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Migrants stand near the border wall after having crossed into the US from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
US immigration wars look ahead to 2024 election
It's been a big week for US immigration politics.
First, the Department of Justice late Monday followed through on its threat to sue Texas if Gov. Greg Abbot refused to remove a controversial floating barrier along the Rio Grande. Then, on Tuesday, a federal judge in California struck down the Biden administration's new rules for asylum-seekers (yet also issued a stay and gave the government 14 days to appeal, so the policy remains in place until then).
If you're a Republican — particularly an immigration hawk — you probably think that President Joe Biden is weaponizing the DOJ to stop Texas from keeping undocumented migrants out and that a liberal California judge wants to toss a policy that has helped curb illegal border crossings. But if you're a Democrat, Abbott's wrecking ball-sized buoys are an inhumane gimmick that violates federal laws. And if you're a progressive Dem, Biden making it so hard for people to seek asylum in America is illegal and not the only reason arrivals have plummeted.
The battle lines are drawn ahead of the 2024 election. Although arrivals dropped with the demise of Title 42, expect this to be a major campaign issue since Americans still give the president a very low 32% approval rating on immigration. With Congress gridlocked and the Republican-led House targeting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden hopes to escape a border crisis with his signature sticks-and-carrots approach to immigration: deter migrants from entering illegally but offer them a legal pathway for asylum.
Nikki Haley's in, but GOP primary remains Trump/DeSantis showdown
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics:
How does Nikki Haley's campaign affect the state of the 2024 race?
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador under the Trump administration, announced her 2024 presidential campaign this week, becoming the first Republican to challenge former President Donald Trump. Haley said in 2021 that she would not run for president if Trump were to do so, a comment that has already drawn flak from the former president, but her shift in approach reflects how far Trump has fallen within the GOP over the last two years. Trump has looked much weaker in 2022 than he did in 2021, and weaker still since his candidates largely flopped in the midterm elections last November. The announcement of his presidential bid soon after drew big headlines for a day before being largely forgotten, and he had difficulty consolidating support ahead of his first campaign event in South Carolina last month.
He does lead multi-candidate polls in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary, but he's consistently lost head-to-head polls against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who right now looks like the person to beat. DeSantis is widely expected to announce a presidential bid this spring, and Haley's announcement could help him in the short term by drawing Trump's ire to another target. However, the Trump/DeSantis showdown is shaping up to be the central conflict of the 2024 GOP primary with both men already having taken verbal swipes at each other. Given the heightened focus on the two men, Haley is likely hoping to position herself either as a vice presidential candidate or to stay in the race long enough for Trump and/or DeSantis to flame out. She will not be the last person to consider this strategy as other governors, including Brian Kemp, Glenn Youngkin, Greg Abbott, and Chris Sununu could also test out the waters later this year.
Former VP Mike Pence could also get in, meaning that this could shape up to be a very competitive primary, with candidates designed to appeal to a different slice of the Republican electorate. Trump maintains a base of diehard supporters, DeSantis is trying to position himself as the post-Trump populist, Pence appeals to evangelicals, and Haley hopes to win over establishment Reagan Republicans with a pro-business focus and a strong foreign policy stance, and a promise of a more stable political environment.
Less of a question today is who these Republicans would face in the general election. President Biden is looking very likely to run, and he is unlikely to face a primary challenger if he does. Biden's biggest challenges will be the state of the economy and his age. Which could become a major issue if Republicans nominate someone much younger. Political scientists have found that there is a penalty for older politicians that grows with their age, which may not seem obvious, given in the US, given the advanced age of many of our political leaders, but does hold generally around the globe.
President Joe Biden walks along the border fence during his visit to the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas.
What We’re Watching: Biden at the border, Three Amigos Summit, China’s reopening
Biden goes to El Paso
President Joe Biden on Sunday visited the US-Mexico border for the first time since taking office and at a time when he's getting flak from all sides for his immigration policies. Biden did the usual stuff: He toured a busy port of entry, walked along the border fence, and met with officials like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who chided the president for taking so long to show up — feeding into the Republican narrative that blames Biden for the surge of migrant arrivals in recent months. But the president has also upset the left wing of his Democratic Party after failing to deliver on many of his promises to undo the Trump administration's harshest immigration curbs — especially by being wishy-washy on ending Title 42, a Trump-era rule that allows US authorities to expel asylum-seekers on public health grounds that the Supreme Court is now sitting on. What's more, last week Biden announced that migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela would be required to apply from outside the US and be punished if they don't. While the president is otherwise benefiting from the GOP's civil war in Congress, his immigration headache won't go away anytime soon.
Biden, AMLO & Trudeau meet in Mexico City
After his border visit, Biden will travel to Mexico City on Monday for the annual meeting of North American leaders known as the "Three Amigos Summit." Of course, there’s an immigration angle: Biden hopes to get buy-in from Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, for his “safe third country” policy for asylum-seekers who enter the US through Mexico. Under the scheme, first floated by the Trump administration in 2019, the US would automatically deny asylum to migrants who haven't applied for the same status first in Mexico. That's a non-starter for AMLO because Mexico can hardly protect foreigners from gang violence while its own citizens are fleeing similar violence from drug cartels, as seen by the bloodbath following the arrest of Ovidio Guzmán, son of "El Chapo.” Biden and AMLO will also discuss the surge of fentanyl flowing into the US from Mexico, with the DEA having seized enough pills last year to kill every single American. Finally, Biden and AMLO, along with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, will attempt to make progress on multiple USMCA trade disputes like GMO corn or rules of origin in the US auto industry.
China opens up, but zero-COVID recovery won’t be immediate
Zero-COVID is now effectively over in China. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people traveled in and out of the mainland as the country finally opened up to the world after almost three years of tough pandemic curbs. As a simple negative COVID test replaced the complicated quarantine requirements put in place by Beijing in early 2020, predictions rolled out for an economic revival in China as well as in those economies that depend on Chinese travelers. But that will take time: Airlines that have shifted their routes away from Beijing will have to pivot back, and certain countries that have put their own restrictions back in place for Chinese travelers over COVID fears will not roll back those policies overnight. Meanwhile, the future of Hong Kong, once Asia’s financial hub, also remains unclear. The megacity has been double-pummeled by COVID restrictions as well as Beijing’s tough national security laws, causing many expat and local talent alike to leave for competitors like Seoul, Singapore, or Tokyo. Now that it’s also open for business and travel, a “new” Hong Kong ruled from Beijing might have to reinvent itself in order to achieve the same economic vibrancy it was famous for.People gather at a tram stop in front of a board displaying a portrait of a fallen Russian soldier in St. Petersburg. A slogan reads: "Glory to heroes of Russia!"
What We’re Watching: Russian scramble, DeSantis’s migrant flights, Bolsonaro in the night sky
Putin calls up reservists
In his biggest “admission” to date that the war in Ukraine is not going to plan, Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization of Russian reservists. The move is estimated to affect some 300,000 reservists out of the 25 million Russians who fit the criteria of having had some military experience. However, in a rare taped address to the nation, Putin stopped short of actually declaring “war” in Ukraine, instead using his fiery speech to insist that Russia's goals have not changed and to warn NATO that he'll use any weapons at his disposal to achieve Russia’s objectives — a thinly veiled threat that nukes are on the table.
Meanwhile, Tuesday saw two (seemingly contradictory) developments that suggest Ukraine’s aggressive and successful military counteroffensive now has Russian policymakers scrambling for responses. First, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a PBS interviewer that, based on comments made by Putin at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, he believes the Russian president wants to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible. (Note: Erdoğan’s comments on potential terms of a peace deal may have been badly translated or taken out of context.)
Second, officials from the Russian-backed separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk announced they would hold referendums on the question of joining Russia, beginning on Friday (!) and running through Tuesday. Putin announced his support for the votes, which would pave the way for the annexation of Ukrainian territory the Russian military still controls. Occupation authorities in the southern region of Kherson and in Russian-held parts of Zaporizhzhia quickly said they would do the same. Moscow insists that attacks on any territories annexed by Russia will be treated as attacks on Russia itself, with all the unstated and scary-sounding implications of that distinction. Ukrainian and Western officials have dismissed the votes as illegal and farcical.
DeSantis’s migrant relocations under investigation
A Texas sheriff is investigating whether Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke any laws by sending agents to San Antonio to lure recently arrived asylum-seekers onto flights bound for the vacation island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Sheriff Javier Salazar is an elected Democrat who says DeSantis’s agents “preyed upon” the migrants. Last week, Desantis’s Republican administration paid more than half a million dollars to fly the migrants, mostly from Venezuela, to the Vineyard. Florida’s legislature has notably appropriated $12 million from its state budget for such efforts. The relocations aim to amplify criticism of the Biden administration’s immigration policy, which the GOP says is too lax. Annual arrests of undocumented migrants at the southwest border reached a record high on Tuesday. Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has also recently sent busloads of migrants to New York and Washington, DC, which are avowed “sanctuary cities” for migrants. The GOP view: the migrants are now in states that want to care for them. But Democrats and human rights watchdogs have cried foul over using desperate migrants as political pawns, and about allegations that they were tricked into boarding the planes with false promises about where they were going and what they’d find when they arrived.
Bolsonaro lights up night sky
The UN General Assembly traditionally opens with a speech by the president of Brazil. This year that’s rightwinger Jair Bolsonaro, who seemed to mistake the podium in Turtle Bay for a dais in Brazil. Aside from a vague call for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine (a crowd pleaser!), Bolsonaro’s speech focussed heavily on domestic themes — touting his successes with the economy and the expansion of welfare payments while taking some shots at his political rivals. And why not? Bolsonaro is just weeks away from an election that he looks set to lose, possibly quite badly, to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his leftwing nemesis. Meanwhile, the Brazilian president lit up the New York skyline, but not quite in the way he hoped. An activist group has been projecting images of his face onto the top floors of the UN headquarters over the words “Brazilian shame,” “disgrace,” and “liar.” Other videos making the rounds online appeared to show a projection on the Empire State Building that called the president both “impotent” and a “tchutchuca do centrão,” a nearly untranslatable insult that means something like “the pork-barrelers’ little lapdog.”
Polexit isn’t in Poland’s future; Texas bans COVID vaccine mandates
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week with a look at Polexit fears, China & India energy woes, and Texas Governor Abbott's ban on COVID vaccine mandates.
Is a "Polexit" from the EU a real possibility?
You just want to say "Polexit", right? I mean, you don't get to brand that, Poland. It's like being in the G20. You don't get to be in line. You're the 21st largest economy, at least you were when they put that together. They're annoyed about that. They're not going to leave the EU, but there is a real fight over recent judicial rulings that EU laws are not aligned with Poland. Poland supersedes. There's going to be a fight. There might be some fines. Everyone's going to be animated about it. But Poland's not going anywhere. Are some demonstrations though.
Will China and India's energy woes contribute to a worsening global energy crisis?
In the near term? Absolutely. I mean, we're moving towards renewables, but the infrastructure isn't there. Plus, we have all of these supply chain shortages given disruptions from the pandemic. And we're about to have an IMF annual meeting that is going to significantly downgrade expectations for global growth this year. And a decent part of that is increases in energy prices and shortages all over the world, China and now India facing the brunt of that. They'll do what they can to ensure that in the winter, the consumers have access because otherwise, people get real mad. But of course, that could lead to greater industry shutdowns. Again, more challenges on the global economy.
How are vaccine mandates going in the United States?
Well, it depends on what part of the United States you're in. A lot of the US, Biden of course provided support, and a lot of companies around the country are implementing them. Where they're being implemented, you see very significant amounts of vaccination, and the CEOs are generally happy about that. Of course, there's backlash. This has gotten politicized most recently in Texas, Governor Abbott saying he will not support. In fact, he'll make illegal anyone that tries to mandate a vaccine. By the way, only COVID; not other vaccines that are mandated for kids, for example, and will continue to be mandated. That's not a problem. Hasn't explained why that is. We'll see what he says. But it's good voting if you're in Texas. Talk to you all soon. Be good.