Category Archives: US immigration

US-Mexico border crossings fall to three-year low after Biden’s executive order

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About 84,000 people crossed into the US in June, the lowest monthly total since Biden assumed office in January 2021

Undocumented crossings at the US’s southern border have fallen to a three-year low, marking the lowest in Joe Biden’s presidency just a short time after he signed a controversial executive order limiting immigration there in June.

The latest data from the federal Customs and Border Patrol obtained by CBS News is the most recent since Biden signed his executive order – and comes as the president is accused of failing to address concerns about the amount of people crossing into the US without permission.

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Some immigrants celebrate Biden’s extension of legal status while others left out

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Hundreds of thousands of immigrants married to US nationals can now exit ‘the shadows’ while others remain stuck in limbo

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had reason to rejoice when Joe Biden unveiled a highly expansive plan to extend legal status to spouses of US citizens but, inevitably, some were left out.

Claudia Zúniga, 35, was married in 2017, 10 years after her husband came to the United States. He moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after they wed, knowing that, by law, he had to live outside the US for years to gain legal status. “Our lives took a 180-degree turn,” she said.

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Biden pledges citizenship pathway for spouses and children of US citizens

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President touts ‘commonsense fix’ that would provide relief for more than half a million ‘mixed-status’ families

Joe Biden on Tuesday announced an expansive new plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented spouses of US citizens, calling it a “commonsense fix” that would provide relief to more than half a million “mixed-status” families in the country.

The move comes as the Democratic president tries to strike a balance before the 5 November election: confronting rising public concern over the unprecedented levels of migration at the southern border, while appeasing progressive Democrats and Hispanic leaders furious over Biden’s aggressive asylum crackdown, which they likened to Trump-era policies.

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Judge blocks Iowa law allowing police to charge people facing deportation

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Controversial law, due to go into effect on 1 July, is unconstitutional and cannot override federal rules, judge says

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked an Iowa law that allowed law enforcement in the state to file criminal charges against people with outstanding deportation orders or who previously had been denied entry to the US.

US district court judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction because he said the Department of Justice and civil rights groups who filed suit against the state were likely to succeed in their argument that federal immigration law pre-empted the law approved this spring by Iowa legislators.

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Immigration rights groups sue Biden administration over asylum directive

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Advocates say president’s order restricting asylum claims differs little from Trump move blocked by courts

A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups sued the Biden administration on Wednesday over President Joe Biden’s recent directive that in effect halts asylum claims at the southern border, saying it differs little from a similar move during the Trump administration that was blocked by the courts.

The lawsuit – filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Raices – is the first test of the legality of Biden’s sweeping crackdown on the border, which came after months of internal White House deliberations and is designed in part to deflect political attacks against the president on his handling of immigration.

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Mayorkas insists immigration order not at odds with Biden’s campaign promise

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Homeland security head also defends timing of president’s border action as measure faces criticism from both parties

The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, defended both the timing and substance of Joe Biden’s new executive order to restrict immigration at the southern border, as the president faces criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike over the measure.

The order, issued on Tuesday, tells officials to shut down asylum requests once the average number of encounters between legal ports of entry reaches 2,500 or more. If the number of encounters falls to 1,500 or fewer for seven consecutive days, the border would reopen two weeks later.

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At least four people die crossing US-Mexico border amid brutal heatwave

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El Paso, Texas, saw temperatures of 106F, with border patrol identifying ‘heatstroke and dehydration’ as cause of death

At least four people have died crossing the US-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas, amid the searing heatwave gripping the south-west.

Temperatures in El Paso peaked at 106F (41C) on Thursday, and some 34 million people – from the southern tip of Texas across Arizona and up into California and Nevada – were under heat alerts.

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Biden’s migrant order is recipe for chaos at US border: ‘It will only cause suffering’

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With high levels of people seeking asylum, and after failed attempts to pass reforms, Biden has presented his most aggressive restrictions yet

Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an aggressive new immigration order suspending asylum rights, signalling that “securing the border” was a central tenet of his re-election bid.

At the southern US border, the policy is set to cause chaos and hardship for those seeking the protection of the United States.

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Asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border worry about their next move: ‘We cannot return’

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People at the border reel after hearing about Biden’s order and consider the CBP One app, where they can go and what’s next

Angel Ramos Girón was searching for a gap to breach the coils of concertina wire standing between him and the huge US fence near gate 36.

The port of entry divides the US from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, where he stood on Tuesday afternoon looking towards El Paso, its American sister city in Texas.

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Democrats decry Biden executive order turning away some asylum seekers

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US representatives Nanette Barragán, Judy Chu and Raúl Grijalva say order guts legal rights, while ACLU threatens to sue

Progressive Democrats and immigration advocates have shared their outrage after Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday that would turn away some asylum seekers.

Biden’s order will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to enter the country legally when authorities have determined that the border is “overwhelmed”.

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Biden issues order limiting asylum seekers from crossing US-Mexico border

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President’s move comes amid voter dissatisfaction over immigration as leftwing and Latino lawmakers express alarm

Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross between lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings has been exceeded.

The order will take effect immediately, senior administration officials said on a press call. Those seeking asylum will be held to a much more rigorous standard for establishing credible fear of returning to their home country, although certain groups – including human trafficking victims and unaccompanied children – would be excluded from the ban.

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Senate Republicans block bipartisan border security bill for a second time

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Democrats had forced vote to try to prove argument that Republicans are not serious about situation at US-Mexico border

Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border security bill for a second time, part of an attempt by Chuck Schumer to flip the script on immigration – a major political liability for Joe Biden and Democrats in this year’s election.

The 43-50 vote was far short of the necessary 60 votes needed to advance the legislation. Republicans, who have repeatedly demanded Democrats act on the border, abandoned the compromise proposal at the behest of Donald Trump who saw it was a political “gift” for Biden’s re-election chances.

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‘What’s happening is not genocide’: Biden criticizes ICC for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli officials – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the fallout from ICC seeking arrest warrants, read our full report:

The Republican leaders of the US House of Representatives are reportedly weighing a legislative response to the decision by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Punchbowl News has reported that House Republican leadership, which is very supportive of the Israeli government and its war in Gaza, are considering a response, but what the measure looks like and whether they can pull it off before the upcoming Memorial Day holiday remains unclear.

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Arrest made in Florida bus crash that killed eight farm workers

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About 53 people were onboard bus heading to local watermelon farm to work for private company when crash occurred

Eight people were killed and dozens injured after a bus carrying migrant workers to a local farm crashed in Florida early Tuesday.

The crash happened around 6.30am in west Marion county, Florida, according to the Florida highway patrol, WCJB reported.

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Vulnerable Biden tries to straddle both sides with new asylum rules

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The president is under pressure from Republicans and progressives as humanitarian crisis builds and immigration remains a key voter issue

The Biden administration has said its proposed changes to asylum standards, unveiled on Thursday, that would fast-track some deportation will enhance security and speed up a backlog of cases amid record numbers of arrivals at the US-Mexico border.

The changes will also, by Biden’s own admission, be limited in scope and only affect a “small” number of people who have been convicted of serious crimes or may pose a national security risk.

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Biden officials propose denying some migrants earlier in asylum process

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New rule would restrict access sooner for people deemed to pose ‘national security or public safety risk’

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new rule that it said would streamline asylum processing at the southern border by quickly denying certain migrants deemed to “pose a national security or public safety risk”.

The proposed rule would allow immigration officials to reject and deport migrants who are already ineligible for asylum at an earlier stage in the process, a change administration officials said would enhance national security and save taxpayer dollars.

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US asylum app strands migrants and aids organised crime, rights group says

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CBP One app offers far too few appointments, meaning asylum seekers must wait or pay human trafficking groups, report reveals

A US government smartphone app that tightly limits asylum appointments at the US-Mexico border is stranding vulnerable migrants in Mexico and enriching organised crime groups, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report, which draws on interviews with more than 100 migrants, as well as officials and activists, documents how the CBP One app – which is all but mandatory for asylum seekers – offers 1,450 appointments a day, when arrivals at the border averaged 7,240 a day between May 2023 and January 2024.

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Mistrial in case of Arizona rancher accused of shooting migrant dead

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George Kelly, 75, charged with second-degree murder over death of Mexican Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, on his property last year

An Arizona judge declared a mistrial on Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the US-Mexico border.

George Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the 30 January 2023 shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales.

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US resumes deportation flights to Haiti despite continuing bloodshed

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Critics condemn ‘reckless and cruel’ expulsions and say deportees likely to be targeted by armed gangs who control much of country

More than 70 Haitians expelled from the United States have been flown back to Haiti on the first deportation flight since heavily armed gangs launched a bloody insurrection which has paralysed the capital and forced the prime minister from office.

The flight, which landed in the port city of Cap-Haïtien early on Thursday, was described as “inhumane” by human rights activists who warned that deportees would likely be targeted by the criminal factions who control most of the country.

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Trump boasts ‘We broke Roe v Wade’ as abortion dogs GOP election hopes

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Republican presumptive nominee struggles to articulate position on divisive issue after meeting with House speaker

Facing the press alongside the House speaker, fellow Republican Mike Johnson, Donald Trump bragged: “We broke Roe v Wade.”

The former president made the stark admission about his dominant role in attacks on abortion rights at the end of a week in which the rightwing Arizona state supreme court ruled that an 1864 law imposing a near-total ban could go back into effect.

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