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The Biden administration on Saturday extended special protections to Haitians living temporarily in the United States after being displaced by a devastating 2010 earthquake, reversing efforts by the previous administration to force them to leave the country.

The decision, announced by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, makes good on President Bidens campaign promise to restore a program that shields thousands of Haitian migrants from the threat of deportation under the restrictive policies put in place under President Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Mayorkas said the new 18-month designation, known as temporary protected status, would apply to Haitians already living in the United States as of Friday.

Haiti is currently experiencing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Mayorkas said in a statement on Saturday.

The protections, created in a 1990 law, allow foreigners who have had to flee their homes because of natural disasters and conflict to work and live in the United States. Haiti is one of 11 countries that are beneficiaries of the program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Obama administration granted the temporary protected status to Haitians living in the United States illegally after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January 2010.

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the new designation could protect as many as 150,000 Haitians from having to return to the political and security crisis in their home country.

The last thing our country should be doing is forcing an entire community in the U.S. to decide between packing up their lives and tearing their families apart by self-deporting, or becoming undocumented and forced into the shadows of our society, Mr. Menendez said in a statement on Saturday.

As part of its hard-line efforts to curb legal and illegal immigration, the Trump administration sought to end protections for about 400,000 immigrants living in the United States, including Haitians. Officials at the time said that the emergency conditions that had compelled the immigrants to flee their countries earthquakes, hurricanes, civil war had occurred long ago and that most of the immigrants no longer needed the haven provided by the United States.

Lawsuits blocked the cancellations, but in September a federal appeals court sided with the Trump administration, putting hundreds of thousands of immigrants on notice that they would have to leave the country or face deportation. Many of the people affected had been living in the United States for years. The Trump administration agreed to keep the protections in place at least through early 2021, meaning a new administration could decide to continue the policy.

Immigration advocates have called on the Biden administration to restore the temporary designation for Haitians and other immigrants living in the country and welcomed the decision announced on Saturday.

Better late than never, the National T.P.S. Alliance, a grass-roots organization wrote on Twitter.

In March, the Biden administration issued special protections for as many as 320,000 Venezuelans living in the United States, citing the extraordinary humanitarian crisis in the country under the leadership of President Nicols Maduro.

But some said more needed to be done to give many of those immigrants permission to live in the United States permanently.

Haitians have been living in uncertainty for the past several months, Erika Andiola, the chief advocacy officer for the nonprofit organization Raices, said in a statement. In the future, that uncertainly could be solved by a permanent fix through legislation that puts T.P.S. holders on the path to citizenship, she added, using the abbreviation for the program.

This month, the House passed a bill that would create a path to citizenship for an estimated four million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, including those granted temporary protected status for humanitarian reasons. The bill passed mostly along party lines, and getting it through the more evenly divided Senate is likely to be a challenge.

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US Grants Temporary Protection Status to Thousands of Haitians - The New York Times

The more we learn about the true dimensions of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, the worse it is. Now, a new report says that in the last few months, U.S. authorities have encountered illegal border crossers not just from Mexico, or the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, but from 160 nations around the globe. People are coming to Mexico from the most distant spots on the planet in order to cross illegally into the United States, confident that President Biden will let them stay. And Biden is doing just that.

More than 12,500 Ecuadoreans were encountered in March, up from 3,568 in January, The New York Times Miriam Jordan reported. Nearly 4,000 Brazilians and more than 3,500 Venezuelans were intercepted, up from just 300 and 284, respectively, in January. The numbers in coming months are expected to be higher.

And then there are the migrants coming from India and Asia.

Some reported taking buses in their hometowns to a big city, like Mumbai, Jordan noted, where they boarded planes to Dubai and then connected through Moscow, Paris and Madrid, finally flying to Mexico City. From there, they embarked on the two-day bus ride to reach the Mexico-U.S. border. Aid workers report seeing migrants from everywhere Arabic, Haitian Creole, Hindi and Portuguese speakers, among many others.

Many of them are entering the United States through wide openings in the border wall near Yuma, Arizona, sparing them from the risky routes through remote desert regions, the Times said. That would be the border wall that Democrats and their allies in the courts and media did everything they could to stop President Trump from building. Now, the world is flooding in through gaps in the wall that Trump was able to build or strengthen.

Why are they coming? Because they have heard correctly that this moment presents a huge opportunity to enter the United States illegally without fear of being sent home.

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While most of the migrants do not necessarily understand the intricacies of U.S. border policy, many said in interviews that they perceived a limited-time offer to enter the United States, Jordan wrote. Friends and family members already in the country, along with smugglers eager to cash in, have assured them that they will not be turned away and this is proving to be true. What were hearing back home is that the new president is facilitating entry, and there is demand for labor, said Rodrigo Neto, who came from Brazil.

And so they are crossing the border in record numbers 178,622 known cases in April, on top of 172,331 in March. Look for there to be even more in May.

The situation is absolutely, completely, 100% Bidens fault. Yes, it is what many Democrats wanted. It is what many activists and commentators wanted. For that matter, it is what The New York Times editorial board wanted. But the fact is, it would not happen without the president of the United States making it happen. The president could order border officials under his authority to enforce the law and turn away those who have no legal right to enter the United States other than at a port of entry.

But Biden does just the opposite. The president is not trying to stop the flow of illegal crossers. Instead, he is trying to accommodate the flow, scrambling to find housing and living arrangements for those coming in. The message has gotten out to the world, and the world is coming.

The president, members of Congress and most Americans would never tolerate such a situation at the nations airports or seaports. When anyone flies into the United States from abroad, landing at, say, Atlanta Hartsfield or Chicago OHare or LAX, the U.S. government demands that every single person present documents showing that he or she has a legal right to enter the country. Would anyone advocate scrapping that system and letting anyone and everyone enter, with or without documents? Of course not.

Yet that is the situation that Biden is not only tolerating but encouraging at the border. It is a grossly irresponsible way to run immigration policy. The United States, which like other countries has developed elaborate procedures to control who is able to enter and leave the country at its airports and other ports, has thrown the whole system away at the border. Starting with the presidential campaign and continuing through his time in the White House, Biden has sent the message that virtually anyone can enter the U.S. and be allowed to stay. The crisis at the border is the result.

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Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

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BYRON YORK: Illegal immigrants flowing across southern border with Mexico - The Albany Herald

What is so galling about the continued transport of migrant children through Chattanooga is not the private firms allowing their facilities to be used and not the nonprofit organizations fulfilling their missions to help protect minor children but that the children's continued illegal flow into the country is not only allowed but sanctioned by the president of the United States.

The fact that it has been done under cover of darkness (the most recent instance a flight into Wilson Air Center at the Chattanooga Municipal Airport late last Saturday, according to WRCB-TV)), with tarps shielding movement at a local facility last month, with no notice to state officials, is tacit acknowledgement that what is occurring is wrong, against the law.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann all have made the Biden administration aware of their dismay at the flagrant flouting of the law. But they can only get in line.

Children have been brought to Nashville, Knoxville and Atlanta, as well as Chattanooga, a source close to the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Nashville's FOX 17 News this week. The source indicated chains of buses from those cities often transport them to larger cities such as New York, Chicago or Miami.

"There are drop-offs in small towns and big cities all along the routes," the source said. "I don't know if they're going into other processing centers. In some cases, family members are waiting to find these children ... But my understanding in a number of these cases, these kids are fresh across the border ... They have intentionally not shared a lot of information with us. They don't want this to get out."

The source said most of the trips originate in Dallas and that Department of Defense regulations require different buses along the way.

"The bus comes through in the middle of the night," he said. "The kids get on a different bus ... The bus goes another eight or nine, 10 hours; they'll make a couple stops along the way ... Then they'll get on another bus, go another eight or nine hours. So they have chained all of these companies together. They go from one bus company to another bus company to another bus company. It's very sad."

A bus driver, also speaking in anonymity, told the television station she is given scant details about the trips she is to take.

(READ MORE: Immigration experts say Tennessee officials are misguided in criticizing unaccompanied migrant children program)

"I myself am kind of in the dark," she said. "... The whole thing is last minute."

The driver said while she has observed some touching reunions of children with family members, "I think that's the exception, not the rule."

A record 19,000 migrant children entered the United States illegally in March. That followed 9,500 in February. The number in April was expected to be lower than that in March, according to administration officials, but the highest number for April in history.

In early May, 22,195 children were in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Whether that number included the number dispersed at the expense of the administration into the interior of the country was not known.

Late last month, Lee told this page that he had declined the Biden administration's request to house migrant children in Tennessee "for a number of reasons," but mainly because the administration could not clarify information state officials sought and because the state was "not equipped to handle them in those facilities" being suggested.

He said the state was not told about the children brought into Chattanooga and hosted by Redemption to the Nations Church in April, and that the whole movement of migrant children including some being trafficked and others being smuggled in by "coyotes" earning enormous fees is "incredibly unsafe," places them in "increasing danger" and "has to be stopped."

"They're calling an audible in the middle of a crisis because they don't know what to do," Lee said of the Biden administration. "The answer is to secure the border."

The state has taken refugee children before, and the Tennessee governor indicated the state "can be good-faith partners" again.

The problem, though, not just for this state but for all states, is the Biden administration's unwillingness to control the flow at the Southern border, its hypocrisy about why it wants more illegal immigrants here (for "bought" votes down the road), and its incredible lack of transparency and communication about the movement of minors within states.

That the country's leaders would ever facilitate its laws to be broken, and make children pawns in doing so, would have been unimaginable and unconscionable to those who founded the nation on freedom, liberty and the rule of law.

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Cooper: Movement of illegal immigrant children in the dark of night is evidence the Biden Administration knows its actions are wrong - Chattanooga...

Much like the rest of the nation, Alondra Garcia has spent the pandemic not quite knowing whats coming next.

The bilingual elementary school teacher from Milwaukee has had to contend with adjusting to virtual learning, a bout with COVID-19, and now a return to in-person schooling under Milwaukee Public Schools strict pandemic safety regulations. All the while, she was doing her best to teach the next generation.

It was very exhausting, Garcia said.

But Garcia had another set of uncertainties looming: She is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era program that protects from deportation and provides a work permit to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

While DACA recipients like Garcia avoided the worst-case scenarioa wholesale dismantling of the program after repeated attempts by former President Donald Trumpthey are still waiting for President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress to fulfill their 2020 campaign promises of immigration reform and a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

More than 6,500 DACA recipients and 70,000 other undocumented immigrants live in Wisconsin, according to figures from the American Immigration Council. Many of them spent the last 14 months working in essential jobslike meatpackingthat put them at high risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19.

Now, advocates say, its time for those workers to get rewarded with a clear path to citizenship.

You know what? Its about time we give this recognition that they have through this pandemic put the food on Americas table, said Tony Gonzalez, director of the American Hispanic Association in Wausau.

Three bills currently before Congress would provide that reward and deliver on Democrats promised reforms.

Throughout the first months of Bidens term, Voces de la Frontera Action, an immigrant and workers rights group based in Milwaukee, held marches and protests throughout Wisconsin advocating for the bills and pressuring Democrats to either pass them or roll them into a larger package that could be passed through budget reconciliation, a process that requires only a simple Senate majority vote rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a likely Republican filibuster.

The White House is opposed to using budget reconciliation for immigration reform, saying it would prefer a bipartisan solution. But Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, said she isnt holding out for Republican support.

We dont believe there is hope for bipartisanship, Neumann-Ortiz said. So our push is on Democrats.

Key to that push is Democratic Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Neumann-Ortiz said, due to her relative seniority and leadership position as Senate Democrats caucus secretary. Following a Voces de la Frontera event Thursday at the state Capitol, Baldwin released a statement through the group reiterating her support for immigration reform using whatever legislative path we can, including the budget reconciliation process.

Democrats have power now, and they need to wield it, Neumann-Ortiz said.

Garcia, who is involved with Voces de la Frontera and recently joined the group in a demonstration in Washington, DC, echoed that sentiment and warned Democrats may lose Latino support and enthusiasm if they dont deliver.

If we dont do something about it this year, I feel like people are gonna lose motivation, lose that optimism, lose that want to actually think its going to be possible, Garcia said.

Gonzalez lives and organizes within the heavily Republican 7th Congressional District currently represented by US Rep. Tom Tiffany, whose newsletters and press releases frequently invoke negative images of illegal aliens. Still, Gonzalez said, hes not giving up on the hope for wider support.

I propose just to bring people to the table and have a conversation, and have a real, good, robust conversation, Gonzalez said. No fights, no finger-pointingmore, Lets lay the ground of whats common, and how do we find solutions?

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Wisconsin Advocates Say the Time for Immigration Reform Is Now - UpNorthNews

Nine boats packed with hundreds of migrants arrived on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday, and officials said more people were expected as the weather improved.

Around 1,200 people got off the vessels at Lampedusa, one of the main landing points for people trying to get across the Mediterranean into Europe, ANSA news agency said.

"Migrants arrivals are resuming alongside good weather," Lampedusa's mayor Toto Martello told state broadcaster RAI. "We need to restart discussions about the immigration issue."

Around 11,000 migrants disembarked on Italy's coasts from the start of 2021 to May 7, compared with 4,105 in the same period the year before, interior ministry data shows.

Overall numbers are still down from 2015, when hundreds of thousands of migrants made the perilous sea crossing to Europe, many of them fleeing poverty and conflict across Africa and the Middle East.

But the issue still sharply divides European governments and has fuelled anti-immigration sentiment and parties across the continent.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy's far-right League party, called on Prime Minister Mario Draghi to tackle the issue.

"With millions of Italians facing difficulties, we cannot care for thousands of illegal migrants," he wrote on Twitter.

Some of the boats were intercepted off the coast of the Mediterranean island by the Italian tax police, who deal with financial crime and smuggling, ANSA said.

About 400 migrants of various nationalities got off one of the boats, a drifting fishing vessel, the agency reported.

Another boat carrying 325 people was intercepted eight miles off Lampedusa, the agency added.

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Boats carrying hundred of migrants arrive in Italy's Lampedusa - Reuters