[News] The Migrant Crisis Thread

HUIXTLA, Mexico (AP) — Christmas Day meant the same as any other day for thousands of migrants walking through southern Mexico: more trudging under a hot sun.

There were no presents, and Christmas Eve dinner was a sandwich, a bottle of water and a banana handed out by a local church to some of the migrants in the town of Álvaro Obregón, in the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala.

Migrants spent Christmas night sleeping on a scrap of cardboard or plastic stretched out under an awning or tent, or the bare ground.

In the morning, it was waking as usual at 4 a.m., to get an early start and avoid the worst of the heat, walking to the next town, Huixtla, 20 miles (30 kilometers) away.

Karla Ramírez, a migrant from Honduras who was traveling with other adults and four children, got to Álvaro Obregón too late Sunday to get any of the food being given out by the church. So they had to buy whatever little they could afford.

“It was sad: we have never, ever been in the street before,” Ramírez said. “Our Christmas dinner was some mortadella, butter and tomato, with a tortilla.”

Mariela Amaya’s seven-year-old son didn’t understand why they had to spend Christmas this way. Amaya, also from Honduras, tugged the hand of her tired, recalcitrant son as they walked.

“They don’t understand why we have to do this to get a better life,” Amaya said. Nor did the governments of Mexico and the United States, she said.

“Why can’t they help us? We need their help,” she said.

What little help there was came from local families, one of whom gave out tamales — traditional seasonal fare — and water to the passing migrants.

The migrants included single adults but also entire families, all eager to reach the U.S. border, angry and frustrated at having to wait weeks or months in the nearby city of Tapachula for documents that might allow them to continue their journey.

Mexico claims it doesn’t give out transit visas, but migrants keep hoping to get some sort of document so they could at least take buses to the border.

“This journey has been really hard for us migrants. We need the (Mexican) immigration office and the government to have some pity on us, and give us a safe conduct pass,” said Jessica García, a migrant from Venezuela.

Mexico says it detected 680,000 migrants moving through the country in the first 11 months of 2023.

At around 6,000 people, the migrant caravan that set out Sunday was the largest one since June 2022, when a similarly sized group departed Tapachula.

And like the 2022 caravan — which started as U.S. President Joe Biden hosted leaders in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas — this year’s Christmas caravan came a few days before U.S. officials are to meet with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City to explore ways of stemming the number of migrants showing up at the U.S. southwest border.

The Mexican government has already said it is willing to help try to block migrants from crossing Mexico; the government had little choice, afte r U.S. officials briefly closed two vital Texas railway border crossings, claiming they were overwhelmed by processing migrants.

That put a chokehold on freight moving from Mexico to the United States, as well as grain needed to feed Mexican livestock moving south. The rail crossings have since been reopened, but the message was clear.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Mexico City Wednesday to hammer out new agreements to control the surge of migrants seeking entry into the United States. The U.S. delegation will also include Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall.

This month, as many as 10,000 migrants were arrested per day at the U.S. southwest border.

In May, Mexico agreed to take in migrants from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who had been turned away by the U.S. for not following rules that provided new legal pathways to asylum and other forms of migration.

But that deal, aimed at curbing a post-pandemic jump in migration, appears to be insufficient as numbers rise once again, disrupting bilateral trade and stoking anti-migrant sentiment among conservative voters in the U.S.

Arrests for illegal crossing topped 2 million in each of the U.S. government’s last two fiscal years, reflecting technological changes that have made it easier for migrants to leave home to escape poverty, natural disasters, political repression and organized crime.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Students in Indonesia’s Aceh province rallied on Wednesday, demanding the government drive away Rohingya refugees who have been arriving by sea in growing numbers. The protest came as police named more suspects in human trafficking of refugees.

Over 1,500 Rohingya — who fled violent attacks in Myanmar to subsequently leave overcrowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh in search of a better life elsewhere — have arrived in Aceh, on the tip of the island of Sumatra, since November. They have faced some hostility from fellow Muslims in Aceh.

About 200 students protested in front of the provincial parliament in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, calling on lawmakers to turn away the Rohingyas, saying their presence would bring social and economic upheaval to the community.

“Get out Rohingya,” the protesters chanted. Many criticized the government and the United Nations refugee agency for failing to manage the refugee arrivals. Some protesters burned tires on the street.

“We urged the parliament speaker to immediately take a firm action to remove all Rohingya refugees from Aceh,” said Teuku Wariza, one of the protest organizers.

The protesters marched to a local community hall in Banda Aceh, where about 137 Rohingya are taking shelter. The demonstrators threw out clothes and household items belonging to the refugees, forcing authorities to relocate them to another shelter.

Footage obtained by The Associated Press shows a large group of refugees, mostly women and children, crying and screaming as a mob, wearing university green jackets, is seen breaking through a police cordon and forcibly putting the Rohingya on the back of two trucks.

The incident drew an outcry from human rights group and the UNHCR, which said the attack left the refugees shocked and traumatized.

“UNHCR reminds everyone that desperate refugee children, women and men seeking shelter in Indonesia are victims of persecution and conflict, and are survivors of deadly sea journeys,” the agency said in a statement released late Wednesday.

The statement called on local authorities to urgently act to protect the refugees and humanitarian workers.

Indonesia had once tolerated the refugees while Thailand and Malaysia pushed them away. But the growing hostility of some Indonesians toward the Rohingya has put pressure on President Joko Widodo’s government to take action.

Earlier in December, Widodo said the government suspected a surge in human trafficking for the increase in Rohingya arrivals.

Also Wednesday, police in Banda Aceh named two more suspected human smugglers from Bangladesh and Myanmar, following the Dec. 10 arrival of another boat with refugees. One of the suspects, the boat’s captain, himself a refugee, was charged with trafficking.

“This is not an easy issue, this is an issue with enormous challenges,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.

About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign carried out in 2017 by security forces. Accusations of mass rape, murder and the burning of entire villages are well documented, and international courts are considering whether Myanmar authorities committed genocide and other grave human rights abuses.

Efforts to repatriate the Rohingya have failed because of doubts their safety can be assured. The Rohingya are largely denied citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and face widespread social discrimination.

President Biden is under growing pressure to curb record numbers of migrants crossing into the United States — not just from the usual Republican critics, but also from Democratic mayors and governors in cities thousands of miles from the border.

What used to be a clear-cut, ideological fight between Democrats and Republicans has become a bipartisan demand for action, and some of the most intense pressure on Mr. Biden is coming from places like Boston, Denver, Chicago and New York, where leaders in the president’s own party are issuing cries for help.

Publicly, the Democratic politicians have described mounting crises in their cities. Privately, they are in almost daily contact with Tom Perez, director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and other administration officials. For the most part they are not calling for the kind of severe border restrictions that Republicans are demanding, but they want help with overflowing migrant encampments, packed shelters and busted budgets.

The intraparty pressure has turned the politics of immigration upside down at the beginning of a campaign year. And it has increased the likelihood that Mr. Biden and Democratic lawmakers will approve immigration concessions to Republicans that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago.

In Denver, more than 36,000 migrants have arrived in recent months, with 4,100 still in city shelters, and more are arriving daily. In Boston, migrants have camped out at the airport. In New York, more than 164,500 migrants have poured into shelters since April 2022, with many still living in one of the 215 hotels, converted office buildings or tent camps set up to accommodate them.

“It’s both a humanitarian and fiscal crisis,” said Mike Johnston, the Democratic mayor of Denver. “We aren’t going to sit by and watch moms and 6-month-olds in tents on the streets in 10-degree weather. But by refusing to do that we are on the path to spend $180 million next year and could not do that either.”

“As mayors we are so frustrated,” he added, noting that many of the migrants arriving in his city must wait for months before they can work legally in the United States. “This is actually a solvable problem, if we had work authorization, federal dollars and a coordinated entry plan.”

The flood of migrants into the big cities has been anything but coordinated.

Most have arrived, unannounced, on buses or planes sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who argues that cities far from the border should get a taste of the flood of migrants in his state. Democratic mayors have lashed out at Mr. Abbott for what they say is a political stunt, using human beings as props.

So far, the stunt seems to have worked, by delivering the migrants — often without coats, or family members in the U.S. — to the cities far to the north.

Mayor Eric Adams of New York filed a lawsuit on Thursday against 17 charter bus companies seeking $708 million in compensation for transporting migrants from Texas to the city without paying “for the cost of continued care in violation of New York’s Social Services Law.” Last week, the mayor issued an executive order that requires buses with migrants to arrive in the city only between 8:30 a.m. and noon, Monday through Friday, or face fines and impoundment. Many buses have diverted to cities in New Jersey instead.

In Denver, Mr. Johnston was at one of the city’s migrant encampments on Wednesday, feeling upbeat that his team was transferring all 300 people, including some children, out of the cold and into shelters and apartments.

But even as the process was underway, several new busloads of migrants from the border arrived, courtesy of Mr. Abbott.

“They literally pulled in as we were moving people from this encampment,” Mr. Johnston said in an interview.

A record number of people worldwide are fleeing conflict, climate change, political turmoil and economic hardship in their homelands, according to the United Nations, and smuggling networks have expanded their reach to Asia and Africa.

Nearly 2.5 million people crossed the southern border in fiscal year 2023. In December, more than 10,000 migrants were intercepted at the southern border on some days, among the most ever. Many of them are boarding Mr. Abbott’s buses, hoping to find housing and work in the cities.

The anger at Mr. Abbott — and the frustration with the issue — is shared by Mr. Biden’s top aides, who regularly lash out at the Texas governor and other Republicans. On Wednesday, after Speaker Mike Johnson and 60 House Republicans gathered at the border to rail against the president and his immigration policies, the president’s spokeswoman shot back.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called the trip to the border the latest in a series of “political stunts” and accused Republicans of blocking “any efforts for the president to deal with the border. That’s what we’ve seen. That is what we’ve seen from the speaker.”

White House officials say they have been in constant contact with the Democratic mayors and governors to try to help them deal with the impact of the migrants. Mr. Perez spends close to 50 percent of his time on the issue, according to a senior administration official familiar with his efforts.

“The president is focused on securing additional resources,” Mr. Perez said, “including more Border Patrol agents, asylum officers and immigration judges; more technology to catch fentanyl; and more grant funding for communities hosting recently arrived migrants.”

The federal government has already delivered about $1 billion to the cities most affected, including about $50 million of a promised $150 million to New York City. Mr. Biden has also asked Congress for another $1.4 billion to help cities around the country deal with migrants, but that emergency funding is tied up in debates on Capitol Hill.

Mayors and governors say it wouldn’t be enough anyway.

New York has already spent $3.1 billion on housing and feeding the migrants. Massachusetts has spent $247 million on emergency housing since July, and half of the current occupants are migrants. San Diego County allocated $3 million in October for a transition day center for migrants, and another $3 million in December. Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities across the country are also spending millions.

Since August 2022, more than 600 buses have dropped migrants off in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, and for months, migrant families have camped out in police stations or in tents on sidewalks.

In recent weeks, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has largely removed migrants from police stations and moved them to the 27 shelters throughout the city. More than 14,000 migrants are currently staying in shelters; Chicago has received nearly 30,000 migrants in just over 14 months.

In a New Year’s Eve interview, Mayor Johnson assailed Mr. Abbott’s actions but also renewed pressure on the Biden administration to send billions of dollars to the cities affected.

“What we have is clearly an international and federal crisis that local governments are being asked to subsidize, and this is unsustainable,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “None of our local economies are positioned to be able to carry on such a mission.”

On Capitol Hill, a solution to the problem remains elusive.

Republicans have seized the moment to insist on new, severe restrictions to asylum and other immigration policies that Democrats have resisted for years. Lawmakers in both parties say they want more funding for border security but so far have been unable to reach agreement on how much and what it would be spent on.

Caught in the middle are some of Mr. Biden’s top foreign policy priorities: military funding to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression, along with money for Israel as it conducts a war against Hamas following the terror attacks on Oct. 7. Republicans have held up both priorities as border negotiations continue.

But the pressure on Mr. Biden is clearly having an effect on the legislative negotiations. White House officials have signaled that they are open to changes that would make it harder for asylum seekers to pass an initial hurdle, known as a credible fear interview. If that happens, more of them will be returned home more quickly.

Democratic negotiators, including Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, also have appeared willing to discuss new rules that will allow more rapid deportations of migrants living illegally in the United States far from the border.

That would be a huge departure from the positions taken by most Democrats in the opening days and months of Mr. Biden’s presidency. But as the mayors and governors have made clear, the dynamics have changed.

“States like Massachusetts are in desperate need of more support from the federal government to address this historic surge in migrant arrivals,” said Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, a Democrat. “We need Congress to act on President Biden’s budget that includes critical funding for border security and for cities and states like ours.”

A Brooklyn high school that housed nearly 2,000 migrants for one night during a powerful rainstorm received a bomb threat and multiple “hate calls,” the city’s top emergency management official said Wednesday.

The threats came amid a wave of outrage among some residents, Republican politicians and even the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, over the decision to house the migrants at James Madison High School in Marine Park after they were evacuated Tuesday afternoon from a nearby tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field.

“These actions are not only deplorable, they are also criminal offenses,” said Zach Iscol, the city’s emergency management commissioner, during a virtual briefing. “This administration stands united against any hate or intimidation.”

He did not provide further details about the nature of the threats.

The migrants were back at the shelter at the former federal airfield by 4:15 a.m. Nevertheless, the school operated via remote learning Wednesday, fueling anger among some elected officials and parents who said the migrant crisis was coming at the expense of students.

“Let’s be clear about one thing: Remote learning equals no learning,” City Councilmember Vicki Paladino said in a statement.

State Assemblymember Michael Novakhov of Brooklyn promoted a protest outside the school slamming the city’s “decision to prioritize migrants over our communities, budget, safety, and even the education of our children.”

Videos posted to social media captured an ugly scene at James Madison on Tuesday evening as the city bused migrants to the school.

“How does it feel that you kicked all the kids out of school tomorrow?” a woman who identified herself as “an aggravated mother” yelled at migrant families.

Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and is worth $245 billion, also weighed in.

“This is what happens when you run out of hotel rooms,” he wrote on the platform. “Soon, cities will run out of schools to vacate. Then they will come for your homes.”

President Joe Biden is embracing tougher border measures, including shutting down the US-Mexico border, marking a stark shift from his early days in office as he tries to fend off former President Donald Trump’s attacks on immigration policy ahead of the election.

Hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson warned on Friday that the emerging border deal in the Senate is “dead on arrival,” Biden offered this message to House Republicans: “Securing the border through these negotiations is a win for America. For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it. If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it.”

Biden took office pledging to restore asylum and manage the border in a “humane” way. But his administration has faced the harsh realities and challenges at the US-Mexico border amid record migration across the Western hemisphere — making it a political vulnerability seized on by Republicans.

In recent weeks, Trump has lobbied Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise being delicately hashed out in the Senate because he wants to campaign on the issue this November.

Over the course of his administration, Biden has leaned on more restrictive measures to try to stem the flow of migration, but Friday’s statement revealed a tougher stance as the president tries to control an issue that’s dogged him, while risking putting him at odds with some allies.

“(The compromise) would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” Biden’s statement said.

Biden’s embrace of an authority that would allow him to shut down the border in the event of a migrant surge was striking to current and former administration officials, as well as to immigrant advocates.

Under the soon-to-be-released package, the Department of Homeland Security would be granted new emergency authority to shut down the border if daily average migrants crossing unlawfully reach 4,000 over a one-week span. Certain migrants would be allowed to stay if they proved to be fleeing torture or persecution in their countries.

The details remain unclear. But the authority is reminiscent of a Covid-era border restriction invoked by Trump in 2020 that allowed authorities to turn migrants away at the border. It resulted in more repeat border crossers and still placed a strain on the immigration system.

Immigrant advocates quickly slammed Biden over his statement — revealing the deepening rift between the president and the advocacy community.

This is what an overwhelmed city can look like: a preschooler sleeping under a bridge for a month; crowds lining up each night to get food and shelter; and the mayor calling out for help. And when that city is Denver in the winter, and the overnight temperatures sink below zero degrees Fahrenheit, the problems are life-threatening.

“Our city is really struggling,” Mayor Mike Johnston told CNN after he visited families in a makeshift encampment – a sign of the unfolding emergency triggered by the mass arrival of people from outside the city.

“This is both a humanitarian crisis for the individuals that are arriving, and it’s a fiscal crisis for the cities that are serving. Those two crises are coming to a head right now.”

Few, if any, of the thousands of people who have arrived in Denver planned for Colorado’s capital to be their destination after monthslong treks away from persecution or deprivation in search of safety and a chance at the American Dream.

But when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott decided to offer free bus rides to get asylum seekers out of his state, the options given were generally New York, Chicago or Denver, migrants said. Each of those three cities has a Democratic mayor and Abbott has targeted them as part of his stated aim for “the rest of America (to) understand what is going on.” Migrants told CNN they had heard New York was too full, believed Chicago would be too cold and thus picked Denver.

The mayors of New York, Chicago and Denver have issued joint calls for the arrivals of migrants to be treated as a national problem with a national solution. They have called for a coordinated entry system, but Abbott’s spokesperson told CNN in December the only fix was for President Joe Biden’s administration to “secure the border.”

Texas has sent 15,700 people to Denver since May. Initially, many were Venezuelans applying for asylum who had “Temporary Protected Status” under a federal program that allows people from some crisis-hit countries to live and work legally in the United States for a period of time. The city was able to help get the migrants on their feet and soon, they were self-sufficient members of the community, Johnston said.

The Biden administration expanded the TPS program in September after demands for action by New York City, but it still only applies to Venezuelans who arrived in the US before August 1, and most of the newer arrivals in Denver do not qualify. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has not signaled if he plans further expansions.

Adriana, who did not give her last name, said she fled Venezuela’s dire economic straits with her husband and young son. They took the land route through the treacherous Darién Gap, traveling thousands of miles through Central America and then Mexico to reach the US border, she said.

Once they were bussed up to Denver, they found themselves with fellow Venezuelans at an encampment under a bridge north of downtown, near where I-70 crosses I-25, in an area full of squat industrial buildings alongside the freight rail tracks. The migrants cooked gifted food for each other in a makeshift kitchen, shared stories and became a small community.

A donated tent was the first American home for John David, Adriana’s 4-year-old son. The family stayed there for a month, but the weather soon made the preschooler ill.

“The cold weather has been tough,” Adriana told us earlier this month, on a day when a howling winter wind drowned out the noise from the interstates. “It’s horrible, my son suffers from asthma, and he’s been sick with a cough. I’ve been treating him with some medication that was given to me.”

Some of those living in the tent village have no shoes, and they layer socks to give their feet a little protection from the cold and the crust of frozen snow that covers the stony dirt below. Inside the tents, sheets of polystyrene foam are used as insulation, and clothes are piled up on church-donated mattresses to give extra support and warmth.

As an Arctic blast began to hit the city, Mayor Johnston and his staff were out warning the migrants of the freezing temperatures to come and urging them to go to new shelters or warming centers. Hotels leased by the city just last month to house migrants are already full.

“We’re having the coldest days of the year and we want to move all the people inside. We have beds, it’s warmer,” he said in Spanish made fluent from his years as a school principal in northern Colorado, working with many Latino children and parents.

‘All I want is a job’

Checking in at the shelter later that day, Johnston was soon swarmed by people grateful for the help being offered, but full of questions: How long can the city help them, but most of all, when can they work?

He asked if they came from Venezuela, and then when they arrived in the US, having to explain if they came after July 31, 2023, there is no way for asylum-seekers to work legally unless the federal government extends TPS. And that is frustrating for both the mayor and migrants.

“You talk to people who say, ‘I walked 3,000 miles to get here, and all I want is a job. Can you help me find some place to work? I don’t need charity. I just want to be able to support myself. Can I work?’” Johnston said. “And at the same time, we got employers all over the city who call me every day and say, ‘Hey, I know you’ve got migrants who just arrived. I got open jobs. Can I please hire them?’”

But right now, the answer is no.

“The federal government could provide next to no support to cities if all these folks have work authorization, because they’d be supporting themselves,” Johnston said. But with some being told they may have to wait six years for their asylum claims to be heard, he said, much of the need to support them will fall on the cities where they are waiting.

Yorgelis Fabiola, who is from Venezuela, said she was pleased to see the mayor asking about their situation, but she still needed answers. “It really is worrying. I don’t have a job right now, I’m afraid that when my stay ends here, they’ll throw me out on the street with my son, because I have nowhere else to go.”

As she shared her concerns with Johnston, Fabiola began to cry. “I thank all of you and I apologize for having entered your country illegally.”

Denver has now updated its policies on housing migrant families, resuming requirements for families to leave city facilities, but raising initial stays for new arrivals to six weeks.

Johnston is looking at Denver having to foot an annual bill of $180 million for migrant services, which would lead to major cuts in other city budgets, he said. “We don’t want to take police officers off the street. We don’t want to take firefighters off the street. We don’t want to not do trash pickup or not have our parks and recreation centers open.” But hard decisions are coming, he said.

If migrants tell the city they have connections in other places, Johnston’s administration will try to help to get them there. Adriana and her son John David got bus vouchers to California, but Johnston said there was no attempt to move migrants on unless they asked.

Without work authorization, some migrants are trying to find off-the-books employment. Groups congregate outside the big hardware stores from 5:30 a.m., before sunrise, hoping to pick up day labor jobs for cash, in construction or shoveling snow or doing whatever needs to be done.

It’s hit or miss, with one man telling CNN he had found work for only 15 days in the last three months. And even working is no guarantee of being paid, with another man complaining to the mayor that he labored for 10 days with others to build a roof and was sent packing with no money.

Harlem's "Little Senegal" has recently become an epicenter for a new wave of mostly young, male West African migrants, who are simultaneously finding community and challenges as well as coming to terms with the harsh realities of living in New York City.

The new arrivals, who are mostly in their late teens and 20s, are a conspicuous fixture on West 116th Street, where they often congregate. They speak in their native Wolof, which is commonplace in Senegal, and are typically seen toting insulated food-delivery backpacks on their e-bikes.

Some of them said they shelter in mosques and churches located nearby as well as in the Bronx and Westchester. They reassemble in the early morning, when a line forms outside the Senegalese Association of America's office, near St. Nicholas Avenue, where they go for help completing asylum applications.

“I always heard that 116th Street was ‘Little Senegal,’” said Ibrahim Mbengue, a 26-year-old Senegalese migrant, as he waited on a recent day. “That's why I came here.”

Although the city’s “migrant crisis” began nearly two years ago with an influx of Venezuelans and other Latin Americans who were bused north after crossing the southern border, the number of migrants from West African nations like Senegal, Guinea and Mauritania has tripled in the last year alone and garnered worldwide attention.

Although Harlem's West African community, which has deep roots in the neighborhood, has embraced the newcomers, there are signs of strain and ambivalence over the migrants according to community leaders, expats and the migrants themselves. And a city bureaucracy that critics say falls short of the newcomers' basic needs further amplifies the concerns.

Local nonprofits, including the Senegalese Association, have helped ease the migrants' transition, but some group leaders say they are being stretched to the limit.

“We want to help. We want to do all these services for free,” said the association’s President Mamadou Drame. “But hey, who's going to pay for the rent? Who's going to pay for the light to be on?”

A victory in a New York special election on Tuesday injected Democrats with fresh optimism that the party might have found some of the basic ingredients to neutralize immigration and the border as political issues, which party officials have privately seen as among their deepest areas of vulnerability in 2024.

The success in the race for a House seat by former and now future Representative Tom Suozzi — a Democrat whom Republicans had pilloried as “Sanctuary Suozzi” — came in a corner of the country, Long Island, that had been increasingly hostile to Democrats in the last two years. And Mr. Suozzi won after he frontally and repeatedly addressed a topic that his party has sometimes tried to shy away from.

With border crossings surging to record highs in recent months and more than 170,000 migrants arriving in New York City, Republicans had hoped to use immigration to paint Mr. Suozzi as unacceptably beyond the mainstream. The leading G.O.P. super PAC spent roughly $3 million on two television ads that said Mr. Suozzi had “rolled out the red carpet for illegal immigrants.”

But in the final 10 days of the race, an analysis from AdImpact, the media-tracking firm, showed that Democrats were actually airing more ads than Republicans on immigration, with Mr. Suozzi’s campaign running clips of an appearance he once made on Fox News in which he was introduced as “one of the Democrats” backing I.C.E., the immigration enforcement agency.

Mr. Suozzi’s victory came only days after congressional Republicans had torpedoed bipartisan legislation on Capitol Hill that would have cracked down on unlawful migration across the border with Mexico. Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, had lobbied aggressively against the bill, insisting that its passage would help Democrats as he hoped to preserve the border crisis as a cudgel to hit President Biden with this fall.

That bipartisan deal’s failure did not feature prominently in advertising in this House race. But Mr. Suozzi did speak about it as he took some unusually hard-line stances for a Democrat, including calls to temporarily shut down the border and deport migrants who assault the police.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by former President 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 President 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 ongoing White House discussions.

The exploration of such avenues by Biden’s team underscores the pressure the president 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.”

Joe Biden will travel to the US-Mexico border on Thursday amid rising concerns expressed by voters nationwide over immigration, as pressure builds on the US president to respond to alarmist rightwing claims of “invasion”, “crisis” and waves of “migrant crime”.

But when Biden arrives in Brownsville, Texas, he is likely to encounter scenes like those prevailing earlier this week in the city of almost 200,000 that lies at the eastern end of the border. Shoppers walked the streets and preparations were under way for annual binational celebrations, Charro Days and Sombrero fest, which highlight the city’s close relationship with its Mexican sister city, Matamoros.

Border patrol processing facilities in downtown Brownsville, where migrants can usually be found before or after making a formal request for asylum, and the bus station, where migrants are often heading out of town, were empty after a drop in the number of people crossing the border in the last two months.

Migration into the US is often cyclical and affected by numerous factors. Brownsville has gone through periods in a given year when nearly 1,000 people are crossing in a day, straining local resources, while others wait on the Mexican side of the border, often for months, trying to get an appointment with the US authorities to ask for asylum. But Biden can expect to find things calm and orderly.

Local advocate Priscilla Orta, director of Project Corazon at Lawyers for Good Government, said simply: “There is no crisis.”

She added: “I think that part of the border is by far the most secure, the safest, the most well-regulated. The most empathetic [federal law enforcement] are the border unit here in Brownsville,” she said.

Some 300 miles upstream along the Rio Grande, which marks the border in Texas, Donald Trump will make a dueling appearance on Thursday, descending upon what is effectively a militarized zone created by the hard-right Texas governor, Greg Abbott.