan government and rise of the Taliban is just the latest in a string of migration emergencies that have fallen on President Biden and brought into focus the shortfalls of the system.

• COVID-19, poverty and violence in Central America, an earthquake that rocked Haiti, actions by the Trump administration and in federal courts, and agencies that are understaffed and underfunded have left the administration jumping from one fire to the next.

What they’re saying: “Our resources are indeed stressed,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Friday, adding that what they have managed to accomplish for Afghans being brought to the U.S. “speaks to the extraordinary talent and dedication” of agencies’ workforces.

• “The Biden Administration is committed to rebuilding the broken immigration system it inherited after four years of chaos,” a White House spokesperson told Axios, adding that the administration has been “continuing to call on Congress to make long overdue reforms to U.S. immigration laws.“
• ”Asylum and other legal migration pathways should remain available to those seeking protection. But those not seeking protection or who don’t qualify will be returned to their country of origin.”

Details: DHS has taken responsibility for evacuating and welcoming vulnerable Afghans to the U.S. But its agencies are also in charge of enforcing the U.S.-Mexico border, authorizing parolees and other migrants for work in the country, approving temporary visas and running immigrant detention centers.

• The number of migrants and pending applications has only grown since Biden took office.
• The same Department of Health and Human Services agency that has had to scramble to fund and build emergency sites for unaccompanied kids is also charged with funding services for refugees — including resettled Afghans.
• The U.S. has brought in tens of thousands of Afghans using a special mechanism called parole — they join other migrants who have also been paroled into the U.S., including many who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
• Paperwork, including work authorization for Afghans and Central American asylum seekers alike, all flow through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which has long struggled with backlogs and funding shortfalls.
• The long, tedious Special Immigrant Visa process likely contributed to leaving many allies stranded in Afghanistan.

An unknown number of unaccompanied Afghan kids will join the record numbers of migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents or guardians. Unaccompanied minors will be placed in shelters overseen by HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters.

• But more than one in five migrant kids have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent weeks, according two government sources familiar with internal data. And HHS has lost contact with one-in-three migrant kids released from shelters.
• As military bases prepare to house tens of thousands of Afghans, one base, Fort Bliss, has already been criticized for holding hundreds of unaccompanied minors in unfit conditions.

The pandemic, with its travel restrictions and consulate closures, already has disrupted the green card process, as the Wall Street Journal has reported.

• Tens of thousands diversity visa lottery winners —including hundreds from Afghanistan — risk losing their one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Biden has also faced legal roadblocks to keeping his immigrations promises.

• The Supreme Court recently ruled that the administration must restart the Remain in Mexico program and courts have also blocked Biden’s deportation moratorium.
• More than 45 families separated under the Trump administration have been reunified under Biden. But many have arrived in need of housing and other financial assistance.

The bottom line: The administration is working on new regulations to expedite asylum, has sped up the SIV processes, has set up dozens of emergency shelters, has used parole to quickly bring Afghans to the U.S. and has begun offering vaccines to vulnerable migrants.

• But the emergencies keep coming, hitting a system in need of long-term fixes — one neglected by multiple administrations and Congress.

Source: https://www.axios.com/afghanistan-us-immigration-crisis-24ff0c58-acc7-4172-87a6-cf92fcff7972.html

The post Afghanistan feeds U.S. immigration crisis first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

(CNN)With 8,600 migrants remaining under the Del Rio International Bridge, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday officials are using “unprecedented” methods to deter migrants from crossing into the state, including parking Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles for miles along the border to create a “steel barrier.”

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A federal judge on Friday ordered the Biden administration to “enforce and implement” the Trump-era Remain-in-Mexico policy in response to a lawsuit from Texas and Missouri, which claimed that the administration’s attempt to terminate the policy was illegal and harmful.

The two Republican states had sought a preliminary injunction against the administration’s June 1 memo formally ending the policy — officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). They argued that the ending of the policy was in breach of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

MISSOURI AG ‘OPTIMISTIC’ AHEAD OF HEARING CHALLENGING BIDEN REVERSAL OF REMAIN-IN-MEXICO’ POLICY

The ruling by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, orders the Biden administration “to enforce and implement MPP in good faith” until it has been “lawfully rescinded” in compliance with the APA, and until the federal government has enough detention capacity to detail all migrants subject to mandatory detention.

However, it notes the injunction is narrow and also states: “Nothing in this injunction requires DHS to take any immigration or removal action nor withhold its statutory discretion towards any individual thatit would not otherwise take.”

However, the court has stayed the applicability of the opinion and order for 7 days to allow the government to appeal it.

“My office has been leading the way nationally in fighting human trafficking, and the Biden Administration’s lax border policies increase the risk for human trafficking at the border and, in turn, in Missouri,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement. “Today’s massive win was crucial – re-implementing the Migrant Protection Protocols will help secure the border and fight the scourge of human trafficking.”

“Together we sued, and just handed Biden yet another major loss!” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office tweeted.

The post Remain-in-Mexico court ruling a win for Texas, Missouri over Biden admin 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.

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 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.

From Texas to California, unfinished sections of the wall have become convenient gateways for migrants to enter the U.S. Near the gaps, Border Patrol agents park their vehicles to monitor the access points.

Smugglers send groups of asylum seekers through the gaps to overwhelm the agents. When agents leave to intercept or apprehend one group, another group scampers across.

“It’s insane,” said an agent attending to a group of 13 Brazilian migrants apprehended Tuesday near a 100-foot gap in the fence in Otay Mesa, California. “The project is three-quarters done. At least, they should be allowed to tie together the primary fence. Otherwise, we’re trying to catch these people in the worst possible place. It’s just sucking our manpower.”

Biden issued his stop-work order days after entering office in January. He gave Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas 60 days to report back – either continue, modify or terminate the contracts. So far Mayorkas is a week past his deadline. Meanwhile, the tab footed by taxpayers keeps running up.

In other developments:
– Texas Gov. Greg Abbott plans Thursday visit to US-Mexico border city, will discuss cartel smuggling: report
– San Diego County official rips Biden, Newsom as migrant children prioritized over California students
– Border Patrol video shows smugglers abandoning 5-year-old, 3-year-old at the border
– Rep. Green slams AOC’s ‘surge’ pushback: ‘I’m offended’ and border agents should be too
– Kamala Harris has gone 8 days without a news conference since being tapped for border role
– Lahren blasts San Diego for teaching illegal immigrant students in-person ahead of US students

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/bidens-halt-of-border-wall-construction-sends-migrants-streaming-into-us

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House Republicans on Friday asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to take a tougher approach on the US-Mexico border to “prevent the impending catastrophe” they say is coming due to President Biden’s new immigration bill and related policy changes.

Democrats on Thursday unveiled a Biden-supported bill that would offer the more than 11 million estimated illegal immigrants a path to US citizenship, which Republicans say could become a new “pull” factor.

The White House said Tuesday it also will begin an end to the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers from Central America. About 71,000 applicants will be allowed into the US to await decisions, the White House said.

“The Biden Administration’s policies limiting immigration enforcement and weakening border security, coupled with its proposal to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, are signaling to the world that our immigration laws can be violated with little, if any, consequence,” Republicans on the House Oversight Committee wrote to Mayorkas.

“We are particularly concerned that the Biden Administration’s actions could soon lead to a health crisis at the border and surrounding communities, causing widespread COVID-19 infections and fatalities.”

The 19 Republicans, led by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ask Mayorkas to outline “the administration’s plan to prevent the impending catastrophe on the border.”

In January, President Biden signed an executive order to halt construction on the US-Mexico border wall.AP

The GOP group contended, “The increasing number of [unaccompanied children] and family units illegally crossing the border will soon overwhelm border facilities in the middle of a global pandemic, forcing CBP officials to resort to widespread, rapid catch and release of unlawfully present individuals and families into the interior of the country.”

In his first month as president, Biden ended construction of former President Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall and vowed to relax a wide range of policies that sought to limit immigration, including a rule that the US cannot admit immigrants likely to require public assistance. Trump cast the restrictions as necessary protection for low-wage US workers and taxpayers, but Biden has described the policies as “inhumane.”

Biden also ended a “zero tolerance” Trump-era policy for prosecuting illegal border crossings.

Former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller, who orchestrated many of Trump’s immigration policies, said Thursday on Fox News that the new immigration bill is poorly timed given high unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You have 20 million Americans who want full-time jobs right now, but because of the pandemic they can’t find them,” Miller said.

The former senior adviser lambasted the bill as a “full-scale attack on the very idea of nationhood.”

“If you were trying to write a bill to eliminate the concept of having a nation, this is the bill you would write,” Miller added.

In December, then-President-elect Biden said he was concerned about abruptly relaxing Trump’s immigration policies because he feared that if he acted too quickly, he would trigger “2 million people on our border.”

Source: https://nypost.com/2021/02/19/republicans-say-biden-immigration-bill-will-cause-catastrophe-on-mexico-border/

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