The Australian Broadcasting Corp. said Tuesday it had confirmed newspaper reports that the immigration minister would put aside a potential three-year ban from entry that Djokovic, a 35-year-old from Serbia, had faced as a foreign citizen whose visa was revoked.
The Australian Border Force previously explained that exclusion period could be waived in certain circumstances — and that each case would be assessed on its merits.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ office declined to comment on privacy grounds.
Djokovic’s representatives did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment. He currently is participating in the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, where he won his opening match Monday against Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 7-6 (4) and is next scheduled to play — and speak to the media — on Wednesday against Andrey Rublev.
After Monday’s victory, Djokovic indicated that his lawyers were in touch with the Australian government with an eye to him being able to contest the Australian Open, which runs from Jan. 16-29.
The nine-time Australian Open champion was not allowed to seek a 10th title at Melbourne Park after a tumultuous 10-day legal saga early this year over his COVID-19 vaccination status that culminated with his visa being taken away on the eve of the tournament.
Djokovic arrived at Melbourne Airport with a visa he had obtained online via what he believed to be a valid medical exemption from the country’s strict laws governing unvaccinated visitors. His application had been endorsed by Tennis Australia and the government of Victoria state, which hosts the tournament.
Confusion reigned, generating global headlines. As it turned out, that apparent medical exemption allowed him to enter the tournament — which, in theory, required all players, fans and officials to be vaccinated against the coronavirus — but not necessarily to enter the country, and it was rejected by the Australian Border Force.
Alex Hawke, Australia’s immigration minister at the time, used discretionary powers to cancel Djokovic’s visa on character grounds, stating he was a “talisman of a community of anti-vaccine sentiment.”
Australia has had a change of government since and changed its border rules this year. Since July, incoming travelers no longer have to provide proof of receiving shots against COVID-19. That removed the major barrier to entry for Djokovic, who says he has not been — and will not be — vaccinated against the coronavirus, even if it means he misses important tennis tournaments.
Indeed, he sat out the U.S. Open in September, and other events in the United States, because he could not fly into the country as an unvaccinated foreign citizen. He was allowed to play in the French Open, where he lost in the quarterfinals, and at Wimbledon, which he won.
“I don’t have any regrets. I mean, I do feel sad that I wasn’t able to play (at the U.S. Open), but that was a decision that I made and I knew what the consequences would be,” Djokovic said in September at the Laver Cup in London. “So I accepted them and that’s it.”
Djokovic has spent more weeks at No. 1 in the ATP rankings than anyone else, breaking Roger Federer’s record, and is No. 8 at the moment, in part because of a lack of activity and in part because there were no ranking points awarded to anyone at Wimbledon this year.
Australia’s changes allowed Djokovic to apply to Giles to reconsider his visa status. In Djokovic’s favor were two other factors: He left Australia quickly after his visa was revoked 10 months ago, and he has not publicly criticized Australian authorities.
As the Department of Home Affairs website explains, applicants in Djokovic’s circumstances must explain in writing why the exclusion period should be put aside, saying, “You must show us that there are compassionate or compelling circumstances to put aside your re-entry ban and grant you the visa.”
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MELBOURNE, Australia — Novak Djokovic is set to be granted a visa to play in next year’s Australian Open despite his high-profile deportation in January.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday said it had confirmed newspaper reports that the immigration minister had overturned a potential three-year exclusion period for Djokovic.
The Australian Border Force has previously said an exclusion period could be waived in certain circumstances — and that each case would be assessed on its merits.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ office declined comment on privacy grounds, meaning any announcement on Djokovic’s visa status would have to come from the 35-year-old Serbian tennis star.
The 21-time Grand Slam singles champion wasn’t allowed to defend his Australian Open title this year after a tumultuous 10-day legal saga over his COVID-19 vaccination status that culminated with his visa being revoked on the eve of the tournament.
Djokovic arrived at Melbourne Airport as the world’s top-ranked tennis player with a visa he’d obtained online and what he believed to be a valid medical exemption to the country’s strict laws for unvaccinated travelers because it was endorsed by Tennis Australia and the government of Victoria state, which hosts the tournament.
Confusion reigned, generating global headlines. As it transpired, that medical exemption allowed him entry to the tournament, which required all players, fans and officials to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, but not necessarily to enter the country. It was rejected by the Australian Border Force.
Alex Hawke, Australia’s immigration minister at the time, used discretionary powers to cancel Djokovic’s visa on character grounds, stating he was a “talisman of a community of anti-vaccine sentiment.”
Australia has had a change of government and changed its border rules this year and, since July 6, incoming travelers no longer have to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccinations. That removed the major barrier to entry for Djokovic.
It allowed him to apply to new Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to reconsider his visa status. In his favor, Djokovic left Australia quickly after his visa was revoked and has not publicly criticized Australian authorities.
As the Department of Home Affairs website explains, applicants in Djokovic’s circumstances must explain in writing to Australia’s border authorities why the exclusion period should be put aside — “you must show us that there are compassionate or compelling circumstances to put aside your re-entry ban and grant you the visa.”
Djokovic indicated Monday at the ATP Finals in Italy that his lawyers were communicating with the Australian government with a view to him contesting the Jan. 16-29 Australian Open.
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More AP Tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
Washington — Recently announced U.S. immigration policies led to a significant reduction in Venezuelan migration to the U.S.-Mexico border in Oct., but overall migrant apprehensions remained high, propelled by the arrival of tens of thousands of Cubans and Nicaraguans, federal statistics released late Monday show.
U.S. immigration officials encountered migrants 230,678 times along the southern border last month, a 1.9% increase from September, according to the Customs and Border Protection data. Roughly 19% of those encounters involved repeat crossings by migrants who had been previously processed by U.S. border agents.
Border Patrol recorded 204,273 apprehensions of migrants who entered the U.S. illegally, a slight decrease from Sept., while the Office of Field Operations, another CBP agency, processed 26,405 migrants at official ports of entry, where the Biden administration has been admitting certain asylum-seekers.
Venezuelan migrants were processed 22,044 times in Oct., a 35% decrease from the record high of 33,804 reported the previous month. The drop comes after the U.S. on Oct. 12 began expelling Venezuelans to Mexico under a public health order known as Title 42. The Biden administration also launched a program to allow up to 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the U.S. legally if they have U.S.-based financial sponsors.
But the drop in Venezuelan migration was offset by the arrival of 28,848 Cubans and 20,917 Nicaraguans, a monthly record for the latter nationality. Mexico has generally not allowed the U.S. to expel Cubans or Nicaraguans to its territory, prompting U.S. officials to allow most of them to seek asylum inside the country, since Cuba and Nicaragua do not accept regular U.S. expulsion flights.
Troy Miller, who was named acting CBP commissioner last weekend following the resignation of Chris Magnus, said migration from Cuba and Nicaragua continued to be at a “historic high” due to political and economic turmoil in both countries, which are ruled by repressive regimes.
“This reflects the challenge that is gripping the hemisphere, as displaced populations flee authoritarianism, corruption, violence, and poverty,” Miller said in his statement.
The tally of unique migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in Oct. collectively exceeded the number of migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador taken into U.S. border custody, continuing an unprecedented demographic shift that the U.S. has struggled to respond to, according to CBP calculations.
The U.S. carried out over 78,000 migrant expulsions in Oct. — including 5,855 expulsions of Venezuleans. Those expelled under Title 42 are barred from seeking asylum, which U.S. law allows migrants to request if they are on U.S. soil, regardless of whether they entered the country unlawfully.
Migrants who are not expelled under Title 42 are processed under U.S. immigration law. Generally, that means they are transferred by Border Patrol to another agency, released with instructions to see a judge or an immigration office or processed under a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal.
While the U.S. struggles to expel many migrants who are not from Mexico or Central America because of diplomatic and logistical reasons, the Biden administration has exempted several groups from Title 42, including unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers identified as vulnerable.
The numbers released Monday show the migration wave to the U.S.-Mexico border during President Biden’s administration continues to defy pre-pandemic seasonal patterns, during which migrant arrivals peaked in the spring and declined in the hot summer months and the fall.
The statistics also suggest that migrant encounters along the southern border will continue to resemble, or perhaps surpass, the record levels reported in fiscal year 2022, when U.S. immigration officials encountered migrants nearly 2.4 million times, an all-time high.
WARSAW, Poland — The European Union’s border agency said Monday that the number of illegal entries by migrants spiked to more than 275,000 in the January through October period this year.
The figure is 73% higher than at the same time in 2021, and the highest since a peak in 2016, Frontex said.
The Warsaw-based European Border and Coast Guard Agency said that most entries continue to happen on the Western Balkan route, where over 128,000 of them were detected. The migrants on that route are mainly from Burundi, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The central Mediterranean route, with migrants chiefly trying to reach Italy, has also seen a 48% rise in unauthorized arrivals, surpassing 79,000 in the first 10 months of 2022, a Frontex statement said.
However, the activity has slowed down on the Western Mediterranean route and on the land route from Ukraine and Belarus. EU members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have built walls on their borders with Belarus to stop the migrants from trying to illegally enter.
Frontex said that the high number of crossings on the West Balkans area “can be attributed to repeated attempts to cross the border by migrants already present” in the area, but also to people “abusing visa-free access to the region.”
It said some migrants fly visa-free to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, which isn’t in the EU, and then head toward the external border of the 27-member bloc.
In response, Frontex has added more than 500 corps officers and staff to the region.
In total, more than 2,300 corps officers and Frontex staff are “taking part in various operational activities at the EU external border,” the agency said.
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Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
Migrants seeking asylum in the United States are facing a legal limbo. CBS News’ John Dickerson speaks with immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez, who reports the process can drag on for years.
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The Biden administration on Thursday said it would extend the deportation protections and work permits of an estimated 337,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras through the summer of 2024, preempting a court decision that could have led to their legal status expiring next year.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a notice that it will allow immigrants from these countries to continue living and working in the U.S. legally under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) policy until at least June 2024. Created in 1990, TPS is a deportation relief program the U.S. can extend to nationals of countries beset by armed conflict, natural disasters or other humanitarian crises.
Thursday’s announcement comes two weeks after court negotiations between the Biden administration and lawyers representing TPS holders broke down, paving the way for the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants enrolled in the program to take effect.
Activists and citizens with temporary protected status march toward the White House on Feb. 23, 2021, in Washington, D.C., in a call for Congress and the Biden administration to pass immigration reform legislation.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
But in its notice on Thursday, DHS said immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras would get to keep their work permits and deportation protections at least 365 days after the department is allowed to end the TPS programs in question, or until June 30, 2024 — whichever date comes later.
The June 30, 2024, extension also applies to certain Haitian and Sudanese immigrants, but they are also eligible to apply for work permits and deportation protections under expansions of TPS programs for Haiti and Sudan announced by the Biden administration that are not affected by the litigation in federal court.
“DHS is well aware of the importance of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in providing stability to people’s lives,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News on Thursday.
As of the end of 2021, 241,699 Salvadorans, 76,737 Hondurans, 14,556 Nepalis and 4,250 Nicaraguans were enrolled in the TPS program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.
TPS allows beneficiaries to live and work in the country without fear of deportation, but it does not provide them a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Those who lose their TPS protections could become eligible for deportation, unless they apply for, and are granted, another immigration benefit.
As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration tried to terminate TPS programs for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras and Nepal. But those terminations were blocked in federal courts by lawsuits that argued the terminations were rooted in racial animus and not properly justified
In September 2020, however, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the Trump administration the greenlight to end the TPS programs, saying courts could not review DHS decisions related to the policy. The ruling, however, did not take effect, because attorneys representing the TPS holders asked the court to consider rehearing the case “en banc,” or with all active judges participating.
The Biden administration, which pledged to prevent the deportation of TPS holders to “unsafe” countries, entered into court negotiations to try to settle the litigation over the Trump-era termination decisions. It also formally extended the TPS programs for immigrants from Haiti and Sudan.
After a year of court negotiations, attorneys for TPS holders announced on Oct. 26 that they had failed to reach a settlement with the Biden administration. Both parties are now waiting for the 9th Circuit to decide whether it will grant or deny the request to rehear the case.
If the request is denied, the 9th Circuit’s ruling from September 2020 will become binding, unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys representing TPS holders in the litigation, said Thursday’s announcement was an “important victory.” But he called it an “interim one.”
“Despite today’s extension, the Biden administration is still defending Trump’s racist TPS termination decisions in court, which unless the Biden administration acts, will remain on the books,” said Arulanantham, the co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.
Arulanantham called on the Biden administration to create new TPS programs for El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras, just like it has done for Haiti and Sudan.
Democratic lawmakers have advocated for TPS holders to be allowed to apply for permanent residency as part of a proposal to legalize unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years. Many TPS holders have lived in the country for over two decades. The TPS program for El Salvador, for example, began in 2001.
But congressional Democrats and Republicans have not been able to forge an agreement on immigration for decades, and GOP lawmakers have increasingly opposed creating legalization programs, absent changes to U.S. border policy.
HAVANA — Cuban and State Department officials met in Havana on Wednesday to discuss the expansion of consular and visa services on the island.
The meeting is the latest in a series of friendly exchanges between the two governments, which share a historically icy relationship.
Cuba issued a brief statement confirming the meeting took place.
The U.S. delegation included Rena Bitter, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, and Ur Mendoza Jaddou, director of U.S. citizenship and immigration Services.
The U.S. Embassy closed in 2017 following a series of health incidents. While a full reopening has yet to be announced, U.S. officials have said visa processing would resume in January.
The move comes amid the biggest flight of Cubans from the island in decades. Nearly 221,000 Cubans were encountered by migration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022. That was a 471% increase from the year before, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
A State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that Washington’s delegation also discussed concerns about human rights in Cuba. The official said Bitter “urged the Cuban government to unconditionally release all political prisoners.”
For months buses from the U.S./Mexico border carrying tens of thousands of men, women and children from Central and South America have been arriving in New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. They were organized by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona and the Democratic mayor of El Paso, and paid for mostly by taxpayers. Greg Abbott, Texas’ governor, said the buses would give liberal, sanctuary cities “a taste” of what his state has had to deal with for years. Many of those coming to New York were Venezuelans fleeing poverty, violence, and authoritarian rule and hoping to apply for asylum. But the process can take years and, for much of that time, they aren’t allowed to work. Caring for these new arrivals has been a big challenge and it’s drawn attention to a long-standing and bipartisan failure to fix the nation’s broken asylum system.
When the buses began arriving at New York City’s Port Authority Terminal from Texas without warning in August, city officials had to scramble. On some days as many as eight to ten buses rolled in, filled with men and women carrying children, but no luggage.
Last month, we met an engineer, a taxi driver, some college students and construction workers. They were welcomed by Spanish-speaking volunteers from local nonprofit groups who gave them water and food and donated winter coats.
Standing nearby, Ledys Gomez was crying. She told volunteers she’d been separated from her husband and 18-year-old son by border officials in Texas. Her 7-year-old daughter was with her. To get to the U.S., like many Venezuelans, they’d made their way through seven Latin American countries and a perilous stretch of jungle.
Ledys Gomez (Translation): It was very difficult, because in the jungle we ran out of food, and we ran out of water, And a child was shot. There [were] a lot of dead people. This is my first time emigrating, and I did not know humans were capable of so much evil.
Anderson Cooper: How were you treated when you crossed the border in the U.S.?
Ledys Gomez (Translation): Well, you can interpret my silence. You can interpret my silence. I didn’t like being separated from my son.
Gomez told us she was thankful for the kindness volunteers at Port Authority had shown her. They’d even given her daughter a doll.
Ledys Gomez (Translation): Thank you for treating us well. It’s been a while since we were treated well.
Ledys Gomez
Within an hour, the volunteers had found her son at a homeless shelter in Manhattan and brought him to Port Authority to reunite with his mother and sister.
Ledys Gomez later found her husband too. Her family now lives in one of 58 hotels the city has turned into emergency shelters at a cost of about $200 a room per night. Unsure how many people would ultimately come, and how much it would cost to provide them with food, shelter, medical care and other services, New York’s Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency last month.
This past week, Adams told us more than 22,000 migrants have arrived in the city so far.
Anderson Cooper: This is a city of, what, eight million people. Why would the arrival of 22,000 new people be such an emergency?
Eric Adams: We’re a city of eight million people that ca– just came through– the pandemic. Many of our residents lost their jobs and lost homes. We already had crises that we were navigating and dealing with
Anderson Cooper: Governor Abbott said that the buses would bring the reality of the crisis at the southern border to liberal cities, and it has done that, hasn’t it?
Eric Adams: No, I– I– I disagree with that. He created this humanitarian crisis by his human hands, his actions. There was nothing that prevented him from communicating with our team of saying, “How do we coordinate this so we don’t overburden another municipality?”
Anderson Cooper: His argument would be, “Well, we don’t know when migrants are gonna cross the border illegally. so why shouldn’t these other cities get a taste of that?”
Eric Adams: Okay, is his fight with the national policy, or is his fight with New Yorkers?
Anderson Cooper: It is a stark reminder that the system is broken, is it not? I mean, that–
Eric Adams: Yes, and has– the system has been broken. We have kicked this can down the road.
Anderson Cooper: Democrats, Republicans in Congress, nobody has clean hands on– on fixing this at this point–
Eric Adams: Yes.
Eric Adams
More than 7 million people have fled the political, social and economic chaos in Venezuela so far. It’s the second largest refugee crisis in the world after Ukraine. 187,000 Venezuelans who crossed the border from Mexico into the United States last year have been allowed to stay here while they apply for asylum. But the process now takes years.
More than three-quarters of a million people from all over the world are already in line ahead of them, waiting for an asylum hearing or a final decision. Many more are waiting just for an opportunity to apply.
Theresa Cardinal Brown: The asylum system has collapsed, yeah.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former immigration policy adviser in the Bush and Obama administrations, is now a managing director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, which tries to find common ground on major national issues.
Theresa Cardinal Brown: There are, you know, millions of people arriving to our southern border who are trying to seek protection, trying to avail themselves of our laws. And we just don’t have the personnel, the resources, the infrastructure, or the right processes to manage what’s happening there well right now.
Anderson Cooper: Do you have a sense of how long it is? Somebody who’s arriving just now at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York, how long it’s gonna be before they actually have an asylum hearing?
Theresa Cardinal Brown: On average, people who are not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement might wait three to five years.
Anderson Cooper: Three to five years? Are they allowed to work during that time?
Theresa Cardinal Brown: No. If you– once you’ve formally filed your asylum claim in immigration court, 180 days later, then you can apply for work authorization. so it could be, you know, four years, four and a half years before you can ask for work authorization.
In the meantime, Brown says, asylum-seekers find themselves in limbo: they’re here, but they can’t legally work.
Theresa Cardinal Brown
Edward (Translation): We don’t come here to be a burden to this country. I come to work and push ahead.
Edward and Maria, who met in college in Venezuela, asked us not to use their last names out of concern for their relatives back home. It took them six weeks this summer to get to the United States with their 9-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter. They’re now living in a hotel in the Bronx that was turned into an emergency shelter, but without work permits they’re struggling.
Edward (Translation): I found a job at a supermarket. I worked for three days And he didn’t give me, he didn’t pay me. Nothing. I lost my time.
Anderson Cooper: You got taken advantage of.
Edward (Translation): My fear is, if I go to complain, he calls the police on me. And I thought, “no, they’ll deport me.” And that was my fear. So I left it like that.
Like many migrants we spoke with, Edward and Maria no longer have their Venezuelan passports, ID cards, or birth certificates, they say they were told to hand them over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Texas and never got them back.
Edward (Translation): Well, they put it in a folder They said, “Whenever you go to court, you can ask for them there.”
Theresa Cardinal Brown: That’s interesting.
Theresa Cardinal Brown says U.S. Customs and Border Protection regulations are clear. All documents “must be returned” unless they’re fraudulent. We interviewed 16 migrants who arrived in New York by bus from Texas. All but four said they had important documents taken and not returned. And volunteers, case workers, and lawyers who work with the migrants also told us the problem is widespread.
In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it was reviewing its “policies and practices to ensure that… documents are returned to the migrant absent a security or law enforcement reason.”
One bright spot for many migrant families has been the New York City Public School System, which in a period of three months enrolled about 7,000 new students, most of whom don’t speak English. Ten-year-old Cesar Romborges now goes to P.S. 145 in Manhattan. His family made the long journey from Venezuela to Mexico and then crossed the treacherous Rio Grande River into Texas.
Cesar Romborges
Anderson Cooper: Do you remember what it was like coming here? Was it scary?
Cesar Romborges (Translation): Yes.
Anderson Cooper: What was scary?
Cesar Romborges (Translation): When my mom almost drowned in a river.
Anderson Cooper: And you– you saw that happen.
Cesar Romborges (Translation): Yes.
The principal of P.S. 145, Natalia Russo, says she’s been doing her best to help Caesar and the other new students adjust. She does some students’ laundry at her home and has made sure they have school uniforms, supplies, and help getting into after-school programs.
Anderson Cooper: So what do you say to other families who see what’s being done for these new kids?
Natalia Russo: My answer to that is that, this is a humanitarian crisis. These folks don’t speak the language, they– they’re not part of this culture yet. We just want the children to be– feel safe. Not only physically but emotionally. We’ll do whatever it takes.
Cesar and other children of asylum-seekers will likely be fluent in English by the time their parents have their asylum cases ruled on by a judge. And if they fail to make their case, they and their kids could face deportation.
Natalia Russo
Anderson Cooper: How tough is it to make a case that you should get asylum?
Theresa Cardinal Brown: It’s very tough. It’s very tough. The legal requirement is that you have to have been persecuted or have a well-founded fear of persecution
Anderson Cooper: So if somebody says, “Look, I’m coming here ’cause I want a better life for my children–“
Theresa Cardinal Brown: That’s– doesn’t qualify for asylum.
Anderson Cooper: So most of the people who are showing up at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, saying that they are– wanna seek asylum, when they can get in front of a judge, most of them will not actually be granted asylum.
Theresa Cardinal Brown: I can’t say that for sure. What I can say is that overall, asylum rates are about 30% . Venezuelans tend to have a much higher asylum rate because of what’s happening in Venezuela.
In the past few weeks, the number of buses from the border arriving in New York has decreased significantly. That’s because the Biden administration announced it was creating a legal pathway for 24,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers to enter the U.S. if they had sponsors. But it also began expelling Venezuelans to Mexico, if they’d crossed the border illegally.
Anderson Cooper: They basically went back to a policy that was in place– put in place by the Trump administration, which allows for Venezuelans to be sent back to Mexico and not apply for asylum here in the United States.
Eric Adams: I think that the national politics is w– (LAUGH) well over my head on determining what we’re doing nationally.
Anderson Cooper: Do you think people who come to this country and want to seek asylum should be able to work while they’re here waiting?
Eric Adams: Yes, I do.
Anderson Cooper: Doesn’t that encourage more and more people just to come
Eric Adams: No, I don’t. I don’t think it creates a problem. What we should be asking is why is it taking so long? We should let people know right away, “Based on a preliminary review, you cannot get an asylum– here in the country.” And then those who are eligible and reach a minimum criteria, we can put ’em on a faster track.
The “Bipartisan Border Solutions Act” introduced in Congress would make that possible by adding more immigration judges and asylum officers and building four new processing centers along the southern border where the government could determine whether migrants have a credible fear of persecution before they’re allowed to stay in the U.S. Theresa Cardinal Brown, the former policy adviser in two administrations, says she’d like to believe Congress will finally do something to fix the problem, but she’s skeptical.
Theresa Cardinal Brown: For 30 years, they haven’t passed really any substantive change to any of our immigration laws.
Anderson Cooper: Is this a Democratic failure, a Republican administration failure?
Theresa Cardinal Brown: It’s both. At some point they’ve gotta decide that fixing it is better and necessary, more so than using it to try to win the next election.
Produced by Andy Court. Associate producers, Julie Holstein, Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Annabelle Hanflig.
Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” has contributed to 60 Minutes since 2006. His exceptional reporting on big news events has earned Cooper a reputation as one of television’s pre-eminent newsmen.
CATANIA, Sicily (AP) — The captain of a charity-run migrant rescue ship refused Italian orders to leave a Sicilian port Sunday after authorities refused to let 35 of the migrants on his ship disembark — part of directives by Italy’s new far-right-led government targeting foreign-flagged rescue ships.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s two-week-old government is refusing safe port to four ships operating in the central Mediterranean that have rescued migrants at sea in distress, some as many as 16 days ago, and is allowing only those identified as vulnerable to disembark.
On Sunday, Italy ordered the Humanity 1 to vacate the port of Catania after disembarking 144 rescued migrants, including with children, more than 100 unaccompanied minors and people with medical emergencies.
But its captain refused to comply “until all survivors rescued from distress at sea have been disembarked,” said SOS Humanity, the German charity that operates the ship. The vessel remained moored at the port with 35 migrants on board.
Later Sunday, a second charity ship arrived in Catania, and the vetting process was being repeated with the 572 migrants aboard the Geo Barents ship operated by Doctors Without Borders. The selection was completed by late evening, with 357 allowed off but 215 people blocked on board.
Families were the first to leave the ship. One man cradling a baby expressed his gratitude, saying “Thank you, Geo Barents, thank you,” as he left. Another man in a wheelchair was carried down by Red Cross workers.
Yet two other boats run by non-governmental organizations remained stuck at sea with no port willing to accept the people they rescued.
Humanitarian groups, human rights activists and two Italian lawmakers who traveled to Sicily protested the selection process as illegal and inhumane. Italy’s new Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi is targeting non-governmental organizations, which Italy has long accused of encouraging people trafficking in the central Mediterranean Sea. The groups deny the claim.
“Free all the people, free them,″ Italian lawmaker Aboubakar Soumahoro said in an emotional appeal directed at Meloni from the Humanity 1 rescue ship.
The passengers have faced ”trauma, they have faced everything that we can define as prolonged suffering,” said Soumahoro, who spent the night on the ship.
Later at the port, he accused Meloni of playing politics at the expense of “newborns, of women, of people who have suffered traumas of all kinds,” including torture in Libyan prisons.
He said neither translators nor psychologists were on hand during Italy’s selection process and many of the migrants were from Gambia, unable to speak French, English or Italian.
“Their fault is to speak another language. Their fault is to have another color,″ Soumahoro said, accusing the Italian government of using the migrants to distract from other issues, including high energy prices.
Aboard the Humanity 1, doctors in Italy identified people needing urgent medical care after the ship’s doctor refused to make a selection, said SOS Humanity spokesman Wasil Schauseil. Thirty-six people were declared non-vulnerable and were not permitted to disembark, prompting one to collapse and be taken away by an ambulance.
“You can imagine the condition of the people. It is very devastating,″ he said.
Both SOS Humanity and Doctors Without Borders issued statements declaring that all of their passengers were vulnerable after being rescued at sea, and deserving of a safe port under international law. SOS Humanity said it plans to file a civil case in Catania to ensure that all 35 survivors on board have access to formal asylum procedures on land.
Doctors Without Borders emphasized that “a rescue operation is considered complete only when all of the survivors have been disembarked in a safe place.”
Two other charity ships carrying rescued migrants remained stuck at sea, with people sleeping on floors and decks and spreading respiratory infections and scabies as food and medical supplies drew low.
The German-run Rise Above, carrying 93 rescued at sea, sought a more protected position in the waters east of Sicily due to the weather, but spokeswoman Hermine Poschmann said Sunday that the crew had not received any communications from Italian authorities.
Poschmann described cramped conditions on the relatively small 25-meter (82-foot) ship.
The Ocean Viking, operated by the European charity SOS Mediteranee, with 234 migrants on board, remained in international waters, south of the Strait of Messina, and got no instructions to proceed to an Italian port, a spokesman said Sunday. Its first rescue was 16 days ago.
“Agitation is evident among the survivors,″ a charity worker named Morgane told The Associated Press on Sunday. Cases of seasickness were soaring after high waves tossed the ship through the night.
“Today, the weather considerably deteriorated, bringing strong winds, rough seas and rain on deck. … these extreme conditions added suffering,” she said.
The confrontational stance taken by Meloni’s government is reminiscent of the standoffs orchestrated by Matteo Salvini, now Meloni’s infrastructure minister in charge of ports, during his brief 2018-2019 stint as interior minister. Italy’s new government is insisting the countries whose flags the charity-run ships fly must take in the migrants.
In a Facebook video, Salvini repeated his allegations that the presence of the humanitarian boats encourages smugglers.
Nongovernmental organizations reject that claim, saying they are obligated by the law of the sea to rescue people in distress and that coastal nations are obligated to provide a safe port as soon as feasible.
Amnesty International called Italy’s stance “disgraceful.”
“Italy legitimately expects other EU member states to share responsibility for people seeking asylum, but this does not justify imposing measures that only increase the suffering of already traumatized people,” the group said.
Colleen Barry reported from Milan. Emily Schultheis contributed from Berlin and Angela Charlton from Paris.
PARIS — European lawmaker Jordan Bardella replaced his mentor Marine Le Pen on Saturday at the helm of France’s leading far-right party, pledging to protect French civilization from perceived threats posed by immigration and defending a party member who made a racist remark in parliament.
Bardella, 27, won an internal party vote with 85% support, marking a symbolic changing of the guard at the resurgent National Rally party. He is the first person to lead the party who doesn’t have the Le Pen name since it was founded a half-century ago.
The National Rally is seeking to capitalize on its recent breakthrough in France’s legislative election and growing support for far-right parties in Europe, notably in neighboring Italy. It’s also facing broad public anger over an offensive comment this week by a National Rally member in parliament in response to a Black lawmaker.
Marine Le Pen is still expected to wield significant power in the party’s leadership and run again for France’s presidency in 2027. She says she stepped aside to focus on leading the party’s 89 lawmakers in France’s National Assembly.
To broad applause, she hugged Bardella after the results were announced at a party congress on Paris’ Left Bank, and both raised their arms in victory. Le Pen said Bardella’s main challenge will be pursuing the party “roadmap” of taking power in France.
“We are going to win!” supporters chanted.
Anti-racism activists, union leaders and politicians protested nearby Saturday against the National Rally, denouncing what many see as a creeping acceptance of its xenophobic views.
Yeliz Alkac, 30, told The AP that she was demonstrating to support people who face persistent racism in France. She described shock that the remark in parliament seen as denigrating African immigrants was seen as ”normal” by some in France.
“The fact that the National Rally has 89 lawmakers at the National Assembly is a strong signal. It should be a warning about how the extreme right is going strong,” she said.
In his speech Saturday, Bardella defended the National Rally legislator who was suspended over the remark, calling him a victim of a “manhunt.”
Bardella described his family’s Italian immigrant roots and pride at becoming French, but made it clear that not all foreigners are welcome.
“France shouldn’t be the world’s hotel,” he said, calling for “drastic” limits on immigration.
He welcomed a representative of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party who came to the congress, calling for a “rapprochement” of similar forces in Europe.
Bardella had been the interim president of the National Rally since Le Pen entered the presidential race last year. He beat out party heavyweight Louis Aliot, 53, who had argued that the National Rally needs to reshape itself to be more palatable to the mainstream right.
“Bardella’s election feels like a fresh push,” said party member Marie Audinette, 23. “He embodies the youth.”
Audinette, who grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Bordeaux, said that her country “was perishing,” citing deteriorating public services that struggled to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. She also described “a clear change of population” in Bordeaux.
Some far-right supporters in France increasingly refer to the false “great replacement” conspiracy theory that the populations of Western countries are being overrun by non-white, non-Christian immigrants. The claim, propagated by white supremacists, has inspired deadly attacks.
Le Pen lost to French President Emmanuel Macron on her third presidential bid in April but earned her highest score yet. Two months later, her party won its most seats to date in the lower house of parliament, in part thanks to Le Pen’s efforts to focus on inflation and workers’ economic troubles.
Le Pen has worked to remove the stigma of racism and antisemitism that clung to her party and broaden its base. She has notably distanced herself from her now-ostracized father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the party then called the National Front and has been repeatedly convicted for hate speech.
“Bardella is part of a generation of young, very young, people who engaged themselves behind Marine Le Pen in the 2010s and who probably wouldn’t have joined the National Rally during Jean-Marie Le Pen’s era,” political scientist Jean-Yves Camus told The Associated Press.
The Le Pen family and the party also have deep ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. While Le Pen condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she has also questioned resulting Western sanctions against Russia, and her party took out a $9 million loan from the First Czech-Russian bank in 2014 that many see as a Russian effort to influence French politics.
According to Camus, Saturday’s party vote won’t question Le Pen’s leadership.
“Le Pen won’t have to deal with the party (now) and can focus on the most important thing, leading the party’s lawmakers in the National Assembly,” he said.
———
Associated Press writers Elaine Ganley and Alex Turnbull contributed to this report.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — On break in the hallway between St. Marcus Lutheran Church and its attached school, eighth grader Annii Kinepoway had no hesitation in explaining what she’s learned to love best here — the good Lord and good grades.
“I like knowing there’s somebody you can ask for help if you need it. Somebody is there and looking over you,” she said of her newly found faith, while proudly wearing the tie indicating her academic honors.
Annii’s mother could only afford this educational opportunity because of school choice programs, which 94% of St. Marcus’ 1,160 students in Milwaukee also use.
“It has changed our lives for the better,” said Wishkub Kinepoway, a Native American and African American single mom. “She says, ‘I really love St. Marcus because I don’t have to pretend I’m not smart.’”
But many low-income parents in neighborhoods like Milwaukee’s predominantly African American north side or Latino south side say voucher programs — introduced here three decades ago — are the only way their children can attend faith-based institutions. They say those schools teach structure and values in ways public ones are often too overwhelmed to do.
“It’s a huge difference because it’s a support in faith and in values,” said Lorena Ramirez, whose four children attend St. Anthony, walking distance from home on Milwaukee’s south side. “I was looking for a school that would help me.”
St. Anthony is one of the country’s largest Catholic schools – 1,500 students on five campuses who are 99% Latino and almost entirely covered by public funding, said its president, Rosana Mateo. It was founded by German immigrants 150 years ago, just like St. Marcus.
Until the 1960s, urban parochial schools could count on financing from flourishing parishes and cheap payroll costs, since nuns often taught for free. Without those supports, schools started charging substantial tuition, now up to $8,000-$9,000 per academic year — unaffordable for most working-class families.
“Our neediest students should have the opportunity to go to private schools,” said Mateo, a former deputy superintendent in Milwaukee’s public schools.
The expansion and politicization of voucher programs, however, is “no longer targeting really poor kids” but rather “disproportionately helping middle-class, white students,” said Gary Orfield, an education professor and co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research found students of color have lower test scores and graduation rates when attending low-quality private schools, because most vouchers programs don’t allow for transportation to higher-performing ones.
While urban, faith-based schools don’t necessarily outperform all public ones on test scores, their students enjoy better civic outcomes, from college graduation rates to lower drug use, said Patrick Wolf, a professor of education at the University of Arkansas.
“They contribute more to the community than just educating the kids,” Wolf said.
In Omaha, Nebraska — a state Wolf called a “school choice desert” — three Catholic schools in danger of closing formed a foundation.
They’ve raised millions of dollars to serve nearly 600 children, 93% of them students of color and all in need of financial assistance, said the Rev. Dave Korth, foundation president and pastor at one of the related parishes.
Reliable public funds would keep the schools sustainable for parents who choose them “not because of political hot-button things. They simply want their kids in faith-based environments because they believe they’ll be better citizens,” Korth said.
One such parent is Jill Voss, who’s using tuition assistance to send her three children to Phoenix Christian School PreK-8, where she’s the athletic director and physical education teacher. She’s an alumna, as are her parents and grandparents, who were among the first students when the school opened in 1959.
“A lot of the reason we chose Phoenix Christian was because of our family and just knowing my kids were getting a good Christian foundation to their schooling,” Voss said. “Church and having a church family is important to us.”
Diamond Figueroa, a sixth grader who attends Phoenix Christian thanks to financial assistance just like 98% of her schoolmates, said she wasn’t always comfortable in public school, even though more students there were also Hispanic.
“Everyone here is so much nicer and welcoming,” she said. “I am not afraid to ask questions.”
“Say there’s a dispute between two kids ready to go to blows,” said Ernie DiDomizio, the principal of St. Catherine School, citing an example from that morning when students were fighting over sneakers. The Catholic school in Milwaukee has 130 students, most African American and all enrolled through choice programs. “At that moment, we prayed for grace and acceptance. In public schools, you can’t do that.”
For recent immigrants, especially from Latin America, where Catholic traditions are more visible in public life, faith-based schools help maintain cultural ties.
Learning Mexican folkloric dances at St. Anthony, for instance, helps her children feel more at home with their family’s culture, Ramirez said. The public schools where she first sent her oldest “don’t teach much about cultures. Here there are all kinds, and nobody is discriminated.”
One of her daughter’s fifth-grade classmates, Evelyn Ramirez, likes St. Anthony’s lesson that God “made the world with good people and not just mean people.”
Catholic schools historically played a major role in integrating Hispanic immigrants in American culture, especially when public schools were segregated, said Felipe Hinojosa, a professor of Latino politics and religion at Texas A&M University.
Continued racial divisions of many urban neighborhoods affect school performance. St. Marcus is the only school — out of 14 in the area that are 80% low-income and 80% African American — where more than 20% of students are proficient in reading, said St. Marcus superintendent Henry Tyson.
“Parents send their kids to St. Marcus because they’re frustrated with schools where their kids are failing,” Tyson said. “We want kids to know they’re redeemed children of God. It’s transformative for their sense of self.”
When she enrolled at St. Marcus last year, Annii was unfamiliar with the prayers and school uniform.
“On the first day … I stood there looking around, feeling awkward and out of place. … Now I can do my own thing in my relationship with God,” she said, before rushing back to math class.
___
Mumphrey reported from Phoenix.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Economic issues remain a top concern for most voters ahead of the 2022 election, a review of recent polling finds, with many also worried about America’s democratic process itself. But voters’ highest priorities are divided along partisan lines, with abortion rights continuing to resonate strongly for Democrats, while Republicans remain sharply focused on inflation. Concerns about other issues, from gun policy to immigration, are often similarly polarized. And some topics that drew attention in previous elections – like the coronavirus pandemic – are relatively muted this year.
Recent polling provides a good general sense of which issues have become the focal points of this year’s elections, and for whom. But what voters truly consider important, and how those concerns influence their decisions, is too complicated to be fully captured in a single poll question.
As we’ve noted previously, voters tend to say they care about a lot of different issues. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean any of those issues will be decisive in a specific race, either by motivating people to vote when they wouldn’t have otherwise, or by convincing them to vote for a different candidate than they would have otherwise.
In practice, few campaigns revolve around a single issue, with voters left to weigh the merits of entire platforms. In a recent NBC News poll, for instance, voters were close to evenly split on whether they placed more importance on “a candidate’s position on crime, the situation at the border, and addressing the cost of living by cutting government spending,” or on “a candidate’s position on abortion, threats to democracy and voting, and addressing the cost of living by raising taxes on corporations.”
And in some cases, voters’ primary focus may not be on the issues at all. In CNN’s recent polls of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a majority of likely voters in both states said that candidates’ character or party control of the Senate played more of a role in their decision-making than did issue positions.
Here’s a recap of what the polls are showing now.
CNN’s most recent polls have examined voters’ priorities from two different angles. A survey conducted in September and early October asked voters to rate a series of different issues on a scale from “extremely important” to “not that important,” while a second survey conducted in late October asked them to select a single top priority. On both measures, the economy emerged as a top concern.
In the first poll, nine in 10 registered voters said they considered the economy at least very important to their vote for Congress, with 59% calling it extremely important. And in the second poll, 51% of likely voters said the economy and inflation would be most important to them in their congressional vote, far outpacing any other issue.
While economic concerns rank highly among both parties, the CNN surveys found a pronounced partisan divide. Among registered voters in the first poll, 75% of Republicans called the economy extremely important to their vote, compared with about half of independents (51%) and Democrats (50%). And in the second, 71% of Republican likely voters called the economy and inflation their top issue, while 53% of independents and 27% of Democrats said the same.
The Republican Party also holds an advantage on economic issues. In a Fox News poll, voters said by a 13-point margin that the GOP would do a better job than the Democratic Party of handling inflation and higher prices. And in a mid-October CBS News/YouGov poll, voters were nine points likelier to say that GOP control of Congress would help the economy than to say it would hurt. Voters also said, by a 19-point margin, that Democratic economic policies during the last two years in Congress have hurt, rather than helped.
At the same time, voters express concerns beyond pocketbook issues. In that CBS News/YouGov survey, 85% of likely voters said that their “personal rights and freedoms” will be very important in their 2022 vote, while a smaller 68% said the same of their “own household’s finances.”
Following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, abortion has taken far higher precedence in this midterm than in recent past elections, particularly among Democrats.
In CNN’s September/October poll, nearly three-quarters (72%) of registered voters called abortion at least very important to their vote, with 52% calling it extremely important. The share of voters calling abortion extremely important to their vote varied along both partisan and gender lines: 72% of Democratic women, 54% of independent women and 53% of Republican women rated it that highly, compared with fewer than half of men of any partisan affiliation.
And in CNN’s latest poll, 15% of likely voters called abortion their top issue, placing it second – by some distance – to economic concerns. Democratic voters were about split between the two issues, with 27% prioritizing the economy and inflation, and 29% placing more importance on abortion.
Abortion policy does stand out in some surveys as particularly likely to serve as a litmus test. In the Fox News poll, 21% of voters named abortion or women’s rights as an issue “so important to them that they must agree with a candidate on it, or they will NOT vote for them,” outpacing issues including the economy and immigration, and far greater than the 7% who named abortion when asked the same question in a 2019 survey.
To the extent that abortion serves as a voting issue, it’s more of a factor for abortion rights supporters – something that was not necessarily the case in the past. In the mid-October CBS News/YouGov poll, just 17% of likely voters say they view their congressional vote this year as a vote to oppose abortion rights, while 45% say it’s in support of abortion rights, with the rest saying abortion is not a factor. In a recent AP-NORC survey, the Democrats hold a 23-point lead over Republicans on trust to handle abortion policy, their best showing across a range of issues; in a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, the Democrats lead by 12 points.
Immigration’s role as an electoral issue has grown increasingly polarized. In CNN’s September/October poll, 44% of registered voters called immigration extremely important, on par with concerns ahead of the 2018 midterms. But Republican voters were 35 percentage points likelier than Democratic voters to call immigration extremely important, up from a 17-point gap four years ago.
That partisan dynamic also plays out in which party is more trusted to handle immigration-related topics: In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, voters say by a 14-point margin that the GOP would do a better job than the Democratic Party on dealing with immigration. In the Fox poll, voters say by a 21-point margin that they trust the GOP over the Democrats to handle border security, making it by far the Republicans’ strongest issue by that metric.
But with Republicans overwhelmingly focused on the economy, immigration isn’t at the forefront of many voters’ minds this year. In the latest CNN poll, just 9% of Republican voters and 4% of Democratic voters called it their top issue.
This year also finds voters concerned about the electoral process. An 85% majority of registered voters in CNN’s September/October poll called “voting rights and election integrity” at least very important to their vote, with 61% calling those topics extremely important. Both 70% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans said the issue was extremely important, in comparison with a smaller 47% of independents. Seven in 10 registered voters in a Pew Research survey out in October said that “the future of democracy in the country” will be very important to their vote this year, with 58% saying the same about “policies about how elections and voting work in the country” – in each case, that included a majority of both voters supporting Democratic candidates and those supporting Republicans.
But levels of concern can vary depending on how the issue is framed. In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 28% of registered voters, including 42% of Democrats, picked “preserving democracy” as the issue that’s top of mind for them in this election. In CNN’s latest poll, just 9% of likely voters, including 15% of Democrats, called “voting rights and election integrity” their top issue.
The driving factors behind voters’ worries also vary significantly. In the Fox News poll, 37% of voters said they were extremely concerned about candidates and their supporters not accepting election results, while 32% were extremely concerned about voter fraud. In an October New York Times/Siena poll, about three-quarters (74%) of likely voters said they believed American democracy was currently under threat, but in a follow-up questioning asking them to summarize the threat they were envisioning, they diverged. Some cited specific politicians, most notably former President Donald Trump (10%) or President Joe Biden (6%), while others offered broad concerns about corruption or the government as a whole (13%).
In CNN’s September/October poll, 43% of registered voters said that the phrase “working to protect democracy” better described the Democratic congressional candidates in their area, while 36% thought it better fit their local Republican candidates. In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, voters said, 44% to 37%, that the Democratic Party would do a better job than the Republican Party of “dealing with preserving democracy.”
Most voters in this year’s elections express concerns about guns and violent crime, but relatively few voters call either their top issue. There’s also a notable partisan divide depending on the framing, with Republicans more concerned about crime, and Democrats more attentive to gun policy.
In a late October CBS News/YouGov poll, 65% of likely voters said crime would be very important to their vote, and 62% said gun policy would be very important. An 85% majority of Republican likely voters, compared with 47% of Democratic likely voters, called crime very important. By contrast, while 74% of Democratic likely voters called gun policy very important, a smaller 53% of Republican likely voters said the same.
According to Gallup, voters’ prioritization of gun policy spiked this summer following a wave of high-profile mass shootings, before fading as a concern in the fall; the Pew Research Center polling found less significant changes in voters’ priorities over that time.
Neither issue is currently widespread as a top concern. In the latest CNN poll, 7% of likely voters called gun policy their top issue, and just 3% said the same of crime.
In an October Wall Street Journal poll, 43% of registered voters said they trusted Republicans in Congress more to handle reducing crime, compared with the 29% who said they trust Democrats in Congress. Voters who were instead asked about reducing “gun violence” gave Democrats a 7-point edge.
The polling also reveals a few issues that aren’t receiving similarly widespread public attention this year. Among them is coronavirus, which just 27% of likely voters in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll called very important to their vote, rising to 44% among Democrats. Despite this year’s major climate change legislation, that issue ranked last among the seven issues CNN asked about in the September/October poll, with only 38% of registered voters calling it extremely important to their vote – although the issue had far more resonance among Democrats (60% of whom called it extremely important) and voters younger than age 35 (46% of whom did). And relatively few in the electorate are substantially focused on the war in Ukraine: in Fox’s polling, just 34% of registered voters said they were extremely concerned about Russia’s invasion of the country.
Police were deployed to an immigration center near London Saturday following what they called a “disturbance.”
Detainees inside the facility had armed themselves with knives and lumps of wood, CNN has learned.
A spokesperson from the UK’s Home Office told CNN Saturday there had been a power outage at the Harmondsworth immigration removal center “and work is currently underway to resolve this issue.”
They added “the welfare and safety of staff and individuals detained at Harmondsworth is our key priority.”
Officers arrived at the Harmondsworth facility on Friday evening to “provide support to staff dealing with a disturbance” and remain there as of Saturday morning, a spokesperson for the city’s Metropolitan Police told CNN.
There have been no reported injuries from the site, CNN has learned.
It comes as the UK’s Home Office is under fire for its treatment of migrants and asylum-seekers, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan calling for an “urgent review.”
A separate incident in which a man threw “crude incendiary devices” at Western Jet Foil Home immigration center in the southern English port of Dover last Sunday was motivated by extremism, police said.
The UK’s counter-terrorism police department (CTPSE) said in a statement Saturday that the attack was motivated by a “terrorist ideology.”
“After considering the evidence collected so far in this case, whilst there are strong indications that mental health was likely a factor, I am satisfied that the suspect’s actions were primarily driven by an extremist ideology. This meets the threshold for a terrorist incident,” said Tim Jacques, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.
A segment of American conservatives has found inspiration in the success of the conservative cultural movement in Hungary. CPAC, the American Conservative Political Action Committee, is extolling President Viktor Orban’s anti-LGBTQ and nativist policies as the way forward for the United States. CBS Reports explores what the emerging alliance means for some U.S. conservatives’ vision for America.
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EL PASO, Texas — U.S. Border Patrol agents launched pepper balls at a group of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande in El Paso after the agency said one person threw a rock at one agent and another was assaulted with a flagpole.
Video captured Monday by the El Paso Times shows Border Patrol agents approaching the group, which included a man holding a very large Venezuelan flag, that had crossed the shallow river.
Border Patrol spokesperson Landon Hutchens said in a statement that as the group of Venezuelan nationals protested along the river, they tried to enter the U.S. illegally.
“One of the protesters assaulted an agent with a flag pole,” Hutchens said. “A second subject threw a rock causing injury to an agent at which time agents responded by initiating crowd control measures.”
Those measures included launching “less-lethal force” pepper balls, he said. He said the crowd then dispersed and returned to Mexico. Hutchens did not give details on the agents’ injuries.
Before the conflict at the river Monday, a group of migrants had marched in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, demanding an opportunity to cross the border, the newspaper reported.
According to a new Biden administration policy that took effect last month, which came in response to a dramatic increase in migration from Venezuela, Venezuelans who walk or swim across the U.S. border will be immediately returned to Mexico.
The Biden administration has agreed to accept up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants at U.S. airports while Mexico has agreed to take back Venezuelans who come to the U.S. illegally over land.
Roberto Velasco, Mexico’s director for North American affairs, tweeted Monday that the Mexican government had requested information from its U.S. counterparts about the confrontation.
Jonathan Blazer, director of border strategies at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the footage “highly alarming.”
“People seeking asylum on U.S. soil should be screened for protection, not pushed back, especially through use of force,” Blazer said.
According to statistics from Customs and Border Protection, its officials used “less-lethal” force — such as batons, stun guns, tear gas and pepper spray — 338 times in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
Hutchens said the Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional responsibility will review Monday’s incident.
Federal agents shot pepper balls at Venezuelan migrants who were protesting along the Rio Grande River International Boundary near downtown El Paso, Texas, on Monday after an agent was injured, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
The agency issued a statement on the incident after an El Paso Times report included a 15-second video clip showing what appeared to be Border Patrol agents on the banks of the Rio Grande using projectiles to push a crowd – some of whom were holding a Venezuelan flag – back into Mexico.
The incident took place around 12:20 p.m. local time (1:20 p.m. ET) when CBP said “a group of Venezuelan nationals attempted to illegally enter the United States while protesting” along the river.
“One of the protesters assaulted an agent with a flag pole. A second subject threw a rock causing injury to an agent at which time agents responded by initiating crowd control measures,” the CBP statement read, adding that the crowd control measures included “the authorized less-lethal force pepperball launching system.”
“The crowd then dispersed and returned to Mexico. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional responsibility will review the incident,” the statement read.
The actions near the border come amid increasing tension at the US-Mexico border following the Biden administration’s new deal with Mexican authorities that subjects Venezuelans to the Trump-era public health authority known as Title 42, which allows officials to expel migrants into Mexico after they’re apprehended at the border.
Officials say the number of Venezuelans attempting to cross the border has spiked dramatically, nearly quadrupling in the past year. This is due, in part, to poor economic conditions, food shortages and limited access to health care in Venezuela. More than 7 million Venezuelans are now living as refugees or migrants outside their country, matching Ukraine in the number of displaced people and surpassing Syria, according to the United Nations.
In the US, some Venezuelan migrants were separated from family member despite having already lived in the US and began protesting along the border.
Nonprofits working in the El Paso area tell CNN that hundreds of Venezuelan nationals have been camping on the Mexican banks of the Rio Grande and staying in shelters in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico – which is across the border from El Paso.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement condemning the use of projectiles on migrants, calling the incident “highly alarming.”
“This is the latest in a long line of abuses carried out by CBP,” the ACLU tweeted. “Our government’s failed attempts at preventing people from seeking protection in the US lead to death and suffering. The Biden administration must restore a humane process for seeking asylum.”
The Texas Civil Rights Project also issued a statement stating the organization is “appalled and disgusted” by the footage.
“People with the incredible courage to seek a better life deserve to be met with dignity,” the group tweeted. “@CBP and @DHSgov should be advancing humanitarian solutions that meet people with dignity and respect, rather than bullets directed at their backs.”
British charities and officials are warning of increasingly dire conditions at a migrant processing center in England and urging Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to act.
The situation at the Manston asylum processing center constituted a “breach of humane conditions,” British Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale said Monday, as dozens of charities wrote to the prime minister to raise concerns about “overcrowding.”
The Manston migration center in Kent, southeast England, is currently holding around 4,000 people, among them women and children, despite being intended to hold only 1,500, local MP Gale told Sky News.
“That is wholly unacceptable,” Gale, who visited the former RAF base last week said, though he added staff were “trying to do a good job under impossible circumstances.”
It comes as dozens of charities signed an open letter from the charity Positive Action in Housing to Sunak, raising concerns about what they called “overcrowding and inhumane conditions” at the Manston center.
“We take the safety and welfare of those in our care extremely seriously and are working closely with our health professionals and the UK Health Security Agency to ensure their wellbeing,” the Home Office told CNN.
The Home Office also confirmed it was aware of a very small number of cases of diphtheria reported at the Manston center: “The Home Office provides 24/7 health facilities at Manston, including trained medical staff and a doctor.”
On Sunday, around 700 people who crossed the English Channel in small boats were relocated to Manston after “incendiary devices” were thrown at a migration center in Dover, local police confirmed.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who visited Manston on Sunday, acknowledged the “immense pressure” at the center in a tweet.
“Over 1,000 migrants crossing the Channel yesterday creates immense pressure. I was hugely impressed by the staff I met, managing this intolerable situation,” Jenrick said on Sunday.
The warnings come as criticism regarding the re-appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary continues. Braverman is known for her tough stance on immigration.
More than a hundred refugee charities wrote an open letter to Braverman on Monday, urging her to address what they called a “backlog in asylum cases,” and to create safe routes for refugees to travel to Britain.
The letter referred to comments made by Braverman during the Conservative Party conference earlier in October, in which she said it would be her “dream” and “obsession” to see a front page of the Telegraph newspaper show a plane of migrants taking off to Rwanda, where some UK asylum seekers could be relocated under a controversial scheme.
“You have referred to this country’s proud history of offering sanctuary. So, we ask you to make this happen with a fair, kind and effective system for refugees,” the letter said.
Braverman – who has referred to illegal crossings of the English Channel as “an invasion” – defended her immigration policies on Monday.
Speaking to lawmakers at the House of Commons, she said she had tried to prepare the Manston site for a surge of people, and denied allegations that she blocked the use of hotels for immigrants.
“I foresaw the concerns at Manston in September and deployed additional resource and personnel to deliver a rapid increase in emergency accommodation,” she said.
“What I have refused to do is to prematurely release thousands of people into local communities without having anywhere for them to stay,” she added, saying that it will be the “worst thing to do.”
LONDON — She’s already been forced to resign as U.K. home secretary once this fall.
And now scandal-hit Suella Braverman — controversially restored to her role by new PM Rishi Sunak just last week — is clinging to her job for a second time over claims she broke the law by holding thousands of undocumented migrants in bleakly unsuitable conditions at a former military base in southeast England.
In a statement to the House of Commons Monday, the Tory hard-liner denied widespread reports that she personally prevented officials from mass-booking hotel rooms for hundreds of asylum seekers who could no longer be hosted at the overcrowded Manston processing facility in Kent. Experts said if proven this could amount to a breach of the ministerial code — a resigning matter.
“Like the majority of the British people I am very concerned about hotels, but I never blocked their usage,” Braverman insisted, as opposition MPs called for her to resign. “As a former attorney general, I know the importance of taking legal advice into account.”
The Manston site is currently holding about 4,000 people, more than three times its maximum capacity of 1,600. Many are being forced to stay far longer than the legally permitted 24 hours. Reports suggest hundreds are sleeping on bare floors, and that disease is rife.
David Neal, the U.K. government’s independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, told MPs last week he was left speechless by the “wretched conditions.” He revealed some migrants from Afghanistan had been held in a marquee for 32 days, though the facility is designed only to host people for a maximum 24 hours while they undergo checks before being transferred to detention centers or hotels.
The crisis has been triggered by a huge increase in the number of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the English Channel — numbering nearly 40,000 so far this year, according to Ministry of Defense figures. On Sunday alone some 468 people made the dangerous journey in eight boats, the MoD said.
Since leaving the EU, the U.K. has been asking for a bilateral deal with France and the wider EU bloc to return those crossing the Channel to the first country deemed safe they enter into. So far, none has been forthcoming.
“The system is broken,” Braverman admitted. “Illegal migration is out of control and too many people are more interested in playing political parlor games, covering up the truth, rather than solving the problem.”
She said the Home Office is currently negotiating extra accommodation for undocumented migrants with private providers and considering “all available options” to tackle overcrowding at processing centers in the U.K.
She also told MPs she was “appalled” to learn, on her first appointment as home secretary in September, that there were “over 35,000 migrants” staying in hotels around the U.K. at an “exorbitant cost” to the British taxpayer. She instigated an urgent review into alternative options, she said, but that the department has continued procuring hotel rooms in the meantime.
But earlier Monday, local Conservative MP Roger Gale described the overcrowding at the Manston facility as “wholly unacceptable” and suggested the situation may have been allowed to happen “deliberately.”
“I was told that the Home Office was finding it very difficult to secure hotel accommodation,” he said. “I now understand this was a policy issue, and that a decision was taken not to book additional hotel space.”
The accusations add to the pressure on the home secretary, whose return to the Cabinet last week was widely questioned given she had been forced to quit only six days earlier after being caught using her personal email account to share sensitive government documents.
A Home Office review published Monday found Braverman sent six Home Office documents to her personal email address between September 15 and October 16. One was then forwarded on to a backbench ally for his perusal — a clear breach of security rules.
Striking a defiant tone, Braverman admitted to having made mistakes but insisted the broader claims about her conduct were a conspiracy to keep her out of high office. She told MPs that some people would like to “get rid” of her, adding: “Let them try.”
A Braverman ally conceded the home secretary is “in great difficulty” but warned she had “deliberately put in an impossible position by those who would rather her not to hang around.”
“The pressure is not easing in any way, and I think it may be too much for her.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s push to “win the battle” in core technologies and bolster China’s position as a tech superpower could beseverely undermined by Washington’s unprecedented steps to limit the sale of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to the country, analysts say.
On October 7, the Biden administration unveiled a sweeping set of export controls that ban Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chip-making equipment without a license. The rule also restricts the ability of “US persons” — including American citizens or green card holders — to provide support for the “development or production” of chips at certain manufacturing facilities in China.
“The US moves are a major threat to China’s technological ambitions,” said Mark Williams and Zichun Huang, analysts at Capital Economics, in a recent research report. The analysts pointed out that the global semiconductor industry is “almost entirely” dependent on the United States and countries aligned with it for chip design, the tools that make them, and fabrication.
“Without these,” the analysts said, “Chinese firms will lose access not only to advanced chips, but to technology and inputs that might over time have allowed domestic chipmakers to climb the ladder and compete at the cutting edge.” They added: “The US has chopped the rungs away.”
Chips are vital for everything from smartphones and self-driving cars to advanced computing and weapons manufacturing. US officials have talked about the move as a measure to protect national security interests. It also comes as the United States is looking to bolster its domestic chip manufacturing abilities with heavy investments, after chip shortages earlier in the pandemic highlighted the country’s dependance on imports from abroad.
Arthur Dong, a teaching professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, described the recent US sanctions as “unprecedented in modern times.”
Previously, the US government has banned sales of certain tech products to specific Chinese companies, such as Huawei. It has also required some major US chip-making firms to halt their shipments to China. But the latest move is much more expansive and significant. It not only bars the export to China of advanced chips made anywhere in the world using US technology, but also blocks the export of the tools used to make them.
With its Made in China 2025 road map, Beijing has set a target for China to become a global leader in a wide range of industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), 5G wireless, and quantum computing. At the Communist Party Congress earlier this month, where he secureda historic third term,Xi highlighted that the nation will prioritize tech and innovationand grow its talent pool to develop homegrown technologies.
“China will look to join the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries by 2035, with great self-reliance and strength in science and technology,” Xi said in the party congress report, released on October 16.
Dong said the latest US sanctions will make it harder for China to advance in AI as well as 5G, given the role advanced chips play in both industries.
“In any circumstances,” Williams from Capital Economics said, “China would find achieving global tech leadership hard to achieve.”
One dramatic, and potentially disruptive aspect of the rules is the ban on American citizens and legal residents working with Chinese chip firms.
Dane Chamorro, a partner at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy based in London, said such measures are usually “only enacted against ‘rogue regimes’” such as Iran and North Korea. The decision to use this against China is “unprecedented,” Chamorro said.
Many executives working for Chinese firms may now have to choose between keeping their jobs or acting as lawful US residents. “You can’t do both,” Chamorro said.
The ban could lead to a mass resignation of top executives and core research staff working at Chinese chip firms, which will hit the industry hard, Dong from Georgetown University said.
So far it’s not clear exactly how many American workers there are in China’s domestic chip industry. But an examination of company filings indicates that more than a dozen chip firms have senior executives holding US citizenship or green cards. At Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment China (AMEC), one of the country’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturers, at least seven executives, including founder and chairman Gerald Yin, hold US citizenship, the latest company documents show.
Other examples include Shu Qingming and Cheng Taiyi, who currently serve as vice chairman and deputy general manager, respectively, at GigaDevice Semiconductor, an advanced memory chip firm. The Financial Times report said in a recent report that Yangtze Memory Technologies has already asked American employees in core tech positions to leave, citing anonymous sources. But it’s unclear how many.
AMEC, GigaDevice Semiconductor, and Yangtze Memory Technologies didn’t respond to requests for comments.
If these senior executives depart, “this will create a leadership and technological void within China’s chipmaking industry,” Dong said, as the country loses executives with years of chipmaking experience in an industry with “one of the most complex manufacturing processes known to mankind.”
While much of the world’s chip manufacturing is centered in East Asia,China is reliant on foreign chips, especially for advanced processor and memory chips and related equipment.
It is the world’s largest importer of semiconductors, and has spent more money buying them than oil. In 2021, China bought a record $414 billion worth of chips, or more than 16% of the value of its total imports, according to government statistics.
But some Western suppliers have already started preparing to halt sales to China in response to the US export curbs.
ASM International
(ASMIY), the Dutch semiconductor equipment supplier, said Wednesday that it expected the export restrictions will affect more than 40% of its sales in China. The country accounted for 16% of ASML’s equipment sales in the first nine months of this year.
Lam Researc
(LRCX)h, which supplies semiconductor equipment and services, also flagged last week that it could lose between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in annual revenue in 2023 as a result of the US export curbs.
The party congress, which recently wrapped up, has slowed China’s response to latest US export controls, analysts said. But as Beijing starts assessing the significance of the measures, it might retaliate. Xi is “concerned” about US plans to bolster domestic chip production as his administration moves to restrict China’s ability to make them, said US President Joe Biden in a speech on Thursday.
“This conflict is just beginning,” said Chamorro.
Chamorro said the most valuable “card” in China’s hand might be the supply of processed rare earth minerals, which Beijing could embargo. Rare earth minerals are important materials in electric vehicle production, battery making and renewable energy systems.
“These are not easily or quickly replaced and China dominates the processing and supply chain,” Chamorro said.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, is also weighing further restrictions on other technology exports to China, a senior US Commerce Department official said Thursday, according to the New York Times.
If either country takes these steps, it could shift the tech arms race between the United States and China to a whole new level.
