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Tag: Immigration

  • Black Creeks expelled from tribe finally get their day in court, 43 years later | CNN

    Black Creeks expelled from tribe finally get their day in court, 43 years later | CNN

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Race Deconstructed newsletter. To get it in your inbox every week, sign up for free here.

    Thursday could mark a turning point in Native American history. A hearing is scheduled about Black claims to Native citizenship. More specifically, the hearing will address the long-running demands of the descendants of Black people who were enslaved by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation that they be granted tribal citizenship and corresponding rights.

    Following the Civil War, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation was required to accept as citizens the people of African descent it had once enslaved. But a 1979 change to the tribe’s constitution defined citizenship “by blood.” As a result, Black Creeks and their descendants, known as Freedmen, were effectively expelled.

    Damario Solomon-Simmons, a civil rights attorney representing the two plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said he feels confident that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court will decide in his favor.

    A descendant of Black Creeks, Solomon-Simmons has been involved in the citizenship battle for years. In 2018, he filed a federal lawsuit, but it was dismissed. (His grandmother was a plaintiff, but she died in 2019.)

    Solomon-Simmons filed a petition in March 2020, and says that the tribe’s 1979 decision was “completely racist” and “erroneous.”

    “It’s 100 percent anti-Black discrimination,” he told CNN. “They’re telling you that if you’re Black and/or (had) enslaved (ancestors), you can’t be a member of our nation.”

    Solomon-Simmons said the constitution not only strips Black Creeks of their citizenship – it also prevents them from securing the benefits given to tribal members: health care, education, housing, scholarships, cash assistance and more.

    Officials from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation insist the tribe’s citizenship requirements have nothing to do with race.

    Spokesman Jason Salsman told CNN in an email that the nation’s citizenship is diverse, and includes Black Americans, Spanish people, Mexicans and Asians.

    But he noted that the tribe has a “traumatic history” with people who aren’t Creek by blood and that this is a “challenging issue” for many citizens.

    “I can’t speak for the leaders of 43 years ago when this decision took place,” Salsman said. “But it should hardly be surprising that a nation like ours that has endured attempts at extermination, removal and other unjust federal policies enforced by outsiders would seek a constitution that requires Creek Indian ancestry and blood lineage among its citizens and leaders.”

    He added, “The matter before the Court is not a question of race but rather to determine whether our government is obligated by treaty to enroll individuals as citizens who are not Creek Indians.”

    David Hill, the principal chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, underscored in an April 2021 letter the knottiness of this history, and the significance of confronting it.

    “The question of the enrollment status of the descendants of Creek Freedmen is an extremely complex one,” he wrote, “born in an era when African Americans and Native Americans alike faced traumatic injustices at the hands of the US government. … As good leaders, it is important for us to listen, acknowledge and openly engage with our communities and our citizens. When these issues arise, they are opportunities that allow us to reconsider if our policies are still reflective of who we are as a Nation.”

    Black Creeks have reason to be hopeful about their cause, which isn’t unique. Just last year, the Cherokee Nation jettisoned from its constitution language that defined citizenship purely by blood.

    “The Cherokee Nation’s actions have brought this longstanding issue to a close and have importantly fulfilled their obligations to the Cherokee Freedmen,” Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, said in a May 2021 statement. “We encourage other Tribes to take similar steps to meet their moral and legal obligations to the Freedmen.”

    Here’s a closer look at the citizenship struggles dividing the Muscogee (Creek) Nation:

    To understand some of the challenges beleaguering Black Creeks’ in our present day, let’s rewind to the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

    During this period, the US government actively sought to “civilize” independent, self-governing tribal nations – Muscogee (Creek), Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and Cherokee – by forcing on them the privatization of land and the use of enslaved people for labor.

    Many of these nations, especially the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, didn’t practice slavery in the way people tend to picture the institution.

    “It wasn’t chattel slavery, where people would lose their humanity and become property,” Caleb Gayle, a professor of practice at Northeastern University and the author of the 2022 book, “We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity and Power,” told CNN. “It was, instead, a practice called kinship slavery. People were still peers. Slave identity wasn’t passed down from generation to generation. People broke bread and were seen as equals.”

    He added that a certain level of nuance is necessary when discussing slavery within the context of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

    “There’s been interaction between Black people and Native American nations for a very long time,” Gayle said. “That connection was further fortified through the project of civilization that the US government enforced again and again.”

    In 1866, in the aftermath of the Civil War, peace treaties granted not only emancipation but also tribal citizenship to Black people who had been enslaved by Native American nations.

    With the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, the US government sought to identify who would be on which citizenship roll. Some ended up on the “by blood” roll; others, on the Freedmen roll.

    In 1979, when the Muscogee (Creek) Nation altered its constitution, those on the Freedmen roll were no longer able to keep the citizenship status they’d had for decades.

    “Even if your ancestors had never been slaves, even if they’d been adopted into the nation, even if they never had the stain of slavery on them, if you were on the Freedmen roll – often because your ancestors looked a certain way – the constitutional change kind of nullified your claim to the citizenship you once had,” Gayle said.

    Rhonda Grayson is intimately familiar with this history and its effects. She’s one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and said that her ancestors were enslaved by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

    She’s among the hundreds of Black Creek descendants who’ve unsuccessfully applied for citizenship since 1979. She applied in 2019, she recalled, but was denied; her appeal also was denied.

    Grayson explained that she wants the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to issue an apology to Black Creeks for discarding them.

    “My motivation is redemption for my ancestors. They suffered just like any other Native American. They worked and built the Creek Nation to what it is today,” she said. “We’re fighting for our tribal rights. We’re entitled to them.”

    The disputes ricocheting throughout the Muscogee (Creek) Nation offer us an opportunity to reconfigure the way we think about identity.

    In fact, we may already be starting to see this change.

    In February 2021, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court ruled that the nation had to remove “by blood” from its constitution. The decision meant that the descendants of Black people once enslaved by the Cherokee Nation would have the right to tribal citizenship.

    “Freedmen rights are inherent,” as Cherokee Nation Supreme Court Justice Shawna S. Baker wrote in the opinion. “They extend to descendants of Freedmen as a birthright springing from their ancestors’ oppression and displacement as people of color recorded and memorialized in Article 9 of the 1866 Treaty.”

    For many, especially Black Creeks, this development extends hope that they might achieve a similar outcome.

    Crucially, as citizenship conversations continue, we must maintain precision and sensitivity, Gayle urged.

    “It’s important to keep the focus squarely on the culprit that brought us to this point today. And that’s the US government. Its subtle and overt expansion of White supremacy is to blame here. These are two incredibly aggrieved, hyper-marginalized groups,” he said.

    In this light, Gayle added, “it’s impossible not to feel where the Muscogee (Creek) Nation is coming from when folks say, ‘We’re tired of being told who we are and being forced to modify and to accommodate.’ And it’s impossible not to feel where Black Creeks are coming from when they say, ‘Yes, we understand that – but we have a shared history that’s so potent and powerful as well.’”

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  • India on track for record $100 billion in remittances, says World Bank | CNN Business

    India on track for record $100 billion in remittances, says World Bank | CNN Business

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    New Delhi
    CNN Business
     — 

    The extensive Indian diaspora will help the South Asian country reach a special milestone this year.

    Asia’s third largest economy is on track to receive more than $100 billion in yearly remittances in 2022, according to a World Bank report published Wednesday. This will be the first time a country will reach that milestone figure, it said.

    Remittances, or money transfers from migrant workers to families back home, are an important source of income for households in poorer countries. They not only reduce poverty in developing nations but have also been associated with higher school enrollment rates for children in disadvantaged households.

    Over the last few years, the World Bank report said, Indians have moved to high-skilled jobs in high-income countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Singapore — from low-skilled employment in Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar — and sending more money back home as a result.

    India had received $89.4 billion in remittances in 2021, according to the World Bank, making it the top recipient globally last year.

    “Remittance flows to India were enhanced by the wage hikes and a strong labor market in the United States,” and other rich countries, the bank said.

    Despite being poised to reach the record figure, India’s remittance flows are expected to account for only 3% of its GDP in 2022, it said.

    Apart from India, the other top recipient countries for remittances in 2022 are expected to be Mexico, China, and the Philippines. The next year may be more challenging for Indian diaspora, however.

    2023 will “stand as a test for the resilience of remittances from white-collar South Asian migrants in high-income countries,” because of rising inflation in the United States and slowing global growth, according to the report.

    Globally, remittances to low and middle income nations are expected to grow an estimated 5% to $626 billion this year, it added.

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  • US Medal of Honor recipient Hiroshi Miyamura dies at 97

    US Medal of Honor recipient Hiroshi Miyamura dies at 97

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    PHOENIX, Ariz. — Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura, the son of Japanese immigrants who was awarded the U.S. Medal of Honor for holding off an attack to allow an American squad to withdraw during the Korean War, has died.

    The Congressional Medal of Honor Society announced that Miyamura died Tuesday at his home in Phoenix. He was 97.

    Born in Gallup, New Mexico, Miyamura’s parents operated a 24-hour diner near the Navajo Nation where the family interacted with the diverse population of miners and travelers who passed along Route 66.

    Miyamura’s mother died when he was 11 and his father never talked about Japan, Miyamura said in later interviews. He would earn the nickname “Hershey” because a teacher couldn’t pronounce his first name.

    Miyamura worked as an auto mechanic during high school. He joined the U.S. Army late in World War II after the federal government lifted restrictions on Japanese Americans serving. Miyamura was allowed to join the 442nd Infantry Regiment, composed almost entirely of “nisei” — those born in the U.S. to parents who were Japanese immigrants.

    After the war, Miyamura met Terry Tsuchimori, a woman from a family who had been forced to live at the Poston internment camp in southwestern Arizona following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They married in 1948 and had three children.

    Miyamura continued to serve in the Army Reserves and was called into action during the Korean War.

    On the night of April 24, 1951, near Taejon-ni, Miyamura’s company came under attack by an invading Chinese force. Miyamura ordered his squad to retreat while he stayed behind and continued to fight, giving his men enough time to evacuate.

    Miyamura and fellow squad leader Joseph Lawrence Annello, of Castle Rock, Colorado, were captured. Though wounded, Miyamura carried the injured Annello for miles until Chinese soldiers ordered him at gunpoint to leave Annello by the side of a road. Miyamura refused the orders until Annello convinced him to put him down.

    Annello was later picked up by another Chinese unit and taken to a POW camp, from which he escaped.

    Miyamura was held as a prisoner for two years and four months.

    Upon his release, he was presented the Medal of Honor by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It had been awarded in secret while he was still a prisoner of war.

    “I never ever thought I would receive the Medal of Honor for doing my duty, which I thought that’s all I was doing, was my duty,” Miyamura said in the 2018 Netflix documentary “Medal of Honor.”

    Miyamura and Annello later met up and remained lifelong friends. Annello died in 2018.

    After the Korean War, Miyamura returned to Gallup as a hero. More than 5,000 people came to meet his train. He spent much of the rest of his life working in town as an auto mechanic.

    In his Living History documentary in the Congressional Medal of Honor Society library, Miyamura reflected on the soldiers who deserved recognition but never received it.

    “There are so many Americans who don’t know what the Medal represents or what any soldier or servicewoman or man does for his country. And I believe one of these days — I hope one of these days — they will learn of the sacrifices that a lot of the men and women have made for this country,” he said.

    Miyamura remained active in veterans’ issues and gave annual summer lectures to military members in Gallup, New Mexico. The talks drew hundreds of servicemen and servicewomen over the years.

    In 2019, an aide announced that Miyamura had likely given his last public talk due to declining health.

    New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer both called Miyamura a hero, saying he will be missed by many who are forever grateful for his service.

    Miyamura is survived by numerous family members. Funeral arrangements are pending.

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  • Supreme Court wrestles with Biden’s deportation policy

    Supreme Court wrestles with Biden’s deportation policy

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday wrestled with a politically tinged dispute over a Biden administration policy that would prioritize deportation of people in the country illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk.

    It was not clear after arguments that stretched past two hours and turned highly contentious at times whether the justices would allow the policy to take effect, or side with Republican-led states that have so far succeeded in blocking it.

    At the center of the case is a September 2021 directive from the Department of Homeland Security that paused deportations unless individuals had committed acts of terrorism, espionage or “egregious threats to public safety.” The guidance, issued after Joe Biden became president, updated a Trump-era policy that removed people in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties.

    On Tuesday, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer told the justices that federal law does “not create an unyielding mandate to apprehend and remove” every one of the more than 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said it would be “incredibly destabilizing on the ground” for the high court to require that. Congress has not given DHS enough money to vastly increase the number of people it holds and deports, the Biden administration has said.

    But Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone told the court the administration is violating federal law that requires the detention and deportation of people who are in the U.S. illegally and who have been convicted of any serious crime, not just the most serious, specifically defined ones.

    Chief Justice John Roberts was among the conservative justices who pushed back strongly on the Biden administration’s arguments. “It’s our job to say what the law is, not whether or not it can be possibly implemented or whether there are difficulties there, and I don’t think we should change that responsibility just because Congress and the executive can’t agree on something … I don’t think we should let them off the hook,” he said.

    Yet Roberts, in questioning Stone, also called Prelogar’s argument compelling.

    “It’s impossible for the executive to do what you want it to do, right?” Roberts asked.

    Roberts wasn’t totally satisfied when Stone said the number of people potentially affected total 60,000 to 80,000.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that whatever the actual number, “the resources still aren’t there.”

    The court’s three liberal justices, on the other hand, were sympathetic to the Biden administration’s arguments. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, made clear they believed that Texas and Louisiana, which joined Texas in suing over the directive, weren’t even entitled to bring their case.

    The case is the latest example of a Republican litigation strategy that has succeeded in slowing Biden administration initiatives by going to GOP-friendly courts. Kagan picked up on that during arguments, saying that Texas could file its suit in a courthouse where it was guaranteed to get a sympathetic hearing and that one judge stopped “a federal immigration policy in its tracks.”

    In a separate ongoing legal dispute, three judges chosen by then-President Donald Trump are among the four Republican-appointed judges who have so far prevented the administration’s student loan cancellation program from taking effect.

    The states said they would face added costs of having to detain people the federal government might allow to remain free inside the United States, despite their criminal records.

    Federal appeals courts had reached conflicting decisions over DHS guidance.

    The federal appeals court in Cincinnati earlier overturned a district judge’s order that put the policy on hold in a lawsuit filed by Arizona, Ohio and Montana.

    But in the separate suit filed by Texas and Louisiana, a federal judge in Texas ordered a nationwide halt to the guidance and a federal appellate panel in New Orleans declined to step in.

    In July, the court voted 5-4 to leave the immigration policy frozen nationwide. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in saying they would have allowed the Biden administration to put in place the guidance.

    At the same time, the court said it would hear arguments in the case in late November.

    The justices have several questions to sort through, whether the states should have been permitted to file their challenge in the first place, whether the policy violates immigration law and, if it does, whether it was appropriate for the Texas-based judge to block it.

    On that last point, Prelogar said the judge’s decision to “vacate” the policy was wrong, and her argument questioned whether judges have been getting it all wrong for decades.

    The issue touched a nerve, especially among Roberts, Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justices who once served on the federal appeals court in Washington that regularly vacates policies it determines are unlawful.

    “Fairly radical,” Roberts said. “Pretty astonishing,” Kavanaugh said. Jackson, more restrained, also questioned Prelogar’s reasoning.

    “There seems to be a kind of D.C. Circuit cartel,” Kagan joked.

    A decision in U.S. v. Texas, 22-58, is expected by late June.

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  • GOP’s new committee leaders prepare blitz of investigations

    GOP’s new committee leaders prepare blitz of investigations

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are promising aggressive oversight of the Biden administration once they assume the majority next year, with a particular focus on the business dealings of presidential son Hunter Biden, illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and the originations of COVID-19.

    Republicans won’t have enough votes to advance key legislative priorities if there is no Democratic buy-in, but their oversight of government agencies could put Democrats on the defensive and dampen support for the Biden administration going into the 2024 presidential elections.

    Some of the lawmakers expected to lead those investigations once House Republicans select their new committee chairs:

    JUDICIARY’S BIG ROLE

    Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is expected to serve as the next chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Jordan helped form and then lead the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and voted on Jan. 6, 2021, to object to counting Pennsylvania’s electoral vote. President Donald Trump thought so highly of Jordan that he presented the congressman with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    The Judiciary Committee handles oversight of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and issues such as crime, immigration and protection of civil liberties. It’s typically one of the most partisan committees on Capitol Hill, yet Jordan’s combative style stands out even there. The committee would be the place where any effort would begin to impeach a member of the Biden administration, as some Republicans have been proposing for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    Jordan’s inquiries to the administration in recent months make clear the committee will investigate the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. He has also advocated for a wide-ranging look at the Biden administration’s immigration policies and the origins of COVID-19.

    “All those things need to be investigated just so you have the truth,” Jordan told conservative activists last summer at a conference. “Plus that will frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins.”

    OVERSIGHT’S LONG LIST

    Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., is expected to serve as the next chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and has made clear that investigating President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will be one of his top priorities. The Republicans say their investigation of Hunter Biden’s business dealings is to “determine whether these activities compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.”

    Comer has also been laying the groundwork for investigating the situation on the U.S-Mexico border. He sent a letter to Mayorkas seeking an array of documents and communications pertaining to the administration’s border policy. “We cannot endure another year of the Biden Administration’s failed border policies,” the letter said.

    But that’s just a slice the committee’s focus.

    “We’re going to investigate between 40 and 50 different things,” Comer said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “We have the capacity. We’ll have 25 members on the committee, and we’re going to have a staff close to 70. So we have the ability to investigate a lot of things.”

    The federal government’s spending in response to COVID-19 will also be scrutinized.

    “We believe that there have been hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars wasted over the past three years, so that spans two administrations, in the name of COVID.

    “We want to have hearings on that. We want to try to determine what happened with the fraudulent unemployment insurance funds, the fraudulent PPP loan funds, some of this money that’s being spent for state and local governments in the COVID stimulus money,” Comer said.

    AFGHANISTAN IN FOCUS

    Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is expected to serve as the next chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which will be investigating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. McCaul reiterated a request in mid-October for various documents and directed the State Department to preserve all records related to the chaotic withdrawal, which included the loss of 13 U.S. service members killed during a suicide bombing attack.

    “The way it was done was such a disaster and such a disgrace to our veterans that served in Afghanistan. They deserve answers to the many questions we have,” McCaul said on ABC’s “This Week.” He added: “Why wasn’t there a plan to evacuate? How did it go so wrong?”

    SPOTLIGHT ON ENERGY AND TAXES

    Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., is expected to serve as the next chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has the broadest jurisdiction of any authorizing committee in Congress, from health care to environmental protection to national energy policy. Republicans on the committee have already spent months investigating the origins of COVID-19 and are expected to continue that work in the next Congress.

    Reps. Jason Smith, R-Mo., Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., have expressed interest in serving as the next chairman of the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, which has already been seeking documents related to the spending in the nearly $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that Democrats passed early last year. The committee also has oversight over the IRS, a frequent target of GOP scrutiny and scorn.

    OTHER KEY SPOTS

    Likely leaders of other prominent committees:

    — Agriculture Committee: Glenn Thompson, R-Pa.

    — Appropriations Committee: Kay Granger, R-Texas.

    — Armed Services Committee: Mike Rogers, R-Ala.

    — Budget Committee: Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., Buddy Carter, R-Ga., and Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, have all expressed interest in the chairmanship.

    — Financial Services Committee: Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

    — Homeland Security Committee: Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, Mark Green, R-Tenn., and Clay Higgins, R-La., have all expressed interest in the chairmanship.

    — Intelligence Committee: Michael Turner, R-Ohio

    — Natural Resources Committee: Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.

    — Science, Space and Technology Committee: Frank Lucas, R-Okla.

    — Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: Sam Graves, R-Mo.

    — Veterans’ Affairs Committee: Mike Bost, R-Ill.

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  • Supreme Court hears Texas’ challenge to Biden immigration and deportation policies | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court hears Texas’ challenge to Biden immigration and deportation policies | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider the Biden administration’s discretion on removing non-citizens in a challenge brought by two Republican state attorneys general who say the Department of Homeland Security is skirting federal immigration law.

    The case, brought by Texas and Louisiana, is the latest salvo from conservative states who have all but declared war on the Biden administration on immigration and have gone as far as busing undocumented immigrants to Democrat-led states in an effort to raise alarm about the issue.

    At the heart of the dispute is a September 2021 memo from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that laid out priorities for the arrest, detention and deportation of certain non-citizens, reversing efforts by former President Donald Trump to increase deportations.

    In court papers, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stressed that Congress has never provided the funds to detain everyone, prompting administrations to consider how to prioritize limited funds.

    “Especially given perennial constraints on detention capacity, the Executive retains authority to focus its limited resources on those non-citizens who are higher priorities for apprehension,” she wrote.

    The guidelines call for an assessment of the “totality of the facts and circumstances” instead of the development of a bright-line rule. The government lists aggravating factors weighing in favor of an enforcement action including the gravity of the offense and the use of a firearm, but it also lists mitigating factors that include the age of the immigrant.

    Lawyers for Texas and Louisiana argued that the government lacked the authority to issue the memo because it conflicts with federal law. They point to immigration law that holds that some immigrants “shall” be taken into custody or removed.

    “When Congress required the Executive to act, the Executive lacks the authority to disregard that instruction,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in court papers. He also charged that the guidelines violate the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that governs how an agency can issue regulations.

    A district court judge blocked the guidelines nationwide. “Using the words ‘discretion’ and ‘prioritization’ the Executive Branch claims the authority to suspend statutory mandates,” ruled Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee on the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. “The law does not sanction this approach.”

    A federal appeals court declined to issue a stay of the decision, prompting the Biden administration to ask the Supreme Court for emergency relief last July. A 5-4 court ruled against the administration, allowing the lower court’s decision to remain in effect while the legal challenge plays out.

    Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined her three liberal colleagues in dissent without providing any explanation for her vote.

    In his memo, Mayorkas stated that there are approximately 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable non-citizens in the country and that the United States does not have the ability to apprehend and seek to remove all of them. As such, the Department of Homeland Security sought to prioritize those that pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.

    Prelogar noted that the lower court holding against the government “runs counter to longstanding practice spanning multiple administrations” and emphasized that the guidelines are not binding orders compelling action, but instead, are an attempt to utilize available resources while leaving ultimate discretion to the judgment of individual immigration officials.

    “The guidelines simply tell federal officials how to enforce federal law in a field that the Constitution commits to the federal government,” Prelogar wrote.

    As a threshold matter, she urged the justices to dismiss the challenge, arguing that the states don’t have the legal right – or standing – to bring the challenge because they can’t show the necessary direct injury. Prelogar said if the lawsuit were allowed to go forward, any state could sue the federal government about “virtually any policy.”

    In a separate dispute, Arizona, Montana and Ohio also sued the Biden administration. A district court judge issued a nationwide injunction blocking the guidelines, but the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals put that decision on hold.

    “Federal law gives the National Government considerable authority over immigration policy,” the court held. It also expressed skepticism about whether the guidance directly injured the states.

    Paxton argued to the Supreme Court that the states have the legal right to bring the lawsuit because they bear costs related to law enforcement activities as well as health care and education costs of the non-citizens.

    Critics also say that Texas is guilty of “judge shopping” the case at hand by filing it where it had a 100% chance of drawing a Trump-appointed district judge who has previously issued nationwide injunctions concerning other immigration policies.

    “So far, Texas has taken the lead in 29 different lawsuits against the Biden administration, on immigration,” said CNN analyst Steve Vladeck who is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. In a friend of the court brief filed opposing Texas, Vladeck noted that none of those cases had been filed where the Texas government is located in Austin.

    “This case is the latest battlefield in what has become an all-out war by red state attorneys general against virtually every Biden related policy,” Vladeck said.

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  • Face The Nation: Johnson, Fauci, Polis

    Face The Nation: Johnson, Fauci, Polis

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    Face The Nation: Johnson, Fauci, Polis – CBS News


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    Missed the second half of the show? The latest on immigration and asylum cases, Anthony Fauci on Covid-19 and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on red flag laws.

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  • German government seeks to ease rules for naturalization

    German government seeks to ease rules for naturalization

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    BERLIN — Germany’s socially liberal government is moving ahead with plans to ease the rules for obtaining citizenship in the European Union’s most populous country, a drive that is being assailed by the conservative opposition.

    Chancellor OIaf Scholz said in a video message Saturday that Germany has long since become “the country of hope” for many, and it’s a good thing when people who have put down roots in the country decide to take citizenship.

    “Germany needs better rules for the naturalization of all these great women and men,” Scholz said.

    The overhaul of citizenship rules is one of a series of modernizing reforms that the three-party coalition of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats agreed to tackle when it took office last December. The Interior Ministry said on Friday that draft legislation is “as good as ready.”

    Last year’s coalition agreement calls for people to be eligible for German citizenship after five years, or three in case of “special integration accomplishments,” rather than eight or six years at present. German-born children would automatically become citizens if one parent has been a legal resident for five years.

    The government also wants to drop restrictions on holding dual citizenship. In principle, most people from countries other than European Union members and Switzerland currently have to give up their previous nationality when they gain German citizenship, though there are some exemptions.

    Interior Minister Nancy Faeser argued that reducing the waiting time to be eligible for citizenship is “an incentive for integration.”

    The aim is to reflect reality, she said Friday. “We are a diverse, modern country of immigration, and I think legislation must reflect that.”

    Official statistics show that about 131,600 people took German citizenship last year, a quarter of them citizens of other EU countries. The number was 20% higher than the previous year, in part because an increasing number of Syrians were naturalized. Germany’s total population is around 84 million.

    The main center-right opposition Union bloc rejects the plans to liberalize naturalization laws.

    “Selling off German citizenship cheap doesn’t encourage integration — it aims for exactly the opposite and will trigger additional ‘pull effects’ for illegal migration,” senior conservative lawmaker Alexander Dobrindt told Saturday’s edition of the Bild daily.

    “Five years is a very, very short time” for people to be eligible for citizenship, Union chief whip Thorsten Frei told ZDF television.

    Among other liberalizing plans, the government has removed from Germany’s criminal code a ban on doctors “advertising” abortion services. It has reduced the minimum age for voting in European Parliament elections from 18 to 16 and wants to do the same for national elections.

    It also wants to scrap 40-year-old legislation that requires transsexual people to get a psychological assessment and a court decision before officially changing gender, and replace that with a new “self-determination law.” And it aims to decriminalize the possession of limited quantities of cannabis and allow its sale to adults for recreational purposes in a controlled market.

    Some of the plans may run into difficulty in parliament’s upper house, which represents Germany’s 16 state governments and where Scholz’s coalition doesn’t control a majority. It had to water down elements of an overhaul of unemployment benefits to get that passed this week.

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  • This week on

    This week on

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    “Face the Nation” Guest Lineup:

    • Dr. Anthony Fauci — President Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

    • Rep. Jim Clyburn — (D) South Carolina, majority whip

    • Gov. Jared Polis — (D) Colorado

    • Jeh Johnson — Former Department of Homeland Security secretary under former President Barack Obama

    • Michael Chertoff — Former Department of Homeland Security secretary under former President George W. Bush

    How to watch “Face the Nation”

    • Date: Sunday, November 27, 2022

    • TV: “Face the Nation” airs Sunday mornings on CBS. Click here for your local listings

    • Radio: Subscribe to “Face the Nation” from CBS Radio News to listen on-the-go

    • Free online stream: Watch the show on CBS’ streaming network at 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET.

    With the latest news and analysis from Washington, don’t miss Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) this Sunday on “Face the Nation” (@FaceTheNation). 

    And for the latest from America’s premier public affairs program, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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  • UK PM Rishi Sunak may restrict foreign students to only top schools: Report

    UK PM Rishi Sunak may restrict foreign students to only top schools: Report

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    UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering restrictions on foreign students enrolling in “low quality” degrees and bringing dependents.

    According to a report by Economic Times, quoting the PM’s official spokesman, Sunak is “fully committed” to reducing overall immigration levels, who also attributed the record high to “unprecedented and unique circumstances.”

    “We’re considering all options to make sure the immigration system is delivering, and that does include looking at the issue of student dependents and low-quality degrees,” the official added.

    Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, has previously expressed concern about foreign students “bringing in family members who can piggyback on their student visa” and “supporting, frankly, substandard courses in inadequate institutions.”

    After net immigration to the UK soared to a “breathtaking” record high of 504,000 in the year to June, the UK Prime Minister on Thursday vowed that immigration will decline and suggested that student visas may be subject to greater scrutiny.

    According to the nation’s official immigration statistics, Indian students have for the first time surpassed Chinese students as the largest group of foreign students studying in the UK. This is due to a huge 273 per cent increase in visas granted over the past few years.

    Indians continue to be the most common nationality granted visas in the skilled worker category, according to UK Home Office data compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with 56,042 work visas granted in the previous year.

    Also Read: Committed to working quickly on UK-India FTA: British PM Rishi Sunak

    Also Read: UK PM Rishi Sunak faces first rebellion of his premiership; here’s what’s happening

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  • Dominican Republic expels 1,800 children to Haiti: UNICEF

    Dominican Republic expels 1,800 children to Haiti: UNICEF

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    HAVANA (AP) — Dominican authorities have expelled at least 1,800 unaccompanied Haitian migrant children this year, sending them back to their crisis-stricken country, UNICEF said.

    The Dominican Republic denied the claim, which came Tuesday amid the government’s intensifying crackdown on migration in response to a cholera outbreak and ongoing gang violence in Haiti. The two countries share a 240-mile (390-kilometer) border on the island of Hispaniola.

    The crackdown has provoked harsh criticism by international observers, including the United States, which have accused the country of mass deportations, racist treatment of migrants and detentions of Haitians in facilities with poor conditions.

    Among those fleeing to the Dominican Republic are girls and boys, many of whom are sent back to Haiti through different border points, where they have been received by UNICEF partners at the border, according to the organization.

    The information was first reported by CNN, and confirmed by UNICEF, which declined to comment further. It is still unclear if the children were expelled without their parents, got separated during the journey or fled Haiti alone.

    Venancio Alcántara, director of the Dominican Republic’s migration authority, denied the claims, saying the agency follows specific procedures with child migrants and that “minors are with their parents at all times.”

    “All deportations are carried out with complete and absolute respect for human dignity and human rights,” Alcántara wrote in a statement Tuesday.

    Tensions fueled by migration have simmered for years between the two countries, but they have only deepened since the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, which thrust an already crisis-stricken Haiti into chaos.

    Dominican authorities say heightened border enforcement and deportations are crucial to national security amid intensifying turmoil in the neighboring country. An unidentified number of protesters last week attempted to burn down the Dominican consulate in Cap-Haïtien, a municipality in the north of the country, Haitian authorities said Wednesday.

    Haiti last week accused its neighbor of subjecting fleeing Haitians to “inhumane, cruel and degrading conditions,” while the United States Embassy in the country’s capital, Santo Domingo, warned that darker-skinned Americans could be targeted by authorities in the country.

    “There are reports that detainees are held in overcrowded detention centers, without the ability to challenge their detention and without access to food or toilets, sometimes for days, before being released or deported to Haiti,” the U.S. notice added.

    The Dominican Republic said it “profusely rejects” the allegations, which they say are not backed up by evidence, and said they will only increase deportations.

    Authorities say they deported 43,900 migrants, mostly Haitians, between July and October, according to figures from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In September and October alone, deportation figures shot up by about 50%.

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  • Dominican Republic expels 1,800 children to Haiti: UNICEF

    Dominican Republic expels 1,800 children to Haiti: UNICEF

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    HAVANA — Dominican authorities have expelled at least 1,800 unaccompanied Haitian migrant children this year, sending them back to their crisis-stricken country, UNICEF said.

    The Dominican Republic denied the claim, which came Tuesday amid the government’s intensifying crackdown on migration in response to a cholera outbreak and ongoing gang violence in Haiti. The two countries share a 240-mile (390-kilometer) border on the island of Hispaniola.

    The crackdown has provoked harsh criticism by international observers, including the United States, which have accused the country of mass deportations, racist treatment of migrants and detentions of Haitians in facilities with poor conditions.

    Among those fleeing to the Dominican Republic are girls and boys, many of whom are sent back to Haiti through different border points, where they have been received by UNICEF partners at the border, according to the organization.

    The information was first reported by CNN, and confirmed by UNICEF, which declined to comment further. It is still unclear if the children were expelled without their parents, got separated during the journey or fled Haiti alone.

    Venancio Alcántara, director of the Dominican Republic’s migration authority, denied the claims, saying the agency follows specific procedures with child migrants and that “minors are with their parents at all times.”

    “All deportations are carried out with complete and absolute respect for human dignity and human rights,” Alcántara wrote in a statement Tuesday.

    Tensions fueled by migration have simmered for years between the two countries, but they have only deepened since the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, which thrust an already crisis-stricken Haiti into chaos.

    Dominican authorities say heightened border enforcement and deportations are crucial to national security amid intensifying turmoil in the neighboring country. An unidentified number of protesters last week attempted to burn down the Dominican consulate in Cap-Haïtien, a municipality in the north of the country, Haitian authorities said Wednesday.

    Haiti last week accused its neighbor of subjecting fleeing Haitians to “inhumane, cruel and degrading conditions,” while the United States Embassy in the country’s capital, Santo Domingo, warned that darker-skinned Americans could be targeted by authorities in the country.

    “There are reports that detainees are held in overcrowded detention centers, without the ability to challenge their detention and without access to food or toilets, sometimes for days, before being released or deported to Haiti,” the U.S. notice added.

    The Dominican Republic said it “profusely rejects” the allegations, which they say are not backed up by evidence, and said they will only increase deportations.

    Authorities say they deported 43,900 migrants, mostly Haitians, between July and October, according to figures from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In September and October alone, deportation figures shot up by about 50%.

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  • More than 100 migrants rescued from overloaded vessel before it hit sand bar in Florida Keys | CNN

    More than 100 migrants rescued from overloaded vessel before it hit sand bar in Florida Keys | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    More than 100 people were rescued from an overloaded boat early Monday before it hit a sand bar in the Florida Keys, according to the US Coast Guard and the US Border Patrol.

    Another 18 Haitian migrants “who were trapped in dangerous ocean currents while attempting to swim to shore” also were rescued by federal, state and local law enforcement, US Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Walter Slosar said Tuesday on Twitter.

    How many migrants were on the vessel, how many were rescued and their conditions remain unclear. Everyone’s nationality also wasn’t immediately known, the Coast Guard said.

    As the vessel hit the sand bar off Whale Harbor, there were “reports of people in the water and our land partners are on scene,” the Coast Guard Southeast said in a tweet.

    Rescue efforts were launched, per the Coast Guard.

    Conditions were rough for rescue crews, with 6- to 10-foot seas and winds of 25 miles per hour, the Coast Guard told CNN. Whale Harbor is in Islamorada, in the Upper Florida Keys.

    The rescue operations began when a good Samaritan reported the vessel to the Key West watch standers at 5 a.m., the Coast Guard said in a tweet.

    On Sunday, the Coast Guard said at least five people died after a homemade vessel capsized near Florida’s Little Torch Key. Nine people were rescued from the vessel, according to the agency.

    Authorities had nearly 7,000 encounters with Haitian migrants in Florida in October, compared to just 1,188 in October 2021, according to US Customs and Border Patrol data. The agency reported nearly 57,000 encounters with Haitian migrants in Florida in 2022, an increase from nearly 49,000 the prior year.

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  • Pope visits immigrant father’s hometown for birthday party

    Pope visits immigrant father’s hometown for birthday party

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    PORTACOMARO, Itatly — Pope Francis returned to his father’s birthplace in northern Italy on Saturday for the first time since ascending the papacy to celebrate the 90th birthday of a second cousin who long knew him as simply “Giorgio.”

    The two-day visit to Francis’ ancestral homeland to renew family ties touched on keystones of his papacy, including the importance of honoring the elderly and the human toll of migration. Francis’ private visit Saturday will be followed by public one Sunday to celebrate Mass for the local faithful, where he could well reflect on his family’s experience migrating to Argentina.

    The pope’s father, Mario Jose Francisco Bergoglio, and his paternal grandparents arrived in Buenos Aires on Jan. 25, 1929 to reach other relatives at the tail end of a mass decades-long emigration from Italy that the pope has honored with two recent saints: St. Giovanni Batista Scalabrini and St. Artedime Zatti.

    The future pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was born nearly eight years later in Buenos Aires, after the elder Bergoglio met and married Regina Maria Sivori, whose family was also of Italian immigrant stock, hailing from the Liguria region. Francis grew up speaking the Piedmont dialect of his paternal grandmother Rosa, who cared for him most days.

    The elder Bergoglio was born in the town of Portacomaro, 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Asti, an agricultural town that lost population not only to emigration abroad but also to nearby Turin as it became an industrial center.

    Today, the town has 2,000 residents, but it numbered more than 2,700 a century ago, and dropped as low as 1,680 in the 1980s.

    The pope’s family emigrated after the peak, which saw 14 million Italians leave from 1876 to 1915 — a movement that made Italy the biggest voluntary diaspora in the world, according to Lauren Braun-Strumfels, an associate professor of history at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

    Often citing his own family story, Francis, now 85, has made the welcoming and integration of migrants a hallmark of his papacy, often facing criticism as Europe in general, and Italy in particular, are consumed with the debate over how to manage mass migration.

    The pope has recognized the historic significance of the emigrant experience with the recent canonizations of St. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who founded an order to help Italian emigrants at the end of the 19th century, and Artemide Zatti, an Italian who emigrated to Argentina in the same period and dedicated his work to helping the sick.

    He used the occasion to again denounce Europe’s indifference toward migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea and what they hope will be better futures.

    Francis began his visit to Portacomaro on Saturday with lunch at the home of a cousin, Carla Rabezzana. Photographs released by the Vatican showed Francis clearly enjoying himself, hugging Rabezzana and sitting at the head of the table.

    “We have known each other forever,’’ Rabezzana told the Corriere della Sera newspaper in the runup to the visit. “When I lived in Turin, Giorgio — I always called him that — came to stay because I had an extra room. That is how we maintained our relationship.

    “We always would joke. When he told me he would come to celebrate my 90th birthday, I said it made my heart race. And in response I was told: ‘Try not to die.’ We burst out laughing.’’

    The pope has many more third and fourth cousins still in the area.

    “It was a large family, and in the area there are still many distant cousins,’’ said Carlo Cerrato a former mayor of Portacomoro. He said it was a “big surprise” for everyone in the town when Francis was elected pope nearly a decade ago.

    “Everyone knew there was a prelate who had become the cardinal of Buenos Aires, but it was something that the relatives knew, not everyone in town,’’ Cerrato said.

    After nearly 10 years as pope, Francis has yet to return to his own birthplace in Argentina . He hasn’t really explained his reasons for staying away. He recently confirmed that if he were to resign as pope, he wouldn’t go back to Buenos Aires to live but would remain in Rome.

    ———

    Barry reported from Milan.

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  • Why foreign workers in the US are especially vulnerable to the Twitter turmoil | CNN Politics

    Why foreign workers in the US are especially vulnerable to the Twitter turmoil | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Twitter employees who are relying on the company for work visas have been left in limbo, finding themselves at the whims of its new billionaire owner, knowing if they quit, they may have to leave the United States.

    Earlier this week, Elon Musk gave remaining staff an ultimatum to commit to working “hardcore” or to leave. But some staff who would like to leave the company feel like they can’t because doing so, may leave them no choice but to depart the US, multiple former Twitter employees told CNN.

    Tech companies in the US, including Twitter, have leaned on an employment-based visa, known as H-1B, to bring skilled foreign workers into the country. The program allows companies in the US to employ foreign workers in high-skilled occupations like architecture, engineering, mathematics, among other fields.

    In fiscal year 2022, Twitter had nearly 300 people approved to work on H-1B visas, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data. It’s unclear how many have chosen to stay.

    Facebook – another company that’s undergoing mass layoffs – had more than 1,300 people approved to work on H-1B visas, the data shows.

    Employees on temporary visas, like H-1B or other work visas, are especially vulnerable to the layoffs happening at Twitter and across the tech industry. Some staff who were on employment-based visas and have already been laid off by Musk have found themselves scrambling.

    “Firing folks who are on a H-1B in a major economic downturn is not just putting them out of the job, it’s tantamount to ruining their lives,” one former employee told CNN, adding that some people who had accepted Musk’s ultimatum had accepted it “out of self-preservation.”

    Twitter users are flocking to Mastodon. What is it?

    Fiona McEntee, an immigration lawyer based in Chicago, represents immigrants who are on H-1B visas and are part of the recent tech layoffs.

    While McEntee stressed everyone’s situation is unique, one of the primary challenges employees on H-1B visas face is that they have a limited window of time to find a new employer, adjust to another visa, or leave the United States. The 60-day grace period usually starts from the last day of employment.

    “It’s a short time period to line these things up.” McEntee said, noting that filing a visa transfer, for example, can take time. McEntee’s firm has been receiving multiple calls from people affected by the layoffs who are concerned about next steps.

    “A layoff is hard enough on people to begin with but when you’re faced with having to leave what’s been your home for a significant time, it adds a whole layer of trauma to this,” she told CNN.

    One former Twitter employee described the challenges facing a former colleague who is in the US with his family on an employment-based visa and now faces the prospect of having to leave.

    For that reason, some staff at Twitter who are on H-1B visas are staying on despite wanting to leave the company, a former employee told CNN, adding that they’re “concerned with being forced into a flooded job market where they may be unable to find a job and before being forced out of the country.”

    The US Department of Homeland Security issues 65,000 H-1B visas annually as mandated by Congress, in addition to another 20,000 for those who have a masters’ degree or doctorate from a US university. The visa can be granted for up to six years.

    “These are people who didn’t just necessarily arrive last year or the year before, or even when they were approved,” said David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. Bier noted that some people may have been working for Twitter under a different visa before being hired on an H-1B.

    “Many of these people will have been in this country for over a decade,” Bier said.

    One former Twitter employee stressed the importance of visa holders and their contribution to US innovation and technological leadership.

    “For companies to turn their backs on them now is particularly callous and destructive and undermines the trust talented people have around in the world in the hope of America and its opportunities,” they added.

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  • Divided government is more productive than you think | CNN Politics

    Divided government is more productive than you think | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Now that CNN has projected Republicans will win the House of Representatives, it’s time to consider a Washington where both parties have some control.

    Despite underperforming on Election Day, the GOP gains will have a major impact on what’s accomplished in the coming two years.

    Additional climate change policy? Don’t count on it. National abortion legislation? Not a chance. Voting rights? Not likely.

    Plus, Republicans have indicated they will use any leverage they can find – including the debt ceiling – to force spending cuts.

    While you might immediately think this is all a recipe for a stalemate in Washington, I was surprised to read the argument, backed up by research, that the US government actually overperforms during periods of divided government.

    Those periods are coming more and more frequently, by the way. While there used to be relatively long periods of a decade or more during which one party controlled all of Washington, recent presidents have lost control of the House.

    Barack Obama, Donald Trump and George W. Bush each saw their party lose the House. President Joe Biden will join that club.

    The two Republicans in the ’80s and ‘90s – Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush – both had productive presidencies and never enjoyed a sympathetic congressional majority. The last president to enjoy unified government throughout his presidency was Democrat Jimmy Carter, and voters did not look very kindly on him in the final analysis.

    What’s below are excerpts from separate phone conversations conducted before the midterm election with Frances Lee and James Curry, authors of the 2020 book, “The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era.” Lee is a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, and Curry is a political science professor at the University of Utah. What led me to them was their 2020 argument that divided government overperforms and unified government underperforms expectations.

    What should Americans know about divided government?

    LEE: It’s the normal state of affairs in our politics in the modern era. Since 1980, something like two-thirds of the time we’ve had a divided government.

    And yet you think about all the things that government has undertaken in the years since the Second World War. The role and scope of the US government is so much greater now than it was then. And a lot of that happened in divided government. Most of that has been under divided government time. …

    Unified government usually results in disappointment for the party in power, which is just exactly what we’ve seen here in (this) Congress. Democrats were unable to deliver on their bold agenda, and that’s not different than what Republicans faced when they had unified government and couldn’t pass repeal and replace of Obamacare.

    Now hold on. Republicans passed a massive tax cut bill with unified government. Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which included spending to address climate change. Those are the major accomplishments of recent years, no?

    CURRY: I think we’re making a mistake when we say that those are the three biggest things that have happened. For instance, earlier you talked about the American Rescue Plan (another Covid relief bill passed with only Democratic support) – it is not as significant as the CARES Act, which was the first major Covid relief legislation passed by Congress. It passed in March of 2020, and it passed on an overwhelming bipartisan basis.

    A lot of what was included in the American Rescue Plan were things that were initially set out under the CARES Act. Arguably the CARES Act was the single most important legislative accomplishment that we’ve had in this country in several decades.

    And there are other examples too … things like criminal justice reform that was passed with bipartisan support in 2018, and many others things that are just as significant from a public policy standpoint, including also the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress passed last year.

    They don’t have as much political significance, foremost because they were passed on a single-party basis. But I don’t think you can make the case that they’re necessarily more significant in terms of policy consequences for the country.

    (In a follow-up email, Curry said that Congress often flies its bipartisanship accomplishments under the radar as part of larger bills, which means they don’t get as much attention. He pointed to big-ticket items that passed quietly in 2019 as part of larger spending bills, including raising the age to buy tobacco to 21, pushing through the first major pay raise for federal employees in years and repealing unpopular Obamacare taxes. He has similar examples for each recent year. But if they are not contentious, they get less attention, he said.)

    Your argument is counter to the current narrative of American politics – that parties enact more on their own. Is that a media problem? A partisanship problem?

    LEE: I’m still blown away by how much was done on Covid. Basically the United States government spent 75% more in 2020 than it spent in 2019. All that was Covid.

    You’re talking about New Deal levels of spending and yet people just didn’t even seem to notice it because it was done on a bipartisan basis. We basically had a universal basic income in response to Covid and all the small business aid – it’s just extraordinary – and yet, it just seemed to pass people by as though nothing important occurred.

    I don’t think it’s just a media story. The media wrote stories about the Covid aid bills, but it just didn’t capture people’s attention.

    And I think that’s because it didn’t cut in favor of or against either party. When you don’t have a story that drives a partisan narrative, most people are just not that interested in it. Most people that pay attention to politics are not that interested in it. It lacks a rooting interest.

    What about the big things that need action? Immigration reform has eluded Congress for decades and climate change is an existential threat. How can divided government be preferable if Congress can’t come together to address these problems?

    CURRY: I’m not saying divided government is preferable, which I think is important. I’m just saying it doesn’t make that big a difference on a lot of these issues.

    So we’ve seen that list of issues you just mentioned – climate change, immigration, etc. These are issues that Congress has equally struggled to take big, bold action on under divided or unified government.

    On climate change, for instance, Democrats want to do big, bold things, but they aren’t able to go as far as they want to, because not only are there disagreements between the parties on how to address climate change, there are disagreements among Democrats about the best way to address climate and environmental legislation.

    On immigration, you have clear divisions across party lines, but also divisions within each party.

    LEE: Congress can pass legislation spending money or cutting taxes. The problem is it’s difficult to do things that create backlash. It’s hard to do serious climate legislation without being prepared to accept a backlash.

    Isn’t this just a structural problem then? If there was no requirement for a filibuster supermajority, couldn’t a simple majority of lawmakers be more effective?

    LEE: On the two examples that you just put forward – on immigration and climate – the filibuster has not been the obstacle to recent efforts.

    In immigration reform that Republicans attempted to do (under Trump), they couldn’t get majorities in either the House or Senate. Democrats were way short of a Senate majority when they tried to do climate legislation under Obama. They barely got out of the House.

    (Curry and Lee’s research shows the filibuster is not the primary culprit standing in the way of four out of five of the priorities that parties have failed to enact since 1985.)

    CURRY: We found a more common reason why the parties fail on the things that can be accomplished is because they are unable to unify internally about what to do. The filibuster matters, but it is far from the most significant thing.

    But certainly the legislation that passes under divided government is different than what would have passed under a unified government. The parties must compromise more. Whether the government is unified or divided matters, right?

    CURRY: It makes a difference certainly for precisely what is in these final policy bills. It certainly makes a difference for the politics of the moment. It really makes a difference for each side of the aisle in terms of being able to say, we got this much done or that much done that matches my hopes and dreams as a Democrat or a Republican.

    But it’s just sort of an overstated story that unified government means big, bold things happen and divided government means they don’t.

    Wouldn’t Washington work better if one party was more easily able to deliver on its goals when voters gave it power?

    CURRY: Whether it would be better if we had a situation like you have in more parliamentary-style governments where a party takes control, they pass what they will and stand to voters, I think it’s just in the eye of the beholder.

    On one hand, potentially, yes, because it’s very clear and clean from a party responsibility or electoral responsibility standpoint, where parties pass things and then voters can hold them accountable or not. On the other hand, then you would see more wild swings in policy from election to election.

    Does the growing number of swings in power in Congress mean American voters consciously prefer divided government?

    CURRY: I don’t think that Americans necessarily have a preference for divided government. That’s something that people sometimes say. It sounds nice.

    But the reality is that roughly since the 1980s and early 1990s, it’s been the case that electoral margins are really tight – you have relatively even numbers of Americans that prefer Democrats and Republicans. And so from election to election, based on turnout and swings back and forth, you get this constant back and forth of our electoral politics where one party is in control for two to four years and then the other party is in control.

    That’s really important because it has massive implications for our politics. If you have a political system and political dynamic like we have today, where each party thinks they can constantly win back control or lose control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, it ups the stakes for every single decision that’s going to be made.

    Everything is considered through a lens of how will this affect our partisan fortunes in the next election, and that makes things just naturally more contentious.

    Can we agree that ours is not a very effective way to govern?

    CURRY: It is certainly the case that Congress does not pass every single thing that every person wants it to. But I don’t think that is ever true of any government. Nor do I think that’s a reasonable bar to set a government against.

    The reality is Congress does a lot of stuff and does a lot more than people give it credit for, but it also fails to take action on a lot of policies. I think that’s just politics. That’s just government. It’s not just an American problem, and it’s not just a facet of our specific political system.

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  • Border ‘invasion’ declaration panned as PR stunt | CNN Politics

    Border ‘invasion’ declaration panned as PR stunt | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up here.



    CNN
     — 

    America’s duct-taped immigration policy, which successive Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses have all failed to fix in a comprehensive way, is about to be ripped in yet another direction.

    • With CNN projecting Republicans will take control of the House in January, Democrats want to use the last gasp of their House majority to make good on a yearslong effort to give certainty to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children.
    • Some Republicans, meanwhile, are using the language of war and aiming to make the situation at the southern border a key part of their platform once their party seizes the megaphone of a House majority.
    • A federal judge invalidated a Covid-era policy left over from the Trump administration that has been used to expel migrants millions of times in recent years.
    • US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus was forced out of his role last week by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
    • The move will do little to quiet the criticism of Mayorkas by Republicans. They’ve promised to target him and his agency with scrutiny and investigations when they take the House majority next term.

    ‘Invasion.’ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, fresh from a commanding election win in last week’s midterms and keen to be viewed as the border security governor, said he would invoke a clause of the US Constitution and declare an “invasion” at the southern border.

    While he has used the term “invasion” before, his tweet suggested he would do more to militarize his state’s response and step in where he says the Biden administration has failed.

    Former President Donald Trump also returned to that term – “invasion” – in announcing his latest run for the White House.

    “Our southern border has been erased,” he said falsely, “and our country is being invaded by millions and millions of unknown people.”

    Abbott argued his declaration would invoke a clause in the Constitution that gives states extraordinary power.

    That text, from Article I, Section 10, reads like this:

    No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

    That Abbott and others are equating a stream of unarmed migrants with an invading army is a case of major false equivalence. They also point to drugs that come across the border with Mexico and the drug cartels behind the illicit activity as a major problem.

    There is no invading army. Rather than marauding troops, CNN’s many profiles of migrants have found families fleeing poverty, climate change, persecution and violence, and approaching the US border after a treacherous trek, often on foot, across the Darien Gap linking South and Central America.

    The Biden administration, following in the Trump administration’s footsteps, has sought to deter migrants, particularly from Venezuela, who have increased exponentially in recent years.

    Judge ends Title 42. A federal judge on Tuesday ended a Trump-era Covid-19 policy, which had been maintained by the Biden administration, to expel many border crossers from the country. In response to a request from the administration, the judge stayed his ruling Wednesday for five weeks to allow the administration to prepare.

    The DC judge, Emmet Sullivan, called that policy “arbitrary and capricious” and said it was flawed from the get-go.

    CNN’s Catherine Shoichet has an in-depth look at the policy, which has been used to expel migrants nearly 2.5 million times under the two presidents over the past three years. That language is important – many of those expelled under the policy have been expelled more than once.

    Reporting from the Texas border. CNN’s Rosa Flores is based in Texas and has reported from the region.

    “We’ve covered stories on the Mexican side of the border where thousands of migrants have been waiting for Title 42 to lift,” she told me in an email. “The anxiety and angst have been building on the border for years now.”

    The uncertainty about US policy has only amplified the desperation of people trying to get into the US, Flores told me.

    “The net effect of the US immigration policy has been very dangerous for migrants/asylum-seekers,” she told me. “Thousands of them have been kidnapped, sexually assaulted or violently attacked, according to Human Rights First.”

    ‘PR stunt’. Even hard-line immigration activists, like the former Trump Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli, who has pushed for this “invasion” declaration, called Abbott’s version of invoking the invasion clause inadequate since Abbott will not, apparently, be seizing federal authority to expel migrants from the country.

    It does, however, fit along with Abbott’s efforts to bus migrants out of Texas to cities like New York and Washington.

    “Saying you’re being invaded but not blocking the invaders from coming is a hollow shell,” Cuccinelli said, along with Russ Vought, president of the activist group Citizens for Renewing America. They dismissed Abbott’s move as a “PR stunt.”

    No obvious change. Flores pointed out it does not appear that Abbott’s declaration has changed the stance of the Texas Military Department nor its rules of engagement on the border. Abbott’s budget director said the announcement does not reflect a change in overall tactics.

    Back in February, CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez traveled to the border and talked to National Guard members taking part in Abbott’s previous deployment of state forces to the border. She found some who said the mission was a waste of time and resources, since the power to enforce immigration policy and border security is held by the federal government.

    Not what the founders intended. Any more on the invasion clause from Abbott would be “flagrantly unconstitutional,” according to Joseph Nunn of the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, who pointed out Texas is not being invaded by an army.

    “The Founders foresaw such invasions being launched by ‘ambitious or vindictive’ foreign powers and groups, not unarmed migrants and asylum-seekers,” Nunn said in a Twitter thread.

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  • Bus carrying 28 migrants from Texas arrives in Philadelphia, including girl with dehydration and fever

    Bus carrying 28 migrants from Texas arrives in Philadelphia, including girl with dehydration and fever

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    Philadelphia — A bus carrying 28 migrants from Texas arrived in Philadelphia on Wednesday, including a 10-year-old girl suffering from dehydration and a high fever who was whisked to a hospital for treatment. Advocates who welcomed them as they arrived before dawn said the families and individuals came from Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. The city and several nonprofit groups were ready to provide food, temporary housing and other services.
     
    “In general, people feel relieved. We want them to know that they have a home here,” said Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym, who accompanied several of the migrants onto a second bus taking them to a site where their needs could be assessed.
     
    “There’s a 10-year-old who’s completely dehydrated. It’s one of the more inhumane aspects that they would put a child who was dehydrated with a fever now, a very high fever (on the bus),” Gym said. “It’s a terrible situation.”

    Transporting-Migrants-Philadelphia
    Migrants sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott arrive on a bus near 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 16, 2022. 

    Joe Lamberti/AP


    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Tuesday that Philadelphia would be the next destination for migrants the state is transporting from the U.S.-Mexico border by the thousands to Democratic-led locales, putting a new bus on the road a week after the Republican easily won reelection.

    CBS News immigration reporter Camlio Montoya-Galvez said the move was the latest escalation of Abbott’s efforts to repudiate the Biden administration and its Democratic allies for the federal government’s handling of an unprecedented wave of migration along the U.S.-Mexico border over the past two years.

    Before Philadelphia, Texas officials had already bused more than 13,000 migrants to Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago, three Democratic-led cities with “sanctuary” policies that limit local law enforcement cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation agents, according to state statistics.


    Buses from the Border: New York strained by migrants caught in a broken system | 60 Minutes

    12:57

    Advocates who greeted the group early Wednesday morning, which included 21 adults, said it was not clear how long the bus journey took, but one said it would typically take about 40 hours. 

    “The important thing is they got to Philadelphia, and they were received with open arms,” said Emilio Buitrago of the nonprofit Casa de Venezuela.
     
    “The kids are frightened, they’re exhausted, they’re tired,” he said. “They’re going to go to a place… where they’re going to have comfy, warm beds with a blanket, and warm food. From there, we’re going to work on relocation.”
     
    Some of the families hope to unite with relatives or friends in other locations, Gym said.

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at an election night rally in McAllen, Texas, on Nov. 8, 2022.

    Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg/Getty


    Critics have waved off the buses as a political stunt, but voters rewarded Abbott last week with a record-tying third term as Texas governor in his race against Democrat Beto O’Rourke. Abbott made a series of hardline immigration measures the centerpiece of his campaign. 

    Nearly 6 in 10 voters favored Abbott’s decision to send migrants to northern cities, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of almost 3,400 voters.
     
    In the statement announcing the bus trips to Philadelphia, Abbott’s office said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney “has long-celebrated and fought for sanctuary city status, making the city an ideal addition to Texas’ list of drop-off locations.”

    In a statement, Kenney said: “It is truly disgusting to hear today that Governor Abbott and his Administration continue to implement their purposefully cruel policy using immigrant families – including women and children – as pawns to shamelessly push his warped political agenda.”
     
    Kenney said the city had been working with more than a dozen local organizations to provide the migrants with shelter space, emergency health screening, food, water, language interpretation and more. Some will likely make their way to other states.
     
    Arizona and Florida have also sent migrants to northern U.S. cities.

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  • Federal judge blocks Title 42 rule that allowed expulsion of migrants at US-Mexico border, restoring access for some asylum seekers | CNN Politics

    Federal judge blocks Title 42 rule that allowed expulsion of migrants at US-Mexico border, restoring access for some asylum seekers | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Title 42 – a controversial rule that’s allowed US authorities to expel more than 1 million migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border.

    Tuesday’s court order leaves the Biden administration without one of the key tools it had deployed to address the thousands of migrants arriving at the border on a daily basis and could restore access to asylum for arriving migrants.

    In turn, the Biden administration requested a stay on the ruling for five weeks, according to a court filing.

    While the rule was drafted by the Trump administration during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Biden administration has relied heavily on it to manage the increase of migrants at the border.

    District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, DC, found the Title 42 order to be “arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”

    Prior to Title 42, all migrants arrested at the border were processed under immigration law. Thousands of migrants sent back to Mexico have been waiting along the border in shelters. Officials have previously raised concerns about what the end of Title 42 may portend, given limited resources and a high number of people trying to enter the country.

    Sullivan’s ruling also comes on the heels of the resignation of US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus, who had been asked to resign by Mayorkas last week. CBP Deputy Commissioner Troy Miller is now serving as the acting commissioner.

    CNN has reached out to the White House, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security for comment.

    Sullivan faulted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued the public health order, for “its decision to ignore the harm that could be caused” by issuing the policy. He said the CDC also failed to consider alternative approaches, such as letting migrants self-quarantine in homes of US-based friends, family, or shelters. The agency, he said, should have reexamined its approach when vaccines and tests became widely available.

    “With regard to whether defendants could have ‘ramped up vaccinations, outdoor processing, and all other available public health measures,’… the court finds the CDC failed to articulate a satisfactory explanation for why such measures were not feasible,” Sullivan wrote.

    The judge also concluded that the policy did not rationally serve its purpose, given that Covid-19 was already widespread throughout the United States when the policy was rolled out.

    “Title 42 was never about public health, and this ruling finally ends the charade of using Title 42 to bar desperate asylum seekers from even getting a hearing,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case, said in a statement.

    The injunction request came from the ACLU, along with other immigrant advocacy groups, involves all demographics, including single adults and families. Unaccompanied children were already exempt from the order.

    The ACLU does not oppose the Biden administration’s request for a stay of Tuesday’s ruling through December 21, the administration noted in their filing.

    The public health authority was invoked at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and has been criticized by immigrant advocates, attorneys and health experts who argue it has no health basis and puts migrants in harm’s way.

    Sullivan had previously blocked the Biden administration from expelling migrant families with children apprehended at the US-Mexico border.

    Earlier this year, in anticipation of lifting Title 42 and under pressure from lawmakers, the Department of Homeland Security released a 20-page plan to manage a potential increase of migrants at the border. A separate federal judge struck down the administration’s intent to end Title 42 at the time.

    The CDC said at the time it’s no longer necessary given current public health conditions and the increased availability of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19.

    But in May, a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the Biden administration from ending Title 42.

    Since that court order, the administration has continued to use Title 42 and most recently, expanding it to include Venezuelan migrants who have arrived at the US southern border in large numbers.

    In October, there were more than 204,000 arrests along the US southern border and over 78,400 expulsions under Title 42, according to CBP data.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Albania: Wrong for Britain to blame Tirana on migrants

    Albania: Wrong for Britain to blame Tirana on migrants

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    TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s prime minister said Tuesday that Britain is carrying out a “calculated attack” on his country by blaming it for the increased number of migrants crossing the English Channel.

    Edi Rama said that the new U.K. Cabinet was scapegoating Albanians because it “has gone down a blind alley with its new policy resulting from Brexit.”

    Britain has seen more than 40,000 migrants crossing the Channel in small boats this year, a record high. Almost a third are Albanians, according to the U.K. government.

    The U.K. and France signed an agreement Monday that will see more police patrol beaches in northern France in an attempt to stop migrants from trying to cross in small boats.

    British authorites accuse Albanian criminal gangs of “abusing” Britain’s asylum system and modern slavery laws.

    Ged McCann, intelligence manager at the National Crime Agency, said organized crime groups from Albania were “effectively bringing in the labor force” for illegal marijuana-growing operations in boats across the English Channel.

    “Many individuals that are arrested in cannabis (farms) arrived in the country a matter of days before on small boats,” he said.

    U.K. interior minister Suella Braverman has described the cross arrivals as an “invasion on our southern coast” — words that drew criticism at home and abroad. Rama blasted her words as a “crazy narrative” and attempt to cover up for the U.K.’s failed borders policies.

    “The fact there came no apology shows it was a calculated attack,” he added Tuesday.

    Rama said that visa liberalization would help lower the number of people arriving illegally, but the U.K. government’s policy is “completely the reverse.”

    “The British government has launched a blind alley road with its new policy that has resulted from Brexit,” he said at a news conference.

    Last week, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said it was “extremely grateful” for Albania’s cooperation on managing migration.

    Sunak has described the migrant crisis as a “serious and escalating problem.” He acknowledged that “not enough” asylum claims are being processed, but maintained his Conservative government was getting a grip on the situation.

    ———

    Jill Lawless contributed to this report from London.

    ——-

    Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration and Llazar Semini at https://twitter.com/lsemini

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