Author: PolitCens

U.S. lawmakers say the threat of domestic extremism remains high almost one month after pro-Trump protesters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five people. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, those threats are expected to continue well past the Senate impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump.
Camera:  Adam Greenbaum   Produced by: Katherine Gypson
 
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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a Democratic-supported resolution Thursday to reprimand a Republican lawmaker who encouraged violence against her Democratic colleagues.Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in taking a public stand, 230-199, against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy declined to reprimand her Wednesday.FILE – House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of CaliforniaPassage of the resolution allows lawmakers to strip the first-term legislator from the southeastern state of Georgia of two coveted committee assignments.Greene came under fire for expressing support for various baseless conspiracy theories, including the far-right QAnon theory that maintains elite Democrats are members of a sect of Satan-worshipping pedophiles and cannibals.  A CNN search of Greene’s Facebook page showed she “liked” in recent years calls for executing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats. The posts were dated 2018 and 2019, before Greene launched her campaign, and have since been deleted. McCarthy has met privately with Greene to discuss the revelation of her social media posts advancing numerous conspiracy theories. Greene has also promoted the false claims that Donald Trump won the November 3 presidential election and that mass school shootings that claimed the lives of dozens of children were staged events; has questioned whether the 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon actually occurred; and has suggested a space laser was deliberately used to ignite a California wildfire.  Greene has said her social media posts are managed by several people and that she does not see all of them. Earlier this week, Greene said she had spoken with Trump and had his continuing support.  Greene deviated from her incendiary remarks and actions on Thursday, telling colleagues in remarks from the House floor that “school shootings are absolutely real,” that “9/11 absolutely happened” and that “I do not believe it is fake.”  House Democrats, who control the chamber, have taken the unusual step of filing a resolution that would strip Greene of her committee assignments, denying her one of the most important responsibilities a lawmaker can fulfill. Most important legislation is debated in committees before being submitted for a vote by the full House. FILE – U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of MarylandHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters Wednesday that the action was necessary because Greene “has placed many members in fear for their welfare and she has attacked and made incendiary remarks prior to but also during her term as a member of Congress with respect to the safety and welfare of the speaker of the House.”  The political atmosphere in Congress has been especially acrimonious since the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which Trump is accused of inspiring. Some Trump supporters who broke into the building as lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win threatened to kill Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers, as well as Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president. As the House Republican caucus reached an uneasy agreement Wednesday to spare Greene of punishment, it also turned back an effort to remove Liz Cheney from her position as the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House over her January 13 vote to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection. VOA’s Katherine Gypson contributed to this report. 
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President Joe Biden promised Thursday that the United States would sharply increase its engagement around the world during his White House tenure, ending what he contended was the “past few years of neglect and abuse” of foreign relations by former President Donald Trump.“America is back,” Biden declared at the State Department in his first major foreign policy address as president. “America cannot afford to be absent on the world stage. Diplomacy is at the center of our foreign policy.”He said that “American alliances are our greatest assets,” while warning both Russia and China of American resolve. Trump, employing an “America First” credo, had often quarreled with traditional U.S. allies while taking a softer tone with authoritarian states.Biden said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call last week that “the days of the U.S. rolling over” to Moscow “are over.”The U.S. leader called on Putin to immediately release opposition leader Alexey Navalny “without condition.” Navalny was sentenced to 2½ years in prison this week after returning from Germany, where he had been recovering from being poisoned with a nerve agent last year by suspected Russian agents.As for China, Biden said, “We’ll work with Beijing when it’s in our interest to do so.”FILE – Houthi supporters chant slogans during a rally outside the closed U.S. Embassy over the decision of the Trump administration to designate the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization, in Sanaa, Yemen, Jan. 18, 2021.War in Yemen ‘has to end’Biden said he was ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen, calling it a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe. This war has to end.”Instead, he said, the U.S. hopes to end the five-year conflict in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country through diplomacy, with Biden naming a career diplomat, Timothy Lenderking, as a special envoy to Yemen.Saudi Arabia began the offensive in 2015 against a Houthi faction that had seized territory in Yemen and had begun launching cross-border missiles at Saudi Arabia. Riyadh responded with an air campaign that has killed large numbers of civilians, with survivors displaying parts of weapons that showed they were made in the United States.The conflict has added to the hunger and poverty in Yemen. Biden’s ending of U.S. support for the Saudi military offensive would fulfill a promise he made during his presidential campaign.The new president said he would keep U.S. troops in Germany, which Trump had suggested pulling out, and increase the number of refugees the U.S. would accept from the world’s trouble spots to 125,000 annually, a figure Trump had cut to 18,000.“Over the past two weeks, I’ve spoken with the leaders of many of our closest friends — Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Germany, France, NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia — to begin reforming the habits of cooperation and rebuilding the muscles of democratic alliances” that Trump weakened, Biden said.Biden also spoke to State Department employees, telling them, “This administration is going to empower you to do your jobs, not target or politicize you. We want a rigorous debate that brings in all perspectives, and makes room for dissent. That’s how we’ll get the best possible policy outcomes.”FILE – A copy of the Global Times newspaper featuring an image of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on its front page is seen at a newsstand in Beijing, China, Jan. 21, 2021.China policyNew Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters last week that the relationship between the U.S. and China was “arguably the most important relationship that we have in the world going forward.”Biden’s Thursday speech came as the U.S. ponders a new approach to China, which officials have said includes a policy of “strategic patience.”How to handle supply chain and intelligence threats from China is among the top priorities of the Biden administration. It has been reported that Biden is soon expected to sign an executive order to review U.S. supply chains, with a focus on coronavirus relief suppliers from foreign competitors.”We know that China is engaged in a range of conduct that hurts American workers,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week. “It blunts our technological edge, it threatens our alliances and influence in international organizations, and China is engaged in gross human rights violations that shock the conscience.”“So, we will counter China’s aggressive and coercive actions, sustain our key military advantages, defend democratic values, invest in advanced technologies and restore our vital security partnerships,” he added.FILE – An image from video shows Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who is accused of flouting terms of a suspended sentence for embezzlement, during the announcement of a court verdict in Moscow, Feb. 2, 2021.Calls to counterpartsBiden has spoken by phone with several foreign leaders since taking office, including the leaders of traditional U.S. allies and Russia’s Putin.During that call, the White House said, Biden raised contentious issues such as the arrest of opposition figure Navalny, as well as Moscow’s cyber-espionage campaign, while seeking common ground by agreeing to extend a landmark nuclear arms deal with Russia that was about to expire.On Wednesday, the U.S. and Russia announced they had extended the New START arms control treaty for five years, pursuing arms control between the world’s two largest strategic nuclear arsenals.“We remain clear-eyed about the challenges that Russia poses to the United States and the world,” Blinken said in a statement.He added that the U.S. would “work to hold Russia to account for adversarial actions as well as its human rights abuses, in close coordination with our allies and partners.”     
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The U.S. House of Representatives votes Thursday on a Democratic-supported resolution to reprimand a Republican lawmaker who encouraged violence against her Democratic colleagues. The vote forces Republicans to take a public stand for or against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy declined to reprimand her on Wednesday. FILE – House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of CaliforniaPassage of the resolution would allow lawmakers to strip the first-term legislator from the southeastern state of Georgia of two coveted committee assignments. Greene came under fire for expressing support for various baseless conspiracy theories, including the far-right QAnon theory that maintains elite Democrats are members of a sect of Satan-worshipping pedophiles and cannibals.  A CNN search of Greene’s Facebook page showed she “liked” in recent years calls for executing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats. The posts were dated 2018 and 2019, before Greene launched her campaign, and have since been deleted. McCarthy has met privately with Greene to discuss the revelation of her social media posts advancing numerous conspiracy theories. Greene has also promoted the false claims that Donald Trump won the November 3 presidential election and that mass school shootings that claimed the lives of dozens of children were staged events; has questioned whether the 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon actually occurred; and has suggested a space laser was deliberately used to ignite a California wildfire.  Greene has said her social media posts are managed by several people and that she does not see all of them. Earlier this week, Greene said she had spoken with Trump and had his continuing support.  Greene deviated from her incendiary remarks and actions on Thursday, telling colleagues in remarks from the House floor that “school shootings are absolutely real,” that “9/11 absolutely happened” and that “I do not believe it is fake.”  House Democrats, who control the chamber, have taken the unusual step of filing a resolution that would strip Greene of her committee assignments, denying her one of the most important responsibilities a lawmaker can fulfill. Most important legislation is debated in committees before being submitted for a vote by the full House. FILE – U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of MarylandHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters Wednesday that the action was necessary because Greene “has placed many members in fear for their welfare and she has attacked and made incendiary remarks prior to but also during her term as a member of Congress with respect to the safety and welfare of the speaker of the House.”  The political atmosphere in Congress has been especially acrimonious since the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which Trump is accused of inspiring. Some Trump supporters who broke into the building as lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win threatened to kill Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers, as well as Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president. As the House Republican caucus reached an uneasy agreement Wednesday to spare Greene of punishment, it also turned back an effort to remove Liz Cheney from her position as the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House over her January 13 vote to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection. VOA’s Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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U.S. House Democrats have requested that former President Donald Trump testify under oath for his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate.Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin requested in a letter sent via email Thursday that the former president testify “either before or during” the trial that begins in earnest on February 9.There was no immediate comment from Trump or his advisers, but Raskin requested that he respond by Friday at 5 p.m. EST.“If you decline this invitation, we reserve any and all rights, including the right to establish at trial that your refusal to testify supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions (and inaction) on January 6, 2021,” Raskin said.Trump is charged with inciting a mob of supporters that broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6.Minutes before the attack on the building that resulted in the deaths of five people, Trump told thousands of his supporters at rally near the White House to “fight like hell” as Congress was in the process of formally certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.Thousands of supporters marched to the Capitol, many of whom broke into the building, interrupting the certification of the results. A Capitol Police officer was among those who died in the rioting, and the House impeached Trump one week later, with the help of 10 Republicans who joined Democrats in support.
 
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President Joe Biden on Thursday called for a confrontation of the “political extremism” that inspired the U.S. Capitol riot and appealed for collective strength during such turbulent times in remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, a Washington tradition that asks political combatants to set aside their differences for one morning.
The breakfast has sparked controversy in the past, particularly when President Donald Trump used last year’s installment to slam his political opponents and question their faith. Some liberals have viewed the event warily because of the conservative faith-based group that is behind it.
Still, Biden campaigned for the White House as someone who could unify Americans, and the breakfast gave the nation’s second Catholic president a chance to talk about his vision of faith as a force for good. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said the event is “an inclusive and positive” one that “recognizes the teachings of Jesus but is not limited to Christianity.”
The breakfast is moving forward at a time when the nation’s capital is facing a series of historic crises. Biden is struggling to win significant support from congressional Republicans for a coronavirus response package, raising the likelihood that he will rely only on Democrats to pass the legislation.
Many in Washington are still navigating the aftermath of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last month, which Biden alluded to in his remarks Thursday, referencing the “political extremism” that propelled the siege. Trump faces an unprecedented second impeachment trial in the Senate next week over his role in inciting the riot.
“For so many in our nation, this is a dark, dark time,” Biden told those watching the event. “So where do we turn? Faith.”
Biden’s message on Thursday marked his latest call to return Washington to more traditional footing after four years of Trump’s aggressive style. During the 2020 breakfast, Trump singled out Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who had voted to convict the president during his first impeachment trial. Trump even held up a newspaper with a headline reading “ACQUITTED” over his own picture.
Every president has attended the breakfast since Dwight D. Eisenhower made his first appearance in 1953. The event went entirely virtual this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, with Biden and all other speakers appearing via taped remarks. Four living former presidents sent messages to the breakfast, with three speaking on tape while Coons read a message from former President Jimmy Carter — making Trump’s absence conspicuous.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a GOP co-chair of this year’s breakfast, pointed to regular faith-based gatherings on Capitol Hill that draw senators from both ends of the ideological spectrum as a model for the event. “We don’t see eye to eye philosophically, politically, but we do embrace each other as brothers of faith,” Scott, who also offered virtual remarks at the breakfast, said in an interview.
The breakfast has drawn pushback from gay and civil rights activists since President Barack Obama’s administration, with much of the opposition focused on the Fellowship Foundation, the conservative faith-based organization that has long supported the event. Religious liberals mounted a protest outside Trump’s first appearance in 2017, criticizing his limits on refugee admissions to the U.S., and a Russian gun rights activist convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent attended the breakfast twice during his administration.
Norman Solomon, co-founder and national director of the progressive activist group RootsAction, warned Biden not to “reach across any aisle to bigotry.”
“We don’t need any unity with bigotry,” Solomon said. “I fear a subtext of this engagement is, ‘Can’t we all get along.’ But that’s not appropriate in this case given the well-known right-wing and anti-gay background of the event’s sponsors.”
Solomon said Democratic presidents have continued a tradition of attending an event where their Republican counterparts often felt more comfortable because they feared being labeled as “anti-religious or nonreligious.” He said that Biden, a devout Catholic who attends Mass every week, could better send a unifying message by skipping the event and instead attending one that is truly bipartisan.
“God knows there are many religious leaders and gatherings that are devout and affirm human equality,” he said. “This isn’t one of them.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, agreed that “there are far better ways” than the breakfast for Biden to connect with people on the basis of shared spiritual beliefs.
“We would love to work with the administration to figure out a way to change the sponsorship of an event like this and to make it a place for Americans of all different religious beliefs,” Laser said.
Yet Democratic leaders, aware of Biden’s devout Catholic faith and calls for healing, have largely refrained from public comment on the event this year. Pelosi, D-Calif., taped her own message to the event on Thursday morning.  
Both Laser and Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, a fellow in the faith initiative at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, pointed to the Christian symbolism seen during last month’s Capitol riot as an opening for Biden to offer pluralistic, open language about faith going forward.
“I hope President Biden recognizes we’re in a new moment,” Graves-Fitzsimmons said, “and that the Christian nationalism threat is a threat to both the sacred religious pluralism of the U.S. and to Christianity.” 
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With the odds seemingly in favor of former President Donald Trump prevailing in his impeachment trial, a debate is brewing among legal scholars and some members of Congress over whether a once-forgotten provision of the U.S. Constitution can be used to bar the former president from holding federal office ever again. The provision is part of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Ratified in 1868, the amendment is best known for expanding the civil rights of American citizens and guaranteeing “equal protection” under the law. Its little known but hotly debated Section Three bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or who has given “aid and comfort” to its enemies from holding office.   Trump faces a single charge of “incitement of insurrection” for his alleged role in instigating his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6 to prevent the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump. With 45 Republican senators challenging the legality of trying a former president, the chances that the Senate will convict and disqualify Trump from office remain slim. That will potentially leave Democrats with one untested constitutional tool for disqualifying a former president: the 14th Amendment. Section Three of the amendment gives Congress the power to enforce its provisions by “appropriate legislation.” This has led some legal scholars to argue that the Democratic-controlled Congress can pass a law by simple majority to bar Trump from holding office in the future. “Congress can immediately pass a law declaring that any person who has ever sworn to defend the Constitution — from Mr. Trump to others — and who incited, directed, or participated in the January 6 assault ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ and is therefore constitutionally disqualified from holding office in the future,” Deepak Gupta, a constitutional law expert, and Brian Beutler, editor-in-chief of Crooked Media, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times last month. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2016, is among a handful of lawmakers proposing to use the 14th Amendment to prevent Trump from ever seeking federal office again. Kaine contends that Republicans would be more inclined to support invoking the 14th Amendment than convicting Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors.Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaks during a hearing with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee to examine the nomination of Miguel A. Cardona, of Connecticut, to be Secretary of Education on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 3, 2021.“What I want to do is offer my colleagues an option to impeachment,” Kaine said at a news conference late last month.   There are some complications, however. For instance, under the 14th Amendment, it is unclear who gets to decide whether a government official has engaged in an insurrectionist activity and merits disqualification. Some scholars argue that it is up to the courts, not Congress, to make the determination. “Section Three does not identify any mechanisms for determining whether an official has actually engaged in insurrectionist activities that would trigger the disqualification, and as a consequence it has not been used very much and it is not even clear what kind of mechanism would be constitutional,” said Keith Whittington, a Princeton University professor of politics. What is more, Whittington warned, allowing a simple majority of Congress to impose a lifetime ban on a former president could open a Pandora’s box. Once in control, Republicans could return the favor by voting to disqualify Democrats for expressing views on protests that turned into riots. “There is a great deal of obvious political risk in having the Congress just make such determinations by majority vote and potentially disqualifying from office members of the minority party with little evidence and through an entirely partisan political process,” Whittington said via email. Some top Democrats are not persuaded the 14th Amendment is the route to go.Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the majority whip, joined at right by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., takes a question at a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 2, 2021.Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said January 22: “I haven’t been convinced yet, because the 14th Amendment is not explicit on how you determine whether someone participated in an insurrection.” History   Were it not for the January 6 Capitol riots, few outside legal circles would know about Section Three of the 14th Amendment. The provision was designed to bar former members of the Confederacy from holding high office, according to Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.   “After the 14th Amendment was ratified, Section Three was enforced for a period of about four years against various officials who were either in office or people who were elected to office and then were denied the right to take that office because they were seen as ineligible,” Magliocca said in an interview.   Since the end of Reconstruction, the provision has been used only once, according to Magliocca. In 1919, Victor Berger, a socialist member of Congress from Wisconsin was disqualified and denied his seat after being convicted for his anti-war activities under the Espionage Act, a conviction that was later overturned by the Supreme Court.   “The House of Representatives decided that [Berger’s antiwar stance] constituted giving aid and comfort to Germany and therefore that member was ineligible to serve,” Magliocca said. Post-January 6 debate For the next century and a half, the provision largely fell into oblivion. All that changed after January 6 when a mob of Trump supporters breached and vandalized the U.S. Capitol — leaving five people including a police officer dead and prompting the House of Representatives to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” In calling for Trump’s disqualification from office, the article of impeachment filed against him references Section Three of the 14th Amendment. However, the House Democratic prosecutors barely mention it in their pre-trial brief submitted to the Senate on Tuesday.   That could mean House Democrats are keeping it as an option that they could use down the road, Magliocca said, adding that members of Congress are working on legislation related to the provision. If Congressional Democrats decide to invoke the 14th amendment in order to disqualify Trump, they could do two things, according to Magliocca. First, pass legislation establishing an enforcement mechanism for Section Three. This could be similar to the first Ku Klux Klan Act of 1870 that created a process for removing former Confederate officials from public office, Magliocca said.   Second, pass a non-binding resolution finding Trump ineligible to hold office again and urging the courts to accept their verdict.   “The former president would have every right to challenge any determination that he’s ineligible in court and pursue all his legal remedies all the way up to the Supreme Court,” Magliocca said. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s executive orders this week reversing Trump administration immigration policies change little on the ground now but set the stage for future action, experts told VOA.It is a message Biden himself reinforced when he signed three orders Tuesday.“I want to make it clear — there’s a lot of talk, with good reason, about the number of executive orders that I have signed. I’m not making new law. I’m eliminating bad policy,” he told reporters.For now, immigrant rights advocates are signaling a wait-and-see approach as the new administration launches a process to review restrictive immigration policies implemented by Trump.“If there’s an existing regulation, and then there’s a process to go through to get rid of the regulation, some things are just going to take longer than others as a procedural matter,” Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project, told VOA.Backers of the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives are warning of chaos at the U.S. southern border if policies return to what they were before Trump was in the White House.Task force to reunite separated familiesBiden’s first action ordered a task force to identify all migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border under the previous administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy for undocumented arrivals. It also instructed the task force to facilitate family reunification and examine whether those families are eligible for immigration relief under current immigration law.In 2018, the Trump administration directed U.S. attorneys to detain anyone who crossed the border illegally, breaking with long-standing U.S. policies to release most asylum-seekers pending their immigration court dates.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 30 MB1080p | 57 MBOriginal | 168 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAt least 5,500 children were separated from their families in overcrowded detention facilities. While most have been reunited, several hundred children remain in U.S. custody while attempts continue to locate their parents or other family members, many of whom were deported to their countries of origin.ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said he is “pleased” with the creation of the task force but notes that the executive action does not address whether parents removed from the U.S. will be given humanitarian protections and allowed to come back to the United States to reunite with their children.Biden’s order asks for an initial report in 120 days — a time frame that does not satisfy Gelernt, who was the lead attorney in a 2018 class-action lawsuit the ACLU filed against the U.S. government over family separations.“Separated families need immediate action. They cannot wait 120 days for a task force to make recommendations,” he said. “These families deserve citizenship, care and resources. We hope the task force acts with urgency and look forward to working with it to reunite families and ensure that this never happens again.”Immigration attorneys said it should not take long before actual changes begin to happen under the new administration. But University of San Francisco law and migration studies professor Bill Hing said when it comes to family reunification, Biden needs to “offer more.”“Part of the remedy is that you let the people come (back) because it’s not just to get a visa, it’s to get services,” Hing said, adding, “They all need mental health services.”US border policiesBiden’s second order sets in motion a series of reviews, including the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which have forced tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to await U.S. immigration court dates on the Mexican side of the border.Though MPP has been suspended going forward, it remains unclear what will happen to people who have been placed in the program and are waiting in Mexico for their immigration court date.The Biden administration is also reviewing a possible relaunching of the Central American Minors Program.Before the Trump administration, foreign minors could be lawfully reunited with family members already living in the United States if they met certain requirements. Trump ended the program in 2017.“One of the things (in the executive order) is to try to expedite the reunification of family members rather than having a young person wait abroad for maybe one or two years while the normal paperwork is in process,” said New York-based Legal Aid Society immigration attorney Hasan Shafiqullah.Review of legal immigration restrictionsThe third executive action directs the State Department, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to reevaluate existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies and other agency actions taken in the last four years pertaining to immigration.Chief among them is the former administration’s expansion and enforcement of the public charge rule, which sets forth an immigrant’s likelihood to rely on public assistance programs as a criterion in assessing a permanent residency application.Biden’s order also calls for improving the U.S. naturalization process by reducing barriers and streamlining procedures.Immigration attorney L. Patricia Ice with the Mississippi Immigration Rights Alliance said the order is aimed at eliminating barriers and streamlining the existing naturalization process.“I think this is one of the important parts of this executive order, because it will make the naturalization process easier,” she said. “It will make it shorter, so that people who apply for naturalization won’t have to wait a year or more. I have had clients who have been waiting for a long time to get an interview.”Conservative reactionLora Ries, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, said in a statement that the executive orders are harmful and will undermine America’s immigration system.“America’s immigration policy should protect our borders, uphold our laws, and safeguard our values, but these immigration executive orders are just more evidence that the Biden administration is intent on implementing a radical immigration agenda that does none of those things,” she said.Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the orders “undercut bipartisan immigration solutions.”“The refusal to continue building the border wall and changing Trump asylum policies requiring migrants to wait in Mexico for their court date are formulas for disaster and will create massive future runs on the border,” he said.Immigrant advocates, by contrast, call Biden’s executive actions a much-needed starting point.“Things require additional agency action for process to take place. … It kind of sets out a broad framework and provides some guideposts but really leaves it to the (U.S.) agencies to fill it out right and figure out,” the ACLU’s Jadwat said.
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U.S. President Joe Biden renewed his commitment Wednesday to send $1,400 checks to millions of adult Americans to boost the country’s coronavirus-ravaged economy. But he said he was open to Republican demands to tighten restrictions on who would get the money.  In a call to Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives and later at a White House meeting with a group of Democratic senators, Biden called for quick passage of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that includes the stimulus checks, pushing aside a call by some Republican senators for a more limited $618 billion deal.  Biden told the House lawmakers he was willing to set lower income limits on who would get the $1,400 checks, but not cut the size of the stipends. Coupled with $600 payments approved by former President Donald Trump in December, the combined $2,000 in assistance would equal Biden’s promise during his winning campaign last year for the White House.  U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Democratic senators to discuss efforts to pass coronavirus relief legislation, in the Oval Office, Feb. 3, 2021.”I am not going to start by breaking a promise to the American people,” he said about the direct payments that under his plan as it stands now would go to individuals earning up to $75,000 or couples with an annual combined income of up to $150,000. Republicans and some Democrats have called for only sending the payments to people with much lower incomes.  “We can better target the number, I’m OK with that,” Biden said.  Senate Republicans have called for issuing $1,000 payments for individuals earning up to $40,000 or couples making twice that, while completely phasing out the payments at $50,000 for singles or $100,000 for married couples.  But Biden told reporters, “I think we’ll get some Republicans” to vote for his relief measure.  According to several people listening to the call, Biden told the House Democrats, “Let’s stick together. I have your back, and I hope you’ll have mine.”  The president made an emotional case for quick approval of the virus relief aid, saying suicides in the U.S. were increasing at an alarming rate, and drug addiction was worsening during the pandemic.  Biden told the Democrats the Republicans’ $618 billion package “was not even in the cards.”  Later, Biden met with a group of Senate Democratic leaders at the White House. On Monday, he met with 10 Republican senators who pushed for their smaller relief package.   FILE – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) looks on during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, Feb. 2, 2021.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats agreed to a “big and bold” approach.  “We want to do it bipartisan, but we must be strong,” Schumer told reporters after the meeting. “We cannot dawdle, we cannot delay, we cannot dilute, because the troubles that this nation has and the opportunities that we can bring them are so large.”  Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said, “I think we’re leaving open the possibility of Republicans working with us, but I think the bottom line is we have to deliver.”  Biden also told lawmakers he was more concerned that they would spend too little on a recovery package rather than too much, although some lawmakers, particularly Republicans, are balking at the overall size of the package, especially since the government approved nearly $4 trillion in relief aid last year.  The Biden measure includes billions for vaccine distribution and other medical equipment to fight the pandemic. His proposal also would hike the national minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15, which most Republicans oppose.  Senate Democrats on Tuesday put Biden’s $1.9 trillion package on a track for fast passage, likely with little or no Republican support.  With a 50-49 vote starting discussions on government spending, the Senate cleared the way for eventual approval of Biden’s relief plan with a simple majority rather than the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation.  
 
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Donald Trump is no longer in the White House, but the former U.S. president’s influence is still keenly felt on Capitol Hill, where the January 6 rioting by his supporters has created deep divisions within the Republican Party.House Republicans planned to meet Wednesday to decide the futures of two members of their caucus on opposite sides of the debate over Trump: Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican leader in the House, and freshman Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has expressed support for far-right conspiracy views, including those of QAnon.At issue is whether to strip the pro-Trump Greene of her committee assignments and whether to remove Cheney from the Republican leadership team for her vote to impeach Trump. Those decisions will force a reckoning on whether Republicans remain loyal to Trump and his supporters or move away from his influence.Ten House Republicans voted with Democrats January 13 to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last month. Cheney, the only woman on her party’s leadership team, was the highest-ranking Republican to vote for impeachment. She released a statement so strongly condemning Trump that it was cited by Democratic House impeachment managers in their trial brief.FILE – Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 17, 2019.’Never been a greater betrayal’“None of this would have happened without the President,” Cheney wrote in a January 12 statement assigning blame for the riot at the Capitol that left five people dead, including a police officer, and temporarily stopped the counting of Electoral College votes that showed Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the November election.“The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she said.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who voted along with 146 other Republicans in favor of overturning the Electoral College results on January 6 — has been careful to not call for Cheney’s removal nor to support what she called a “vote of conscience.” Instead, he told cable network CNN last month that she “has a lot of questions she has to answer.”McCarthy has also been meeting privately with Greene to discuss Democrats’ outrage following the revelation of her social media posts advancing numerous conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and mass school shootings, as well as her liking a Facebook post calling for the execution of Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.Greene has said her social media posts are managed by several people and that she does not see all of them. In a Tweet Wednesday, Greene responded to these allegations, writing that Democrats “are only set out to destroy Republicans, your jobs, our economy, your children’s education and lives, steal our freedoms, and erase God’s creation.” Earlier this week, Greene said she had spoken with Trump and had his continuing support.FILE – Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, wears a “Trump Won” face mask as she arrives to take her oath of office as a newly elected member of the U.S. House, in Washington, Jan. 3, 2021.Democrats’ moveHouse Democrats, who control the chamber, have taken the unusual step of filing a resolution that would strip Greene of her committee assignments, denying her one of the most important responsibilities a lawmaker can fulfill.House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland announced Wednesday that the full House would vote Thursday on removing Greene from those assignments. “I spoke to Leader McCarthy this morning and it is clear there is no alternative to holding a floor vote on the resolution to remove Rep. Greene from her committee assignments,” Hoyer said in a statement.The freshman Georgia lawmaker cannot be ousted from her congressional seat, but the Democrats could unite to deny her committee assignments.This push by the Democrats to punish Greene has put McCarthy in a tough position. He has to decide whether to stand by Greene, whom Trump has praised as a “rising star” in the party, or punish her in response to demands from Democrats and some in his own party.Similarly, McCarthy appears to be struggling to determine whether to back Cheney in the face of growing Republican criticism of her impeachment vote or support removing her from her party leadership position while she remains a House member.FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 12, 2020.Trump impeachment trialThe controversies over Greene and Cheney come as the Senate is poised to begin an impeachment trial of Trump, who has been accused of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol. Trump is the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice and will be the first to undergo an impeachment trial after leaving office.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, took the unusual step of commenting on House matters earlier this week, not naming Greene in a statement but saying “loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country.”Describing the Capitol riot last month, McConnell said, “The mob had been fed lies by the president and other powerful people.” A conviction of Trump in the Senate trial is unlikely since 17 Republicans in the chamber would need to vote along with all 50 Democrats to reach the two-thirds majority needed. Last week, 45 of the 50 Senate Republicans voted in favor of a resolution calling the impeachment trial of a former president unconstitutional.  
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Congressional leaders gathered Wednesday in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to pay tribute to Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after being injured during the siege of the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump on January 6. Sicknick’s remains arrived Tuesday at the Capitol in a solemn ceremony featuring dozens of Capitol Police officers, who stood at attention as his urn was carried up the steps to the Rotunda.  In remarks during a ceremony Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Sicknick a patriot and said he will never be forgotten. “Each day, when members (of Congress) enter the Capitol, this temple of democracy, we will remember his sacrifice,” she said.   Mourners pay their respects during a ceremony memorializing U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, as an urn with his cremated remains lies in honor on a black-draped table at the center of the Capitol Rotunda, Feb. 3, 2021.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also spoke, calling Sicknick “a good, kind man.” Members of the officer’s family attended the ceremony. After their remarks, representatives and senators filed past Sicknick’s remains and paid their respects. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects to late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.Late Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, also paid their respects to the fallen officer, and Capitol Police were given an opportunity to participate in a viewing period overnight. Later Wednesday, Sicknick’s remains will be taken to Arlington National Cemetery for burial. Pelosi and Schumer announced in a joint statement last week that Sicknick would lie in honor in the Rotunda. They said his heroism on January 6 “helped save lives, defend the temple of our democracy and ensure that the Congress was not diverted from our duty to the Constitution.” Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol that afternoon as Congress met to confirm Biden’s victory in the November election.  Sicnick is only the fifth person to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Others given that honor were civil rights leader Rosa Parks, televangelist Billy Graham, and Capitol Police officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, who died defending the Capitol building in a shooting attack in 1998. 
 
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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered hundreds of Pentagon advisory board members to resign this month as part of a broad review of the panels, essentially purging several dozen who were appointed last-minute under the Trump administration.
During the last two months of his tenure, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller removed a number of longtime members from several defense policy, health, science and business boards and replaced many with loyalists of former President Donald Trump. More than 30 of those replacements will now be forced to resign, including former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
“I am directing the immediate suspension of all advisory committee operations until the review is completed unless otherwise directed by myself or the deputy secretary of defense,” Austin said in a memo released Tuesday. And he ordered all committee members who were appointed by the defense secretary to resign no later than Feb. 16.
Austin said the review will assess whether each board provides value and make sure its focus aligns with “our most pressing strategic priorities and the National Defense Strategy.”
Tata, a former Fox News commentator, failed to get through Senate confirmation for the top Pentagon policy job early last year because of offensive remarks he had made, including about Islam. In November, however, Trump appointed him to that same post, just days after firing then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and putting Miller in the job.
Miller appointed Tata to the Defense Policy Board on Jan. 19, his last full day on the job. Gingrich was appointed to that same board. Lewandowski was appointed to the Defense Business Board.
A senior defense official said Austin’s decision was driven by the frenetic activity of Miller to remove dozens of board members and replace them in such a short amount of time between Trump’s election loss and the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
Of the 42 advisory panels listed in Austin’s memo, 31 will have their members removed, six will be part of the review but their members will be retained, and five others have either no members at this time or have concluded their business. Among the 31 are some of the department’s most well known boards, including those with purview over defense policy, science, health, innovation, Arlington National Cemetery and women in the military.
All together there are more than 600 members on the 42 boards. Defense officials said they don’t know exactly how many are being asked to resign, but it will be hundreds.
The boards of visitors for the Army, Navy and Air Force academies will keep their members, because those are presidential appointments that Austin does not have the authority to overturn. Among the Trump appointees who will remain on those boards are his former press secretary Sean Spicer and longtime adviser Kellyanne Conway. Those boards, however, will be subject to the review.
One new congressionally mandated commission is also being purged of the four members that Miller appointed in early January. The panel hasn’t started its work yet, but will be responsible for figuring out how to go about renaming military bases and property that honor Confederate leaders. The panel is not subject to Austin’s broader review, but he intends to appoint four new members.
In a letter to Austin this week, U.S. Reps. Anthony Brown, D-Md., and Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, called for the removal of the four Miller appointees on the renaming board. Trump had opposed the renaming of bases, and cited that as a reason for vetoing the defense bill, which included a provision setting up the panel to handle the process.
“Those who are called to serve their nation in this matter must have a deep understanding of and expertise in the history of Confederate monuments and their role in the white supremacist movement,” Brown and Beatty wrote to Austin.
The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Austin believed that stopping the activity of all the boards and doing a more intensive review was the fairest and most consistent process.
Officials said the review will look at whether the boards have overlapping jurisdictions and whether they should be realigned or if money could be saved by trimming some of them. It also will make recommendations on the membership balance, size and mission of all the boards.
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The U.S. Senate is politically split with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, but leaders of the two parties agreed Wednesday that Democrats will hold the majority of the seats on each of the chamber’s issue-related committees where legislation is first drafted.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced the agreement with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and said the chamber’s organizing resolution would be approved later in the day.If they vote as a 50-member bloc, Democrats control the Senate because of the tie-breaking vote from Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who presides over the chamber.Schumer and McConnell negotiated for a month over the legislative rules for the next two years before McConnell agreed to Schumer’s demand for control.With Democrats holding the majority of seats on each of the Senate’s 20 standing committees, it could possibly be easier for new President Joe Biden to advance his legislative priorities. But even then, lawmakers sometimes do not agree with the stances adopted by presidents of their own party.In the 100-member Senate, members of the minority party – now Republicans for the next two years — often object to legislation proposed by a president of the opposite party, now the Democrat Biden, who took office two weeks ago.In debate before the full Senate, some minority party lawmakers often filibuster against legislation they don’t favor, forcing at least 60 senators, some from both parties, to join to vote to break the filibuster and then vote on the legislation itself. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, paid their respects late Tuesday to Brian Sicknick, the U.S. Capitol Police officer who died defending the Capitol from a pro-Trump mob that stormed the building last month.
 
Sicknick’s remains arrived at the Capitol a short time earlier and dozens of Capitol Police officers stood at attention as his urn was carried up the steps to the Rotunda where he is lying in honor.
 
Capitol Police were given an opportunity to participate in a viewing period overnight.
 
Congressional leaders took part in the solemn arrival ceremony, and lawmakers will pay tribute to Sicknick at a Wednesday morning ceremony before his remains are taken to Arlington National Cemetery.
 U.S. Capitol Police officers pay their respects to U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick as an urn with his cremated remains lies in honor on a black-draped table at the center of the Capitol Rotunda, Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021, in Washington. …House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement last week announcing that Sicknick would lie in honor that his heroism on January 6 “helped save lives, defend the temple of our democracy and ensure that the Congress was not diverted from our duty to the Constitution.”
 
The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement after the attack that Sicknick, who died the next day, was injured “while physically engaging with protesters.”
 
Sicknick had worked in the department since 2008.
 
He is only the fifth person to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda.  Others given that honor are Civil Rights leader Rosa Parks, renowned televangalist the Reverend Billy Graham, and Capitol Police officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, who died defending the Capitol building in a shooting attack in 1998.
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House Democratic impeachment managers and lawyers for Donald Trump on Tuesday laid out their arguments in separate briefs ahead of the former president’s Senate trial next week on charges of inciting a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.   The House Democratic prosecutors charged that Trump’s incendiary words and actions in the run-up to the attack led his followers to descend on the Capitol “like a loaded cannon” to try to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump. The riots left five people, including a Capitol Police officer, dead and dozens of others injured. “President Trump’s conduct must be declared unacceptable in the clearest and most unequivocal terms,” they wrote.   Trump’s defense lawyers rejected the charges and questioned the constitutionality of the trial, saying there is no precedent for trying a president after he has left office. They also said the former president stands by his claim that the election results were “suspect” and in any event his statements about the election were protected under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.   The filings foreshadow the legal arguments both sides will present as the Senate meets beginning next Tuesday to decide whether to convict the 74-year-old former president for fomenting violence at the Capitol and bar him from returning to office. The trial is expected to last about one week.   FILE – Democratic House impeachment managers stand before entering the Senate Chamber as they deliver to the Senate the article of impeachment alleging incitement of insurrection against former President Donald Trump, in Washington, Jan. 25, 2021.Trump is the only American president to be impeached twice. In December 2019, he was impeached by the House in connection with his pressing Ukraine’s president to find dirt on Biden, his political rival, but the Republican-controlled Senate later acquitted him.     Trump was impeached for the second time on January 13, one week before Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. The single article of impeachment passed by the House accuses Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”  Whether Trump will be convicted remains uncertain — although the prospects are slim. At least two thirds of the 100-member Senate must vote in order to convict him. But last week, 45 Republican senators signaled that they found the trial unconstitutional.   Here’s a look at what the two sides say about Trump’s impeachment.  House managers’ case In their 77-page brief, the House prosecutors allege that Trump’s effort to subvert the election results that led to the January 6 insurrection started well before a single vote was cast in the election. FILE – With the White House in the background, former President Donald Trump speaks his supporters during a rally in Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 2021.And even as his supporters stormed the Capitol, smashing windows and doors, attacking police and seeking out lawmakers and their staffs with violent intent, the former president did nothing to stop the rampage, the memo says.    The House managers also make the case for why Trump can’t claim First Amendment protection for his inflammatory statements about the election results and why he remains subject to impeachment even though he is no longer in office. The First Amendment, they write, does not apply to an impeachment proceeding.   “Indeed, the notion that a President can attack our democracy, provoke violence, and interfere with the Electoral College so long as he does so through statements advocating such lawlessness would have astonished the Framers,” they say.   FILE – People shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.Additionally, they point to the “text and structure” of the Constitution as well as precedent to argue that the Senate can try a former president.   “The Constitution governs the first day of the President’s term, the last day, and every moment in between,” they say in the memo. “Presidents do not get a free pass to commit high crimes and misdemeanors near the end of their term. ” While no president has ever been tried after leaving the White House, the Democrats cite a precedent — the 1876 impeachment trial of a secretary of war during the Grant administration who resigned his office to avoid an impeachment trial. The Senate held the trial nonetheless.   Trump’s defense   The Trump defense team’s filing is more of a point-by-point response to the article of impeachment rather than a detailed legal analysis. In the 14-page document, the lawyers question the Senate’s jurisdiction to try Trump, deny that he incited the Capitol riots, and assert that his statements about the election were protected by the First Amendment.  “The Constitutional provision requires that a person actually hold office to be impeached,” Trump lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor write. “Since the 45th president is no longer president, the clause ‘shall be removed from office on impeachment for’ … is impossible for the Senate to accomplish.”  FILE – Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.While they acknowledge that Trump questioned the election results, they argue that his statements that allegedly incited violence were constitutionally protected speech.  “Like all Americans, the 45th President is protected by the First Amendment,” the Trump lawyers write.  The lawyers push back against the Democrats’ assertion that Trump’s statements at the January 6 rally encouraged the Capitol riots. Trump was merely urging his supporters to “fight for election security” rather than “engage in destructive behavior,” the lawyers write.  Trump’s lawyers also reject the Democratic claim that Trump’s conduct was part of his efforts to subvert the election results. These efforts, according to the article of impeachment, included a January 2 phone call to the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in that state.   “It is denied President Trump made any effort to subvert the certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election,” the lawyers write. 
  
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U.S. President Joe Biden is signing executive orders Tuesday to start to dismantle former President Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies, including an attempt to reunite families that had been separated at the U.S.-Mexican border.In the first hours of his presidency two weeks ago, Biden acted to halt construction of Trump’s $16 billion wall along the border and sent a far-reaching immigration bill to Congress, where lawmakers have long been stalemated between liberals looking to ease the path to U.S. citizenship and conservatives seeking to stem unauthorized immigration.Biden’s immediate focus is on the 3,100-kilometer southern border with Mexico, where Trump tried to keep thousands of migrants from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala from entering the U.S.   Trump led repair and expansion of a border wall and imposed tough detention and deportation policies for those who made it across the desolate border terrain and into the United States.One of the orders Biden is signing would establish a task force designed to reunite more than 600 migrant children with their parents after federal authorities had split them up at the border in 2017 and 2018. Officials say first lady Jill Biden is expected to play an active role in the effort.FILE – Detained migrant children from Central America line up to enter a tent at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida, Feb. 19, 2019.”The Biden administration is committed to remedying this awful harm the Trump administration inflicted on families,” a senior Biden official said, calling the policy a “moral failure” and “national shame.”“President Biden’s strategy is centered on the basic premise that our country is safe and stronger and more prosperous with a safe, orderly and humane immigration system that welcomes immigrants, keeps families together and allows people — both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations — to more fully contribute to our country,” the senior official told reporters.The official said that Trump “was so focused on the wall that he did nothing to address the root cause of why people are coming to our southern border. It was a limited, wasteful and naive strategy, and it failed.”By contrast, backers of the previous administration’s border initiatives said Biden’s orders will lead to chaos and lawlessness.“By resuming the pre-pandemic pace of visas, abandoning common-sense asylum policies, and increasing the burden on our strained social safety net, these orders will advance a dangerous open-borders policy, take away jobs from Americans struggling to find employment, and kneecap America’s economic recovery from lockdowns,” Jessica Anderson, director of the political advocacy arm of Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said in a statement.Biden plans to offer new aid to Central American countries to combat corruption and reinstate a program for certain at-risk children to live in the U.S.
The president also is directing the U.S. Homeland Security agency to review a Trump policy that requires non-Mexican migrants to stay in Mexico until their immigration court date in the U.S. but not immediately dismantle the program.FILE – Asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico, listen to names being called from a waiting list to allow them an opportunity to make their case, at a border crossing in San Diego, California, Sept. 26, 2019.The policy has left 60,000 asylum seekers waiting in dangerous border towns. Biden has already stopped new enrollments in the program but not disclosed how he intends to deal with those still waiting in Mexico.The president also plans to restore a program from the last Democratic administration under President Barack Obama allowing children under the age of 18 to apply to legally reunite with their parents already living in the United States.“The situation at the border will not transform overnight,” the senior Biden official said. “This is in large part due to the damage done over the last four years, but we are committed to addressing it in full.”More than 70,000 migrants have been detained or arrested at the border in each of the past four months, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.Biden’s directives will also call for restoring the U.S. asylum system, which Trump had overhauled, making it exceedingly difficult for migrants to be granted asylum in the U.S.However, Biden’s immigration changes could face various court challenges. In his first week in office, he already sustained one legal setback when a federal judge temporarily blocked his 100-day pause in deportations while the case proceeds. 
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The U.S. Senate confirmed Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday as transportation secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration.The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, tweeted he was “honored and humbled” by the Senate’s 86-13 confirmation vote and that he was “ready to get to work.”Buttigieg, an opponent of Biden during the Democratic presidential primaries, is the first openly gay person to fill a U.S. Cabinet position.The 39-year-old will play a leading role in advancing Biden’s infrastructure rebuilding and climate change agendas.He assumes control of an agency with 55,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget.He has vowed to begin quickly promoting safety and restoring trust in the country’s transportation systems as airlines, city subway and bus systems, and Amtrak struggle to regain customers lost during the coronavirus pandemic.Buttigieg is also expected to play a leading role in implementing Biden’s $2 trillion climate and infrastructure plan that will focus on rebuilding roads and bridges, expanding zero-emission mass transit, and building 500,000 charging stations over the next decade.During the confirmation hearing, some Republican senators signaled probable fights over the cost and scope of Biden’s plans to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, specifically questioning the administration’s interest in redirecting federal funds for climate initiatives. 
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