Tag Archives: Immigration

Over 1,000 arrested in UK riots as faith in the peaceful democratic process wanes

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Important Takeaways:

  • Concerning potential symptom of flagging faith in the peaceful democratic process emerges as a poll suggests that a significant section of the public thinks that violence can be justified if politicians continue to overlook concerns around immigration.
  • A survey conducted by the British polling firm WeThink has painted a bleak picture for the future of the polity as an apparent breakdown in the trust of institutions to address the demands of the public has seemingly coincided with increasing willingness to back violent alternatives.
  • The poll, which surveyed 1,278 people between August 7th and 8th, during the height of the recent anti-mass migration riots that broke out across the UK, found that 39 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “When it comes to the refugee problem, violence is sometimes the only means that citizens have to get the attention of British politicians.”
  • So far, the riots, sparked by the mass stabbing at a children’s dance party by an alleged second-generation Rwandan migrant in Southport last month, have involved a tiny fraction of the UK population yet have seen over 1,000 people arrested. Police chiefs have warned that hundreds more will face arrest in the coming days. The unrest has seen people clash with police, ethnic groups clash, the looting stores, and setting fires, including one at a reported migrant hotel in Rotherham, a town that gained notoriety for its central position in the child rape scandals of recent decades.
  • Reform UK leader Nigel Farage accused the prime minister of “completely” failing to understand the mood of the nation about the “societal breakdown” caused by decades of mass migration policies from both the Labor and Conservative parties.
  • “The protests are awful, they’re disgraceful, they’re shocking. But unfortunately, when people are shut up, when they’re not allowed to debate publicly, and when there aren’t rational means of objection, you get irrational ones… Every brick began in Westminster.”

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Frosty Woolridge points out the continual self-destruction of the West: If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher

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In a January 1838 speech to a group in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln stated: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Why Are Western Countries Committing National Suicide?
  • In 1973, Frenchman Jean Raspail, seeing his country being overwhelmed by mass immigration, wrote a stunning novel: Camp of the Saints. He depicted a fleet of third world refugees landing on his country from a flotilla of wretched ships. The captain of one of the ships said, “If this horde of brutes ever lands on your country, they will swallow you up.”
  • One critic said, “Once you read Camp of the Saints, you will need brain surgery to remove it…”
  • One look at France today, 55 million French persons, and 5 million Muslims, you can cut the racial/religious air with a knife. You might remember where Muslim terrorists shot up Paris restaurants, slaughtered theater patrons and killed cartoonists in that once “free society.” More than 90 “no-go zones” now dominate the French countryside. That means French people dare not enter the religious Islamist enclaves. While Raspail suffered “racial” criticism when the book published, its prophetic pages have come true across Europe.
  • But the fact is, the book now applies to Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Spain and more. No go zones abound. European women cannot walk the streets of Paris with any chance of personal safety. The invaders expect welfare, housing, and medical care. They lack any cultural, linguistic, or educational compatibility with those Western countries.
  • “The Camp of the Saints, a speculative fictional account, it depicts the destruction of Western civilization through Third World mass immigration to France and the Western world.”
  • Now let’s travel over to America. Just last week, Muslim Hamas demonstrators in Detroit and New York City chanted, “Death to America.”
  • “lslam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant.” said Omar Ahmad, Director of C.A.I.R. “The Qur’an,, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
  • Take a car trip into Dearborn, Michigan to see mosque after mosque built like forts with walls around them.
  • Take a walking trip through “Somaliland” in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  • If you look at what’s happened to Europe, you’re seeing the disintegration of Western Society. If you look at Canada’s Vancouver, B.C., you notice that Canadians are now the minority in their own city. If you look at Miami, Florida, you see few Americans and more and more illegal aliens.
  • It’s a sad situation when you must fight for your own country within your own country. But that’s what’s coming, and it’s coming fast. I might pen my next book: The Strange Death of America: Immigration, Islam, Identity by Frosty Wooldridge.

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Analysis: Republicans see election opportunity in Biden border struggles

By Ted Hesson and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The leading Republican vying to unseat an Arizona Democrat in a crucial U.S. Senate race next year gets heated when he talks about Democratic President Joe Biden’s “failed border policies,” occasionally throwing in expletives when decrying their alleged financial cost and what he says is the threat they pose to Americans.

The candidate, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, is betting the message will resonate with voters Republicans need to mobilize in the 2022 elections to change the balance of power in Congress.

“Immigration in and of itself is not a bad thing,” Brnovich, himself the son of immigrants from Montenegro and Croatia, said in an interview with Reuters. “But illegal immigration undermines the rule of law.”

Echoing some of the hardline rhetoric of Republican former President Donald Trump, Brnovich supports the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico and tougher immigration enforcement.

His opponent, incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, is a well-known retired astronaut and husband to former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. His seat has been rated as vulnerable by election trackers after he won a close victory in a special election last year.

While the Arizona race is one of the most high-profile contests where immigration has emerged as an attack line for Republicans, the strategy is not limited to the Southwestern border state.

Republicans across the country are targeting the policy vulnerability for Biden, whose administration has struggled to curb record arrests of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border. Some critics say he has failed to find a consistent approach on immigration, keeping some Trump policies in place while rolling back others, inviting attacks on both the right and left.

“We have gone heavily on offense,” said Emma Vaughn, national press secretary for the Republican National Committee, which plays a central role in shaping the party’s election strategy. “Immigration doesn’t just impact border towns; it impacts Americans everywhere.”

Reuters polling backs up the idea that immigration is a prime motivator for likely Republican voters. A Reuters opinion survey in October of nearly 1,600 Republicans found immigration topped the list of issues that would make them “very angry” if the government acted in opposition to their views.

Democrats, on the other hand, did not rank immigration in any of their top 12 anger-provoking issues. Researchers have found anger is more likely to encourage voting compared with other emotions.

Heading into the November 2022 midterm elections, Democrats currently control both chambers of Congress by a narrow margin. The Senate has 48 Democrats and two independents who caucus with them to 50 Republicans, giving Vice President Kamala Harris a tie-breaking vote. In the House of Representatives, Democrats hold 221 seats to the Republicans’ 213, with one seat vacant.

As attorney general, Brnovich filed four lawsuits this year challenging Biden’s immigration actions, including a lawsuit that said Biden failed to assess the environmental effects of illegal immigration, such as pollution and stress on natural resources.

Democrat Kelly has also criticized Biden’s approach to the southern border at times, most recently sending a Dec. 16 letter to the president calling on him to close existing gaps in Arizona’s border barriers. At the same time, Kelly urged Biden to restore areas damaged by Trump-era border wall construction.

“Your administration must make it a priority to address these issues,” Kelly wrote. “Arizona deserves better from Washington on the border.”

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it would take steps to close “small gaps” remaining from previous border wall construction and perform other construction work, with a focus on a stretch of the border in Arizona.

Kelly’s tougher border stance contrasts with most of his Democratic colleagues, who disdain Trump’s immigration tactics, a reflection of the threat immigration-focused attacks on the incumbent could pose in the race.

INTERNAL TENSIONS

Biden took office in January promising to roll back almost all of Trump’s restrictive immigration measures, but he has so far been stymied by internal tensions within his administration and ongoing court battles.

Some of the friction has been evident on the president’s Domestic Policy Council. The council’s director, Susan Rice, has tended to push for tougher enforcement at the border, clashing at times with her own more liberal staffers, according to a former U.S. official with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Immigrant advocates who joined the Biden administration have been disappointed with his approach to the border, including the mass deportation of Haitians caught trying to cross from Mexico, a second official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Some Biden officials have acknowledged internally that large numbers of migrants arriving at the border could derail the president’s broader immigration agenda, Reuters reported earlier this year.

Biden has left in place a sweeping Trump-era border expulsion policy implemented when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and was ordered by a court to resurrect another hardline Trump program that forces migrants to wait in Mexico as their U.S. asylum cases proceed — both moves that dismayed advocates.

A White House spokesperson said all Biden staffers were “committed to implementing a fair and orderly immigration system,” and denied any tensions between Susan Rice and Domestic Policy Council staffers.

The spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Republicans also focused heavily on immigration before the 2018 midterm elections, only to lose the House to the Democrats.

PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS

Republicans and their allies are already airing some immigration-themed commercials, a likely preview of what Democrats can expect in the coming year.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that favors lower levels of immigration, launched a six-figure digital ad campaign in Texas and Arizona last week that attacks Biden and other Democrats and depicts the border as lawless.

“President Biden sabotaged the nation’s immigration controls,” a man’s voice says in the ad over video of migrants clashing with authorities in Mexico. The ad will air in Spanish and English in an attempt to reach Hispanic voters.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both Republicans facing re-election in 2022, have emerged as leading critics of Biden’s immigration policies. Abbott and DeSantis are viewed as possible Republican presidential candidates in 2024, and the White House is closely following their gubernatorial races, according to a third U.S. official.

The Biden administration is working with allies outside of government to neutralize the criticism, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal plans.

One strategy is to remind voters of Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy, which led to the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents and drew international condemnation, the official said.

The White House is also banking that its efforts to speed up asylum processing at the southern border – a much-touted plan that has yet to produce significant results – will gain steam next year.

But many pro-immigrant activists remain unconvinced, including Jennifer Quigley, senior director for government affairs with the pro-immigrant organization Human Rights First.

“They do not view humane and lawful entry for asylum seekers as a winning thing politically,” Quigley said.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Jonathan Oatis)

Migrants on school buses? Texas town feels caught in the middle

By Alexandra Ulmer

DEL RIO, Texas (Reuters) -Many residents of the Texan border town of Del Rio have been saying for months that they feel abandoned by the federal government as border arrests hit 20-year highs.

Now, with several thousand migrants sheltering in precarious conditions under the International Bridge connecting Del Rio and Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña, the resentment is getting worse.

On Friday night, a local lawyer published a Facebook post saying that local school district buses were transferring migrants, mostly Haitians, to processing facilities.

“THE SAME BUSES OUR CHILDREN WILL RIDE ON MONDAY!!!!” Jacques De La Mota wrote alongside pictures of a yellow school bus seemingly picking up migrants in the dark.

De La Mota’s post was shared at least 1,400 times and received more than 300 comments, many from local residents who said they were worried about diseases. But some called out what they said was barely-veiled racism. “This post is giving me segregation vibes,” read one comment.

The local school district superintendent issued a statement explaining that only two buses, neither currently in use to transport students, had been deployed.

De La Mota told Reuters he was simply concerned about health and angry that the district was enlisted to help solve a federal problem.

The uproar over school buses is just one example of discontent over immigration in this town of 35,000, where some 85% of the community is Hispanic and the nearby Laughlin Air Force Base is a big employer.

Many residents are also furious over the closure of the International Bridge, ordered on Friday due to the crowds of migrants, that is inflicting economic pain on both sides of the border.

A small group protested on Saturday, with one woman waving a sign that said “BIDEN BORDER CRISIS.” Another driver, going over the bridge when it was still open last week, looked down at the huddled migrants and grumbled that Del Rio residents might as well move over to Mexico.

BIDEN ON BACK FOOT

Val Verde County, whose county seat is Del Rio, went for Donald Trump over Joe Biden by a ten-point margin in the 2020 election, with some approving of his hardline immigration policies. Del Rio’s mayor Bruno Lozano has made no qualms about calling out his fellow Democrat president.

“Where is your plan to protect American communities at the southern border?” Lozano tweeted on Saturday. “I spoke to Governor Abbott today. We have developed a temporary plan, we’d like to see yours.”

Arguing that Biden’s promise of a more “humane” approach to migration has galvanized crossings, Greg Abbott, a Republican, has cracked down.

Among his measures: Apprehending migrants for allegedly trespassing on private property and preparing to build some of the border wall Trump promised, whose construction Biden paused.

Abbott, who faces a gubernatorial primary in March, has been criticized for his response to a devastating February storm and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The border issue could be a boon for him and Republicans more broadly, said James Henson, director of The Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas at Austin.

“It’s a good issue for Republicans as it taps into a growing nativist sentiment in the Texas GOP,” said Henson.

De La Mota, himself the descendant of Mexicans who immigrated several generations ago, is a registered Democrat who said the border crisis means Biden can no longer automatically count on his vote. “It causes me to reconsider what I would do in the next cycle,” he said.

School Board member Joshua D. Overfelt, who wrote in a statement that he opposed the request for buses because there was no guarantee migrants were not carrying “multiple diseases,” said that while he felt sorry for the asylum-seekers, he had to balance that with residents’ feelings of being overrun.

He recalled his father’s fright in May when he walked into his barn towards his tractor and discovered 13 Mexican migrants hiding there.

“The community is just caught in between,” he told Reuters.

To be sure, there are also residents in Del Rio mobilizing to help migrants.

Some 35 locals volunteer at Del Rio’s sole facility to care for migrants, said Tiffany Burrow, the director of operations. Burrow said there are “misconceptions” in the community about their work, including false assumptions that the organization pays for migrants’ travels onwards in the United States.

“We don’t focus so much on the political aspect but rather the idea of helping our neighbor,” said Burrow. “When you’re doing it from that motive, it’s not as controversial.”

(Writing by Alexandra UlmerEditing by Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. Senate Democrats unveil details of $3.5 trln follow-up bill

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democrats in the U.S. Senate on Monday released some details of the $3.5 trillion bill addressing social spending and immigration that they aim to push through after passing the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

The first details of the larger bill — a key goal for progressive Democrats — showed that it would provide tax incentives for “clean” manufacturing, make community college free for two years and provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrant workers.

The first bill, which sits atop Democratic President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda and includes $550 billion in new spending on roads, bridges and internet access, cleared an important procedural hurdle late on Sunday when the Senate voted 69-28 in support of the provisions contained in the 2,702-page plan.

The Senate also voted 68-29 to limit further debate to a maximum of 30 hours, setting up a potential vote on passage early on Tuesday on the package, the result of months of bipartisan negotiations.

The massive spending bill is popular among many lawmakers in both parties because of the federal dollars it would deliver to their home states. Polls also show that Americans at large are supportive of it.

But the moment of bipartisanship that produced it was likely to be fleeting as Democrats prepare to turn their attention next to the larger bill, which they aim to pass over Republican objections using a parliamentary maneuver called “budget reconciliation.”

Democrats are aiming to debate and pass this nonbinding resolution in coming days, which would serve as a framework for more detailed, binding legislation later this year. Republicans have strenuously objected to the size and cost of the follow-up package.

PARLIAMENTARIAN’S POWER

The ambitious goals of this budget plan will be reviewed by the Senate parliamentarian, who has the power to strip out provisions found to be at odds with Senate rules. The full Senate, however, could vote to over-rule such decisions.

In a letter to senators, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the budget plan is aimed at “restoring the middle class” by making education, child care and housing more affordable.

A separate Democratic memo says the $3.5 trillion costs would be fully paid for by a combination of tax increases, savings in federal health care programs and projected long-term economic growth.

The latter claim is debated by many economists who often disagree over the accuracy of the economic impact stemming from new policies enacted by Washington.

There would be no tax increases for those making under $400,000 a year, Democrats said.

The tax increases, which already have been previewed by the Biden administration and Senate Democrats, would hit high-income earners and would be coupled with beefed-up IRS tax enforcement. The measure also calls for a “carbon polluter import fee.”

The plan also called for extending a new, expanded child tax credit that progressives wanted to make permanent. And it would provide “relief” to tax filers bumping up against a cap on a state and local tax deduction tightened by a 2017 Republican-backed tax law.

Still unclear is whether Democrats will attach a debt limit increase to the reconciliation bill that will be developed in coming weeks or will seek another way of raising Washington’s nearly exhausted borrowing authority.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday again urged Congress to take quick action in a bipartisan way.

WEEKEND WORK

The Senate worked for a second straight weekend to advance the infrastructure bill aimed at repairing, expanding and improving roads, bridges, waterworks and schools, while also expanding high-speed internet service in underserved areas.

During debate on Sunday, Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada noted the boost for her state’s mining industry, saying new money would strengthen “a critical mineral and battery supply chain that supplies key components of cellphones and laptops, electric vehicles, solar panels and more.”

The Senate had been scheduled to begin a four-week summer recess, but instead found itself in session on both Saturday and Sunday, which saw little more than occasional speeches before the procedural votes.

Even with passage of the bill this week, senators will still not be able to go back to their home states or jump onto foreign trips popular during long recesses.

That is because Schumer aims to launch immediately into debate of the budget framework providing the outlines for the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill that Democrats want to begin advancing in September.

Passing any major legislation is difficult given the 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, with Democrats claiming a majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.

If the $1 trillion bill is approved by the Senate, as expected, the House would still have to debate and vote on it, sometime after it returns in late September from its summer break.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell)

U.S. to speed up asylum processing at border while fast-tracking deportations

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration will speed up processing of asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border while also fast-tracking expulsions of some migrant families, according to a plan unveiled by the White House on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has reversed many of the restrictive immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump. But border arrests have risen to 20-year highs in recent months, fueling attacks by Republicans, who say Biden encouraged more migration.

The 21-point plan aims to create a “fair, orderly and humane immigration system” but notes that “won’t be achieved overnight.” Details of the plan have been previously foreshadowed by the administration in its annual budget request to Congress and other announcements.

The administration aims to speed up processing of asylum claims at the southern border by authorizing asylum officers to rule on cases, according to the plan, bypassing the back-logged federal immigration courts. A draft rule to make that change has been under review at the White House budget office since early July.

The administration also said it would use a process known as expedited removal to resolve the cases of some families caught at the U.S.-Mexico border more rapidly, potentially deporting them. However, the document provided few details about the new policy.

Two sources familiar with the move said the fast-track deportations would apply only to families that do not claim a fear of persecution in their home country.

Several of the proposals in the blueprint will likely be scrutinized by lawmakers when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies on the administration funding requests at a Senate committee on Tuesday.

Among the budget requests, the Biden administration is seeking funding that would allow some migrant families and other vulnerable individuals to receive legal representation as their immigration cases move through the U.S. court system.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Dan Grebler)

At border, U.S. vice president Harris shakes off Republican critics

By Nandita Bose

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) -Vice President Kamala Harris visited a border patrol facility near the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, aiming to counter claims from Republicans she has been slow to visit the region as part of her role addressing the root causes of immigration.

The trip, her first to the border since becoming vice president five months ago, was announced on Wednesday and appeared to have been hastily put together days before a border visit by former President Donald Trump.

A White House official said Harris’s schedule was not dictated by what the Republican Trump does. “I can assure you we don’t take our cues from the former president,” the official said.

“I said back in March I was going to come to the border, so this is not a new plan,” Harris told reporters after landing in Texas. “Coming to the border … is about looking at the effects of what we have seen happening in Central America.”

Republicans have criticized President Joe Biden, her fellow Democrat, for rolling back restrictive Trump-era immigration policies even as migrant detentions at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached 20-year highs in recent months.

Immigration remains a hot-button issue for both parties. Democrats and pro-immigrant activists have pressed Biden to further scale back enforcement and ensure humane treatment of migrant children and families arriving at the border.

White House officials have for months said Harris’s efforts to stem immigration from Central America are focused on diplomacy and are distinct from the security issues at the border.

“The vice president’s trip to Guatemala and Mexico earlier this year was about the root causes, and this border visit is about the effects,” her spokesperson Symone Sanders, told reporters on Thursday. “Both trips will inform the administration’s root causes strategy.”

Harris, who visited the border as a senator and attorney general from California, was assailed by Republicans when she visited Mexico and Guatemala this month as part of her efforts to lower migration from the region into the United States.

During that trip, Harris said she would visit the border in the near future but was focused on “tangible results” and “opposed to grand gestures.”

Nonetheless, Republicans criticized Harris for choosing El Paso rather than the area they point to as a hot spot for increased border crossings.

“While it’s certainly positive that she is taking this step, I am disappointed that she is not going to the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) – the very epicenter of this crisis,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf under Trump said in a statement.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, said many Republicans have embraced Trump’s hardline immigration policies as they gear up for U.S. congressional elections in 2022.

As such, they are unlikely to stop their criticism of Biden’s policies, even if Harris visits the border.

“They believe that is something that can win them seats in 2022, so of course they’re going to play it up,” she said. “They’re going to try to make it an issue.”

Harris was accompanied in El Paso by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin and Democratic Representative from Texas Veronica Escobar, who called the El Paso area the new “Ellis Island,” a reference to the famed area in New York Harbor that processed millions of immigrants as they entered the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Ted Hesson, additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Kieran Murray and Alistair Bell)

U.S. Justice Department ends Trump-era limits on grants to ‘sanctuary cities’

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has repealed a policy put in place during Donald Trump’s presidency that cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In an internal memo seen by Reuters, acting head of the Office of Justice Programs Maureen Henneberg said that prior grant recipients, including cities, counties and states that were recipients of the department’s popular $250 million annual grant program for local law enforcement, will no longer be required to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a condition of their funding.

She also ordered staff to take down any pending Justice Department grant applications with similar strings attached and start the process over again.

In the memo, Henneberg, who leads the department’s largest grant-making arm, said she had instructed staff to “pull down and revise all solicitations that describe requirements or priority consideration elements or criteria pertaining to immigration.”

“These solicitations will be reposted and grantees will be required to reapply,” she added.

It is one of a series of decisions by Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Joe Biden, to break with policies put in place during the Trump administration. In another high-profile move, the Justice Department has stepped up investigations of U.S. police departments that face charges of brutality or discriminatory tactics.

Shortly after being sworn in, Biden overturned a Trump executive order that had allowed the Justice Department to pressure cities that refused to notify federal immigration authorities when people living in the U.S. illegally have been detained for criminal violations, including minor ones.

Garland on April 14 ordered the department to begin to implement the change.

LEGAL BATTLES PAUSED

The policy reversal marks a major victory for states and cities that have been unable to access awards they received through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants program, known as “Byrne JAG.”

Named for a New York City police officer killed in the line of duty, the Byrne JAG grant program is the Justice Department’s leading source of reimbursement to state and local law enforcement to pay for a variety of initiatives, from prosecutions and corrections programs, to drug and mental health treatment centers.

In fiscal year 2020, the program doled out more than $253 million in grants.

Trump made cracking down on immigration, legal and illegal, a centerpiece of his administration.

Some cities and states resisted his efforts by adopting “sanctuary” policies, arguing that close cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities can deter immigrants from coming forward to report crimes.

The fight to withhold Byrne JAG grant money prompted numerous lawsuits, as jurisdictions, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco sued the Justice Department on the grounds that withholding the money was unlawful.

In one of those lawsuits brought by New York state, New York City and six other states, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in February 2020 sided with the Trump administration and ruled it was entitled to withhold millions in grant money.

The plaintiff states appealed to the Supreme Court, but the appeal was later withdrawn after Biden won the 2020 election.

The Justice Department and the plaintiffs jointly asked a federal judge in March to put the matter on hold, while the department finished reviewing the grant conditions at the heart of the case.

The New York Attorney General’s office said that during the last four years, the state hasn’t been able to tap more than $30 million in grant money from the Justice Department as a result of the pending litigation.

The Justice Department’s decision to cease using immigration-related criteria will apply to all of the department’s grants, according to the memo, as well as notices posted by several other Justice Department offices that award grants.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone, Aurora Ellis and Steve Orlofsky)

Biden names Harris to lead efforts with Mexico to stem flow of immigrants

By Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Wednesday named Vice President Kamala Harris to lead U.S. efforts with Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle countries to try to stem the flow of migration to the United States.

Biden’s decision gives a high-profile assignment to his vice president, a daughter of immigrants who has forged a reputation as an ally of immigration advocates. As California attorney general, Harris had to deal with a major influx of unaccompanied minors at the state’s border with Mexico in 2014.

It is a task that comes with some political risks for Harris, a potential future presidential candidate. Border woes have been an intractable problem for multiple presidents.

Biden served in a similar role for then-President Barack Obama when he was vice president. By assigning her to handling diplomatic efforts with Central America, Biden is elevating the migration issue as a top priority.

Just two months in office, Biden is struggling to get a handle on a burgeoning migration challenge along the U.S. border with Mexico – a problem the Democrat blamed on “the somewhat draconian” policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who left office with his border wall incomplete.

Biden said the United States is going to need help from Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and that Harris “agreed to lead our diplomatic efforts and work with those countries.”

“The best way to keep people from coming is to keep them from wanting to leave,” Biden said, listing gang violence, drug trafficking cartels, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes as factors spurring migration.

Harris said the job “will not be easy, but it is important work, it is work that we demand as a people of our country.”

U.S. officials are battling to house and process an increasing number of unaccompanied children, many of whom have been stuck in jail-like border stations for days while they await placement in overwhelmed government-run shelters.

Senior administration officials said Harris’s focus will be on regional solutions and working with leaders in the region to make it safer for people to remain in their home countries and make asylum requests there.

“We’re going to look at the possibility for people in their home countries in the Northern Triangle to have a predictable, regular process of seeking asylum there so they don’t have to take this phenomenally dangerous journey or, worse yet, send their children unaccompanied,” said one senior official who briefed reporters on the Harris move.

Another official said Biden had asked Harris to take on the job. She is expected to travel to the region at some point, but no trips are planned yet, the official said. Phone calls with leaders in the region are expected as well.

Since taking office in January, Harris has been carving out a role for herself as a key promoter of Biden’s U.S. coronavirus relief bill, the first major legislation the president signed into law.

Within that area, much of Harris’s focus has been on how the stimulus bill can help women and small businesses. She has also taken an active role in encouraging Americans to get vaccinated.

While she has not had a specific policy portfolio until now, she has had calls with foreign leaders, including key allies such as France and Israel.

Sergio Gonzales, executive director of the Immigration Hub, a migration advocacy group, welcomed Harris’s appointment, saying it “underscores the seriousness of the Biden-Harris White House to tackle every aspect of our broken immigration system.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal, Nandita Bose and Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Mohammad Zargham and Steve Holland; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Jonathan Oatis)

Biden set to accept more refugees

By Steve Holland and Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will issue an executive order to build up the country’s capacity to accept refugees, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a White House briefing on Thursday, but the timing of the action remains unclear.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said later in the briefing that she did not expect Biden to issue the order on Thursday, but that Biden is “committed to looking for ways to ensure more refugees are welcomed into the United States.”

Biden has pledged to restore the United States’ historic role as a country that welcomes refugees from around the world after four years of cuts to admissions under former U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there are 1.4 million refugees worldwide in urgent need of resettlement.

During his presidency, Trump portrayed refugees as a security threat and a drain on U.S. communities as he took a series of measures to restrict legal immigration. The Biden administration is confronting a refugee program hobbled by Trump’s hardline policies, which led to the closure of resettlement offices and disrupted the pipeline of refugees to the United States, a situation exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden was expected to issue the refugee order in conjunction with a speech on Thursday at the U.S. State Department that aims to reinvigorate the workforce there, but the order was delayed, according to one person familiar with the plan. The reason for the delay was not clear.

Biden vowed on the campaign trail to raise the annual refugee ceiling to 125,000, up from a record-low 15,000 set by Trump for this fiscal year.

Biden eventually plans to raise refugee levels this year, but the target will be lower than his goal of 125,000, according to two people familiar with the matter.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Steve Holland and Ted Hesson in Washington, Editing by Franklin Paul and Aurora Ellis)