By Kylie Madry
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The Mexican government said on Monday it is opposed to a possible restart of the U.S. immigration policy known as "Remain in Mexico" which required asylum seekers to wait for U.S. hearings in Mexico.
President Joe Biden has sought to end the program, which had been introduced by the Trump administration and is currently suspended.
But U.S. states such as Texas and Missouri filed a lawsuit to keep the program active and in December a U.S. judge paused Biden's attempt, saying the Department of Homeland Security had failed to adequately explain why the policy was ineffective and should be scrapped.
Mexico's foreign ministry did not state its reasons for its opposition. Activists argue the policy, officially called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), leaves migrants in dangerous border cities where they face threats of kidnapping and extortion.
If the Mexican government remains firm in its opposition, U.S. officials would likely have to consider whether asylum seekers can stay in the United States while their claims are evaluated or make other arrangements to remove them from the country.
Some 74,000 migrants went through Mexico under the program when former President Donald Trump was in power, the foreign ministry said. Under Biden, that number is just 7,500.
Marsha Espinosa, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement to Reuters on Monday that the Biden Administration will keep trying to terminate MPP through the courts.
"Our ability to implement MPP pursuant to court order has always been contingent on the government of Mexico's willingness to accept returns under MPP," added Espinosa.
The Biden administration has sought alternatives to reduce the influx of migrants to the U.S. southern border, including a program allowing some Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to enter through an appointment system.
According to U.S. officials, the program has seen some success as the number of migrants from those countries caught crossing the border dropped off sharply from December to January.
Human rights organizations have pushed for other nationalities to be included.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Edwina Gibbs)
President Joe Biden will reportedly attack Big Tech in his State of the Union address Tuesday in a bid to unite lawmakers in Washington concerned about the industry’s unprecedented influence and impact on all facets of American life. Biden has already deployed fighting words against Silicon Valley, alleging in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that some major technology industry players “collect, share and exploit our most personal data, deepen extremism and polarization in our country, tilt our economy’s playing field, violate the civil rights of women and minorities, and even put our childr...
Speaking to a church audience, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told the crowd to pray for Joe Biden: "May his days be few and another take his office.”
The quote – taken from a Bible excerpt which continues: "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow" – caused uproar among those on social media who saw a video of it, taken this past weekend at the SALT Conference for women that was held in a Dallas church. The clip was first posted by PatriotTakes, a liberal PAC, and later shared by the Washington Post.
It isn't the first time she's made such a "prayer." She's been using the line "may his days be few" since 2022, when she spoke to the Charis Christian Center Family Camp Meeting in Colorado.
Though she didn't quote the section of the prayer that calls for death, using an excerpt of it outraged many – as did her using the church for political messaging.
"THIS is the self-proclaimed party of Jesus Christ," tweeted political commentator Lindy Li. "This is the self-appointed party of Christianity SHAME ON YOU! This is why church pews are emptying at a ferocious rate. Why increasing numbers of Americans now say they are religiously unaffiliated. Christianity in America has devolved into a rabid tribe of Talibangelicals and gun-totin Y’all Qaeda fanatics."
READ: Not Barack Obama's White House: Why Republicans no longer get the benefit of the doubt
Others noted that her so-called "sermon" included her promoting her legislation to impeach the president and argued that bringing politics into church pews is a reason that churches should lose their tax-exempt status.
Another called it a federal crime to threaten the president, though Boebert doesn't literally do that.
See the video of the incident below or at the link here:
more lauren boebert "prayers" youtu.be
One of the key targets of the Republican Congress is in going after President Joe Biden's Department of Justice and FBI for conspiracy theories spread on conservative outlets.
According to the recent Washington Post-ABC News survey, however, most Americans understand that the efforts by the GOP are absurd.
A whopping 56 percent of Americans see the GOP's "weaponization committee" as "just an attempt to score political points." Just 36 percent support it.
"What’s more, just 28 percent believe that government agencies are indeed biased against conservatives," cited Aaron Blake. "That’s more than the share that believes they’re biased against liberals (11 percent), but nearly two-thirds of Americans don’t believe conservatives are being singled out."
Even the Fox News poll showed that only 43 percent of people they surveyed supported the committee.
READ: Crime spree hits one of Trump’s top supporters in Congress
One of the GOP's claims is that the DOJ went after parents objecting to Critical Race Theory at school board meetings. In fact, what the DOJ did was say that they would investigate anyone who made violent threats against school board leaders and teachers. They even published the intentions in a press release.
“Biden used the FBI to target parents as ‘domestic terrorists.’ Can you imagine that? To use your own FBI to go after parents, calling them domestic terrorists. Without any evidence. Simply aiming to silence their First Amendment rights. A whistleblower just confirmed it," Speaker Kevin McCarthy falsely said in Nov. He has never been able to produce the so-called "whistleblower."
"[I]f your White House and our Justice Department that we pay for — if they're encouraging a left-wing political group to write them a letter as a pretext to go after parents, to go after moms and dads who simply are trying to do what's best for their kids' education — if you encourage that, if you put that in the letter, that is scary stuff," said committee chair, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to Fox in Oct.
The other aims are investigations into the DOJ for their search on Donald Trump's country club in Palm Beach, Florida. In that case, the Republicans have demanded all of the details about the DOJ's ongoing investigation, which they have denied. The third piece of the GOP weaponization committee is to probe the ongoing investigations into the Jan. 6 attacks, which includes some of the people on the weaponization committee. In that instance, the DOJ has also refused.
ALSO IN THE NEWS: Not Barack Obama's White House: Why Republicans no longer get the benefit of the doubt
Representative Mary Miller (R-Illinois) has made it public she will be boycotting President Biden's State of the Union address due to what she says are "lies" and an ineffectiveness to maintain border security as well as opposition to his energy policy, including the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline.
"I'm not going to sit there and listen to him lie and watch the media and other members of Congress applaud him for his lies," Miller said in an interview with Breitbart.
Miller cited her own statistics about the issue at the Mexico border.
"By the time his presidency is over we could have 12 to 14 million terrorists, fentanyl dealers, child traffickers and an entire welfare state entering our country," Miller said. "He has also lied about our energy prices."
IN OTHER NEWS: GOP schedules a day of fearmongering ahead of Biden's State of the Union address
Miller also touted U.S. foreign policy under former President Donald Trump.
"He was always aggressive with our enemies and it allowed for peace in the world."
Miller's comments ignored the well over dozen major international military conflicts that occurred across the world during Trump's presidency.
According to Miller, she has donated her ticket to a retired military colonel who had to retire because he would not get the vaccine.
As the nation awaits President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, and the Republican response to be given by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Republican strategy is becoming obvious, according to a new MSNBC column by Ja'han Jones -- blatant foreign fear-mongering to appease to its far-right nationalist base.
Part of that GOP strategy is to host three meetings tomorrow based on foreign threats -- the same day as Biden's State of the Union.
The Oversight and Accountability Committee will host a meeting called "Biden's border crisis," while the Armed Service Committee is hosting a hearing on the Chinese threat to domestic defense. Finally, the Financial Services Committee will be hosting a hearing to address Chinese economic threats.
Criticism of the current Republican communications strategy has been coming from inside the party. Recently, a well-publicized private elevator conversation between Republican Representatives Ken Buck (Colorado) and Mike Simpson (Idaho) questioned the party's strategy in removing Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) from her Foreign Affairs Committee responsibilities.
IN OTHER NEWS: MSNBC mocks Kevin McCarthy and Mike Pence for stealing Bush's politically disastrous plan
"Republicans have seen little success in trying to portray Biden himself as an evil, corrupt threat to the country," Ja'han Jones concluded in his column. "But they’ve tried to sour voters on him by floating conspiracy theories about his deference to migrants and foreign nations at a time when many Americans are showing an openness to anti-immigrant bigotry."
A recent NBC News poll showcases that 63 percent of Republicans surveyed directly opposed "providing more funding and weapons to Ukraine." Only 32 percent of the Republicans supported additional support of Ukraine via capital assistance and weapons.
The sentiment comes as it is widely expected that Russia will increase air bombings and ground assault across Ukraine to celebrate the first anniversary of its invasion. It has been widely reported that President Joe Biden plans to give a series of pro-Ukraine comments at his State of the Union address.
These newest numbers come at an inopportune time when an even more aggressive China has now taken the top spot in U.S. foreign policy diplomacy worries with both its provocative behavior towards the United States and its growing presence across Latin America and Africa.
The Republicans, who have a well-established track record of government spending, are now playing the fiscally conservative role when it comes to spending with Ukraine, building upon former President Donald Trump's heavy praise for Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin.
IN OTHER NEWS: A single Republican holdout doomed the GOP’s ‘skinny budget’ on Monday
This has led to a minimization of the Russian military threat to the United States within the Republican party and a redirection to China is what many GOP leaders have seized upon already during the Spy Balloon saga.
Across the Republican party, there even has been growing public conversation about allowing Russia obtain current portions of Ukraine as part of a possible peace deal to end the war. This is because Republicans have a less favorable view of how the war is going for Ukraine as only 42 percent of Republicans think Ukraine is winning compared to 61 percent of Democrats, according to a Fox News Poll. The same poll found that Republicans are less like to believe the United States "has a true stake in the war."
The United States is in the process of recovering debris from the Chinese balloon out of the Atlantic for analysis by intelligence experts and there is no plan to give the remains back to Beijing, the White House said Monday.
"They have recovered some remnants off the surface of the sea and weather conditions did not permit much undersea surveillance of the debris field," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, two days after a US fighter jet shot down the balloon, which had previously traversed the country.
US personnel will "in the coming days be able to get down there and take a better look at what's on the bottom of the ocean, but it's just started," Kirby said, noting that the area where debris had scattered was "sizeable."
China says the balloon was an errant weather observation aircraft with no military purpose. The United States says the balloon was a sophisticated high-altitude spying vehicle.
After slowly traversing the middle of the United States, reportedly over several top secret military sites, the balloon headed out over the east coast, where President Joe Biden ordered it to be shot down.
Kirby said there was no intention to send the pieces back. "I know of no such intention or plans to return it," he said.
The Biden administration is painting the incident as a provocative move by China that turned into something of an own goal by providing US intelligence services with valuable data.
According to Kirby, measures were taken to ensure the balloon's instruments were "mitigated" in their ability to spy, while "at the same time increasing and improving our ability to collect intelligence and information from it."
"We're still analyzing the information that we were able to collect off of the balloon before we shot it out of the sky and now we're going to recover it and I suspect we may learn even more."
One detail already known, Kirby said, is that the balloon was not merely drifting but had propellers and steering to give a measure of control, even as it was swept along in the high altitude Jet Stream wind.
"It is true that this balloon had the ability maneuver itself -- to speed up, to slow down and to turn. So it had propellers, it had a rudder, if you will, to allow it to change direction," he said. "But the most important navigational vector was the jet stream itself, the winds at such a high altitude."
© 2023 AFP
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) rushed to Donald Trump's defense over reports that the Pentagon neglected to notify him when Chinese surveillance balloons were spotted over U.S. soil.
The Pentagon disclosed that three similar incidents involving Chinese spy balloons during Trump's time in the White House, but those reports were apparently not sent up the chain of command to the former president or even his defense secretary Mark Esper, who said he was never notified about those incidents.
"If it’s true the Pentagon purposely did NOT tell President Trump of Chinese Spy Balloons during his administration then we had a serious breach in command during the Trump admin," Greene tweeted. "The POTUS is the Commander in Chief. We must investigate and hold accountable those who broke rank."
The ex-president has denied reports about those balloons, and his former national security adviser John Bolton questioned them, but the Biden administration has said the incidents were not discovered until after the Trump administration left and offered to brief officials from the previous administration on them.
IN OTHER NEWS: Kari Lake insists she's not a 'criminal' after 'felony' tweet of voter signatures
China's foreign ministry said Monday that the decision to shoot down the balloon has "seriously impacted and damaged" relations.
The aircraft, which Washington said was a spy balloon, had spent several days flying over North America, leading the United States to call off a planned visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Washington on Saturday said a fighter jet had shot it down off the coast of South Carolina, because of what it called Beijing's "unacceptable violation" of American sovereignty.
Beijing protested the move, claiming the balloon was a civilian aircraft that was blown off course, and on Sunday lodged an official complaint with the US embassy in China.
READ MORE: Trump seethes on Truth Social after Pentagon says Chinese spy balloons flew over US on his watch
"The United States' actions have seriously impacted and damaged both sides' efforts and progress in stabilising Sino-US relations since the Bali meeting," vice foreign minister Xie Feng said in the complaint, according to a foreign ministry statement.
He was referring to a summit between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in November.
Beijing, the statement added, "is paying close attention to the development of the situation" and "reserves the right to make further necessary reactions."
Pentagon officials on Friday described the airship as a "high-altitude surveillance balloon," adding that Washington had taken steps to block it from collecting sensitive information.
A day after Pentagon officials said another balloon had been spotted somewhere over Latin America, air force officials in Colombia said an object with "characteristics similar to those of a balloon" had been detected Friday and "monitored until it left the national air space."
With additional reporting by AFP
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that he believes Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will challenge President Joe Biden for the presidency in 2024 because his "cadence" sounds like former President Barack Obama.
In a podcast recorded on Sunday, Cruz commented on a CNN interview with Buttigieg about a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon.
"Just something I noticed listening to that — did you pick up on Buttigieg's cadence?" Cruz asked his co-host. "He is mimicking Barack Obama."
Using a robotic voice, Cruz repeated some of Buttigieg's quotes.
"He's doing this speed up and pause; speed up and pause," Cruz observed. "And Buttigieg didn't use to speak that way. I think he's getting ambitions of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And there's no real mystery about that. But it is a little amazing, given the trainwreck he's presided over at the Department of Transportation for two years, that his ambitions have soared so high."
Cruz, a failed presidential candidate, acknowledged that he should focus on the "substance of what he said and not the amusing cadence and affectation that he's put on."
Listen to the audio clip below from The Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed that China never sent alleged spy balloons over the U.S. during his administration — but officials say Chinese surveillance balloons traveled over the U.S. at least three times on his watch.
The U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon on Saturday off the coast of North Carolina, which the Pentagon alleged was used to collect information on military sites. President Joe Biden reportedly authorized the military to shoot down the balloon on Wednesday but military officials determine that shooting down over land was too risky and waited until it was over the ocean as Republicans criticized the administration for not downing it sooner.
"SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!" Trump demanded on Truth Social on Friday.
"The Chinese would never have floated the Blimp ('Balloon') over the United States if I were President!!!" he wrote in another post on Sunday.
Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement last week that the balloon did not pose a "military or physical threat to people on the ground" and revealed that similar activity had been "observed previously over the past several years."
A senior Pentagon official on Saturday told reporters that suspected Chinese government surveillance balloons "transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time."
Trump denied the Pentagon's statement on his social media network.
"Now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the 'heat' off the slow moving Biden fools," he wrote. "China had too much respect for 'TRUMP' for this to have happened, and it NEVER did. JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!"
Trump also told Fox News Digital that it "never happened with us under the Trump administration and if it did, we would have shot it down immediately."
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
Multiple former administration officials also denied the statement.
Former national security adviser John Bolton told Fox that he was 100% certain there were not any balloon flights during his tenure. John Ratcliffe, Trump's former director of national intelligence, told Fox News the statement was "not true." Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CNN he was "surprised" by the Pentagon's statement.
"I don't ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States," Esper said. "I would remember that for sure."
A senior Biden administration official told Fox News that "U.S. intelligence, not the Biden administration, but U.S. intel assesses PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental U.S. briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time."
The unnamed official added that "two things can be true at once: this happened, and it wasn't detected."
Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said that the office of the Secretary of Defense informed him that "several Chinese balloon incidents have happened in the past few years — including over Florida."
"Why weren't they shot down?" Waltz questioned.
"And according to several Trump Admin national security officials - they were never informed of these intrusions by the Pentagon," he wrote on Twitter.
The Biden administration offered to brief Trump and senior members of his administration on the intelligence about the earlier flights, according to Politico.
"This information was discovered after the prior administration left," a senior defense official told the outlet. "The intelligence community is prepared to offer key officials from the Trump administration briefings on [China's] surveillance program."
Republicans have continued to criticize Biden's handling of the situation while ignoring the reports about the Trump administration. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on Sunday told ABC News that he agreed that debris from shooting down the balloon over land could have "hurt, harmed or killed people" but argued that Biden should have gone on national television to explain "what we're dealing with."
"None of that happened. And I don't know why. I don't know why they waited so long to tell people about this," Rubio said.
"This happened three times under the previous president," replied host Jon Karl. "Obviously, there were no public notifications there."
Conservative podcaster Steve Bannon blasted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for increased security at the U.S. Capitol ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address to Congress.
On the eve of Biden's speech, Bannon complained that McCarthy had reinstated some of the security that was put in place after the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bannon told the audience of his War Room podcast that Republican inquiries of the Biden administration would begin with "the laptop from hell."
"We're very proud we were part of bringing that to the American people's attention," he said. "OK? Because the Bidens are traitors. They sold us out for money. They're scumbag traitors."
Bannon then turned to Biden's Tuesday address to a joint session of Congress.
"The inquiry starts the morning after his great State of the Union," he asserted. "McCarthy has allowed this thing to be, you know, they've got the fence back up. I don't know what McCarthy's doing. They've got the fence back up. I don't know for what reason. They've got the fence back."
On the day before the Jan. 6 attacks, Bannon appeared to have knowledge of the coming onslaught because he told his audience that "all hell" would break loose the next day.
Bannon has been sentenced to four months in jail after being found guilty of refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to the Jan. 6 attack. He has appealed the verdict.
Watch the video below from Real America's Voice.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is expected to conduct a search at former Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana home this week to see if he is retaining any additional classified documents.
NBC News reports that the search is expected to occur in the wake of Pence attorneys finding a small number of classified documents last month that attorney Greg Jacob said were "inadvertently boxed and transported" to his Indiana residence.
Pence, President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump have all come under scrutiny for their handling of classified materials, as all three men were found to have retained documents with classified markings at their private residences.
Both Biden and Pence so far have pledged to openly cooperate with investigators in their search for the classified material.
IN OTHER NEWS: George Santos denies 'comical' sexual harassment accusations
Trump, in contrast, has accused the FBI of being "thugs" who carried out an illegal "raid" at his Mar-a-Lago resort this summer when they retrieved boxes full of classified documents that reportedly included top-secret information about a foreign nation's nuclear weapons program.
There have so far been no criminal charges against any of the three men, although both Trump and Biden have special prosecutors looking into their handlings of the materials.
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