Tag Archives: President Joe Biden

Biden to press for $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan with governors, mayors

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with a bipartisan group of mayors and governors on Friday as he continues to push for approval of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan to bolster economic growth and help millions of unemployed workers.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will also receive an economic briefing from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, shortly after she takes part in the first meeting of the Group of Seven rich economies since the new U.S. administration took office.

Biden’s proposed spending package, coming on top of $4 trillion enacted by his predecessor Donald Trump, will have important consequences for the global economy which is slowly recovering – but very unevenly – after last year suffering its worst downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Taking part in the Oval Office meeting will be Republican and Democratic elected officials whose states and cities have been hammered by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout. Many have seen tax revenues fall and costs soar as they race to vaccinate their citizens.

The group includes four governors, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, and five mayors, including Jeff Williams of Arlington, Texas, a Republican.

Williams, who met with Yellen virtually last week, said his city urgently needed the federal aid earmarked for state and local governments in Biden’s rescue plan. He said cities were crushed when Congress removed similar aid from a previous relief bill that passed in December.

“We’ve been crippled. We haven’t gotten help,” Williams told Reuters. “Our property taxes are down and costs are way up. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, this is the right solution so we can achieve economic growth much faster.”

Arlington, which is home to the largest General Motors plant in the world, is bracing for a 10% drop in the appraised value of its commercial properties, which would cut revenues by some $30 million after an $18 million loss last year, Williams said.

More than 400 mayors wrote to leaders in Congress earlier this month to urge them to pass Biden’s relief package, but Republicans are backing a far less ambitious plan.

Biden on Thursday said the U.S. coronavirus death toll was likely to reach 500,000 next month, but said the United States was on track to have enough vaccine for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

Yellen, a former Federal Reserve Board Chair, will have a mixed message when she briefs Biden on the economy. While economic growth is picking up, unemployment remains high and many communities of color are not expected to recover for years.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

In response to Myanmar coup, Biden signs order for sanctions on generals, businesses

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday he had approved an executive order for new sanctions on those responsible for the military coup in Myanmar and he repeated demands for the generals to give up power and free civilian leaders.

Biden said the executive order would enable his administration “to immediately sanction the military leaders who directed the coup, their business interests as well as close family members.”

He said Washington would identify the first round of targets this week and was taking steps to prevent the generals in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, having access to $1 billion in funds held in the United States.

“We’re also going to impose strong exports controls. We’re freezing U.S. assets that benefit the Burmese government, while maintaining our support for health care, civil society groups, and other areas that benefit the people of Burma directly,” Biden said at the White House.

“We’ll be ready to impose additional measures, and we’ll continue to work with our international partners to urge other nations to join us in these efforts.”

The Feb. 1 coup, which overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian-led government, occurred less than two weeks after Biden took office. It presented him with his first major international crisis and an early test of his dual pledges to re-center human rights in foreign policy and work more closely with allies.

Biden said Myanmar was of “deep and bipartisan concern” in the United States.

“I again call on the Burmese military to immediately release the democratic political leaders and activists,” he said. “The military must relinquish power it’s seized.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a news briefing Washington was rolling out collective actions with partners on Myanmar and could impose substantial costs on the generals.

Protesters returned to the streets of Myanmar on Wednesday despite the shooting of a young woman the previous day, with some deploying humor to emphasize their peaceful opposition to the military takeover.

The protests have been the largest in Myanmar in more than a decade, reviving memories of almost half a century of direct army rule and spasms of bloody uprisings until the military began relinquishing some power in 2011.

The military justified its takeover on the grounds of fraud in a Nov. 8 election that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide. The electoral commission dismissed the army’s complaints.

The Biden administration has been working to form an international response to the crisis, including by working with allies in Asia who have closer ties to Myanmar and its military.

Western countries have condemned the coup, but despite this, analysts say Myanmar’s military’s is unlikely to be as isolated as it was in the past, with China, India, Southeast Asian neighbors and Japan unlikely to cut ties given the country’s geo-strategic importance.

While Biden did not specify who would be hit with new sanctions, Washington is likely to target coup leader Min Aung Hlaing and other top generals who are already under U.S. sanctions imposed in 2019 over abuses against Rohingya Muslims and other minorities.

It could also blacklist the military’s two major conglomerates, Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited and Myanmar Economic Corp, holding companies with investments spanning sectors including banking, gems, copper, telecoms and clothing.

Japan’s foreign ministry said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi agreed in a phone call to urge the Myanmar authorities to immediately stop violence against protesters.

There were no reports of violence in Myanmar on Wednesday, and in many places protests took on a festive air, with bare-chested body builders, women in ball gowns and wedding dresses, farmers in tractors and people with their pets.

Thousands joined demonstrations in the main city of Yangon, while in the capital, Naypyitaw, hundreds of government workers marched in support of a growing civil disobedience campaign.

The Biden administration has been working on its Myanmar policy with both fellow Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

U.S. National security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke on Wednesday with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has a longstanding interest in the country and a close relationship with Suu Kyi, a McConnell aide said.

Suu Kyi, 75, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy and remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her international reputation over the plight of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

She has spent nearly 15 years under house arrest and now faces charges of illegally importing six walkie-talkies and her lawyer said he has not been allowed to see her.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Congressional Democrats set to back more than $50 billion for transportation sector

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. Congress are to release a sweeping plan on Monday to provide more than $50 billion in additional assistance to U.S. airlines, transit systems, airports and passenger railroad Amtrak and create a $3 billion program to assist aviation manufacturers with payroll costs, according to documents seen by Reuters and sources briefed on the matter.

The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal will provide $30 billion to transit agencies, $14 billion for passenger airlines, $8 billion to U.S. airports, $1 billion for airline contractors and $1.5 billion to Amtrak, the draft legislation says. U.S. House committees are set to vote on the legislation on Wednesday.

Airline stocks rose sharply on news of the new funding, with American Airlines up 4.2%, while United Airlines gained 5% and Southwest Airlines jumped nearly 6%.

President Joe Biden had proposed $20 billion for struggling U.S. transit agencies – and nothing for airlines – while Democrats had pushed for more transit help, citing the collapse in travel demand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transit agencies have previously been awarded $39 billion in emergency assistance by Congress. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Agency says daily subway travel has recently been down 70% or more.

U.S. airlines have been awarded $40 billion in payroll support since March and airline unions had asked Congress for another $15 billion to keep thousands of workers on the payroll past March 31, when the current round of funding expires. The additional $14 billion will keeping nearly 30,000 airline workers on the job through Sept. 30.

A summary of the $14 billion airline payroll proposal from the House Financial Services Committee seen by Reuters noted airlines lost over $35 billion in 2020 and “airlines do not expect to return to profitability until midway through 2021.

The $3 billion aviation manufacturing program would provide a 50% government subsidy to cover costs of pay, benefits and training for employees at risk of being furloughed or who were furloughed due to the pandemic. The grants cover up to 25% of a company’s U.S. workforce.

U.S. airplane manufacturer Boeing and suppliers have cut thousands of manufacturing jobs over the last year as demand for new planes has shrunk amid the collapse in airline travel.

Boeing said last year it recorded severance costs for 26,000 employees in 2020, with 18,000 having left last year and the remainder expected leave in 2021. Boeing did not immediately comment on the program.

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) President Robert Martinez urged lawmakers to back the effort to provide payroll assistance to “help this critical workforce and supply chain weather the storm of this historic pandemic.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Dan Grebler)

Biden’s immense economic challenge: Putting 10 million people back to work

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – President Joe Biden is presenting his plan on Friday for addressing one of the greatest challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic – how to get millions of out-of-work Americans back on the job.

The labor market regained some minor ground in January when the economy added 49,000 jobs, according to a report released Friday by the Labor Department. But the report showed labor market growth is stalling, doing little to close the huge gap created by the pandemic

“At that rate it’s going to take 10 years before we get to full employment,” Biden said Friday morning from the White House.

Roughly half of the 22 million jobs lost at the height of the pandemic have been recouped. But that still leaves a hole of about 10 million jobs, disproportionately ones held by women and minorities in low-wage roles.

Here is a look at the people who may need the most help as the economy heals:

MINORITIES HIT HARDEST

As the economy reopened last year from widespread shutdowns, many office workers adjusted to working remotely and other industries called people back to their jobs.

But many Black, Hispanic and Asian workers who were overrepresented in the low-wage occupations most affected by the pandemic, including servers, bartenders, cooks and housekeepers, are still unemployed.

The overall unemployment rate dropped to 6.3% in January. But within that rate are huge racial disparities – over 9% of Black workers are unemployed, versus less than 6% of white workers:

WOMEN PUSHED OUT

Before the pandemic, the share of women either working or looking for work was rising, thanks to a record-long economic expansion.

The crisis reversed those gains, in part because the closures of schools and child care centers left working mothers with a weaker support system.

Some 2.5 million woman dropped out of the labor force during the pandemic, compared to 1.8 million men, according to data from the Labor Department.

Biden says he wants to help more women get back to work through policies that reopen schools safely and make childcare more affordable.

SECTOR BY SECTOR

Businesses that rely on travel or on people spending time close to each other indoors have rebounded the slowest, and many people who made their living by staffing kitchens, mixing drinks or cleaning hotel rooms are still out of work.

Employment in leisure and hospitality was down 23% in January from pre-pandemic levels in February 2020, more than any other industry.

Economists expect many of those jobs to return after coronavirus vaccines are distributed widely and consumers feel more comfortable spending money in restaurants, bars and other entertainment venues. But it’s not clear whether employment will return completely to previous levels.

LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED

Job searches have stretched on for some people, including many in the leisure and hospitality industry.

The “long-term unemployed,” or those who have been out of work for at least six months, now make up about 40% of the total unemployed, or about 4 million people, up from about 20% before the pandemic.

Research shows people who are long-term unemployed can have a harder time finding new jobs, putting them at greater risk of facing pay cuts or of dropping out of the labor market.

Biden wants to create federally subsidized jobs in healthcare, clean energy and other fields that could help the long-term unemployed move into new roles.

ACROSS THE MAP

Designing federal policies to help the out of work may be especially challenging because job losses vary widely from one state to the next.

Employment in Idaho, Utah and Kansas had fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels by December. But the situation was more dire in New York and tourism-dependent Nevada and Hawaii.

This could lead to wide disagreements among lawmakers about how much more aid is needed to nurse the economy, and the labor market, back to health.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Additional reporting by Howard Schneider. Editing by Heather Timmons and Andrea Ricci)

U.S. Senate passes budget plan to advance Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID aid package

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s drive to enact a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill gained momentum on Friday as the U.S. Senate narrowly approved a budget blueprint allowing Democrats to push the legislation through Congress in coming weeks with or without Republican support.

At the end of about 15 hours of debate and votes on dozens of amendments, the Senate found itself in a 50-50 partisan deadlock over passage of the budget plan. That deadlock was broken by Vice President Kamala Harris, whose “yes” vote provided the win for Democrats.

This was a “giant first step” toward passing the kind of comprehensive coronavirus aid bill that Biden has put at the top of his legislative agenda, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Shortly before the final vote, Democrats flexed their muscles by offering an amendment reversing three earlier votes that Republicans had won.

Those had used the coronavirus aid battle to voice support for the Canada-to-United States Keystone XL pipeline that Biden has blocked and support for hydraulic fracking to extract underground oil and natural gas.

Also overturned was a Republican amendment barring coronavirus aid to immigrants living in the United States illegally.

With Democrat Harris presiding, she broke a 50-50 tie to overturn those Republican victories.

It marked the first time Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, cast a tie-breaking vote after being sworn in as Biden’s vice president on Jan. 20.

Before finishing its work, the Senate approved a series of amendments to the budget outline, which had already passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday. As a result, the House must now vote again to accept the Senate’s changes, which could occur as early as Friday.

For example, the Senate added a measure calling for increased funding for rural hospitals whose resources are strained by the pandemic.

Senate Democrats and the Biden administration have said they want comprehensive legislation to move quickly to address a pandemic that has killed more than 450,000 Americans and left millions jobless.

They want to spend the $1.9 trillion to speed COVID-19 vaccines throughout the nation. Other funds would extend special unemployment benefits that will expire at the end of March and make direct payments to people to help them pay bills and stimulate the economy.

They also want to send money to state and local governments dealing with the worst health crisis in decades.

But as the hours wore on and dozens of amendments were offered, exhausted senators mainly spent the night disposing of Republican ideas, such as ending all U.S. foreign aid and prohibiting Congress from expanding the U.S. Supreme Court beyond its current nine justices.

RANGE OF ISSUES

Senators voted on issues ranging from immigration and abortion to energy and taxes. But none of the approved amendments will carry the force of law in a budget blueprint and mainly are guidelines for developing the actual coronavirus aid bill in coming weeks.

More importantly, the budget plan unlocks a legislative tool called reconciliation that is designed to let Democrats approve Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal by a simple majority.

Most legislation must get at least 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to advance. But the chamber is divided 50-50 and Republicans oppose the Democratic president’s proposal. Reconciliation would allow the Senate’s 48 Democrats and two independents who align with them to approve the relief package, with a tie-breaking vote from Harris.

Republicans have countered the budget plan with proposals that would be less than one-third the cost. While their plan dovetails with the Democrats’ in some respects, Biden has deemed it as too anemic to put the country back on its feet after a year of suffering through the pandemic.

A group of 10 Republican senators who met with Biden at the White House on Monday sent him a letter on Thursday saying that significant amounts of money already appropriated by Congress have not yet been spent.

Last year, Congress passed emergency bills totaling around $4 trillion to deal with the health and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus.

In early voting on Thursday, senators delivered a message to the Biden administration that direct payments should be tailored to those who need the money the most, as it voted 99-1 to recommend that high-income earners not qualify for a new round of government checks that could amount to $1,400 for individuals.

Senators did not specify income limits. But an earlier round of direct payments placed thresholds of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for married couples before the money would start scaling down.

“The decent compassionate thing is for us to target the relief to our neighbors who are struggling every day to get by” during the coronavirus pandemic, said Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, author of the proposal.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Biden to name special Yemen envoy, end support for Saudi-led coalition, aide says

By Jonathan Landay and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday will announce a new special envoy for Yemen and an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s offensive operations in that country’s civil war, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

The moves show that Biden plans to intensify the U.S. role in diplomatic efforts to close out the grueling conflict between the Saudi-backed government and the Iranian-align Houthi movement that has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Biden “is going to announce an end to American support for offensive operations in Yemen,” Sullivan told a White House briefing. “That is a promise he made in the campaign that he will be following through on.”

Sullivan also said that Biden would name a new special envoy for Yemen, but he did not disclose the person’s name. A source familiar with the matter said the U.S. president was expected to tap veteran U.S. diplomat Timothy Lenderking for the new post.

HUMANITARIAN CALAMITY

The end of U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s offensive operations does not extend to efforts to neutralize al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, Sullivan said.

“It extends to the types of offensive operations that have perpetuated a civil war in Yemen that have led to a humanitarian crisis,” he said.

The new U.S. administration, he noted, already has halted two sales of precision-guided munitions and kept regional allies in the region informed of actions to avoid surprises.

The civil war in Yemen has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including large numbers of civilians, and left 80% of the country’s 24 million people in need, according to the United Nations.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 on the side of the government and enjoyed the backing of the Trump administration, with the war increasingly seen as a proxy conflict between the United States and Iran.

But the mounting civilian death toll and growing humanitarian calamity fueled demands by Republican and Democratic lawmakers for an end to U.S. support for Riyadh.

Biden pledged during the 2020 presidential campaign to curtail U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign, including arms sales.

The U.N. has been struggling to broker peace talks between the government and the Houthis, an effort that Lenderking likely would be tasked to boost.

“Any move that reduces the number of weapons, military activity, is to be welcomed and will give more space and more hope not only to the (peace) talks, but importantly more hope to the people of Yemen,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The State Department is reviewing the Trump administration’s designation last month of the Iran-aligned Houthi group as a foreign terrorist organization.

The United States last week approved all transactions involving Yemen’s Houthi movement for the next month as it carries out the review. But the United Nations is still hearing concerns that companies are planning to cancel or suspend business with Yemen despite the move.

The U.N. and aid groups have called for the designation to be reversed, warning it would push Yemen into a large-scale famine.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Alistair Bell and Paul Simao)

Biden decides to stick with Space Force as branch of U.S. military

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden is looking at all policies put in place by Republican predecessor Donald Trump, with a view toward possibly rolling them back, but not so the U.S. Space Force.

“They absolutely have the full support of the Biden administration,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday about the Space Force, a day after her dismissal of a question about the service suggested Biden was less than enthusiastic about it.

The Space Force was created as a separate branch of the U.S. military by Trump, who spoke enthusiastically about the need for a force to protect American interests in orbit and celebrated its new flag in an Oval Office ceremony.

Since it was carved out of the Air Force, there had been speculation that Biden might seek to send the Space Force back to where it was before and deny Trump a signature achievement.

But Biden has decided to keep what has been called the world’s only independent space force, officially established in December 2019.

“We are not revisiting the decision to establish the Space Force,” Psaki said.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)

White House plans to send vaccine doses to retail pharmacies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House will launch a new program shipping coronavirus vaccines directly to retail pharmacies starting next week in an effort to increase Americans’ access to shots, a top aide said on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator, Jeff Zients, said the program will launch on Feb 11 and make 1 million doses available to 6,500 stores. As supply grows, the program could expand to as many as 40,000 stores, he said.

Biden said last month that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been a “dismal failure” so far and vowed to boost the speed at which shots are given to Americans, with a focus on ensuring equitable access regardless of geography, race, or ethnicity.

The federal government will distribute a million vaccine doses to the 6,500 stores next week, Zients said, adding that the amount will grow over time.

That is in addition to 10.5 million doses that the federal government plans to ship weekly to states and territories for the next three weeks, he added.

“This will provide more sites for people to get vaccinated in their communities,” Zients said, adding that supply constraints will limit the program in its early days.

The initial pharmacy locations were selected to improve access to vaccines in hard to reach areas and among socially vulnerable communities, Zients said.

CVS Health Corp said in a news release that its pharmacies will be participating in the program.

Zients also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse states for some COVID-related costs they had taken on since the pandemic began last January, such as for personal protective equipment and deployment of the national guard.

He said Congress does not need to approve funds for FEMA to do this and that the total payments to states will be between $3 billion and $5 billion.

Zients added that the federal government has acquired supplies of equipment healthcare providers need to get six doses from each vial of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine rather than five.

The Biden administration has said it is willing to use emergency wartime powers if necessary to secure the specialized low dead space syringes and other supplies needed to eliminate vaccine waste and improve administration efficiency.

The major winter storm that hit the east coast of the United States this week has not disrupted vaccine deliveries but has forced some vaccine administration sites to shut down or reduce operating hours, Zients said.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell, Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Biden orders review of Trump immigration rules as officials say time needed to unravel them

By Ted Hesson and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday will order a review of asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border and the immigration system as he seeks to undo some of former President Donald Trump’s hardline policies, two senior administration officials said.

Biden will also create a task force to reunite migrant families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by Trump’s 2018 “zero tolerance” border strategy, the officials said on a call with reporters on Monday.

Immigration advocates have urged the new Democratic administration to move quickly but officials say they need time to unravel the many layers of immigration restrictions introduced during the Trump era and to put in place new, more migrant-friendly systems.

“Fully remedying the actions will take time and require a full-governance approach,” one of the officials said.

Biden’s executive orders on Tuesday will not address repealing a coronavirus-era order, known as “Title 42,” that was issued under the Trump administration and allows border officials to expel almost all people caught crossing the border illegally.

He will also mandate a review of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a program that pushed 65,000 asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait for U.S. court hearings. Most returned to their home countries but some remained in a makeshift camp near the Mexican border.

The Biden administration has already stopped adding people to the program but crucially it has not yet outlined how it will process the claims of those already enrolled.

“I can’t tell you exactly how long it will take to put in an alternative to that policy,” another official told reporters on Monday in response to a reporter’s question about processing people enrolled in the program.

Chad Wolf, former acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary under Trump, said in an interview that halting the MPP program was a mistake because it had been an effective deterrent to illegal immigration.

“If you do have a surge (of migrants), you’re taking one of your tools off the table,” he said in reference to the program.

Biden advisers have said in recent months they will not immediately roll back Trump’s restrictive border and asylum policies due to concerns about encouraging illegal immigration during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden himself said in December that his administration needed to set up “guardrails” so that the United States does not “end up with two million people on our border.”

Biden’s actions on Tuesday will follow six immigration orders he issued on his first day in office and will further jumpstart his ambitious pro-immigrant agenda that seeks to erase Trump’s restrictive policies on legal and illegal immigration.

HURDLES

But Biden’s efforts face logistical challenges and opposition from Republicans, according to immigration policy experts, former officials and activists on both sides of the issue.

Lawsuits by conservative groups could potentially slow down Biden’s agenda. A federal judge last week temporarily blocked one of his first immigration moves – a 100-day pause on many deportations – after the Republican-led state of Texas sought an injunction.

Trump won the presidency in 2016 while making border security a major theme of his campaign. If Biden fails to prevent surges in illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, he could give ammunition to Republicans in the 2022 congressional elections, said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

“This is the thing that rallied Donald Trump supporters,” she said.

Biden’s review of Trump’s so-called “public charge” rule is expected to start the process to rescind it, according to two people familiar with the plan. The rule makes it harder for immigrants who are poor or need government help to secure residency and stay in the country.

Biden’s expected order setting up the task force to reunite parents and children separated at the southern border was a key election promise.

The task force, however, will face a daunting challenge in trying to track down the parents of more than 600 children who remain separated, according to a January court filing in a related case. The children are living with relatives or in foster care, according to an attorney representing plaintiffs in the litigation.

The task force will be led by Alejandro Mayorkas, one of the senior officials said on Monday. Mayorkas, Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, is expected to face a Senate confirmation vote on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin, Aurora Ellis and Alistair Bell)

Biden threatens U.S. sanctions in response to Myanmar coup

By David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday threatened to reimpose sanctions on Myanmar following a coup by the country’s military leaders and called for a concerted international response to press them to relinquish power.

Biden condemned the military’s takeover from the civilian-led government on Monday and its detention of elected leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law.”

The Myanmar crisis marks a first major test of Biden’s pledge to collaborate more with allies on international challenges, especially on China’s rising influence, in contrast to former President Donald Trump’s often go-it-alone “America First” approach.

It also represented a rare policy alignment between Biden’s fellow Democrats and top Republicans as they joined in denouncing the coup and urging Myanmar’s military face consequences.

“The international community should come together in one voice to press the Burmese military to immediately relinquish the power they have seized, release the activists and officials they have detained,” Biden said in a statement.

“The United States removed sanctions on Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy. The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action,” he said.

Biden also called on the military in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, to lift all restrictions on telecommunications and to refrain from violence against civilians.

He said the United States was “taking note of those who stand with the people of Burma in this difficult hour.”

“We will work with our partners throughout the region and the world to support the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, as well as to hold accountable those responsible for overturning Burma’s democratic transition,” he said.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide 83% in a Nov. 8 election. The army said in taking over in the early hours of Monday that it had responded to what it called election fraud.

‘INTENSIVE’ CONSULTATIONS

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a regular news briefing the United States has had “intensive” conversations with allies about Myanmar. She declined to say what other actions were under consideration aside from sanctions.

Asked whether Biden’s assertion that the United States was “taking note” of how other countries respond was a message to China, Psaki told reporters: “It’s a message to all countries in the region.”

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign relations committee, Robert Menendez, said the United States and other countries “should impose strict economic sanctions, as well as other measures” against Myanmar’s army and the military leadership if they did not free the elected leaders and remove themselves from government.

Menendez also charged that the Myanmar army was guilty of “genocide” against minority Rohingya Muslims – a determination yet to be stated by the U.S. government – and of a sustained campaign of violence against other minorities.

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who like members of the Biden administration has had close past ties with Suu Kyi, called the arrests “horrifying” and demanded a tough response.

“The Biden Administration must take a strong stand and our partners and all democracies around the world should follow suit in condemning this authoritarian assault on democracy,” he said.

McConnell added that Washington needed to “impose costs” on those behind the coup.

The events in Myanmar are a significant blow for the Biden administration and its effort to forge a robust Asia Pacific policy to stand up to China.

Many of Biden’s Asia policy team, including its head, Kurt Campbell, are veterans of the Obama administration, which at the end of former President Barack Obama’s term hailed its work to end decades of military rule in Myanmar as a major foreign policy achievement. Biden served as Obama’s vice president.

Obama started easing sanctions in 2011 after the military began loosening its grip, and he announced in 2016 the lifting many of the remaining sanctions. But in 2019, the Trump administration imposed targeted sanctions on four military commanders, including General Min Aung Hlaing, over human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims and other minorities.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Jonathan Landay, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick; editing by Grant McCool)