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Asylum seekers fill the sidewalk outside of the Roosevelt hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York City.
“This will destroy New York City”: What the Big Apple’s immigration crisis tells us about the 2024 elections
Immigration has long been a hot button issue in US politics, typically pitting Republicans, who advocate for tougher crackdowns on undocumented migrants, against Democrats, usually more open to asylum seekers. But New York City is currently flipping the script on that.
This week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams – a Democrat – gave a scathing address about the influx of migrants who’ve entered the city over the past year, around 100,000 in total. Many have been bused in from Republican-run states.
Adams said that another six buses carrying migrants arrived in the city on Wednesday, and blasted the White House’s immigration policy. This will “destroy New York City,” he said.
(Read more about the factors leading to an uptick in migration to the US here and here.)
A recap. Over the past year, Republican governors in Texas and Florida have sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” that have a range of policies that aim to protect undocumented migrants’ rights. Cynical GOP ploy? Maybe. But the strategy has brought into renewed focus the argument that traditionally pro-migrant Democratic states on the coasts don’t appreciate the systemic pressures facing border states.
It isn’t just the mayor. Adams, an unpredictable politician who’s also a former cop and a former Republican, isn’t the only New York Democrat calling out the Biden administration. Gov. Kathy Huchul, a party stalwart broadly regarded as a Biden ally and a pragmatist, has also taken aim at the White House for the current crisis, which has seen around 10,000 migrants enter the state per month, putting immense pressure on local budgets that need to fork out funds for housing, schooling, and meals.
Adams says the governor has been too slow to dole out state funds to help the city cope and that the federal government should be doing more both to slow the flow of migrants and to support the city’s ability to absorb those who make it through.
Both Hochul and Adams have called on the White House to expedite work authorizations for asylum seekers to ease pressure on the city and state. Biden, currently touring Asia, has stayed mostly mum.
Democrats in general have good reason to be worried about how this is playing. Last year’s midterm elections were disastrous for the New York branch of the party, with Republicans – who ran largely on an anti-crime agenda – making gains in suburban areas throughout the state.
With immigration a top concern for many US voters, and 82% of New Yorkers polled describing the migrant influx as a “serious problem,” the Democratic Party is in a difficult spot: Any efforts to slash funding for the 57,000 migrants currently in New York City’s care – which some Dems in vulnerable seats have backed – will ignite the left. But doing too much could create more backlash in more moderate or swing district areas of New York state that the party needs to win in order to take back the House of Representatives next year.
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.Migrants wait to be transported by border patrol to a detention center in Eagle Pass Texas, USA.
White House prepares for migrant surge
The Biden administration is preparing to deploy an additional 1,500 troops to the US southern border for 90 days as it anticipates an influx of migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border. This comes ahead of next week’s lifting of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that has allowed the US to refuse to process asylum claims on public health grounds.
The White House says those deployed will do administration tasks so that customs officials can focus on fieldwork.
There are two key things to watch. First, how might this impact the ongoing humanitarian crisis? Last week, the Biden administration announced that it will open migration centers in Guatemala and Colombia to help asylum seekers apply for legal pathways into the US, and to stop them from arriving at the US border. But who exactly will be sent there and for how long?
Second, how will this play out politically? This comes at a pivotal moment for Biden, who just last week launched his reelection campaign. Republicans, for their part, will waste no time in using this hot-button issue to cast the president as weak on illegal immigration. Biden is also facing a looming showdown with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling, and concurrent domestic crises won’t play well for an incumbent trying to excite an indifferent electorate.
Haitian migrants trek through the Darien Gap towards the border with Panama.
Hard Numbers: Record Darién Gap crossings, Kazakhstan rolls up red carpet, scores face possible execution in Iran, India to judge “fakes”
250,000: Last year, a record 250,000 migrants crossed the harrowing Darién Gap between Colombia and Panamá, nearly twice as many as the year before. Venezuelan nationals accounted for 150,000 of those crossings. In a bid to lower these numbers, the Biden administration in October said it would accept 24,000 preregistered Venezuelan migrants at airports but would reject those who arrive illegally.
90: Kazakhstan says Russians can no longer stay in the country indefinitely — from Jan. 26, they must leave for at least 90 days after a three-month stay. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled economic hardship and military conscription at home. Where will they go now?
109: Protests continue in Iran over the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini, and at least 109 protesters are currently in danger of being executed. The regime has relied on forced confessions and speedy trials, with some defendants given as little as 15 minutes to defend themselves.
0: Under a new Indian government proposal, social media companies will be permitted to host zero information that is “fake or false.” Who will be the judge of fairness and falsehood? The Indian government itself. The proposal is Delhi’s latest attempt to rein in the power of tech giants, but free speech activists worry that Narendra Modi’s government is going too far.U.S. President Joe Biden with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City.
What We’re Watching: Biden in Mexico, Japan's Kishida on tour, Ukraine’s eastern flank
What’s on the agenda at the “Three Amigos Summit”?
A meeting of North American leaders known as the "Three Amigos Summit" kicked off in Mexico City on Monday with US President Joe Biden, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, set to meet face-to-face for the first time since Nov. 2021 to chart a path forward on a range of thorny issues. Biden was greeted by his Mexican counterpart a day after making his first visit to the US southern border since becoming president. Indeed, the two have plenty to talk about. While Washington usually calls the shots when it comes to the US-Mexico relationship, AMLO will be looking to earn some concessions from Biden, who is desperately seeking help in dealing with a chaotic situation at the US southern border. This comes after Biden announced in recent days that Mexico had agreed to take in tens of thousands of Nicaraguan, Haitian, and Cuban migrants denied entry into the US in exchange for more work visas for Mexican laborers. Still, the White House might ask for more: While AMLO has agreed to take in an extra 30,000 migrants per month from these countries (plus Venezuela), some 90,000 people from these four places sought to cross the US southern border in November alone. Stopping the drug smuggling trade from Mexico into the US will also be high on the agenda as fentanyl overdoses continue to devastate American communities. Much of the remaining conversation will center on the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal: Ottawa and Washington have accused AMLO of exerting excessive state control over the energy market. Meanwhile, Canada-US ties have been strained since the Biden administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, passed last summer, included a slew of tax breaks for buying US-made electric vehicles, which Ottawa says will cripple its car manufacturing industry.
Japan’s PM Kishida's seeks security assurances from allies
Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida has kicked off a trip to Europe and North America where he’ll seek to solidify new defense and security agreements with allies just months ahead of a G7 meeting in Hiroshima. This move comes after Tokyo adopted a new security doctrine in December, transitioning away from its pacifist defense posture that's been the law of the land since World War II. Kishida’s first stop was in Paris on Monday and will be followed by stops in Italy, the UK, Canada, and the US, where the Japanese defense and foreign ministers will also meet with their American counterparts. Indeed, Tokyo has left little doubt that its new strategy is aimed at defending itself from military advancements in China – and to a lesser extent North Korea – and is focused particularly on protecting its southwestern islands if China attacks Taiwan. As part of its new defense posture, Japan plans to start deploying long-range cruise missiles capable of hitting mainland China by 2026, improve its intelligence and cyber know-how and double its defense expenditure to 2% of GDP. What’s more, Kishida and Biden will discuss plans to establish a joint command in the Pacific, while in Europe, the joint development of a new fighter jet with the UK and Italy, to be rolled out by 2035, will likely top the agenda. We’re watching to see whether Kishida, facing a sluggish approval rating, gets a domestic boost from this act of international statesmanship, particularly as the Japanese population is increasingly mistrustful of Beijing.
Putin’s chef wants all of the salt
The forces of Wagner group, a mercenary army controlled by “Putin’s chef,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, have mounted a major assault on the town of Soledar, in eastern Ukraine. Soledar and the nearby town of Bakhmut are home to deep salt and gypsum mines, which Prigozhin says he wants access to so he can station troops and tanks inside their “underground cities.” For months, Moscow has been trying without success to take control of the area, ahead of what Ukraine has warned could be a fresh Russian offensive. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that the resistance of Ukrainian troops in Soledar and Bakhmut had “won for Ukraine additional time and additional strength.” But early on Tuesday, Russia claimed it already controls most of Soledar.Former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally in Conroe, Texas.
What We're Watching: Trump's tax returns set to go public, Japan stuns markets, Biden braces for migrant surge, India raises China alarm
Trump's tax returns set to be released
The House Ways and Means Committee voted yesterday to release Donald Trump's tax returns from 2015-2020 — a move the former president’s team has characterized as a politically motivated attack by Democrats in the House, who are set to lose their majority when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3. It may be days before all the filings go public, but committee members revealed late Tuesday that the IRS failed to audit Trump during his first two years as president. A report issued late Tuesday also highlighted some information from the filings, including that Trump had positive taxable income in 2018 — for the first time in more than 10 years — and paid nearly $1 million in federal income taxes that year. But as of 2020? Trump had reverted to reporting negative income … and paid no federal income tax as a result. Democrats on the committee explained that they carefully followed the law with this vote, invoking a century-old statute, but some Republicans say this could lead to increased use of exposing private tax info for political means.
Japan's stealth monetary policy move
The Bank of Japan made heads turn and shocked markets Tuesday when it abruptly announced it would tweak its controversial yield curve control policy. (For all you non-economic nerds out there, this is meant to boost economic growth and fight deflation by keeping the yield of 10-year debt bonds near 0%.) But the policy has arguably been doing more harm than good since Sept. 2021, when inflation started to make a comeback after a decade. Both have helped kill the yen in 2022. What's more, Japan sticks out like a sore thumb among major economies because it has stubbornly resisted calls to raise interest rates to tame inflation. BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda insists that his bond-yield "pivot" doesn't mean Japan will soon ditch its ultra-loose monetary policy to catch up with the rest of the world. Yet it certainly looks like the central bank is moving in that direction — without saying it out loud. "A stronger yen is good politically for [PM Fumio] Kishida and will help lower the cost of energy imports," says Eurasia Group analyst David Boling. "But higher interest rates may hurt lots of zombie firms in Japan that have gotten used to zero interest rates."
Biden throws in the towel on Title 42
There's a big US immigration crisis in the works — and the Biden administration seems to think it can no longer stop it. On Tuesday, the government agreed to halt its legal challenges to the expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era rule that allows US authorities to expel asylum-seekers on public health grounds that's set to expire on Dec. 21. But the White House also asked the Supreme Court, which on Monday issued a temporary stay on the order, to keep it in place until at least after Christmas. The situation is tricky for President Joe Biden, who publicly says he wants to scrap Title 42 — mainly to appease the pro-immigration left wing of his party — but privately fears a surge of migrants at the southern border once the rule is lifted that Republicans will use to slam his administration. That'll never happen if tough-on-border-security Republican governors of southern states get their way with SCOTUS, so things might get ugly if the court sides with Biden. Red states are threatening to send more migrants to blue states, some of which have already declared states of emergency to deal with the influx of asylum-seekers. What happens next? SCOTUS might accept Biden's final extension before scrapping Title 42 or hold off for weeks, even months, to consider Republican challenges. Meanwhile, thousands of migrants across the border in Mexico will remain stuck in a legal limbo.
India talks tough on China
India’s foreign minister has warned that it has scaled up its military presence along the country’s border with China to an unprecedented level. The move doesn’t come as a surprise. As Signalista Waj Khan noted in our Monday edition, India remains ill-equipped to handle the latest round of clashes between Indian and Chinese troops at points along their disputed border. Compounding the problem for India, the front has shifted east in a sign that the conflict is expanding, none of India’s foreign policy moves to punish China seem to have restrained the provocative behavior of Chinese troops, and the perception has grown that India’s government hasn’t done enough to show strength at the border. What’s new is that this month’s resurgence of border violence has given domestic critics of Narendra Modi’s government a chance to call Modi weak on China. In particular, Rahul Gandhi, leader of India's main opposition Congress Party, has warned that Chinese soldiers are preparing for war and "thrashing" Indian soldiers at the border while the Indian government does nothing. We’re watching to see if political pressures inside India push Modi’s government toward an escalation that will trigger more violence.
The House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol holds their final meeting to vote on criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump.
What We’re Watching: Trump’s tough week, SCOTUS issues Title 42 stay, UK-Rwanda migrant deal is on
Jan. 6 panel recommends criminal charges for Trump
Donald Trump’s week got off to a rocky start on Monday, when the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol referred the former president to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. The referral is based on four alleged crimes related to the insurrection, including inciting or assisting an insurrection, obstruction of an official congressional proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and conspiracy to make a false statement. It remains unclear whether the Justice Department – which is conducting its own investigation into the events of Jan. 6 – will take up the committee’s referral, which holds no legal weight. The panel also notably referred four Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to become the next House speaker, to the House Ethics Committee for having ignored subpoenas to testify. But this is likely to have little effect because the committee, which is split evenly along party lines, rules by majority vote. Today, meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee will discuss whether to release Trump’s tax returns, which it finally has in its possession following years of legal wrangling. With the clock ticking on the Democrat’s House majority, the committee is expected to release the returns before Republicans take control next month. Attorney General Merrick Garland must now decide whether to charge Trump based on the historic recommendation by Congress.
Supreme Court issues stay for pandemic-era Title 42 migration policy
The future of Title 42 — the pandemic-era immigration rule invoked in 2020 by the Trump administration that allows the US to expel migrants without processing their asylum applications on public health grounds — is in flux after the Supreme Court issued a temporary stay late Monday. The Biden administration has until 5 p.m. EST to respond to an appeal by Republican-led states that succeeded in their last-ditch effort to convince SCOTUS to keep Title 42 in place, at least temporarily. Meanwhile, the government is now bracing for an influx of migrants at the US southern border, with some estimating that as many as 14,000 migrants could cross daily. For example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has called for federal and state aid as he braces for a surge of migrant arrivals in the Big Apple that he says will crush the city’s already-strained shelter system. Indeed, immigration has always been a lightning-rod issue in the US, but temperatures are particularly high as Republican governors in southern states continue to transport thousands of migrants to blue states on buses and planes. This comes as a record number of migrants – many from Haiti and Venezuela – have already arrived at the US-Mexico border this year in a bid to flee economic hardship and political crises.
UK High Court deems Rwanda immigration deal legal
The British government says it remains committed to its Rwanda asylum plan after the High Court on Monday deemed it lawful. Introduced by former PM Boris Johnson, it was part of a deal struck in April between London and Kigali, whereby migrants who arrive in the UK would be sent to Rwanda to have their asylum applications processed – and would ultimately be resettled in the East African country. Rwanda, for its part, received £140 million ($170m) for playing ball. But because the deal has faced a slew of legal challenges, no migrants have yet been transported. Indeed, European human rights groups say the proposal violates international law and that it’s especially egregious given Rwanda’s poor human rights record. The court's decision landed just days after new UK PM Rishi Sunak, who backs the Rwanda policy, outlined a new plan to stop migrants from traveling in rickety boats across the English Channel. Still, appeal applications are expected in response to Monday’s ruling, and the Rwanda plan must remain on ice until all legal avenues are exhausted.* Correction: This Watching has been updated since our morning Signal newsletter to reflect SCOTUS' temporary block on lifting Title 42.
Migrants walk along a dirt trail after crossing the Rio Grande river into the US from Mexico in Roma, Texas.
US immigration policy: The unfixable political gift that keeps on giving for the GOP
If you had to pick a problem that US politicians keep failing to solve election after election, it might be immigration. Democrats and Republicans love to complain about how broken the system is — and yet always find a way to blame each other when there's an opportunity to fix it.
Unsurprisingly, many Americans are (sort of) tuning out. Fresh polling shows that immigration is only the fifth most important issue for them ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election. But immigration is still a very big deal for GOP voters in certain battleground states and congressional districts, where Republicans are campaigning hard on border security and immigration law enforcement.
Once the pro-immigration party, the GOP is now anything but. That makes sense as immigration is priority No. 2 after the economy for Republican voters. Railing against what they like to call the Democrats’ “open borders” policy fires up the base in states like Florida or Texas.
In the run-up to the midterms, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — two Republican rising stars eyeing a run for president in 2024 — have used undocumented people as political pawns by shipping them to Democratic-run “sanctuary cities” that won’t help federal agents detain migrants who entered the US illegally.
President Joe Biden, for his part, has been forced to pivot on immigration to deal with record numbers of migrant arrivals since he took office. After initially promising to undo the previous administration’s “inhumane” approach to border restrictions, Biden is now all in on Title 42, a Trump-era law allowing the expulsion of asylum-seekers on public-health grounds.
The president's immigration U-turn has irked progressives, who had high hopes Biden would do big, bold things like grant US citizenship to so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who crossed the border as minors and live under fear of deportation. In other words, some on the left wing of his party feel that, on immigration, the president is pretty much like Trump — sans kids in cages.
Hold up: Does this mean Republicans and Biden now actually agree on something and might cut a deal on comprehensive reform? Not a chance.
"It's a politically difficult issue, [and] there is a lot of disagreement about what should be changed," says Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute. In her view, the single biggest problem is that current US immigration laws are "very outdated and don't align with how migration is happening today, the push and pull factors, or really our economic interests."
There is broad popular support for some actions, such as offering a path to citizenship for Dreamers and giving more visas to highly educated professionals in STEM fields. But "once you start talking about immigration, things get very heated and emotional, [so] it's difficult for Congress to get anything done," she adds, and Trump's harsh rhetoric has made it even harder.
So, are there any reasons to be hopeful? For Gelatt, “it’s always a safer bet to be pessimistic, a congressional axiom of immigration.” Even with American farmers and companies struggling to hire workers due to a pandemic-induced labor shortage that immigrants could fill, the process remains too slow and backlogged. Businesses are not happy about it, but their “voices haven't been loud enough to counter” those of immigration hawks in Congress.
Finally, the timing is bad too.
"When there are high numbers of arrivals at the border, and there's a sense of a lack of government control over immigration," Gelatt explains, "that tends to decrease support for immigration overall, and creates a much harder climate for debating changes."