The number of people arrested and deported for being in the US illegally has dropped under President Joe Biden after his administration narrowed its enforcement focus to those who may pose a threat or have criminal backgrounds, marking a shift from the policies under the Trump administration.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Biden administration has sought to prioritize its focus on immigrants who pose a threat to national security, border security and public safety. The change was prompted by an executive order signed by Biden shortly after he took office.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the dip in arrests and deportations.

In March, ICE arrested 2,214 undocumented immigrants, down from 6,679 in December, Trump’s last full month in office.

Earlier this year, the agency rolled out tailored enforcement guidelines in a return to Obama-era measures based on a priority system instead of the more aggressive approach taken under the Trump administration. The guidance tries to “focus resources on the most pressing national security and public safety and border security challenges that we are facing,” a senior ICE official told CNN on Tuesday.

The guidelines appeared intended to restrain an agency emboldened under the last administration, establishing strict parameters for ICE officers, particularly in the event that an undocumented immigrant is encountered who’s not being targeted.

“If everyone’s priority, then no one’s a priority, so we do need to make some choices about where to focus our resources,” the ICE official said, pointing to the limits on those resources.

The ICE official said the changes have boiled down to “a lot more arrests of serious criminals than grandmas” and other so-called collateral arrests — immigrants encountered by authorities who aren’t the target of the arrest.

The Trump administration made headlines for ICE operations that targeted families and a large-scale workplace immigration raid. Now, under Biden, ICE field offices have been directed to coordinate their operations and obtain preapproval for enforcement and removal actions that don’t meet the criteria of priority cases.

ICE acting Director Tae Johnson, when rolling out the new guidelines earlier this year, said doing so would help “better coordinate our efforts, achieve consistency in our operations and inform the development of the secretary’s new enforcement guidelines.”

The change in policy has met mixed reviews from the workforce, the ICE official said.

“There are of course, officers who are not as fond of this approach as others are. And others are very appreciative of the change and are implementing it enthusiastically,” the ICE official said.

Succeeding with the new approach, the ICE official said, will take communication from the top to the field, repetition and a change in tone and messaging — something the agency is working on “every day.”

Deportations have also dropped under the Biden administration. Last month, the agency deported 2,886 people, down from 5,838 in December and 10,353 last October.

There are also fewer immigrants in ICE custody, which the ICE official attributed to Covid-19 restrictions. As of March, the average daily population in ICE detention for the current fiscal year was 15,914. In fiscal year 2020, the average daily population was 33,724 and in 2019 it was 50,165.

On Inauguration Day, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would pause deportations for 100 days, with some exceptions, but a federal judge in Texas blocked the moratorium, delivering a blow to one of Biden’s first immigration actions.

The administration argued that the pause would allow DHS time to review the agency’s policies. Meanwhile, the agency’s enforcement priorities remained in place and arrests and deportations slowed significantly.

The ICE official said Tuesday that there was a “lack of focus” at ICE during the Trump administration, adding that there are downsides to public safety when law enforcement agencies don’t have a clear focus and allocation of resources.

“What we are trying to accomplish is, focus ICE’s resources on items that are really truly public safety threats, national security threats and that help reinforce, help establish a strong border security,” the ICE official said.

DHS is expected to issue department-wide guidance on enforcement and removals later this year. As part of that process, ICE is working with its agents in the field and state and local partners to assess the current interim guidance, the ICE official said.

Originally Appeared On: https://kyma.com/cnn-us-politics/2021/04/06/arrests-and-deportations-of-immigrants-in-us-illegally-drop-under-biden-with-shift-in-priorities/

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s president on Tuesday handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the difficult task of trying to form a new government, giving the embattled Israeli leader a chance to extend his lengthy term in office.

But with the newly elected parliament deeply divided and the prime minister on trial for corruption charges, Netanyahu had little to celebrate.

He now has up to six weeks to lure his political foes into a coalition, an effort that appears to have slim odds of success. At the same time, those opponents will be working to form an alternative government that could end his 12-year reign.

In a meeting with members of his Likud party, Netanyahu struck a statesmanlike tone, saying he would be the prime minister of all of Israel’s citizens, Jewish and Arab, religious and secular.

“We will take care of everyone,” he said, vowing to “take Israel out of the cycle of recurring elections and to establish a strong government for all citizens of Israel.”

President Reuven Rivlin turned to Netanyahu in the wake of Israel’s fourth inconclusive election in the past two years.

In a post-election ritual, Rivlin had consulted Monday with each of the 13 parties elected to the Knesset, or parliament, in hopes of finding a consensus on a candidate for prime minister. But neither Netanyahu, nor his main rival, Yair Lapid, received the endorsement of a majority of lawmakers.

As he announced his decision Tuesday, an anguished Rivlin said no candidate had the support needed to form a majority coalition in the 120-seat Knesset. He also noted that there are many misgivings about Netanyahu remaining in office while on trial.

Yet he said there was nothing in the law preventing Netanyahu from continuing as prime minister and said he believed that Netanyahu had a better chance than his rivals of cobbling together a coalition.

“This is not an easy decision on a moral and ethical basis,” Rivlin said. “The state of Israel is not to be taken for granted. And I fear for my country.”

Netanyahu did not attend Tuesday’s announcement, as is tradition, and later Rivlin did not appear with Netanyahu in the usual photo of the new parliament’s swearing-in — moves local media interpreted as a show of the president’s unhappiness with the situation.

Netanyahu now has an initial period of 28 days to put together a coalition, a period that Rivlin could extend for an additional two weeks.

Netanyahu has received the endorsement of 52 lawmakers, more than his rivals, but still short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a government.

Securing the support of nine more lawmakers will not be easy. Netanyahu will use his formidable powers of persuasion, coupled with generous offers of powerful government ministries, to court his potential partners.

Netanyahu will likely require the backing of Raam, a small Arab Islamist party. Raam’s leader, Mansour Abbas, has left the door open to cooperating with Netanyahu if he aids Israel’s Arab sector, which has long suffered from crime, discrimination and poverty.

But one of Netanyahu’s allies, the Religious Zionist party, has an openly racist platform and refuses to serve in a government with Arab partners. Netanyahu could appeal to the rabbis who serve as the party’s spiritual guides in hopes of changing minds.

Netanyahu will also likely need the support of Yamina, a religious nationalist party led by former ally turned rival, Naftali Bennett, who also has been cool to an alliance with Arab parties.

Bennett, a former aide to Netanyahu, promised Tuesday to negotiate in “good faith,” but made no promises to his former mentor.

Netanyahu’s last hope will be to try to lure “defectors” from other opposition parties. For now, however, Netanyahu’s opponents have vowed to stand firm, especially after the painful experience of the previous government.

Following elections last year, Netanyahu and his main rival at the time, Benny Gantz, agreed to an “emergency” government to confront the coronavirus crisis. Their partnership was plagued by infighting and collapsed in half a year, triggering the March 23 election.

“The chances of Netanyahu to form a government, as it seems right now, are quite low,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.

Looming over the negotiations will be Netanyahu’s corruption trial, which resumed this week with testimony from the first of a string of witnesses to testify against him.

Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals. He denies the charges and this week compared the case to “an attempted coup.”

Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, acknowledged Tuesday that the law left Rivlin “no choice,” but nonetheless said that tapping Netanyahu was a “shameful disgrace that tarnishes Israel.”

Lapid has offered an alternative: a power-sharing arrangement with Bennett that would see the two men rotate between the prime minister’s job. They are expected to hold intense negotiations in the coming weeks.

Plesner, a former Knesset member, said the partnership between Bennett and Lapid has “a reasonable likelihood of materializing.”

Lapid would be able to deliver his key campaign promise of ousting Netanyahu, while Bennett, whose party has just seven seats, would be the first to be prime minister.

“For both of them, it’s a very lucrative deal,” Plesner said.

Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Israel’s Hebrew University, said that Netanyahu’s opponents who share his hard-line ideology, including Bennett, would prefer to see him fail before banding together against him.

“Otherwise, they would’ve been thought of, from their own right-wing base perspective as traitors,” she said.

The new parliament takes office at a time of deep polarization in Israeli society. Last month’s election was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s divisive leadership style, and the result was continued deadlock.

Netanyahu’s supporters view him as a global statesman who is uniquely suited to leading the country. His opponents accuse him of pushing the country through repeated elections in hopes of producing a parliament that will grant him immunity from criminal prosecution.

In a sign of those divisions, about 100 protesters hoisted LGBT pride flags and a mock submarine in a noisy demonstration outside the Knesset as the new parliament was sworn in. The pride flags were aimed at the pro-Netanyahu Religious Zionists, whose members are openly homophobic, while the submarine points to a graft scandal involving the purchase of German subs.

As the new Knesset was sworn into office, Rivlin appealed for unity. It was the last time Rivlin will address such a gathering, and the outgoing president, who leaves office this summer, appeared emotional.

“If we do not learn and find a model of partnership that will allow us to live here together, out of mutual respect for each other, out of commitment to each other, and genuine solidarity, our national resilience will be in real danger,” he said.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.berkshireeagle.com/us-politics/netanyahu-asked-to-form-new-government-but-faces-long-odds/article_bb1e453a-cf19-5dcc-944a-7a1f2dded6cf.html

The league said it was finalizing details about new locations for this year’s All-Star Game, which was scheduled for July 13, and the draft. Before the announcement, baseball had faced the unsettling prospect of celebrating an All-Star week dedicated to the former Atlanta Braves great Hank Aaron, a Black pioneer of the game who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, against the backdrop of a Georgia elections overhaul widely seen as targeting Black voters.

Mr. Kemp, who has been forcefully defending the law in television appearances this week, criticized the decision to move the All-Star Game and tried to pin the blame on state Democrats for their vocal criticism of the voting restrictions.

“Today, Major League Baseball caved to fear, political opportunism, and liberal lies,” Mr. Kemp said in a statement, calling out Mr. Biden and Stacey Abrams, the titular head of the state’s Democrats. He continued: “I will not back down. Georgians will not be bullied. We will continue to stand up for secure, accessible, fair elections.”

Georgia Democrats had not called for a boycott of the game, but were building pressure on Major League Baseball and Georgia-based corporations to oppose the state’s voting law.

Ms. Abrams, who ran against Mr. Kemp for governor in 2018 and may challenge him again next year, said Friday that she was “disappointed” league officials had pulled the All-Star Game but that she was “proud of their stance on voting rights.”

For now, the fallout from baseball’s decision is more political and civic than financial. The impact on the Georgia economy of losing the All-Star Game is minimal, said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College, because most of the tickets would be sold locally and many of the typical festivities would most likely be canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But, Professor Zimbalist said, Major League Baseball is taking a risk with a move that could alienate conservative fans. After the country’s top professional basketball and football leagues embraced the Black Lives Matter movement last year, they faced organized boycotts from conservatives, though the effort ultimately had little effect. And baseball’s fan base is older and whiter than basketball’s or football’s.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/mlb-all-star-game-moved-atlanta-georgia.html

“For over two years, I’ve tried to get off the no-fly list, but the government won’t even give me its reason for putting me on the list or a fair process to clear my name and regain my rights,” Mr. Chebli said in a statement released by the A.C.L.U. “No one should suffer what my family and I have had to suffer.”

The Justice Department had no immediate response to the lawsuit. But it has defended the legality of the government’s terrorism watch lists and its related practices in litigation over the past decade, arguing that the procedures are lawful and reasonable given the national security interests at stake.

Mr. Chebli’s case is a sequel to a major lawsuit by the A.C.L.U. during the Obama administration that challenged government procedures for reviewing whether it was appropriate to put someone’s name on the no-fly list. In 2014, a federal judge in Oregon ruled that those regulations were inadequate and violated Americans’ Fifth Amendment right to due process.

In response, the government promised to overhaul the Traveler Redress Inquiry Program to ensure that Americans would be told if they were on the list and given a meaningful opportunity to challenge the decision. (It also removed seven of the 13 original plaintiffs in that case from the no-fly list. Several remaining plaintiffs pressed on, but that judge, and later the appeals court in San Francisco, upheld the revised procedures as applied to them.)

Citing Mr. Chebli’s inability to obtain information about the government’s evidence about him or to challenge it in a hearing before a neutral decision maker, the new lawsuit said that the revised procedures are both unconstitutional and that they violate statutory law, including a federal law that protects religious liberty, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, because he is unable to travel to Mecca for the required Muslim pilgrimage.

“More than two years ago, Mr. Chebli filed an administrative petition for redress, but the government has failed to provide any reason for placing him on the no-fly list or a fair process to challenge that placement,” it said. “As a result, Mr. Chebli has been subjected to unreasonable and lengthy delays and an opaque redress process that has prevented him from clearing his name.”

Beyond the Oregon case, the new lawsuit takes its place among a constellation of related litigation that has tested the limits of the government’s terrorism watch-listing powers and individual rights.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/no-fly-list-lawsuit.html

Evans, an 18-year veteran of the Capitol Police, died while protecting the Capitol from an individual who brandished a knife after ramming his vehicle into a police barricade along the perimeter of the Capitol. Another officer was injured in the attack.

“The United States Congress joins all Americans in mourning the tragic death of one of our Capitol Police heroes, Officer Billy Evans,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. “In giving his life to protect our Capitol and our Country, Officer Evans became a martyr for our democracy. On behalf of the entire Congress, we are profoundly grateful.”

“It is now the great and solemn privilege of the House of Representatives and the Senate to convey the appreciation and the sadness of the Congress and Country for the heroic sacrifice of Officer Evans with a lying-in-honor ceremony in the US Capitol,” Pelosi and Schumer said in their statement.

Acting US Capitol Police Chief Yogananda D. Pittman reflected on the day of Evans’ death how difficult a time it has been for the Capitol Police force, who remain understaffed and overworked since the violent insurrection on the Capitol on January 6.

“This has been an extremely difficult time for US Capitol Police after the events of Jan. 6 and now the events that have occurred here today. So I ask that you keep our US Capitol Police family in your thoughts and prayers,” Pittman said on April 2.

Capitol Police Union Chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement Saturday that the Capitol Police is staffed below its authorized level by 233 officers and could face larger staffing shortages as officers retire in the coming years. Papathanasiou noted the shortage is exacerbated by the continued injuries of several officers in the January 6 attack.

Evans is the second Capitol Police officer to die in the line of study this year. Capitol Police Officer, Brian D. Sicknick, died a day after the Capitol riot on January 6 “due to injuries sustained while on-duty,” the Capitol Police said in a statement. Two officers also died by suicide after responding to the riot.

Originally Appeared On: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/politics/william-evans-slain-capitol-police-office-lie-in-honor/index.html