(WASHINGTON) — Biden administration officials said Monday that the numbers of migrants making unauthorized border crossings over the weekend continued to be significantly lower than expected but they were not ready to declare their plan a success just yet.
“I think it’s — it’s still too early to draw firm conclusions,” Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy Blas Nuñez-Neto said in response to questions about the decline seen since last Thursday when the pandemic-era policy that allowed migrants to be quickly expelled ended.
“We are closely watching what’s happening. We are confident that, you know, the plan that we have developed across the U.S. government to address these flows will work over time,” he told reporters on Monday.
U.S. Border Patrol agents made 14,752 migrant apprehensions in the past 72 hours, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said in a tweet Monday.
Unauthorized crossings had reached more than 10,000 per day last week — and President Joe Biden said then he expected the border to be “chaotic for a while,” despite measures by border authorities to contain a surge in migration.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday the decline was about 50% from levels seen just before the Title 42 policy lifted last week.
As ABC News has reported, some data suggests the Title 42 expulsion order may have caused more border crossings, not fewer. The data showed significantly higher repeat crossing attempts under Title 42, compared to standard immigration processing under Title 8 of the U.S. Code.
Since Friday, Title 8 now dictates the way all migrants at the border are processed.
“And it is important to note, that while Title 42 has ended, the conditions that are causing hemispheric migration at unprecedented levels have not changed,” Nuñez-Neto said. “We continue to see more displaced people in the hemisphere than we have in decades.”
There are many factors that cause migrants to make the dangerous journey north, including high levels of violence and economic instability across Latin America. More than 100 million people are displaced globally, including 20 million in the Western Hemisphere, according to the State Department.
“Migration impacts every single country in the region, and no one country can provide solutions for millions of displaced people on their own,” State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Marta Youth said Monday.
Mexico and Guatemala have surged their own law enforcement and military personnel in recent days while administration officials continue to tout the effectiveness of the parole pathways that allow migrants to temporarily enter the country and claim asylum.
Homeland Security over the weekend returned “hundreds” of migrants to Mexico, including Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans. Thousands more were repatriated to other countries, Nuñez-Neto said, adding that Title 8 deportations are occurring “much more quickly” than before.
Administration officials have pointed to new options for legal immigration including proposals for foreign migrant processing centers.
However, a spokesperson for Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said the government had not received any official requests from the U.S. government to create special processing centers for migrants trying to cross borders and eventually cross into the U.S.
“The government of Guatemala has not received any official requests for creating any kind of reception center yet,” Guatemalan government spokesman Kevin Lopez Oliva told ABC News in an interview Friday.
“We just made a proposal to Secretary Mayorkas in a call, in a just unique call that just recently happened last week” between the Guatemalan President and the US Secretary of Homeland Security, “in which we were proposing an approach, an integral approach between the two countries,” he added.
The approach proposed by the Guatemalan government includes “logistics support” from the U.S., Oliva said.
ABC News’ Haroldo Martinez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In a long-awaited report, special counsel John Durham is slamming the FBI for actions agents took during the 2016 probe scrutinizing then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
Durham’s final report examining the origins of the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia brings to a close a four-year probe that failed to produce any major convictions despite the expectations pushed by Trump and his allies.
The Justice Department and FBI “failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law,” Durham concluded in his report, according to an executive summary reviewed by ABC News.
Durham was tasked in late 2020 by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the origins of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” probe of the Trump campaign that was launched in July 2016.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(FAIRFAX, Va.) — A person looking for Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly allegedly attacked two of his staffers with a baseball bat at his district office Monday, the congressman said in a statement.
Connolly, a Democrat, said the individual was taken into police custody and the two staffers who were injured were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“I have the best team in Congress. My District Office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day,” Connolly said in a statement. “The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”
“Right now, our focus is on ensuring they are receiving the care they need,” Connolly said.
Connolly also thanked the city of Fairfax Police Department, where is office is located, for coming to the aid of his staff.
The congressman has served Virginia’s 11th District since 2009. His district includes the region south of Washington, D.C.
Police have not released any information on the attacker or a motive for the incident.
Angela Rowlings/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Monday he intends to nominate a new director for the National Institutes of Health after Dr. Anthony Fauci stepped down.
Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, a surgical oncologist and cancer researcher, was picked by Biden as the successor.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Sunday the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will continue to pursue contempt charges for Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Congress subpoenaed Blinken to turn over the dissent cable regarding the withdrawal of American personnel in 2021.
“I am prepared to move forward to contempt proceedings,” McCaul, the committee’s chairman, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “This would be the first time a secretary of state has ever been held in contempt by Congress and it’s criminal contempt, so I don’t take it lightly.”
If Blinken is held in contempt, his case would be turned over to the Department of Justice, however it is unlikely the Biden DOJ would prosecute Blinken.
Karl also pressed McCaul on the recent expiration of Title 42 and its impact on border security. Officials expected a surge at the border following the end of this policy, one that called for the expulsion of illegal migrants at the border. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told “This Week” on Sunday that encounters at the border have dropped significantly since Title 42’s expiration.
“We’ve actually seen a 50% drop in encounters at the border compared to the days before Title 42 ended,” Mayorkas said. “Why? We’ve been preparing for this and are executing.”
When asked for a response to the secretary’s statement, McCaul said this should have happened sooner.
“Why did it take him so long?” McCaul said. “I mean, I told him from day one, you can call it whatever you want, but the migrant protection protocols were working.”
McCaul also said there could be room for a bipartisan bill on border security but he recognized that the recent GOP proposal on border security will not pass in the Senate. The proposal calls for the reconstruction of Trump’s border wall and the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
“I’m still hopeful that there are rational Democrats out there who will work with us on some of these provisions,” McCaul said.
House Republicans recently passed a bill that would raise the nation’s debt limit and cut spending in certain areas. Experts have warned that a national default could occur as early as June 1 if no deal is struck.
“How concerned are you that we’re heading toward a default?” Karl asked.
“I think defaulting on our full faith and credit, any financial person will tell you it’s very catastrophic,” McCaul responded. “They said [Republicans] couldn’t govern, we got a border bill passed.”
(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday defended the country’s border policies, insisting the Biden administration was taking a strong enough stance on a surge of migration while batting away claims it was being overly strict.
Mayorkas took issue with criticism from progressives who compared President Joe Biden’s policies to those of former President Donald Trump, who required migrants to apply for asylum in countries they passed through before applying for it the U.S. The secretary pointed to the 50% drop in encounters at the border before the end of Title 42, allowing for expedited deportations of undocumented migrants.
“This is not an asylum ban. We have a humanitarian obligation as well as a matter of security to cut the ruthless smugglers out. That is a responsibility of government and we are doing that, and Jon, it is not a ban at all,” Mayorkas told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
He went on, “What our rule provides is that an individual must access those lawful pathways that we have made available to them. If they have not, then they must have sought relief in one of the countries through which they have traveled and been denied. And if they haven’t done either, it’s not a ban on asylum, but they have a higher threshold of proof that they have to meet. That is a presumption of ineligibility that can be overcome.”
Mayorkas also fended off barbs over the White House’s plan to release some migrants without mandated court dates due to overcrowding in facilities housing those who cross the border despite a judge’s recent ruling scrapping the policy.
“We have an obligation to comply with that ruling,” he said. “We respectfully disagree with the judge. We think it’s a very harmful ruling. When … our border patrol stations become overcrowded, it is a matter of the safety and security of people, including our own personnel, not just the vulnerable migrants, to be able to release them. And this is something that administration after administration has done.”
The secretary’s comments come as Biden faces a barrage of criticism and an avalanche of media coverage over the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed border officials to deport migrants illegally crossing the border.
The ending of the rule, which coincided with the ending of the national emergency around COVID-19, is expected to produce surges of attempted border crossings.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill remain divided over how to address unauthorized border crossings, extending a decades long standstill over immigration policy changes in Washington.
House Republicans did pass legislation seeking to limit asylum and extend the Trump-era border wall but the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
The administration has sought to thread the needle in blunting an expected border surge, making it harder for migrants to apply for asylum while pushing back on any comparisons to the previous administration’s more draconian policies.
Mayorkas also defended Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tasked earlier in the Biden presidency to handle immigration.
“That effort is a yearslong effort. And Vice President Harris has led the investment of more than $3 billion in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” he said.
“That effort began in the Obama-Biden administration. It was terribly taken down during the Trump administration and Vice President Harris has led an extraordinary effort to address the root causes of why people flee their homes in the first instance: violence, poverty, corruption, authoritarian regimes, extreme weather events, persecution and the like.”
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Saturday vetoed a Republican bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, though the politics of the state mean that the possibility of a veto override is imminent.
The Democratic governor would likely need just one Republican defector to prevent the GOP-led legislature from overriding his veto and allowing the current 20-week limit to remain in place — and he implored those lawmakers to exercise that option.
“Maybe it’ll be a friend or family member or even a doctor of one of these Republican legislators who convinces them to step up and do the right thing,” the governor said on Saturday as he issued the veto at a rally of hundreds of abortion rights supporters and voters in downtown Raleigh.
“If just one Republican follows his or her conscience, if just one Republican finds the courage, if just one Republican listens to doctors, if just one Republican is unafraid to stand up to the political bosses, if just one Republican keeps that promise made to the people, then we can stop this ban,” he continued.
Just a few weeks ago, Cooper’s veto pen likely would have been enough to stop a bill from becoming law. But a party-switch from one state representative has handed North Carolina Republicans a veto-proof supermajority.
State Rep. Tricia Cotham, previously a Democrat who ran on supporting abortion rights, announced she was switching to the Republican Party in early April. Cotham voted in favor of the new abortion bill banning the procedure after 12 weeks with some exceptions.
Now, Cooper needs at least one Republican to decline to override his veto to defeat the bill.
Republican leadership has pushed back on Cooper’s criticism of the bill, describing it is a “mainstream abortion compromise.”
“Gov. Cooper has spent the last week actively feeding the public lies about Senate Bill 20 and bullying members of the General Assembly,” Senate Leader Phil Berger said in a statement Saturday after Cooper’s veto.
“He has been doing everything he can, including wasting taxpayer money on poorly attended events, to avoid talking about his own extreme views on abortion,” Berger said. “I look forward to promptly overriding his veto.”
The abortion bill, dubbed the “The Care for Women, Children and Families Act,” passed earlier this month along party lines.
It would ban most abortions at 12 weeks of pregnancy, and offers exceptions in cases of medical emergencies, rape and incest up to 20 weeks and for “life-threatening” fetal anomalies up to 24 weeks.
The legislation would also restrict abortion medication from being mailed.
Providers who perform abortions outside the bills’ parameters would face possible discipline from the state medical board, including possible probation, fines or revoking of licenses.
-ABC News’ Anne Flaherty and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the top two names in the 2024 GOP presidential primary field, are set to be in Iowa this weekend, marking the first time the two will be in the critical state simultaneously this election cycle.
The former president will hold a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday evening, while DeSantis will participate in two events in different parts of the state. The first DeSantis event is set to take place late Saturday morning in Sioux Center, where the governor will attend an annual Family Picnic hosted by Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa. Later in the evening, the governor will make his way over to Cedar Rapids where he will host a reception with Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, which is being billed as an interview-style discussion with the governor.
“There’s a civil war in the Republican Party coming, and it’s coming quicker than everybody thinks, and Iowa is ground zero for that,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor who previously fundraised for Trump but is now supporting DeSantis.
“I don’t think either campaign is going to say this, but Iowa is a must-win,” Eberhart added.
DeSantis may sense a rare opportunity to gain ground on the former president, given that Trump’s loss in the state’s 2016 caucuses briefly set Trump back on his heels in the race for the nomination. Ahead of the governor’s visit to the state, DeSantis received numerous endorsements from Iowan Republicans — 37 to be exact, including from the state’s Senate President Amy Sinclair.
“The support in Iowa for Governor Ron DeSantis to jump in the race and be our next President is overflowing – as shown by this historic list, which is the largest number of endorsements from Iowa legislators at this stage of a GOP primary in modern memory. Iowa’s leaders are getting behind DeSantis as the future of the Republican Party,” said Erin Perrine, the communication director for the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down.
DeSantis is not the first potential 2024 contender to be invited to the Iowa congressman’s Family Picnic. In the spring of 2021, former Vice President Mike Pence, fresh off the White House, became the first special guest at the first Feenstra annual picnic, and last year, Trump’s former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — herself now a 2024 hopeful — joined the Feenstra picnic as she was mulling a presidential run.
“Iowans are laser-focused on defeating Joe Biden and passing a conservative agenda for our country, and that starts with the Iowa caucuses,” Feenstra said in a statement to ABC News. “That’s why I’m excited that Governor Ron DeSantis is headlining my 3rd annual Feenstra Family Picnic to share his record of results with my constituents.”
At this year’s picnic, top Iowa GOP leaders will join Feenstra and DeSantis, including Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Lieutenant Gov. Adam Gregg, Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Mariannetta Miller-Meeks.
“One thing that everyone who makes their way through Iowa comes to learn quickly is just how seriously Iowans take our First-in-the-Nation Caucus,” Kaufmann said in a statement to ABC News. “We’re always eager to hear what candidates and national figures have to say, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is certainly no exception — we’ve heard a tremendous deal of excitement from Iowa Republicans for our sold-out event with Gov. DeSantis.”
Kaufmann added that his conversation with DeSantis will be a great opportunity for Iowans to learn more about him as a person and not just as a governor.
Even without DeSantis’ candidacy, Never Back Down has raised $30 million from donors seeking an alternative Republican to Trump since March, and last month, the super PAC launched seven-figure ad campaigns in four early voting states pitching DeSantis is the new leader of the GOP, as previously reported by ABC News.
But Trump’s allies are coming at an even more aggressive pace – pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. with a massive $50 million war chest already spending more than $10 million in ad campaigns attacking DeSantis.
“Trump sees DeSantis as the biggest threat right now,” Bob Vander Plaats, president of conservative Iowa-based group the Family Leader and a prominent figure in Iowa politics, told ABC News.
“I think there are two races going on: One is Trump versus DeSantis, and then you have everybody else versus DeSantis,” said Vander Plaats, who has publicly said he’s looking for an alternative to Trump.
Trump could prove difficult to defeat if the field remains extremely crowded, with candidates dividing the anti-Trump vote, the Iowa politico said.
“Let’s say the race were to remain the way it is right now, [where] there are six or seven candidates in the races. Most likely, Trump will win the Iowa caucuses, and he’d win the Republican primary just by the math of division,” Vander Plaats continued. “If there’s a coalescing around one candidate who emerges as a clear alternative to Trump and that coalesce becomes one-on-one against the former president, now I think there’s a chance they’ll have a different nominee other than Donald Trump.”
Asked whether DeSantis is ready to take on Trump, Vander Plaats said, “Definitely.”
“He’s the governor of the state of Florida,” Vander Plaats said. “He won a massive reelection. He’s accomplished a ton. He’s very gifted as a leader. He’s articulate. He’s focused. He’s a Navy SEAL. I think he’s very prepared to go toe-to-toe with the former president.”
But Vander Plaats, noting he has yet to endorse anyone, said he’s still “keeping a very open hand” for a number of candidates. He said he met with DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis recently in Florida, Nikki Haley is visiting his office next week, and Mike Pence will do the same the following week.
Asked what Iowans will be looking for from the two frontrunners this weekend, Vander Plaats said: “At the end of the day, they want to know the true personal character: whether you have the ability and competency to be president and that you’re the right person to win. That’s really what they’re looking for.”
The parallel events in Iowa signal the 2024 Republican presidential primary field is ramping up for a heated battle in the Hawkeye State as DeSantis boosts his political operation ahead of a much anticipated campaign announcement and Trump attempts to raise his public profile, most recently by participating in a town hall in New Hampshire with CNN during which he continued to push false information about the 2020 presidential election.
Trump and DeSantis’ pseudo match in Iowa also comes on the heels of a widening polling gap, with the former president pulling well ahead of DeSantis in national polls for the 2024 Republican nomination. The Florida governor was once neck-and-neck with Trump in polls, boosted by his strong reelection victory and prolific fundraising during the 2022 midterms. But some Republican leaders and supporters have expressed doubts on whether he’s ready to take on Trump, holding off on donations or actively seeking alternative contenders.
Trump’s camp says the strong lead is attributable to his record.
“President Trump is dominating in the polls — both in the primary and general elections — and passed significant policies to improve the lives of all Iowans. He granted consumers year-round access to E15 gasoline with higher blends of ethanol, which led to improved corn prices and lower costs for drivers. He negotiated America First trade deals like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and with the European Union, China, and Japan to increase access to purchase agricultural products from Iowans. To protect generations of Iowa farmers and business owners, President Trump virtually eliminated the estate tax and enacted tax cuts for the middle class,” a Trump spokesperson told ABC News.
Although Trump is the clear frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election and has widened his leads in the polls, DeSantis remains the biggest in-party threat to Trump’s attempt to return to the White House, with the former president ramping up his attacks on the Florida governor ahead of his expected presidential announcement in the summer.
ABC News’ Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — According to Honduras’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina, 17-year-old Honduran minor Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoz died in a shelter located in Safety Harbor, Florida.
“The Government of Honduras, through the Embassy in Washington, is in contact with the family and has requested that [Office of Refugee Resettlement] and [United States Department of Health and Human Services] carry out an exhaustive investigation of the case to clarify this fact and, if there is any responsibility, apply the full weight of the law,” Reina said in a social media post.
The White House said Friday it was aware of the death, and confirmed the Department of Health and Human Services has opened a medical investigation on May 10.
“It is sad news. It is deeply saddening to hear. And we are certainly aware of the tragic loss,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during the daily briefing.
Jean-Pierre declined to share any additional information, referring questions to the HHS.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.
News of the child migrant’s death comes amid concerns of a looming surge at the border now that Title 42 pandemic-era restrictions have expired.
“This terrible fact underscores the importance of working together on the bilateral migration agenda on the situation of unaccompanied minors, to find solutions, an issue that has been addressed by the President [Xiomara Castro] at various levels with the US,” Reina said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Friday added more urgency to the fight over the debt limit, now saying there is a “significant risk” the U.S. will default on its debt “at some point in the first two weeks of June.”
In a new report, the agency said “the extent to which the Treasury will be able to fund the government’s ongoing obligations will remain uncertain throughout May, even if the Treasury ultimately runs out of funds in early June.”
This is an escalation from agency’s previous assessment of how soon the government won’t be able to pay its bills.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen previously warned that a default could happen as soon as June 1, though Yellen has acknowledged there is considerable uncertainty around the exact “X-date.”
