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While such sweeping reform remains unlikely, Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum, argues there are still legislative avenues Biden could pursue: Last year, Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema introduced the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, which aims to streamline border processing and improve access to legal services.

These types of reforms, paired with existing legislation that provides legal immigration pathways which address the growing labor shortage and permanent protections for Dreamers, farm workers, and Temporary Protected Status recipients, is smart policy and smart politics, Noorani wrote in The Daily Beast.

The Department of Homeland Security is bracing for up to 18,000 unauthorized migrants to cross the southern border per day once Title 42 is lifted next month. As midterms approach, the prospect of such an increase has prompted attacks from Republicans spotting an electoral opportunity and Democrats wary of an electoral liability.

In a highly publicized response to Title 42s planned phaseout, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, sent unauthorized migrants on a bus from Texas to Washington, D.C., and ordered more-extensive searches of all commercial vehicles crossing from Mexico. Like many other members of his party, Abbott has sought to draw a direct connection from Bidens immigration policy to the surge in U.S. drug overdoses.

Moderate Democrats are casting Title 42s end as a logistics issue, joining Senate Republicans in introducing a bill to keep it in place until 60 days after the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency has been declared. Even Beto ORourke criticized Biden for lacking a plan to help border communities prepare for the increase in migration.

Electorally speaking, You sort of have the worst of all possible worlds here, Blitzer, the New Yorker writer, said. If the Biden administration had stuck to its plan to roll back Title 42 and systematically build up asylum capacity back in 2021, it might have enjoyed wider leeway to break with the previous administrations policies. Now, a year later, he said, that kind of honeymoon period, such as it was, is over.

Another angle: The Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell argues that Democrats real political liability could be too little immigration. Last year, immigration fell by nearly 50 percent, which has deprived the tight labor market of much-needed workers. Democrats, Rampell writes, have been so fixated on bad-faith right-wing attacks that they have missed the bigger, and much more serious, immigration-related liability: the millions of immigrants whose absence from the U.S. work force is putting upward pressure on inflation.

Whatever immigration message Biden wants to push, he should start pushing it now, argues Glenn Altschuler, a professor of American studies at Cornell. More than half 55 percent of Americans now disapprove of Bidens handling of immigration, he notes. Turning their assessments around presents a daunting challenge. With the midterms less than seven months away, the clock is ticking.

Do you have a point of view we missed? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.

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Opinion | Is Bidens Immigration Reform Too Little Too Late? - The New York Times

WASHINGTON House Republicans are planning to use an oversight hearing next week to attack the Biden administration on its immigration policies, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times that offers a road map for how the G.O.P. intends to further weaponize an issue that is already a main thrust of their midterm campaign message against Democrats.

The detailed, 60-page guidance memo includes misleading and provocative talking points that seek to portray migrants and refugees as perpetrators of gruesome crimes, especially those involving sexual assault, echoing the language that former President Donald J. Trump used to denigrate immigrants. It also argues that the Biden administration has been lax on illegal immigration, seeking to put Democrats on the defensive on the issue.

It comes as Democrats are growing increasingly concerned that President Bidens immigration policies, including the recent decision to lift pandemic-era border restrictions next month, could pose a political liability for them ahead of the midterm elections.

The memo which is marked CONFIDENTIAL FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY repeatedly insinuates that immigrants could be sex offenders, highlighting a handful of arrests at the southwestern border and of Afghan evacuees. It also misrepresents a Biden administration policy designed to humanely enforce immigration laws as one that would bar law enforcement from surveilling sex offenders near schoolyards.

Studies show that the estimated 40 million immigrants living in the United States commit crimes at rates far lower than native-born Americans.

Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, is set to testify Thursday for the first time in front of the House Judiciary Committee, just as the administration is bracing itself for a surge of migrants expected to make asylum claims at the border in late May. That is when a public health rule limiting border crossings because of the pandemic, known as Title 42, is scheduled to be lifted, unleashing a two-year backlog of claims on top of the high volume of migrants who typically come to the southwestern border in the spring.

The memo for Republicans, prepared by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking member on the committee, details how the right plans to use the hearing to portray Democrats as pushing far-left policies that seek to abolish all immigration enforcement and even encourage illegal immigration.

While Mr. Jordans memo was circulated confidentially among Republicans, he posted on Twitter that he planned to grill Mr. Mayorkas on Title 42 and other immigration issues.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment about the upcoming hearing or the outlined lines of attack.

Republicans continue to use immigration as a political cudgel to scare voters at every turn, knowing they have killed serious immigration reform at every turn, said Kerri Talbot, deputy director for the Immigration Hub, a pro-immigrant organization. She ridiculed Republicans immigration agenda, charging that they want to build a $15 billion wall that a $15 handsaw can cut through.

And she defended Mr. Bidens handling of the issue, saying his administration has a plan to manage the migration spikes safely and in an orderly fashion.

Many of the attack lines previewed in the memo are not new. Rather, they appear to be pulled from the same political playbook that Republicans have used in recent election cycles. In 2018, Mr. Trump embraced a dark, anti-immigrant message to energize conservative voters ahead of the midterm elections, raising concerns about caravans of migrants he claimed were dangerous making their trek to the southern border. The method yielded mixed results: Democrats retook control of the House that year, while Republicans gained seats in the Senate.

But Republicans have continued to hammer on an issue that not only instills fear but has the added appeal for them of causing a split within the Democratic Party. According to Mr. Jordans memo, he plans to accuse the administration of prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens by ending Title 42.

More than 100 mostly progressive Democrats have demanded that Mr. Biden lift the border restrictions, which they say his administration has used to abuse Black migrants, while centrist Democrats, including nearly a dozen in the Senate, have called for the restriction to stay in place.

White House officials have noted that ending the restriction simply means reverting to a standard immigration processing system that has been in place across multiple administrations. They have also pointed out that the result will be that more people are deported.

Still, the decision to end the pandemic-era border restrictions has sown worry among many Democratic lawmakers running for re-election in competitive districts. They have warned the administration that a surge in border crossings could feed voter anxiety in their districts about crime and chaos at the border.

Progressive Democrats counter that any effort to further extend the restrictions could depress turnout among Latino voters. In a recent poll conducted by the Immigration Hub, about 20 percent of Latino respondents said that immigration was the issue that would decide their vote.

Even in a political environment dominated by concerns about inflation and the rising price of gas, immigration remains a potent issue for voters across the board. Forty-one percent of Americans said they worried a great deal about illegal immigration, according to a recent Gallup poll.

At the same time, Mr. Biden and Democrats are dealing with pent-up anger among liberals about Mr. Trumps hard-line immigration policies, and pressure to reverse them at every opportunity.

The same Democrats who conditioned their voters that stronger border protections were immoral now have little room to maneuver as progressives lash out, said Jack Pandol, communications director for the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that aims to build a Republican majority. Its an inescapable trap of their own creation.

White House officials said they see no option but to lift the pandemic-era restrictions, unless Congress passes legislation to extend them. But with Democrats divided over whether to do so, it is not clear whether there would be enough support for such a bill to pass, and party leaders are reluctant to bring up a measure that would infuriate their progressive supporters.

Efforts to pass a broad immigration overhaul that would legalize the status of millions of undocumented people have stalled amid Republican opposition, leaving few options for lawmakers to act.

There are a range of other ideas of reforming our immigration system, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday, conceding that the immigration system in the United States is broken.

This would all require congressional action, she said. Were happy to have that conversation with them.

But Mr. Jordans document shows why such discussions have gone nowhere in Congress. It suggests that just months after Republicans joined Democrats in pushing for legislation to help rush to the United States thousands of Afghans who were facing retribution for having helped American troops, the G.O.P. is demonizing such refugees.

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G.O.P. Memo Shows Plan to Attack Democrats on Immigration - The New York Times

REYNOSA, Mexico Pastor Hector Silva is eagerly waiting to assist the U.S. government when it begins processing this summers expected spikes of migrants seeking asylum in their bid for peace and jobs away from the upheaval and violence of their homelands.

Talks have just begun this week among shelters and medical teams and other nonprofits says the Mexican preacher who runs Reynosas largest migrant shelter.

Reynosa is one of the largest major stopping points for migrants trying to cross into the U.S., and thousands of people have been stuck in camps and shelters here waiting for a chance to try. On May 23, the measure known as Title 42, which has been used more than 1.8 million times to quickly turn away migrants due to the coronavirus pandemic, is set to end.

Immigration advocates and immigration detractors, such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, predict migration will swell. The Biden administration is preparing for as many as 12,000 to 18,000 arrivals daily.

Will U.S. officials, nonprofits and others who assist migrants really be ready?

Clearly it will be a huge and difficult job with all the families waiting in Reynosa, said Silva, who has worked with migrants for more than 20 years in Reynosa, across from McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley.

We want to work with the authorities so that there is order and so everything is calm at the bridge, he added. Silva was once himself an undocumented immigrant in North Texas. We want a change and people to be offered the help they deserve.

Others along the border raise similar concerns.

There is not a welcoming infrastructure at the border to process, in a legal and dignified way, the incoming flows of asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors and refugees, said Fernando Garca of the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso. The asylum system must be repaired, Garca said.

Theyre worried about a repeat of past problems.

In Del Rio, a city of 36,000, Tiffany Burrow, who runs a day shelter for migrants, said she is stocking up on pallets of water and hygiene kits.

Last September, the Del Rio region strained under as many as 16,000 migrants who crossed the Rio Grande in just a few weeks. Federal authorities kept many migrants behind a fence under a bridge. Border Patrol agents were caught on video charging into some of them on horseback. The citys services were sorely strained as the migrants were processed and freed to move to the interior to await dates in immigration court.

A Facebook post from late March on her group Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition reads: The September 2021 event of 16,000 migrants under the Del Rio POE [port of entry] bridge was a dress rehearsal for whats already taking place.

The Department of Homeland Security didnt respond to specific questions about preparations for the end of Title 42. But DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas said three weeks ago that planning has begun.

We have put in place a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy to manage any potential increase in the number of migrants encountered at our border, Mayorkas said in a statement. We are increasing our capacity to process new arrivals, evaluate asylum requests, and quickly remove those who do not qualify for protection.

Mayorkas said plans have been made to surge personnel and resources to the southwest border. Yet he also uses broken to describe the current immigration system.

Reports of increasing migration can be seen across much of the nearly 2,000-mile border. In March, the Border Patrol encountered nearly 210,000 migrants, according to federal immigration authorities. The last time the Border Patrol saw a monthly high was in 2000.

U.S. immigration officials have applied the Title 42 measure aggressively since March 2020 when it was implemented during the administration of former President Donald Trump. But the logic for its use has shriveled.

COVID cases have fallen, and U.S. citizens and many foreigners, such as those with green cards, already freely cross the international border.

About half of all migrants encountered in March were expelled under Title 42.

Immigration advocates emphasize migrants have a legal right to request asylum and say Title 42 deprives them of rights to due process. Detractors like Abbott, who is up for reelection, frame the mass migrations as President Joe Bidens failure to secure the border.

When migrants plans to cross and live into the U.S. are dashed by Title 42, they often remain in Mexican border cities because they cant afford to return to their native lands or fear violence and upheaval. Migrants try again and again to cross.

In March, 28 percent of migrants who were expelled under Title 42 were found to have already tried to enter the U.S. before, according to U.S. immigration authorities.

Driving repeat tries is the fact that a Title 42 public health expulsion doesnt carry a legal penalty, or a formal deportation record, as it does under U.S. immigration law.

Many migrants end up lingering in cities like Reynosa, a sprawling city of more than 900,000 with three international bridges. Passage through Reynosa and its nearby towns leads into Texas Rio Grande Valley, the busiest migration region and the quickest route north from Central America.

But Reynosa also sits at the edge of the most violent Mexican border state, Tamaulipas, according to the U.S. State Department. It has the harshest U.S. no-travel advisory -- a level 4 warning like the ones in war-torn Syria and Somalia. Heavily armed members of criminal groups often patrol areas of the state, especially along the border between Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, reads the State Department warning.

Its no wonder migrants plan to try again to head north, and they are eager for the fall of Title 42.

Leticia Hernandez, a 53-year-old Honduran, is one of them, waiting for her chance to make an asylum plea. She lives in a crowded tent camp in a city park in Reynosa with other family members. She cant go back home, Hernandez said. Gangs of men barge into houses and assault average Hondurans, she said. And, If you made a complaint... police will come after you for doing it, she said.

Her message to Biden is simple: Help us. We like to work. We are hard workers.

The Department of Homeland Security has said it has plans for three different scenarios of mass arrivals: 6,000 migrants per day, 12,000 per day, and up to 18,000 migrants per day.

Federal authorities have said the additional staff they will send to the border includes asylum officers and teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Getting asylum officers to the border is part of an overhaul of the asylum process aimed at more quickly deciding claims and allowing asylum-seekers at the border to avoid the clogged immigration courts.

Usually, when an asylum-seeker enters at the border, they are placed into the immigration court system. It now takes an average of nearly five years to process those pleas in the courts, and there are nearly 700,000 asylum cases in the backlog, according to the Syracuse University nonprofit TRAC. The new asylum officers are considered critical to processing migrants more quickly, sending them on to the interior or back out of the country.

But its unclear if the asylum officers will be in place by May 23.

DHS also has prepared more temporary holding facilities for migrants.

Ursula, the largest Border Patrol holding center in south McAllen, was recently renovated. The processing center, marked by a black, green and yellow Border Patrol flag flapping high above the facility, can now hold up to 1,200 people.

In nearby Donna, a soft-sided tent city is ready for federal use again. It can hold up to 1,500 migrants.

Part of the DHS plan also includes a warning: One aimed to establish that not all seeking entry will qualify as asylum-seekers.

Those who attempt to enter the United States without authorization, and without a valid asylum claim, are subject to additional long-term consequences beyond removal including bars to future immigration benefits, reads a DHS fact sheet on Title 42.

Growing unease over whether federal authorities are ready for what lies ahead is spurring on a backlash against the lifting of Title 42.

In Congress, Republican Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are among those who oppose the lifting of Title 42. Cornyn has supported a legislative proposal that would delay the end of Title 42 by at least 60 days. Among those leading the effort are Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz..

If Title 42 is eliminated, the Border Patrol tell me they will lose control, and the drug cartels stand to benefit the most, Cornyn said in support of the measure.

Abbott has made the end of Title 42 a principal whipping boy in his re-election campaign, and has promised to continue his Operation Lone Star to stop the flow of migrants across the border. Billions of state dollars have been poured into border security. As part of that effort, Texas has over the last year sent state troopers and 10,000 members of the Texas National Guard to the border.

One day this week in Anzalduas park, nestled in a curve of the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas troopers could be seen at picnic tables milling around in the shade on a recent afternoon. A week earlier, the Texas National Guard conducted military exercises with riot gear, waiving batons and using shields.

But how effective they can be is in question. Border enforcement is largely a federal responsibility, and state authorities are arresting migrants on minor state charges, such as trespassing.

Even some Democrats have urged the Biden administration to reconsider the May 23 end date. Among them are Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Peters and chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He said this week he wants details on a well-thought-out plan. Otherwise, he said, the end of Title 42 should be delayed.

Others continue to outright oppose Title 42 and want it lifted now, such as Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso. The use of Title 42, introduced by the Trump administration, effectively eliminated access to legal asylum in our country, Escobar has said.

Cornyns measure isnt the only action up in the air. Still to be decided is the outcome of a federal lawsuit, filed by 21 GOP-led states earlier this month, that challenges the termination of Title 42. The states say the Centers for Disease Control violated the public-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act when it moved to kill the health measure.

A hearing will be held on May 13 in the Louisiana court of U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays, a Trump appointee.

And on Friday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed his own lawsuit attempting to keep Title 42 in place.

Meanwhile, border leaders, including Republicans and Democrats, fear that Border Patrol facilities will soon be overwhelmed again.

McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos, a Republican, presides over a city where hundreds of migrant families have been released weekly to a Catholic Charities shelter and hundreds more were held under the shade of the Anzalduas international bridge last year in neighboring Mission. Hes among those who have asked President Biden to reconsider Title 42s end date.

Although our community is giving, well-prepared and proactive, no amount of preparation will allow for a local government such as the City of McAllen to respond to the dramatic rise in undocumented immigration that is anticipated, said the mayor of the city of 150,000, only one in a string of communities along the border where residents are growing tired of waiting for immigration reform.

Andy Harvey, the police chief of nearby Pharr, a city with an important international bridge into Reynosa for produce, said bluntly: We are not ready for it.

They havent done anything for reform of immigration, said Harvey, a member of the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, a national group that has pushed for an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws to make immigrants less fearful.

So here we are with Title 42, and were back to square one. So no progress has been made. And we are still dealing with the same things over and over, and nothings getting done.

Staff writers Alfredo Corchado in El Paso and Imelda Garcia in Del Rio contributed to this report.

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Is the border ready for the lifting of the Title 42 pandemic order? - The Dallas Morning News

In the race for an open seat in New Jerseys 8th Congressional District this year, Democratic primary candidate David Ocampo Grajales says that a progressive vision is whats needed for the Hudson County-based district.

In an interview with the Hudson Reporter, speaking over a small cup of espresso on a chilly day in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, he said that a progressive representative will help constituents, particularly working class people, call the Garden State a home for the long term, while also refuting the countys machine politics.

I think fundamentally, if we can make New Jersey the state that works for the working class, that is better for the community as well, he said. Because it allows people to dig in their roots, build a family here, stay for the long term, and then you stay multi-generational. But none of thats going to happen if we dont address the challenges that people are facing today.

That includes a number of progressive policies such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and forgiving student debt. For him, theres also affordable housing, immigration reform and transportation that are important as he campaigns for the Democratic nomination, and potentially win the seat itself.

Pushing for Green New Deal, transportation and immigration

Ocampo Grajales grew up in Ridgefield Park as a first-generation American with his parents from Columbia, and has been in Jersey City for about a year. He went to New York University and had worked at a healthcare startup called Salute, which helps hospitals and universities improve accountability around environmental compliance and keeping workers, students and patients safe.

His candidacy for the 8th District, which was left open following Rep. Albio Sires impending retirement, is his first foray into politics, which he is now dedicating to full time.

I think our politics would be better off if it was made up of more people who represent and look like the lives of people who live in the district, and less career politicians that come in, stay for 30-40 years, and end up changing nothing, he said.

The 8th District is one of the most heavily Democratic districts in all of New Jersey, and the only one with a Hispanic majority. Being on the campaign trail, Ocampo Grajales argued that the district is more progressive than what elected officials believe.

One of the 8th Districts biggest challenges is affordable housing, noting that nearly 70 percent of Hudson County residents are renters, and that rent is increasing more than peoples incomes are. He also sees climate change as another challenge due to increasing extreme weather every year, and is supportive of a Green New Deal.

One of the issues that Ocampo Grajales is running on is transportation, where he says for too many people there are no transportation options, too much traffic or no parking, a symptom of not having a connected transportation system like in New York City.

I think we need transportation that actually connects our communities here at home, he said. Not just to alleviate the burden of rising gas prices, alleviate the challenges caused by climate change and air quality, but its an economic stimulant to be able to connect with that and make communities walkable.

To that end, he sees changing the conversation about it in Congress, where he said hell advocate in the House and also connect and work with local officials to push for those policies.

Ocampo Grajales also sees immigration as important to him, noting how it feels for him to have a family thats undocumented, and other family members and friends that are as well.

Immigration is broken in this country, he said. People talk about waiting in line, but the reality is that, aside from the lottery and a couple other processes, there are not a lot of options for actually getting into the country, and having a pathway to citizenship.

He plans to push for immigration reform, addressing immigration courts, and advocate for abolishing federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Willing to take on a machine

As Ocampo Grajales competes in a now three-way primary race between Robert Menendez Jr., the son of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, and Ana Roseborough-Eberhard, a public school teacher from Weehawken, he believes that he has a chance of winning it.

He also dismissed the establishments support of Menendez Jr. to potentially succeed Sires. Im so confident in our message, its just a matter of having people to get it out to, he said. Its absolutely an uphill battle, but its definitely a winnable one.

When asked about how he would deal with the gridlock and polarization that Congress has become almost commonplace, Ocampo Grajales acknowledged that Democrats could lose their majority in the House this November. In the meantime, he would focus on staying connected to the local community, creating a constituent services office in the district, and innovate the way constituents would interact with their elected officials such as town halls, and using technology to collect feedback and respond more quickly.

Regardless of who controls Congress after this year, Ocampo Grajales plans to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus and would work to reform it due to what he says are a number of representatives that call themselves progressive, and that they need to set a standard for what the term means.

Ocampo Grajales also wants to join committees such as Foreign Affairs, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Appropriations, where he would take time to do research and create questions that he wants answers to, as well as investigating how decisions are made and whether companies are doing things to improve transparency.

He said that hell try to work with Republicans, but pointed out with the recent infrastructure bill and the stalled Build Back Better agenda that sometimes theyll face an opposing party that doesnt want to get anything done for people.

He also said hell focus on stopping the GOPs moves to pull back voting rights and abortion rights, and that he wouldnt compromise on what he sees as basic principles.

I think that if voters want a representative who truly represents them, understands the challenges that theyre facing because hes gone through it himself, and is willing to just fight with everything, Im willing to take on a machine and want to do a whole lot more to fight for the actual change that they deserve, he said.

For updates on this and other stories, check hudsonreporter.com and follow us on Twitter @hudson_reporter. Mark Koosau can be reached at mkoosau@hudsonreporter.com or his Twitter @snivyTsutarja.

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David Ocampo Grajales pushes for progressive policies in the 8th District primary - The Hudson Reporter

On Thursday, April 28, 2022, the Consulate General of Saint Lucia in New York willconveneits annual Immigration Forum. This event, which is open to the general public,willbeginat 7:00 PM, andwillbe held at the Saint Lucia House, 438 East 49th Street (between Church and Snyder Avenues) in Brooklyn.

The forum will provide accurate and timely information for Saint Lucian nationals navigating the often bewilderingUnited Statesimmigration process,enabling them to make rational decisions on behalf of themselves or their loved ones. It will also feature an open panel discussion on a host of relevant topics, including:

1. US immigration reform policies

2. Citizenship/Permanent residency

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3. Implications and legal consequences of overstaying on a temporary US visa

4. Resources available to immigrants

5. Immigration fraud prevention

Formal presentations by New York City-based immigration lawyers, experts in the field, representatives from non-governmental organizations, community stakeholders, and various partnering agencies, will also be featured.

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The Consulate encourages Saint Lucians and all interested parties residing in the New York City area to attend this important meeting, to benefit from the wealth of information to be provided.

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Consulate General of Saint Lucia in New York to Host Annual Immigration Forum - St. Lucia News From The Voice - The Voice St. Lucia