A thread for news stories about the ongoing global migrant crisis.
It's insane that Democrats think they can thread some needle about being tough on immigration and regain the middle on the issue. Like, one, the Republicans will always be more evil and get the base, two, they will say that Dems are weak no matter what they do, and, three, you are very likely to demoralize more voters than you gain.
Dubious claims about voting flyers at a migrant camp show how the border is inflaming US politics
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A humanitarian organization in northeastern Mexico said it did not create flyers urging migrants to vote for President Joe Biden that were filmed at its shelter in a viral video that sparked a firestorm of conservative outrage this week.
Accusations that Resource Center Matamoros was encouraging noncitizens to vote gained momentum after online posts displayed Spanish-language flyers instructing migrants to vote illegally for Biden once they arrived in the U.S. The flyers contained the logo of the organization, but it was not clear who created or posted them. Videos showed them on the interior walls of portable toilets at the center’s shelter near Mexico’s border with Texas.
Resource Center Matamoros founder Gaby Zavala told The Associated Press the organization doesn’t know who made the flyers and said her group “does not encourage immigrants to register to vote or cast ballots in the U.S.”
The provenance of the flyers was still unknown Wednesday. They contained errors in spelling and grammar, and appeared to include verbatim paragraphs from the organization’s English-language website that were translated into Spanish using online translation software.
Despite the flyers’ uncertain origin, unverified claims about them have proliferated online this week and came up during a congressional hearing Tuesday, when House Republicans raised them in their questioning of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The episode reflects how rapidly claims related to the migrant surge at the border can spread and influence the political debate as the presidential election approaches. Former President Donald Trump and his allies have used the surge to say, without evidence, that Democrats are allowing migrants into country as a way to boost Biden’s re-election chances. Only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote in federal elections and historically the number of noncitizens caught attempting to cast a ballot illegally is extremely small.
Images and videos of the flyers at the Matamoros center erupted online after the Heritage Foundation’s oversight arm posted them on the social platform X on Monday evening.
The conservative think tank shared an image of one of the flyers, which was labeled as coming from Zavala and contained both the Resource Center Matamoros logo and another logo in Spanish reading, “all with Biden.” It also shared a video that showed multiple flyers posted inside portable toilets where migrants might see them.
The letter misspelled the Spanish word for welcome, “bienvenidos,” as “bienvedinos.” It also contained minor grammatical errors in Spanish, including an incorrect tense (“mientras esperan” should be “mientras esperen”) and the United States in lower case (“estados unidos”).
The text appeared to lift a paragraph from Resource Center Matamoros’ English-language website, reciting the first two sentences verbatim, but translated to Spanish. The flyer added two sentences — which do not appear on the group’s website — saying migrants need to vote for Biden.
“This flyer obviously seeks to prey on unsophisticated illegals and encourages them to illegally vote,” the Heritage Foundation wrote on one of its social posts.
Heritage also published a short audio clip of Zavala having a conversation with an unidentified male. After the male says he is trying to help as many people as possible before Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, gets re-elected, Zavala can be heard saying, “Believe me, we’re in the same boat.” The nine-second exchange did not include any further mention of voting or elections.
Zavala did not answer detailed questions about the exchange and told the AP that her organization does not support political campaigns for or against candidates. She said such activity would be “outside the scope of our mission.”
The Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As of Wednesday it was not clear when the video was shot, who created and posted the flyers, how long they remained inside the portable toilets or whether any migrants saw them. The think-tank credited the discovery of the flyers to a website that frequently posts about border issues, and whose founder regularly appears on streaming programs that promote conspiracy theories.
The claims that Resource Center Matamoros was behind the flyers were shared far and wide online, amassing millions of views across social media platforms. Threats appeared on a pro-Trump website, calling for Zavala’s neck to be snapped and for members of her organization to be hanged.
A flurry of partisan researchers online dug into the group’s background, trying to identify potential links to a variety of U.S. and left-wing campaigns and causes. The flyers briefly mentioned the Jewish humanitarian organization HIAS, on whose board Mayorkas once sat. That connection drove additional claims that both HIAS and the Biden administration were using the flyers to try to rig the election.
HIAS told AP it did not produce the flyers, does not support their message and has not rented space from or had any ties to Resource Center Matamoros since 2022.
“These flyers are a clear attempt to spread misinformation about HIAS’ work to support refugees,” its statement read.
Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa called the flyers disinformation and said they should be labeled that way on social platforms and websites.
Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Dan Bishop of North Carolina brought up the flyers during a congressional hearing with Mayorkas on Tuesday, the same day as the House sent articles of impeachment against him to the Senate.
Greene accused Mayorkas of “aiding NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to steal our elections through your budget.” She didn’t pause to allow him to respond.
Mayorkas didn’t immediately respond on Wednesday to the AP’s request for comment.
The claims exploded online as Trump and other Republicans are claiming that the surge of migrants at the country’s southern border increases the risk that some of them living in the country without documentation will vote illegally.
When people in the U.S. register to vote, they confirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Several states also verify that registration against federal and state databases.
While there have been anecdotal instances of noncitizens casting ballots, various states have examined their voter rolls and found no indication of significant numbers of noncitizens voting in federal elections. Studies also have shown the incidence is exceedingly rare.
The power of Bannon's "flood the zone with shit" strategy.
The claim is already out, already being repeated, denials will be taken as proof of guilt, despite the fact that this is clearly some sub-Project Veritas bullshit.
Like the saying goes, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
'I want to get to England': BBC sees people struggling on migrant boat before five died
It started with a shout in the dark.
A French policeman had spotted a mass of people moving from the sand dunes overlooking the English Channel near the resort town of Wimereux. Seconds later, the entire beach seemed to erupt into chaos.
More than a dozen policemen were now running across the sand towards the shoreline, hoping to intercept two groups of migrants who were now visible in the moonlight.
We could see young men dragging an inflatable boat towards the sea, and several women struggling to keep up with the group, and then bursting into tears as they realised they would be intercepted by the police.
As the converging groups of migrants gathered by the water's edge, the scene turned suddenly violent. Several men threw fireworks towards the police. There were skirmishes and loud explosions and white smoke drifted across the beach.
The crowd clustered around the inflatable boat, seeking to protect it from the police. At least two men circled the group, wielding large sticks or rods and appearing to threaten the police with them.
Barely two minutes had passed, but already the boat was in shallow water and people started to clamber aboard.
"What else could we do?" said a police officer at the scene.
"We're not allowed (to follow them) into the sea. And you notice they had sticks. And there were children there too. So we had to be careful."
The police made one arrest of a suspected smuggler, and several people waded ashore having failed to find space on the boat.
There were early indications of trouble on board. We could hear shouting and jostling.
A child in a pink anorak was perched on someone's shoulders as they stood in the middle of the boat. It was clear that there were far too many people attempting to fit on the boat.
Some were clinging to the edges. Usually, the maximum number of migrants attempting to fit on such a boat is around 60, but with two groups merging on the beach, that number was now over 100.
"I want to get to England, to my family," said an Iraqi man who was standing, despairingly, on the shore with two women, having given up any hope of clambering aboard.
Slowly, the boat drifted out to sea, briefly appearing to run aground on a sandbank. The police and those who had failed to get a place began walking back towards the dunes and a nearby carpark as the approaching dawn turned the clouds to the east bright pink.
At this stage, it was not clear to anyone ashore how bad things were on the boat. We could hear the occasional shout, and there were a few life jackets visible in the water. But there was no way of telling that people were dead or dying.
After perhaps half an hour, several French rescue boats were launched from a large rescue ship that happened to be patrolling just offshore. It seemed likely that the rescuers were trying to persuade the smugglers with their overloaded boat to abandon the crossing and return to the beach. Later, we could see what looked like some people being ferried from the inflatable to the rescue ship.
It was only an hour or more later that French police revealed that, as we'd stood and watched the boat in the shallows, five people had been dying. Two drowned, three appear to have been trampled to death. One of the dead was a young child.
News of the incident quickly spread among other migrants who had failed to make the crossing overnight and who were now returning to their makeshift camps around Calais and elsewhere. Several said the deaths made them reluctant to attempt a crossing, but many more are likely to persist.
Others brushed aside the suggestion that they would be deterred by British plans to export those crossing in small boats to Rwanda.
"Nothing can stop me," said a Sudanese student, waiting to charge his phone in Calais.
"I've tried 15 times to get to England. I'm not giving up now. This is my last chance," said Idris, a 24-year-old from Afghanistan.
The violence we witnessed on the beach came as no surprise to the French police, who have been warning for weeks that they are facing escalating attacks from both the smuggling gangs and the migrants, who often carry rocks to throw at them.
"Just last week, we had 10 police officers injured and seven vehicles damaged. There's a clear escalation of violence and the police are often confronted by large groups. We still need more equipment and more manpower. Courage is not enough," said Commissioner Mathilde Potel, who coordinates the police operations on the coast of northern France.
Potel said the number of migrants now waiting near the coastline had risen sharply - a fact partly explained by a sudden influx of people from Vietnam.
We met one group of 10 Vietnamese people in a wood near Calais, who seemed to have little idea where they were going, but explained that they had run up debts at home to local gangsters and needed to escape.
They were being directed by Kurdish smugglers who, according to one man, were promising to take them across the Channel and to find them work in the UK.
Although most migrants are still attempting the journey in small boats, the French police said the number of people now trying to cross via the tunnel or on ferries had recently risen by almost 120%.
Migrants undeterred by deaths to continue Channel crossing attempts
The wind, which picked up during the day on Tuesday and made it impossible for small boats to attempt more Channel crossings, now looks to be easing. Already, around Calais, there are indications that, despite yesterday's deaths, smugglers are starting to shepherd migrants towards the dunes along the coast to prepare for more launches.
We saw a group of Vietnamese, who have recently begun arriving in northern France in large numbers, setting off by bus. The French police estimate that the Vietnamese, many of whom appear to be escaping debts to gangsters at home, now make up 20% of all those attempting to cross the Channel.
In the seaside resort town of Wimereux, locals have been digesting the news that 10 people have now died on their beaches this year, with five drowning off a slipway in January, and five more now dying in the waters off a long beach near the golf course north of the town.
The Mayor of Wimereux, Jean-Luc Dubaele, told the BBC that he was reaching breaking-point and angry: "At some point, we'll have to find lasting solutions and stop pretending that everyone is trying to fix things. No-one is fixing things, it's getting worse."
Mr Dubaele has already argued that "the British are the ones responsible". He had previously suggested that the UK needed to tighten its employment regulations since it was the prospect of finding work there that he believed lured so many people into attempting the crossing. He has now told French TV "the British are the ones responsible".
Three suspected smugglers who'd been on the overcrowded boat on Tuesday have now been arrested in the UK. They'd continued their journey despite the deaths and reached British waters several hours later.
But there's no indication that the arrests, or the deaths, will have any significant impact on the smugglers' operations here in France. We've spoken to a number of prospective migrants, and to one UK-based leader of a smuggling network, who all said that it remained, in effect, business as usual.
"The boats are good quality. When the sea is calm it's easy," shrugged Noorislam, a 27-year-old from Afghanistan. He's been in Calais for a year and said he'd made 10 failed attempts to cross the Channel, each time being thwarted by French police.
The smuggling boss, who spoke to a BBC colleague - a Syrian - by phone, believing he was a migrant looking for a seat on one of his boats, insisted there was nothing to fear.
"Don't worry. There's no danger at all. As soon as you're in the boat, call the coast guard. They will escort you," said the smuggler. He also dismissed the threat of deportation from the UK to Rwanda.
"Don't worry about this Rwanda issue. It is kaput," he claimed.
French and British police are investigating what happened before dawn on Tuesday, but it is already clear that the main cause of the deaths was a dangerously overcrowded boat, which two separate groups of migrants attempted to board.
We were on the beach when it happened, and despite the chaos and the darkness, it was clear that as one main group of migrants emerged from the dunes and charged towards the sea, dragging their inflatable boat with them, a second group suddenly joined them from further south. This second group had no boat of their own, and appeared, to us, to be acting on the spur of the moment, presumably hoping to catch a ride on the other group's inflatable.
Was there fighting inside the boat between the different, and presumably rival groups? It was impossible to tell what was happening just offshore in the half-light. There were some screams and shouts, and it was clear the boat was dangerously overloaded.
Did the smugglers clash violently over who should be allowed onboard? Or did the five who died, including a seven-year-old Kurdish girl, simply fall victim to an already chaotic situation, with twice as many people as usual all scrambling for a spot on a crowded boat?
News of the deaths spread quickly through the migrant communities waiting in their makeshift camps near Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk. As we spoke to one group of Eritreans, someone - presumably a smuggler - threw a stone at us in an attempt to prevent us talking. It is clear that the smugglers use violence, or at least threats of violence, to keep their paying clients in line.
"We're not scared. If we're to die in the Channel, that's what God wanted. It is nothing compared to what we've already been through," said one Eritrean man.
The French police continue to defend their handling of such incidents. They point to growing evidence of violence from the smugglers, such as we witnessed on Tuesday, which makes it increasingly difficult to intervene without making the situation even more dangerous.
This is gonna be a defining issue in the world, specifically the "developed" world, because the migrants clearly aren't stopping.
I haven't seen a single interview with someone who has failed a crossing of the English Channel saying they will stop trying. The numbers you see quoted are 10, 20, 30 attempted crossings and people saying they'll die trying.
And this is absolutely going to drive more and more right-wing, nationalist (often ethnationalist) political movements in response.
It's going to get ugly.
How we found Europe’s most wanted migrant-smuggler
I am sitting in a shopping mall in Iraq, face-to-face with one of Europe’s most notorious people-smugglers.
His name is Barzan Majeed, and he is wanted by police forces in several countries, including the UK.
Over the course of our conversation - both here and the next day at his office - he says he does not know how many migrants he has transported across the English Channel.
“Maybe a thousand, maybe 10,000. I don’t know, I didn’t count.”
The meeting is the culmination of what had seemed like an impossible task a few months earlier.
Together with Rob Lawrie, a former soldier who works with refugees, I had set out to find and question the man known as Scorpion.
For several years, he and his gang controlled much of the people-smuggling trade - in boats and lorries - across the English Channel.
More than 70 migrants have died making the crossing by boat since 2018 - last month, five people were killed off the French coast, including a seven-year-old girl.
Trump suggests Chinese migrants are in the US to build an ‘army.’ The migrants tell another story
NEW YORK (AP) — It was 7 a.m. on a recent Friday when Wang Gang, a 36-year-old Chinese immigrant, jostled for a day job in New York City’s Flushing neighborhood.
When a potential employer pulled up near the street corner, home to a Chinese bakery and pharmacy, Wang and dozens of other men swarmed around the car. They were hoping to be picked for work on a construction site, at a farm, as a mover — anything that would pay.
Wang had no luck, even as he waited for two more hours. It would be another day without a job since he crossed the southern U.S. border illegally in February, seeking better financial prospects than he had in his hometown of Wuhan, China.
The daily struggle of Chinese immigrants in Flushing is a far cry from the picture former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have sought to paint of them as a coordinated group of “military-age” men who have come to the United States to build an “army” and attack America.
Since the start of the year, as the Chinese newcomers have been trying to find their footing in the U.S., Trump has alluded to “fighting-age” or “military-age” Chinese men at least six times and suggested at least twice that they were forming a migrant “army.” It’s a talking point that is being amplified in conservative media and on social platforms.
“They’re coming in from China — 31, 32,000 over the last few months — and they’re all military age and they mostly are men,” Trump said during a campaign rally last month in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania. “And it sounds like to me, are they trying to build a little army in our country? Is that what they’re trying to do?”
As Trump and others exploit a surge in Chinese border crossings and real concerns about China’s geopolitical threat to further their political aims, Asian advocacy organizations worry the rhetoric could encourage further harassment and violence toward the Asian community. Asian people in the U.S. already experienced a spike in hate incidents fueled by xenophobic rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric and blatant attacks against immigrant communities will, without question, only fuel more hate against not only Chinese immigrants but all Asian Americans in the U.S.,” Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “In the midst of an already inflamed political climate and election year, we know all too well how harmful such rhetoric can be.”
Gregg Orton, national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said many Asian American communities remain “gripped by fear” and that some Asians still feel uncomfortable about taking public transportation.
“To know that we might be staring down another round of that, it’s pretty sobering,” he said.
‘THIS TRIP IS DEADLY’
Wang, who traveled several weeks from Ecuador to the southern U.S. border, then spent 48 hours in an immigration detention facility before heading to Flushing, said the idea that Chinese migrants were building a military “does not exist” among the immigrants he has met.“It is impossible that they would walk on foot for over one month” for that purpose, he said. “We came here to make money.”
Immigrants who spoke to the AP in Flushing, a densely populated Chinese cultural enclave in Queens, said they came to the U.S. to escape poverty and financial losses from China’s strict lockdown during the pandemic, or to escape the threat of imprisonment in a repressive society where they couldn’t speak or exercise their religion freely.
Many said they continue to struggle to get by. Life in the U.S. is not what they had imagined.
Denver launches ambitious migrant program, breaking from the short-term shelter approach
DENVER (AP) — In a hotel conference room in Denver, Dallenis Martinez attended orientation with hundreds of other migrants Monday for the city’s new, ambitious migrant support program, which includes six month apartment stays and intensive job preparation for those who can’t yet legally work.
It’s an about-face from strategies Denver, New York City and Chicago have used as the cities scrambled to support thousands of migrants and slashed budgets. The largely improvised support strategies have included days- to weeks-long shelter stays or bus tickets to send migrants elsewhere.
Now, Martinez, 28, and her two young kids, along with some 650 others in Denver, are being set up with an apartment with six months of rental, food and utility assistance, a free computer, a prepaid cell phone and metro bus passes.
Then, the city working in coordination with several nonprofits plan to provide courses on English language, computers, financial literacy, and workers rights, while also assisting migrants in getting credentialed in specific industries, like construction, retail, hospitality, healthcare and early childhood education. Martinez said she will take any job to support her kids.
The support will also include help with the paperwork for asylum applications, and eventually work authorization.
Biden issues order limiting asylum seekers from crossing US-Mexico border
Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross between lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings has been exceeded.
The order will take effect immediately, senior administration officials said on a press call. Those seeking asylum will be held to a much more rigorous standard for establishing credible fear of returning to their home country, although certain groups – including human trafficking victims and unaccompanied children – would be excluded from the ban.
Delivering remarks at the White House alongside mayors of border towns, Biden said congressional Republicans had left him with “no choice” but to take unilateral action after they blocked a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
“So today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authority that’s available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border,” Biden said. “Doing nothing is not an option. We have to act.”
The move comes amid rising public concern over the number of people crossing into the US, with polls showing a majority of Americans dissatisfied with the president’s handling of the border. The White House has been under immense pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to reduce the number of people arriving at the southern border.
Under the executive order, the administration would shut down asylum requests to the US-Mexico border once the number of daily encounters has reached 2,500 between legal ports of entry, which regularly occurs now. The border would re-open two weeks after that figure falls below a daily average of 1,500 for seven consecutive days.
People who make appointments with border officials using the Customs and Border Protection app would also be exempt, though advocates emphasize that scheduling one can take months.
The directive is not expected to hinder other border activity, such as trade or traffic.
The measure relies on the same legal framework adopted by Donald Trump to restrict unlawful crossings in 2018, but was blocked by a federal court. At the time, Democrats assailed Trump’s border policies as draconian and rooted in xenophobia. The announcement triggered immediate threats of legal challenges, as the American Civil Liberties Union said it would sue the administration over the new policy.
“We intend to challenge this order in court. It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
Many progressive and Hispanic lawmakers expressed alarm at the sweep of the order, the most aggressive border move taken by the administration so far.
Senator Alex Padilla, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and border safety, said in a statement: “By reviving Trump’s asylum ban, President Biden has undermined American values and abandoned our nation’s obligations to provide people fleeing persecution, violence, and authoritarianism with an opportunity to seek refuge in the US.”
But Biden and his advisers fiercely rejected comparisons between the new measure and the severe immigration policies enacted during Trump’s presidency.
“I believe that immigration has always been the lifeblood of America. We’re constantly renewed by an infusion of people and new talent,” Biden said. “The Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It stands for who we are as the United States. So I will never demonize immigrants. I will never refer to immigrants as a poisoning the blood of a country. Further, I’ll never separate children from their families at the border.”
The United Nations issued a statement saying it was “profoundly concerned” by the new restrictions and urged the US government to reconsider its actions. “The new measures will deny access to asylum for many individuals who are in need of international protection, and who may now find themselves without a viable option for seeking safety and even at risk of refoulement,” meaning being sent back across the border, the statement read.
“Any person who claims to have a well-founded fear of being persecuted in their country of origin must have access to safe territory and have this claim assessed before being subject to deportation or removal. We call on the United States to uphold its international obligations and urge the government to reconsider restrictions that undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum.”
Although the policy sparked intense criticism among many progressives, a number of centrist Democrats rushed to Biden’s defense. Leaders of the centrist New Democrat Coalition said they were “encouraged” by Biden’s order, although they emphasized the need for Congress to take additional action.
“With today’s announcement, President Biden is taking decisive, commonsense action to restore order at the southern border at a time when congressional Republicans continue to use it as a political football,” the leaders said.
At the San Ysidro port of entry, the border crossing between Tijuana and southern California, it was seemingly business as usual on both sides of the border shortly after the executive order was announced.
The corridor is one of the busiest land crossings in the world, and the San Diego sector has seen a surge in asylum seekers over the last few months. But on the US side of the border this week, the scene was quiet.
On Tuesday afternoon, families and individuals walked calmly across the bridge that connects the two countries. Red trolleys at the San Ysidro transit center waited to take passengers to other cities in southern California, and groups of people filtered in and out of the small shops near the border, exchanging cash at money-exchange stores and ordering food at McDonald’s.
On the Tijuana side, cars waiting to enter the US were lined up as far as the eye could see, but moved forward incrementally. Men and women hawked churros, candy and Mexico-themed trinkets to drivers, weaving in between the idling cars.
Some hadn’t heard of the Biden administration’s new rules, while others expressed mixed feelings over the decision.
Abel Walser, a 26-year-old from Oceanside who has Mexican heritage, was crossing the bridge that funnels into the US with a friend around noon. On one hand, “this country was built to be a melting pot”, he said, adding that he knows people who initially came to the US illegally, but have since endured the extremely difficult, years-long process to become an American citizen. On the other hand, immigration has vastly increased, he said.
Meanwhile, Erika Palomo was passing through the palm tree-lined transit center on her way back to the Mexico side. She crosses through the border checkpoint almost every day, either for work or to visit relatives, and has seen a big increase in the number of people hoping to get into the US in the past year.
“I have seen all the people trying to cross and get better opportunities, especially kids,” she said. “It’s a lot of people.” Mothers and children should be given extra consideration when it comes to asylum, she added.
Immigration and border policy are at the heart of Republicans’ 2024 campaign message, with Trump bashing Biden as “weak” and vowing to unleash the biggest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history should he win re-election in November.
Trump’s campaign quickly weighed in on news of the order, dismissing the policy as insufficient. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign press secretary, said in a statement: “If Joe Biden truly wanted to shut down the border, he could do so with a swipe of the same pen, but he never will because he is controlled by radical left Democrats who seek to destroy America.”
The action comes months after Senate Republicans, at Trump’s behest, voted down a bipartisan border security deal. Trump, wary of handing Biden a political victory on his signature issue, had announced his opposition to the bill and encouraged Republicans to block its advancement.
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, last month held another vote on the border package, which included measures Republicans have been clamoring for, including a far-reaching clampdown on the number of people allowed to claim asylum, while providing billions to the Department of Homeland Security to hire more border officers and immigration judges. The measure failed, as expected, but Democrats hoped the vote would underscore Republican resistance to a border deal they helped negotiate.
Biden made clear on Tuesday that he does not view the new order as a replacement for congressional action, and he again called on Republicans to work with Democrats to improve the US immigration system.
“Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation,” Biden said. “Let’s fix the problem and stop fighting about it. I’m doing my part. We’re doing our part. Congressional Republicans should do their part.”
Progressives are, to put it mildly, disappointed:
Biden continues to court the voters he will never win over while losing the voters he will never get back.
Biden continues to court the voters he will never win over while losing the voters he will never get back.
So he's a Democrat?
Biden continues to court the voters he will never win over while losing the voters he will never get back.
70-30 support for Biden's recent executive order on immigration that partly shuts down asylum processing along the border.
Support for one specific action doesn't necessarily translate into votes.
@lxeagle17 wrote:70-30 support for Biden's recent executive order on immigration that partly shuts down asylum processing along the border.
... among people who answer their phones when pollsters call. i.e. nobody under 40.
Mexico’s tactic to cut immigration to the US: wear out migrants
VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) — “Here, again.”
Yeneska García’s face crumbled as she said it, and she pressed her head into her hands.
Since fleeing crisis in Venezuela in January, the 23-year-old had trekked through the Darien Gap jungle dividing Colombia and Panama, narrowly survived being kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and waited months for an asylum appointment with the United States that never came. She finally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in May, only to have American authorities expel her.
Now she was back in southern Mexico, after Mexican immigration bused her to sweltering Villahermosa and dropped her on the street.
“I would rather cross the Darien Gap 10,000 times than cross Mexico,” García said, sitting in a migrant shelter.
She clutched a crinkled Ziploc bag that held her Venezuelan ID, an inhaler and an apple — her few remaining possessions.
Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of vulnerable people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are employing a simple but harsh tactic: wearing migrants out until they give up.
That means migrants are churning in limbo here as authorities round them up across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. Some have been punted back as many as six times.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the policy protects migrants.
“We care a lot ... about keeping migrants in the southeast because crossing to the north is very risky,” López Obrador said, responding to a question from The Associated Press during his daily briefing.
But the moves have forced migrants, including pregnant women and children, into even more precarious situations. That’s likely to worsen under President Joe Biden’s new asylum restrictions, analysts say.
Mexico’s actions explain a plunge in arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border, which dropped 40% from an all-time high in December and persisted through the spring. That coincided with an increase in migrants in Mexico without legal permission, data from the country’s immigration agency shows. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoints.
“Mexico is the wall,” said Josue Martínez, a psychologist at Villahermosa’s only migrant shelter, Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito, which was bracing for a crush of people under Biden’s measure to halt asylum processing when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed.
The small shelter has been scrambling since Mexico’s government began pushing people back two years ago. Last month, it housed 528 people, up from 85 in May 2022.
“What will we do when even more people arrive?” Martínez said. “Every time the United States does something to reinforce the northern border, we automatically know tons of people are coming to Villahermosa.”
Migrants here walk or take buses north toward Mexico City, where they can request an appointment to seek asylum over U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s app, CBP One. But most never make it far enough north for the app’s location requirement.
Checkpoints dot southern Mexican highways. Armed soldiers pull migrants off buses and round up those walking along roads and in surrounding mountains. Of two dozen migrants interviewed by the AP, all said they were extorted by law enforcement or Mexican migration officials to continue on their journeys. After dishing out hefty sums two or three times, families had nothing. They were then bused back south, where most were left on the streets.
Mexican authorities refer to the temporary detentions as “humanitarian rescues.”
But Venezuelan Keilly Bolaños says there is nothing human about them. She and her four children have been sent to southern Mexico six times. The 25-year-old single mother wants asylum so her 4-year-old daughter can get treatment for leukemia, unavailable to her in Venezuela.
Days earlier, she was captured in the northern state of Chihuahua, where she said members of the military beat her in front of her crying children, then loaded them onto a bus for the two-day journey to Villahermosa.
“How can you run when you have four children? You can’t,” Bolaños said.
The family slept on cardboard boxes alongside other migrants outside Villahermosa’s bus terminal. Bruises still lined Bolaños’ legs. Yet she planned to take a seventh swing at heading north. She has nowhere else to go.
“I know that all this struggling will be worth it some day,” she added.
Mexico’s tactics appear to be a way to appease the U.S., which has pressured Latin American nations to help slow migration while failing to overhaul its own immigration system that most Americans agree is broken. Panama’s incoming president has promised to block passage through the Darien Gap, while Biden eased criticisms of El Salvador’s president after he reduced migration.
When Biden announced his new restrictions last week, he said he “drastically” cut migration to the border “due to the arrangement that I’ve reached with President (López) Obrador.” He said he also planned to work with incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum on border issues.
But Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, said such measures are only short-term solutions that don’t address root causes of migration.
“They say this is a regional challenge we all have to face together, which is true,” Shifter said. “The problem is: if the U.S. can’t get its own house in order, that sends a signal to other governments asking: ‘Why should we work with them if the U.S. itself is not capable of dealing with the issue?’”
Some asylum seekers said they were ready to give up on their “American dream,” but can’t leave because they’re cut off from their consulate or are out of money.
After being taken off of a bus, one group of migrants begged authorities to help them get back to Venezuela shortly before being sent back south.
“We just want to go to the embassy in Mexico City. To go back to Venezuela,” 30-year-old Fabiana Bellizar told officials, after being returned from northern Mexico a day earlier. “We don’t want to be here anymore.”
They started traveling the same route the next morning.
Others said they would try to find work and a place to sleep in the city before continuing on.
López Obrador on Monday said work is offered to migrants in the south, but the few lucky people face precarious conditions. One migrant was paid $25 a day for 12 hours of work under the beating sun on a mango farm. Another said employers tried to coerce her into sex work.
Others are forced to take more dangerous routes, and into the arms of mafias looking to kidnap migrants.
At the first sign of flashing lights, 27-year-old Honduran Alexander Amador dove behind a tree, scrambling for cover in the shadows cloaking the road between the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.
Amador and his two travel companions had been walking for 10 hours, running into the jungle to escape authorities trying to scoop them up along the highway. After being returned twice to southern Mexico while traveling by bus, it was the only thing the Hondurans could think of to continue onward.
But they were frightened, both of Mexican law enforcement and cartels. In the past year, security in southern Mexican states such as Tabasco and Chiapas has spiraled as cartels battle for control over lucrative migrant routes.
“Here, you can’t trust anyone. Everything is a danger to you,” Amador said, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking into the darkness.
Hundreds of asylum-seekers are camped out near Seattle. There’s a vacant motel next door
KENT, Wash. (AP) — Kabongo Kambila Ringo stood outside the tent where he has been staying with his pregnant wife and ate from a clear plastic tray of Girl Scout cookies melting in the midday sun.
He was one of around 240 asylum-seekers camping in a grassy lot along a highway south of Seattle, wondering if police would follow through on threats to arrest them for trespassing, and hoping officials instead might let them move into the vacant motel next door.
“It’s very difficult,” the 29-year-old from Congo told The Associated Press in French. “There’s not enough to eat. There’s not even a way to wash ourselves.”
The cluster of tarp-covered tents that have covered the field in Kent, a Seattle suburb, since last weekend highlights the strain facing many communities — even some far from the U.S.-Mexico border — as President Joe Biden attempts to restrict asylum and neutralize immigration as a political liability ahead of this fall’s election.
Some Democratic-led northern cities have seen huge influxes of migrants. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent more than 40,000 asylum-seekers to Chicago, mostly by bus or plane.
The Seattle area has seen fewer, but with homelessness already an immense challenge — nearly 10,000 people sleep outside in King County every night, officials say — even that has stressed the region’s capacity.
Migrants are rattled and unsure as deportations begin under new rule halting asylum
DULZURA, Calif. (AP) — Abigail Castillo was about to cross the U.S. border illegally when she heard President Joe Biden was halting asylum. She continued anyway, walking hours through the mountains east of San Diego with her toddler son, hoping it wasn’t too late.
“I heard that they were going to do it or were about to do it,” Castillo, 35, said Wednesday as she and her son were escorted to a Border Patrol van with about two dozen others from Brazil, Ecuador and her village in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, which she said she left because it was gripped by violence.
They had missed the deadline, and were now subject to the new deportation rule.
Her sense of uncertainty prevailed among many migrants after Biden invoked presidential powers to stop asylum processing when arrests for illegal crossings top 2,500 in a day. The measure took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Wednesday because that threshold was met.
Two senior Homeland Security Department officials confirmed the first deportations under the new rule took place Wednesday, though they did not say how many were deported. The officials briefed reporters on condition their names not be used in keeping with regulations.
Sergio Franco, who clutched his baby girl after a nearly two-month journey from Ecuador with his family, walking through the perilous Darien jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama, said he was confident that he would prevail in his plea to find a safe haven in the United States.
“If we have evidence, there shouldn’t be a problem,” he said as he got into the van with Castillo and the others.
As the group was driven away, several migrants from India walked up to the same dusty area near a gun club in the town of Dulzura, one of several that have popped up over the last year in the remote rural outskirts of San Diego for migrants to surrender to Border Patrol agents. There was no water or restrooms and little shade.
Several Guatemalan women arrived later. Among them was Arelis Alonzo Lopez, who said she was nearly five months pregnant and had walked for two nights. A Border Patrol agent asked how she felt.
“I can’t take any more,” she answered.
A nearly six in 10 majority of voters say they would favor, in principle, a new government program to deport all undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
(That isn't purely partisan, it includes a third of Democrats. It rises to nine in 10 Republicans.)A similarly sized majority would have local law enforcement try to identify those living in the U.S. illegally, and just under half support the idea of setting up large government detention centers to sort out which people ought to be deported.
Yeesh.
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