Senior House Republicans are moving swiftly to build a case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as they strongly weigh launching rare impeachment proceedings against a Cabinet secretary, a plan that could generate sharp backlash from GOP moderates.

Key committee chairmen are already preparing to hold hearings on the problems at the southern border, which Republicans say could serve as a prelude to an impeachment inquiry against Mayorkas. Three House committees — Oversight, Homeland Security and Judiciary — will soon hold hearings about the influx of migrants and security concerns at the border.

The House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over an impeachment resolution, is prepared to move ahead with formal proceedings if there appears to be a consensus within the GOP conference, according to a GOP source directly familiar with the matter. The first impeachment resolution introduced by House Republicans already has picked up support, including from a member of the GOP leadership team.

A GOP source said the first Judiciary Committee hearing on the border could come later this month or early February.

One top chairman is already sounding supportive of the move, a sign of how the idea of impeaching President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretary has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of the conference.

“If anybody is a prime candidate for impeachment in this town, it’s Mayorkas,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN.

It’s exceedingly rare for a Cabinet secretary to be impeached, something that has only happened once in US history — when William Belknap, the secretary of war, was impeached by the House before being acquitted by the Senate in 1876. Yet it’s a very real possibility now after Kevin McCarthy — as he was pushing for the votes to win the speakership — called on Mayorkas to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings.

With no signs that Mayorkas is stepping aside, House Republicans are signaling they’re prepared to move ahead, even as a bevy of members are uneasy about the approach.

Indeed, McCarthy has to balance his base’s demands for aggressive action with the concerns from more moderate members — many of whom hold seats in swing districts central to his narrow majority. And some in safer seats aren’t yet sold on whether the GOP should pursue that route.

“Clearly, the management of the Southern border has been incompetent,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Republican of South Dakota, told CNN. “That is not the threshold in the Constitution for impeachment — it’s high crimes and misdemeanors. … I would want to think about the legal standard the Constitution has set out — and whether or not that’s been met.”

If he loses more than four GOP votes on an impeachment resolution, the effort would fail in the House and could mark a huge embarrassment for the GOP leadership. Already, he has potentially lost one vote — Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas who signaled he is opposed to the effort right now — and several other members who are far from convinced that charging Mayorkas with committing a high crime and misdemeanor is warranted, even if they believe he’s done a lackluster job in helping secure the southern border.

“Has he been totally dishonest to people? Yes. Has he failed in his job miserably? Yes,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, said of Mayorkas. “Are those grounds for impeachment? I don’t know.”

Indeed, Republicans from swing districts are urging their colleagues to not rush into impeachment, which would be dead-on-arrival in the Senate and could turn the American people off if the party is perceived as overreaching.

“The border is a disaster and a total failure by the Biden administration. We should first to try to force change through our power of the purse,” Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a Biden-won district in Nebraska, told CNN. “Maybe after more oversight we’ll see where middle America is at, but I don’t think independent, swing voters are interested in impeachments.”

Asked Tuesday about his pre-election warning that Mayorkas could be impeached by the House over the GOP concerns about the borders, McCarthy railed on the problems at the border.

“Should that person stay in their job? Well, I raised the issue they shouldn’t. The thing that we can do is we can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told CNN, adding it could “rise to that occasion” of an impeachment if Mayorkas is found to be “derelict” in his duties.

Articles drafted up

During the first working week of their new majority, Rep. Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican, introduced articles of impeachment for Mayorkas over problems at the southern border, and Rep. Andy Biggs, a hard-right Arizona Republican, vowed to re-introduce a similar resolution in the coming weeks, which could serve as a template for eventual impeachment proceedings.

Fallon’s resolution says Mayorkas has “undermined the operational control of our southern border and encouraged illegal immigration,” also contending he lied to Congress that the border was secure.

Democrats say Republicans are threatening to impeach Mayorkas for pure political reasons, and say policy disputes hardly rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Mayorkas has already testified in front of Congress numerous times since he assumed his post, and his agency says he is fully prepared to continue complying with oversight in the GOP-led House. So far, there have been no formal requests for hearings or testimony, with congressional committees still working to get off the ground, though Republicans last year sent numerous letters and preservation requests telegraphing their plans for the majority.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Mayorkas made clear he has no plans to resign and called on Congress to come together to fix the nation’s immigration system.

“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “Members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which they have not updated in over 40 years.”

Yet there are signs that the push is gaining steam in the House GOP.

Fallon’s resolution has attracted the support of several Republicans who previously held off on calling for impeachment, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican and member of the Homeland Security Committee, and Oklahoma Rep. Stephanie Bice, a new member of the GOP leadership team — signaling the idea is hardly isolated to the fringe wing of the party.

Fallon, too, had not previously backed impeaching Mayorkas until this Congress. Fallon said that he introduced impeachment articles to help get “the ball rolling,” but still believes it’s key to show the American public why they believe Mayorkas deserves to be removed from his post.

“It is important, it is an emergency, you need to break the glass, you really do need to take it up, and then we’re going to have an additional investigation,” Fallon told CNN. “While that’s why I filed the articles, you can always just sit on them and not do anything with them. That starts the ball rolling, we’re going to give Mayorkas the opportunity to defend himself and his department.”

Meanwhile, key committee chairs are vowing to hold hearings on the crisis at the southern border and prepping plans to haul in officials for interviews. GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who leads the powerful House Judiciary Committee where impeachment articles would originate, suggested the issue would be one of the first hearings when his panel gets up and running.

GOP leaders are cognizant of the fact they can only afford to lose four Republicans on any given vote, and want to build a thorough case for impeachment that can bring the entire party along. But pressure is already building on McCarthy, who has emboldened members of his right flank in his bid to claim the speaker’s gavel — and even given them a powerful tool to call for his ouster if he doesn’t listen to their demands.

Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and one of the key negotiators in the standoff over McCarthy’s speakership and who was the first to call for Mayorkas’ impeachment, told CNN: “I’ve been very public about my belief that he has violated his oath, that he has undermined our ability to defend our country.”

Hard-right leading the charge

The primary committees that would be involved in building a case against Mayorkas are both chaired by members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus: Jordan and Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, the newly elected leader of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Part of Green’s pitch to become chairman has centered on how he will hold the Biden administration accountable over the southern border. Green told CNN he has a “five-phase plan” to delve into the issue.

“And if it turns out that (impeachment) is necessary, we’ll hand that over to Judiciary,” Green said. “We’ll have a fact-finding role.”

There’s also been talk of holding field hearings at the southern border, while Republicans plan to keep making visits there, as they did in the last Congress.

Jordan told reporters that the border problems will likely be one of his first hearings as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But a source close to Jordan, who has become a close McCarthy ally, cautioned that they will not move ahead with impeachment unless the party is fully on board

And it’s clear that House Republicans are not yet in agreement on the issue.

Freshman Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a Biden-won district in New York, told CNN shortly before being sworn in: “I think the top priority is to deal with inflation and the cost of living. … I don’t want to see what we saw during the Trump administration, where Democrats just went after the President and the administration incessantly.”

But there are some Republicans in Biden districts already lining up behind impeachment articles for Mayorkas, suggesting the politics could be moving in the GOP’s direction.

Freshman Rep. Nick Langworthy, another New York Republican, is among the 26 co-sponsors who have signed on to Fallon’s impeachment articles so far.

And another freshman New York Republican from a swing district, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, has also expressed support for impeaching Mayorkas.

D’Esposito contended that many Customs and Border Protection agents are tired of the leadership from the top.

“They are the ones that will tell you flat out that Secretary Mayorkas is not living (up) to his oath and he is failing to secure our homeland,” he added.

And South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, also a Republican who hails from a swing district, said Mayorkas needs to go.

“When you raise your hand and take an oath to protect our country’s border, and you intentionally and willfully neglect to do that job, you should lose it,” said Mace, who pointed to the influx of drugs across the southern border. “Either way, Secretary Mayorkas has to go.”

House Republicans who have long been itching to impeach Mayorkas have been trying to keep the pressure on their leadership, holding a news conference last month and urging McCarthy to more explicitly spell out where he stands on the issue before they voted him speaker.

But even if an impeachment resolution is approved in the House, winning a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict Mayorkas has virtually no chance of succeeding. Some Senate Republicans, such as Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota, were noncommittal about backing such a move. And Democrats are roundly dismissing the idea.

“A wonderfully constructive action,” Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said sarcastically when asked about the impeachment talk.

Coons quickly added: “I think that’d be an enormous waste of time.”

State must stopwasting rainwater

Professor Andrew Fisher’s article on increasing groundwater storage (“How California can save water from the atmospheric river,” Page A9, Jan. 8) may be feasible in the Pajaro Valley but not in the Central Valley due to the hardpan and salt buildup in the soils there.

It would be far better to build the Sites Reservoir south of Sacramento to store winter rains from the Sacramento River. But despite voters approving Proposition 1 in 2014 to build more water storage, Sacramento politicians seem to prefer sending years of excess rainwater down the Sacramento River to the ocean.

Ed KahlWoodside

Don’t reward migrantsfor breaking the law

If you don’t own a car and steal one, the law will not let you keep the car. If you embezzle, even if you are needy, you must repay the money. Similarly, if you break immigration laws, you should not be provided with food, housing, medical care or travel. Our justice system is based on the idea that you cannot benefit from breaking the law.

When people know that by crossing a border they can immediately improve their lives because of the foolish generosity of Americans, they will come in droves, as they have been. We need to stop giving away our wealth to lawbreakers; there is enough need here. Work on changing immigration laws, but don’t open the border and welcome lawbreakers with our taxes.

Denise KalmWalnut Creek

Letter ignorescritical COVID stats

Bob Wheeler would have us believe blue states with sustained lockdowns saved lives compared to red states that minimized lockdowns (“Plenty of reasons to vote for Democrats,” Page A6 Jan. 3). As evidence, he correctly states COVID deaths were higher in Florida (3,919 per million) than in California, (2,504 per million).

He conveniently ignores COVID deaths in New York, the poster child of lockdowns, which were almost the same as Florida — 3,897 per million according to the website Worldometer.

He also needs to take into consideration that about 75% of COVID deaths occur in people 65 and older, and Florida has a much higher percentage of seniors than either California or New York.

He also believes school closure learning loss is no big deal. In an affluent city like Walnut Creek with an abundance of resources, the learning gap in math and science can be closed. In Hayward, not so much.

Martin WilmingtonHayward

Paper should updatethe comics page

I am really tired of seeing political commentary on the comic pages: “Doonesbury,” which is outdated; “Mallard Fillmore,” which is out of touch; and “Dilbert,” which is just bad.

If you quit publishing dead white guys (Charles Schulz — and I love “Peanuts,” don’t get me wrong), please make room for new voices, especially women and people of color. The comics pages are still largely white, heterosexual, male, patriarchal standard fare.

Please update your comics pages. (And I’m sorry, “Cathy” doesn’t count.)

Karinne GordonPacific Grove

]]> https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/13/letters-1117/feed/ 0 8716205 2023-01-13T16:30:22+00:00 2023-01-15T10:11:34+00:00 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/11/letters-1113/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/11/letters-1113/#respond Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:30:08 +0000 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/?p=8713594&preview=true&preview_id=8713594 Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

Don’t settle for statusquo on climate change

I appreciate Lisa Krieger’s recent article, “When will we get a break from the storms?” (Page A1, Jan. 10), which provided both a thorough weather forecast and a historical perspective on California’s extreme weather events.

I was disappointed that it ended with the statement that “we should get used to [extreme] storm cycles,” as such a position ignores what actions we can take to minimize and mitigate climate change. A majority of Americans want Congress to act on climate change, and decarbonizing our energy supply is one of the most effective methods. Sixty-nine percent of Americans say developing alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, is a priority for the country.

We must tell Congress to enact bipartisan legislation that supports the nationwide generation, distribution and use of clean energy, and support streamlined building electrification and permitting.

Sarah HubbardSan Mateo

Article mischaracterizesNicaragua immigrants

Re. “Biden walks stretch of U.S.-Mexico border,” Page A1, Jan. 9:

Your article repeats disinformation regarding Nicaraguans fleeing repression and crime. The truth is that Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America and one of the safest in Latin America. Plus, there is no gang-related violence there.

Nicaragua is a very poor country, but since the Sandinistas regained power in 2007, poverty has steadily decreased.

Nicaraguan migration had been very low but has increased due to economic reasons. Our country’s sanctions as well as other U.S. policies against Nicaragua, and the U.S. support of the 2018 coup attempt, have hurt the Nicaraguan economy and its people, especially the poor. If the United States wants to decrease Nicaraguan migration, it should lift the sanctions and stop trying to overthrow the democratically elected President Ortega and the Sandinista government. They are supported by the vast majority of Nicaraguans.

Arlene ReedDiablo

Bush set patternof increasing debt

We should all welcome the goal of eliminating our annual federal deficit. But what is the modern origin of our current federal debt, which is now more than $31 trillion?

Over the next six years, the annual federal deficit soared to more than $500 billion per year. The 2008-09 fiscal year was our first $1 trillion deficit. Under President Bush, total debt went from $5.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion.

The pattern was set for continued annual deficits through the administrations of Obama, Trump and now Biden.

George FulmoreEmeryville

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans blame him for record numbers of migrants crossing into the country.

At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty street with abandoned buildings and walked along a metal border fence that separated the U.S. city from Ciudad Juarez.

His last stop was the El Paso County Migrant Services Center — but there were no migrants in sight. As he learned about the services offered there, he asked an aid worker, “If I could wave the wand, what should I do?” The answer was not audible.

Biden’s nearly four-hour visit to El Paso was highly controlled. He encountered no migrants except when his motorcade drove alongside the border and about a dozen were visible on the Ciudad Juárez side. His visit did not include time at a Border Patrol station, where migrants who cross illegally are arrested and held before their release. He delivered no public remarks.

The visit seemed designed to showcase a smooth operation to process legal migrants, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who have entered illegally, creating a counter-narrative to Republicans’ claims of a crisis situation equivalent to an open border.

But his visit was likely do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse him of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hard-line predecessor, Donald Trump.

In a sign of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter as soon as he touched down in the state that said the “chaos” at the border was a “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws. Biden later took the letter out of his jacket pocket during his tour, telling reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dismissed Biden’s visit as a “photo op,” saying on Twitter that the Republican majority would hold the administration “accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.”

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego welcomed Biden’s visit, but said a current lull in arrivals prevented the president from seeing how large the group of newcomers has been.

“He didn’t get to see the real difficulties,” said Samaniego, who was in the local delegation that greeted Biden. “It was good that he was here. It’s a first step. But we still need to do more and have more time with him.”

Elsewhere in El Paso where Biden did not visit, hundreds of migrants were gathered Sunday outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where they have been sleeping outdoors and receiving three meals a day from faith groups and other humanitarian organizations.

The migrants included several pregnant women, including Karla Sainz, 26, eight months along. She was traveling in a small group that included her 2-year-old son, Joshua. Sainz left her three other children back home in Venezuela with her mother.

“I would ask President Biden to help me with a permission or something so we can work and continue,” she said.

Juan Tovar, 32, one of several people in her group, suggested he also had political reasons for leaving his home country.

“Socialism is the worst,” he said. “In Venezuela, they kill us, they torture us, we can’t talk bad about the government. We are worse off than in Cuba.”

Noengris Garcia, also eight months pregnant, was traveling with her husband, teen son and the small family dog from the tiny state of Portuguesa, Venezuela, where she operated a food stall.

“We don’t want to be given money or a house,” said Garcia, 39. “We just want to work.”

Asked what he’s learned by seeing the border firsthand and speaking with the officers who work along it, Biden said: “They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them.”

El Paso is currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part due to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates.

Biden’s recent policy announcements on border security and his visit to the border were aimed in part at blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years.

From Texas, Biden traveled south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met Biden at the airport Sunday night and joined him in the presidential limousine for the ride to Biden’s hotel.

The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take measures that would resemble those of Trump’s administration.

The policy changes announced this past week are Biden’s biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.

The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to “incentivize a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organizations,” saying the policies are “not a ban at all” but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create.

The changes were welcomed by some, particularly leaders in cities where migrants have been massing. But Biden was excoriated by immigrant advocate groups, which accused him of taking measures modeled after those of the former president. Administration officials disputed that characterization.

For all of his international travel over his 50 years in public service, Biden has not spent much time at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The only visit that the White House could point to was Biden’s drive by the border while he was campaigning for president in 2008. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso in 2021, but she was criticized for largely bypassing the action, because El Paso wasn’t the center of crossings that it is now.

Trump, who made hardening immigration a signature issue, traveled to the border several times.

___

Associated Press writers Andres Leighton in El Paso, Texas; Anita Snow in Phoenix; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

EL PASO, Texas — Several hundred people marched through the streets of El Paso Saturday afternoon, and when they arrived at a group of migrants huddling outside a church, they sang to them “no estan solos” — “you are not alone.”

Around 300 migrants have taken refuge on sidewalks outside Sacred Heart Church, some of them afraid to seek more formal shelters, advocates say, amid new restrictions meant to crack down on illegal border crossings.

This is the scene that will greet President Joe Biden on his first, politically thorny visit to the southern border Sunday.

The president announced last week that Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans will be expelled to Mexico if they enter the U.S. illegally — an expansion of a pandemic-era immigration policy called Title 42. The new rules will also include offering humanitarian parole for up to 30,000 people a month from those four countries if they apply online and find a financial sponsor.

Biden is scheduled to arrive in El Paso Sunday afternoon before traveling on to Mexico City to meet with North American leaders on Monday and Tuesday.

Dylan Corbett, who runs the nonprofit Hope Border Institute, said the city is experiencing an increasing “climate of fear.”

He said immigration enforcement agencies have already started ratcheting up deportations to Mexico, and he senses a rising level of tension and confusion.

The president’s new policy expands on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which began in October.

Corbett said many Venezuelans have since been left in limbo, putting a strain on local resources. He said expanding those policies to other migrants will only worsen the circumstances for them on the ground.

“It’s a very difficult situation because they can’t go forward and they can’t go back,” he said. People who aren’t processed can’t leave El Paso because of U.S. law enforcement checkpoints; most have traveled thousands of miles from their homelands and refuse to give up and turn around.

“There will be people in need of protection who will be left behind,” Corbett said.

The new restrictions represent a major change to immigration rules that will stand even if the U.S. Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers.

El Paso has swiftly become the busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors along the U.S. border with Mexico, occupying the top slots in October and November. Large numbers of Venezuelans began showing up in September, drawn to the relative ease of crossing, robust shelter networks and bus service on both sides of the border, and a major airport to destinations across the United States.

Venezuelans ceased to be a major presence almost overnight after Mexico, under Title 42 authority, agreed on Oct. 12 to accept those who crossed the border illegally into the United States. Nicaraguans have since filled that void. Title 42 restrictions have been applied 2.5 million times to deny migrants a right to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

U.S. authorities stopped migrants 53,247 times in November in the El Paso sector, which stretches across 264 miles of desert in West Texas and New Mexico but sees much of its activity in the city of El Paso and suburban Sunland Park, New Mexico. The most recent monthly tally for the sector was more than triple the same period of 2021, with Nicaraguans the top nationality by far, followed by Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, Guatemalans and Cubans.

Many gathered under blankets outside Sacred Heart Church. The church opens its doors at night to families and women, so not all of the hundreds caught in this limbo must sleep outside in the dropping temperatures. Two buses were available for people to warm up and charge their phones. Volunteers come with food and other supplies.

Juan Tovar held a Bible in his hands, his 7-year-old daughter hoisted onto his shoulders. The 32-year-old was a bus driver in Venezuela before he fled with his wife and two daughters because of the political and financial chaos that has consumed their home country.

He has friends in San Antonio prepared to take them in, he said. He’s here to work and provide an education for his daughters, but he’s stuck in El Paso without a permit.

“Everything is in the hands of God,” he said. “We are all humans and we want to stay.”

Another Venezuelan, 22-year-old Jeremy Mejia, overheard and said he had a message he’d like to send to the president.

Leighton reported from El Paso and Spagat from Yuma, Arizona. AP writer Claire Galofaro contributed to this report from Louisville, Kentucky.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday the U.S. would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally, his boldest move yet to confront the arrivals of migrants that have spiraled since he took office two years ago.

The new rules expand on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which began in October and led to a dramatic drop in Venezuelans coming to the southern border. Together, they represent a major change to immigration rules that will stand even if the Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers.

“Do not, do not just show up at the border,” Biden said as he announced the changes, even as he acknowledged the hardships that lead many families to make the dangerous journey north.

“Stay where you are and apply legally from there,” he advised.

Biden made the announcement just days before a planned visit to El Paso, Texas, on Sunday for his first trip to the southern border as president. From there, he will travel on to Mexico City to meet with North American leaders on Monday and Tuesday.

Homeland Security officials said they would begin denying asylum to those who circumvent legal pathways and do not first ask for asylum in the country they traveled through en route to the U.S.

Instead, the U.S. will accept 30,000 people per month from the four nations for two years and offer the ability to work legally, as long as they come legally, have eligible sponsors and pass vetting and background checks. Border crossings by migrants from those four nations have risen most sharply, with no easy way to quickly return them to their home countries.

“This new process is orderly,” Biden said. “It’s safe and humane, and it works.”

The move, while not unexpected, drew swift criticism from asylum and immigration advocates, who have had a rocky relationship with the president.

“President Biden correctly recognized today that seeking asylum is a legal right and spoke sympathetically about people fleeing persecution,” said Jonathan Blazer, the American Civil Liberties Union’s director of border strategies. “But the plan he announced further ties his administration to the poisonous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era instead of restoring fair access to asylum protections.”

Even with the health law restrictions in place, the president has seen the numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border rise dramatically during his two years in office; there were more than 2.38 million stops during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take hard-line measures that would resemble those of the Trump administration.

That’s resulted in relentless criticism from Republicans who say the Democratic president is ineffective on border security, and the newly minted Republican House majority has promised congressional investigations on the matter.

The new policy could result in 360,000 people from these four nations lawfully entering the U.S. in a year, a huge number. But far more people from those countries have been attempting to cross into the U.S. on foot, by boat or swimming; migrants from those four countries were stopped 82,286 times in November alone.

Enyer Valbuena, a Venezuelan who was living in Tijuana, Mexico, after crossing the border illegally, said Thursday’s announcement came as no surprise but a blow nonetheless.

“This was coming. It’s getting more difficult all the time,” he said by text message.

Some Venezuelans waiting on Mexico’s border with the U.S. have been talking among themselves if Canada is an option, Valbuena said. He had been waiting for the outcome of the pandemic-related asylum ban before trying to enter the U.S. again and is seeking asylum in Mexico, which offers a much better future than Venezuela.

“If it becomes more difficult (to reach the U.S.), the best path is to get papers in Mexico,” said Valbuena, who currently works at a Tijuana factory.

Mexico has agreed to accept up to 30,000 migrants each month from the four countries who attempt to walk or swim across the U.S.-Mexico border and are turned back. Normally, these migrants would be returned to their country of origin, but the U.S. can not easily send back people from those four countries for a variety of reasons that include relations with the governments there.

Anyone coming to the U.S. is allowed to claim asylum, regardless of how they crossed the border, and migrants seeking a better life in the U.S. often pay smugglers the equivalent of thousands of dollars to deliver them across the dangerous Darien Gap.

But the requirements for granting asylum are narrow, and only about 30% of applications are granted. That has created a system in which migrants try to cross between ports of entry and are allowed into the U.S. to wait out their cases. But there is a 2 million-case immigration court backlog, so cases often are not heard for years.

The only lasting way to change the system is through Congress, but a bipartisan congressional effort on new immigration laws failed shortly before Republicans took the House majority.

“The actions we’re announcing will make things better, but will not fix the border problem completely,” Biden said, in pressing lawmakers to act.

Under then-President Donald Trump, the U.S. required asylum seekers to wait across the border in Mexico. But clogs in the immigration system created long delays, leading to fetid, dangerous camps over the border where migrants were forced to wait. That system was ended under Biden, and the migrants who are returned to Mexico under the new rules will not be eligible for asylum.

Biden will also triple the number of refugees accepted to the U.S. from the Western Hemisphere, to 20,000 from Latin America and Caribbean, over the next two years. Refugees and asylum-seekers have to meet the same criteria to be allowed into the country, but they arrive through different means.

Border officials are also creating an online appointment portal to help reduce wait times at U.S. ports of entry for those coming legally. It will allow people to set up an appointment to come and ask to be allowed into the country.

At the U.S.-Mexico border, migrants have been denied a chance to seek asylum 2.5 million times since March 2020 under the Title 42 restrictions, introduced as an emergency health measure by Trump to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But there always has been criticism that the restrictions were used as a pretext by the Republican to seal off the border.

Biden moved to end the Title 42 restrictions, and Republicans sued to keep them. The U.S. Supreme Court has kept the rules in place for now. White House officials say they still believe the restrictions should end, but they maintain they can continue to turn away migrants under immigration law.

The four nationalities that Biden addressed Thursday now make up the majority of those crossing the border illegally. Cubans, who are leaving the island nation in their largest numbers in six decades, were stopped 34,675 times at the U.S. border with Mexico in November, up 21% from October. Nicaraguans, a large reason why El Paso has become the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, were stopped 34,209 times in November, up 65% from October.

But Venezuelans were seen far less at the border after Mexico agreed on Oct. 12 to begin accepting those expelled from the United States. They were stopped 7,931 times, down 64% from October.

Venezuelans have said the changes have been difficult, particularly with finding a sponsor who has the financial resources to demonstrate the ability to support them. And even if they find a sponsor, sometimes they delay their arrival because they don’t have the economic resources to pay for the flight to the U.S. For some, the Venezuelan passport that they need has expired, and they cannot afford to pay for the renewal.

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Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana in Washington and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

In 2003, Isabel Bueso came to the U.S. from Guatemala at the age of 8 to receive life-saving treatment as part of a medical trial for Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome, also known as Mucopolysaccharidosis Type VI, a genetic disorder that ravages many of the body’s tissues and organs.

Bueso and her family had been residing lawfully in the East Bay under a program that allows immigrants to avoid deportation while receiving medical treatment not offered in their home country. But in 2019, the Trump Administration, without public notice, canceled the “deferred action” program. A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services letter sent to the Bueso family said they had 33 days to return to Guatemala or face deportation proceedings.

Her doctor, in a letter to the federal agency, described the order as the equivalent of a death sentence. Following public outcry, the Trump Administration reconsidered deferred action requests and ultimately extended the Bueso family’s stay for two years.

A bill authored by U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier signed in as law this week ensures the family can remain in the U.S. so she can continue receiving care. The bill allows them to apply for green cards at any point in the next two years, and conveys legal status for them to remain in the country.

“There are no words to express our feelings and gratitude for giving us the opportunity to create a solid future in this country,” Bueso said Wednesday. “Congressman DeSaulnier’s support and dedication to our struggle, finding a way forward and making it happen in spite of obstacles, is a testament to his commitment to making life better for his constituents and others. I hope that more people can get the relief like I did and that this will inspire others to know that their members of Congress can help.”

H.R. 758 was passed by the House of Representatives in June and received support from California’s two U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla. President Biden signed it into law Wednesday.

“Isabel’s medical condition is permanent and her status in the U.S. to get treatment should be too,” DeSaulnier said. “I am so relieved for the Buesos that they will finally get long overdue peace of mind now that President Biden has signed this bill into law so they can spend their time focusing on Isabel’s care instead of unnecessary paperwork and worry.”

Bueso is a summa cum laude graduate from Cal State East Bay and an advocate for patients with rare diseases. Before receiving treatment in the U.S., she was expected to live to be 7 years old. She is now 27.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is keeping pandemic-era limits on asylum in place for now, dashing hopes of migrants who have been fleeing violence and inequality in Latin America and elsewhere to reach the United States.

Tuesday’s ruling preserves a major Trump-era policy that was scheduled to expire under a judge’s order on Dec. 21. The case will be argued in February and a stay imposed last week by Chief Justice John Roberts will remain in place until the justices make a decision.

The limits, often known as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, were put in place under then-President Donald Trump at the beginning of the pandemic, but unwinding it has taken a torturous route through the courts. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attempted to end the policy in April 2022, but a federal judge in Louisiana sided with 19 Republican-led states in May to order it kept in place. Another federal judge in Washington said in November that Title 42 must end, sending the dispute to the Supreme Court. Officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Immigration advocates sued to end the policy, saying it goes against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution. They’ve also argued that the policy is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision comes as thousands of migrants have gathered on the Mexican side of the border, filling shelters and worrying advocates who are scrambling to figure out how to care for them.

“We are deeply disappointed for all the desperate asylum seekers who will continue to suffer because of Title 42, but we will continue fighting to eventually end the policy,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which had been arguing to end Title 42′s use.

Andrea Rudnik, co-founder of non-profit immigration aid organization Team Brownsville in South Texas, said the situation at the border is a humanitarian crisis. She said there are thousands of migrants camped on cardboard boxes and in makeshift tents near the entrance of the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros, Mexico, opposite Brownsville, without food, water, clothing or bathrooms.

“It is very readily becoming a dangerous situation because there’s no toilets,” Rudnik said. “Get that many people together with no bathrooms and you know what you have got.”

States that wanted Title 42 kept in place hailed the outcome. In a press release Tuesday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds praised the court’s decision while saying it’s not a permanent solution to the country’s immigration woes.

“I’m grateful that Title 42 remains in place to help deter illegal entry at the US southern border. But make no mistake — this is only a temporary fix to a crisis that President Biden and his administration have ignored for two years,” she said.

The Supreme Court’s decision said that the court will review the issue of whether the states have the right to intervene in the legal fight over Title 42. Both the federal government and immigration advocates have argued that the states waited too long to intervene and — even if they hadn’t waited so long — that they don’t have sufficient standing to intervene.

In the dissent, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that even if the court were to find the states have the right to intervene and Title 42 was lawfully adopted “… the emergency on which those orders were premised has long since lapsed.”

The justices said the “current border crisis is not a COVID crisis.”

“And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort,” the justices wrote.

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor also voted to deny the stay but did not sign a dissent.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s administration “will, of course, comply with the order and prepare for the Court’s review.”

“At the same time, we are advancing our preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration,” Jean-Pierre added. “Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely.”

In November, a federal judge sided with advocates and set a Dec. 21 deadline to end the policy. Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, warning that an increase in migration would take a toll on public services and cause an “unprecedented calamity” that they said the federal government had no plan to deal with.

Roberts, who handles emergency matters that come from federal courts in the nation’s capital, issued a stay to give the court time to more fully consider both sides’ arguments.

The federal government asked the Supreme Court to reject the states’ effort while also acknowledging that ending the restrictions abruptly would likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings.”

The precise issue before the court is a complicated, largely procedural question of whether the states should be allowed to intervene in the lawsuit. A similar group of states won a lower court order in a different court district preventing the end of the restrictions after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April that it was ending use of the policy.

Until the judge’s November order in the advocates’ lawsuit, the states had not sought to take part in that case. But they say that the administration has essentially abandoned its defense of the Title 42 policy and they should be able to step in. The administration has appealed the ruling, though it has not tried to keep Title 42 in place while the legal case plays out.

The Biden administration still has considerable leeway to enforce Title 42 as aggressively or as leniently as it chooses. For example, when a judge ordered last year that Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court be reinstated, it did so with such limited scope that it had little impact. That policy ended in August after the administration prevailed in the Supreme Court.

Mexico is another wild card. The use of Title 42 to quickly expel migrants depends largely on Mexico’s willingness to accept them. Right now Mexico takes expelled migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Venezuela, in addition to Mexico, but not other countries, such as Cuba. Most asylum seekers who cannot be sent to Mexico are not expelled.

Biden is scheduled meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City next month.

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Spagat contributed from San Diego. Associated Press journalist Acacia Coronado contributed from Austin, Texas.

California lost residents for the third consecutive year, but within another dreary report on a reduction in residents were five surprising twists.

Could shrinking losses and out-migration, a low death rate, plus growing births and immigrants eventually stop the state’s population declines?

Let’s start by noting that the new US Census Bureau data for the 12 months ending July 1 showed the Golden State was still the nation’s most populous state with 39 million residents – that’s 12% of all Americans. But California’s population suffered the nation’s No. 2 largest drop, off 113,649 in a year as the U.S. grew by 1.26 million overall.

Note that No. 2 Texas is now in the 30-million club, too. Next on the people-meter rankings comes Florida at 22.2 million, New York at 19.7, and Pennsylvania at 13 million. And just to remind you, there are some very tiny states: Wyoming at 581,381, Vermont at 647,064, Washington, D.C. at 671,803, Alaska at 733,583 and North Dakota at 779,261.

When it came to adding people, Texas also was number one, adding 470,708 new residents, followed by Florida at 416,754, North Carolina at 133,088, Georgia at 124,847 and Arizona at 94,320. (And on a percentage basis, the leaders were Florida at 1.9%, then Idaho at 1.8%, South Carolina at 1.7%, Texas at 1.6%, and South Dakota at 1.5%.)

California and 18 other states had population drops in the year. New York topped the list, losing 180,341 residents, and then after California came Illinois, down 104,437, Pennsylvania, down 40,051 and Louisiana, off 36,857.

However, buried within California’s people patterns were some unexpected twists.

Surprise No. 1: A significant shrinkage in decline

California’s 2022 drop was a 245,013 improvement over 2021’s 358,662 loss. No state had a larger variance in the one-year change.

The year’s return to a more normal post-pandemic life and the end of strict business limitations likely cooled the Golden State’s population decline.

No. 2 on the improvement scale was Florida at 178,287, then Texas at 144,318, New York at 70,463 and Georgia at 66,646. Results in 24 states worsened: the biggest decline was Pennsylvania at 57,670, then Oregon at 27,670, Connecticut at 23,143, Idaho at 20,393 and Utah at 13,641.

Moving about

The big drag on California’s population was that 343,230 more residents departed for other states than new neighbors arrived in the past year, the biggest “net outmigration” among the states.

Did bosses’ push for a return to office work slow the net outflow? The pace is still far above the 142,000 average of more outs than ins for California in pre-pandemic 2015-19.

There were 25 states with more exits than arrivals: New York was No. 2 at 299,557, then Illinois at 141,656, New Jersey at 64,231 and Massachusetts at 57,292.

Florida had the biggest net in-migration at 318,855, then Texas at 230,961, North Carolina at 99,796, South Carolina at 84,030 and Tennessee at 81,646.

Surprise No. 2: California’s “exodus” slowed

The net outflow fell by 115,721 over 12 months, the biggest improvement nationwide.

Florida had the No. 2 improvement at 74,922, then Georgia at 45,949, Texas at 38,140 and Tennessee at 31,196.

In 32 states, net migration was worse in 2022: Pennsylvania was tops at 67,704, then Connecticut at 32,566, Massachusetts at 30,575, New Jersey at 30,488 and Oregon at 27,616.

Making more babies

California ranked No. 1 for births with 424,652, a 12% share on par with its population size.

Then came Texas at 379,412, Florida at 220,578, New York at 212,145 and Pennsylvania at 132,099.

Surprise No. 3: The post-lockdown baby-making upswing

With coronavirus fears down, romance apparently resumed.

California had 3% more births in 2022 compared to the previous 12 months, the 20th biggest jump among the states and on par with the national growth rate. That was the first increase since 2015.

Tops was Florida, up 6.1%, then Connecticut at 5.7%, Vermont at 5.4%, Rhode Island at 5.3%, and Massachusetts at 5.2%. Baby-making declined in just three places: D.C., down 2.5%, New Mexico, off 1.7%, and Illinois, with a 0.1% dip.

Easing endings

California was also No. 1 for deaths at 318,497 followed by Texas at 261,253, Florida at 260,794, New York at 176,534 and Pennsylvania at 155,120.

Surprise No. 4: California had only 9% of U.S. deaths vs. its 12% share of the population

California is a younger state, but its strict pandemic-fighting prevention policies may also have kept deaths low.

California had a “death rate” of 0.8% of its population, only Utah was lower at 0.7%. In 2022, deaths took 1% of all Americans. Tying California was D.C. and Colorado. Texas was No. 5 at 0.9%.

Highest death rates? West Virginia at 1.7%, then Mississippi at 1.4%, and Kentucky, Arkansas and Alabama at 1.3%.

Moderate deaths helped California’s “natural growth” – demographic math tracking those who were born vs. those who had died. The state ranked No. 2 with 106,155 more babies than funerals – that’s 43% of the U.S. total.

Texas was No. 1 at 118,159, then after California came New York at 35,611, Utah at 23,549, and New Jersey at 19,751.

But in 24 states, deaths exceeded births. Typically, these are places with older populations, but pandemic policies may have been part of the issue.

Florida had the biggest gap at 40,216, then Pennsylvania at 23,021, Ohio at 19,543, Michigan at 12,482 and West Virginia at 12,158.

Foreign inflow 

Another California population booster were the 125,715 foreign newcomers, the national leader just ahead of Florida at 125,629. Then came Texas at 118,614, New York at 77,923, and Massachusetts at 43,880.

Look, California has long been an immigrant magnet, averaging 212,000 new residents a year from outside the state in 2015-19.

Surprise No. 5:  2022’s huge immigration jump created the largest foreign flow to California since 2016.

In the past year, reduced travel restrictions were a key reason. Also, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, plus the southern U.S. border challenges, juiced the immigrant wave across the nation.

California’s new residents from other lands grew by 185% in 12 months, the largest jump among the states and topping 169% national growth.

After California came Hawaii at 182%, Nevada at 181%, North Dakota at 179% and Arizona at 177%. Even the smallest jumps were eye-catching: Vermont and West Virginia rose 144%, Arkansas 146%, Maine 150% and Iowa 153%.

Immigration, legal or not, is a national hot-button topic. Yet as U.S. worker shortages grow more common in this aging nation, the American opportunity will certainly be a major lure.

Postscript

Growth may be sexy – but it’s also a costly endeavor.

Population loss is no doubt an ego-deflator with some real-world negative implications, including loss of national political clout.

However, California faces notable big-picture challenges that stretch much-needed supplies – from housing to water to electricity to transportation to the state government’s budget.

Flat population trends could give the state some needed breathing room in order for progress to be made in light of the complex headaches California faces, of which few have quick or easy solutions.

I’m hopeful the population decline doesn’t cool the urgency for meeting those huge challenges. Rather, it’s worth noting a potential upside to fewer Californians.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

CORRECTION: Story was updated with correct stats for growth in 2022 births.

Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus dropoffs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s Naval Observartory residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months.

Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children.Some were wearing T-shirts despite temperatures hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the coldest Christmas Eve on record for Washington, according to the Washington Post.

Laborde said employees had blankets ready for the people who arrived on Christmas Eve and moved them quickly onto waiting buses for a ride to a church. A restaurant chain donated dinner and breakfast.

Most of the arrivals were headed to other destinations and expected to remain in Washington only briefly.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday morning. His office said last week that Texas has given bus rides to more than 15,000 people since April to Washington, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, are strong critics of President Joe Biden on his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of people are trying to cross daily, many to seek asylum. Officials on both sides of the border are seeking emergency help in setting up shelters and services for migrants, some of whom are sleeping on streets.

Republicans argue Biden and Harris, designated the administration’s point person on the root causes of migration, have relaxed restrictions that induced many people to leave their countries of origin. Biden has ended some policies but kept others enacted by former President Donald Trump, whose administration also grappled with spikes in border crossings and at one point separated immigrant families and children as a deterrence initiative.