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Top US, Mexican Officials in Washington for Migration Talks  

washington — Top U.S. and Mexican officials met Friday in Washington to discuss strengthening cooperation in addressing the large numbers of migrants trying to enter the U.S. through Mexico.

“Since our last meeting, I think a very significant development is President Arevalo being inaugurated in Guatemala,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the start of the meeting. “This opens an important new area for quiet operation on migration between our three countries and we will continue to work together more broadly to develop regional solutions to the historic challenge that that we face.”   

New Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo has said he wants to work with the United States to expand temporary work programs for migrants there, while also increasing investment in his country’s poorest areas to reduce departures.  

No significant announcement is expected to be made following Friday’s engagement, which Biden administration officials say continues progress made during a December 27 meeting in Mexico City.    

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall also attended Friday’s meeting, with Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Barcena leading the visiting delegation.   

“We will concentrate on implementing sustainable solutions that address the root causes of migration,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on a call with reporters Thursday.   

The Mexican government has called on Washington to increase development investment in Central America to reduce migration, increase the number of temporary worker visas and other legal pathways for immigration, and ramp up repatriation flights for people who arrive in the U.S. illegally, particularly from Venezuela, as a deterrence for migrants.  

The U.S. has resumed repatriation flights to Venezuela, and Mexico has done the same thing, starting in December, the most recent measure by countries in the region to address the exodus of people to the U.S. border.   

“We encourage other countries to join us. We also applaud the steps that Mexico has taken, Panama, and other countries to restrict irregular migration and impose new visa controls,” according to a White House National Security Council official on a call to reporters Thursday.    

In May 2023, Mexico agreed to receive migrants from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who were removed from the U.S. border for crossing into the United States without authorization and without following established legal pathways to asylum or other forms of migration.   

Venezuela is in the middle of a political and economic crisis and 7 million Venezuelans have left their home country, according to the United Nations. 

Officials apprehend thousands daily

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 242,418 migrant encounters at the southern border in November, numbers similar to October’s total of 240,986. In 2022, encounters totaled 235,173 in November and 231,529 in October.    

December numbers have yet to be released, but federal border officials reported a record 11,000 apprehensions a day at the southern border in December.   

“It coincided with the time when Mexican enforcement was no longer implemented. The immigration enforcement agency in Mexico was not funded, which prompted President Biden to reconnect with [Mexican] President [Andres Manual Lopez] Obrador.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters January 10. 

Border encounters dropped sharply with the beginning of the new year when enforcement resumed in Mexico.    

On Thursday’s call, U.S. officials said this is typically the time of year when encounters at the border decrease.    

“But we also believe that the actions taken by the Mexican government are having an impact as well,” the DHS official said.    

Migrant wave becomes liability  

The wave of migration has become a political liability for U.S. President Joe Biden ahead of the November election. He has been under immense pressure from Republicans and some members of his own party to limit border crossings, in part to ease pressure on American cities struggling to house and feed all the new arrivals.  

House Republicans have linked their demands for stricter border policies — their current top domestic priority — to the request from the White House for billions of dollars in funding to support Ukraine and Israel.   

“We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters after he and other congressional leaders met with Biden this week. “But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.”  

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate likely to compete against Biden in the November election, has launched increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail, saying that migrants crossing the border are “poisoning the blood of our country.”  

A Homeland Security Department official said during Thursday’s call that the U.S. and Mexico understand that more people are displaced around the world today than at any other time since World War II.   

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees says at least 108.4 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2022 worldwide because of “persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, or events seriously disturbing public order.”

That number “includes record numbers of individuals displaced within our own hemisphere,” the DHS official said on the phone call.

“This is a challenge for us,” said the official. “And it’s also a challenge for our Mexican counterparts. We look forward to continuing our robust conversations with them on how we can work together to address what isn’t just an American challenge or a Mexican challenge but truly a regional challenge.”   
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Is Europe Ready for Possible Return of President Trump?

America’s allies in Europe are preparing for a possible second presidential term for Donald Trump after he won the Iowa Republican caucus earlier this month, cementing his place as the current front-runner to take on President Joe Biden in November’s election. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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US Congress Averts Shutdown, Funds Government Into March

WASHINGTON — U.S. Congress sent President Joe Biden a short-term spending bill on Thursday that would avert a looming partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies into March. 

The House approved the measure by a vote of 314-108, with opposition coming mostly from the more conservative members of the Republican conference. Shortly before the vote, the House Freedom Caucus announced it ‘strongly opposes’ the measure because it would facilitate more spending than they support. 

Nevertheless, about half of Republicans joined with Democrats in passing the third stopgap funding measure in recent months. The action came a few hours after the Senate had voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill by a vote of 77-18. 

The measure extends current spending levels and buys time for the two chambers to work out their differences over full-year spending bills for the fiscal year that began in October. 

The temporary measure will run to March 1 for some federal agencies. Their funds were set to run out Friday. It extends the remainder of government operations to March 8. 

Right wing pressures Johnson

Speaker Mike Johnson has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap a $1.66 trillion budget deal he reached with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this month. Republican Representative Chip Roy said the continuing resolution passed Thursday will facilitate that agreement. 

“It’s Groundhog Day in the House chamber all the time, every day, yet again spending money we don’t have,” Roy said. 

Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal, and moderates in the party have stood behind him. They say that changing course now would be going back on his word and would weaken the speaker in future negotiations. 

Representative Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Americans expect Congress to govern and work in a bipartisan fashion. 

“Some of my colleagues would see that this government would shut down and don’t care how hurtful that would be,” DeLauro said. 

House Republicans have fought bitterly over budget levels and policy since taking the majority at the start of 2023. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson also has come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year. 

“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”

Most House Republicans have refrained so far from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House. 

Representative Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer. 

“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week. 

Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said Representative Andy Barr, noting the constraints imposed by the party’s slim majority. 

The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support. 

Johnson, Schumer and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia. 

Biden has requested a $110 billion package for the wartime spending and border security. 
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Biden Convenes Top Congressional Leaders to Discuss Ukraine Aid, US Border Deal

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden convened top congressional leaders at the White House to underscore Ukraine’s security needs, a meeting that comes at a pivotal time as senators narrow on a landmark immigration deal that could unlock $110 billion in stalled aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.

But Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans used the face-to-face moment with Biden to push him for tougher border security measures, with the speaker telling the president that Republican lawmakers were demanding “substantive policy change” and insisting that the White House’s executive actions on immigration had weakened the border.

“We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting, which ran for more than an hour. “But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, also speaking to reporters after the meeting, stressed that Biden has repeatedly said he is willing to compromise on certain border measures and that any effort in a divided Congress must be bipartisan. House Republicans have insisted on passage of a hard-line border security measure that has no Democratic support on Capitol Hill.

“There was a large amount of agreement around the table that we must do Ukraine, and we must do border,” he said.

The White House called the meeting with lawmakers — including Johnson, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — to brief them on Ukraine’s current need for weapons and other aid, which the White House described as “desperate” and “urgent.”

By populating the meeting with national security leaders, the meeting was expected to impress on the new speaker the importance of the aid package and the current U.S. approach to world affairs. The Republicans in the room, even Johnson, are largely supportive of aiding Ukraine but have stressed to the White House that it will need significant border-security measures in return to persuade the large swath of rank-and-file Republican lawmakers skeptical about sending more funds abroad.

“He’s willing to hear what these congressional members want to talk about, but the purpose of this meeting is to talk about Ukraine,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said ahead of the mid-afternoon gathering, which was held in the Cabinet Room.

Key time to convene

Biden is convening the lawmakers at the start of an election year when border security and the wars abroad are punctuating the race for the White House as he faces a potential rematch against Republican Donald Trump with control of the presidency and Congress all at stake.

It comes as Congress is about to quickly approve temporary funding to avoid a government shutdown — postponing the annual spending battles — but as the supplemental aid package sits undone during the immigration and border talks.

Biden, a longtime leader in U.S. foreign policy, finds himself confronting a new generation of Republican lawmakers who have little interest in engaging abroad or supporting vast American military aid or actions around the world.

Led by Trump, the former president who is the Republicans’ front-runner for the nomination, a growing number of the Republicans in Congress are particularly hostile to helping Ukraine fight Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who along with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met this week with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Davos, Switzerland, said Washington is determined to keep supporting Ukraine, and “we’re working very closely with Congress in order to do that.”

Ahead of the meeting, McConnell announced the package could be ready for a vote as soon as next week, and Schumer sounded a similarly optimistic note — though negotiations continue.

Senators develop border proposal

Johnson, since taking the gavel in October, signaled he personally believes in supporting Ukraine as it works to expel Russia. He met privately with Zelenskyy during the Ukrainian president’s whirlwind tour of Washington last month seeking aid before the year-end holidays.

But the speaker leads an ambivalent House Republican majority that wants to extract its own priorities on the U.S.-Mexico border in exchange for any overseas support.

The speaker has insisted any border security deal must align with the House-passed strict border security bill. He told lawmakers in a private meeting over the weekend that they could probably get their priorities enacted with a Republican president, though the speaker did not mean that to preclude not taking action now, said a Republican leadership aide familiar with the call.

But senators, even fellow Republicans, said the House approach is a nonstarter that would never find the bipartisan backing in both chambers needed for approval.

Instead, a core group of senators led by Republican James Lankford has been meeting privately for weeks with Biden’s top advisers — including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — to develop a border security package that could actually be signed into law.

Lankford told reporters late Tuesday that he hopes to prepare bill text as negotiations try to wrap up soon.

McConnell told Republican senators privately last week they should take the deal Lankford is producing, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the closed meeting.

“This is a unique moment in time,” said the Number 2 Republican John Thune.

“It’s an opportunity to get some really conservative border policy that we haven’t been able to get for 40 years,” he said. “And so we’ll see. I mean, it may or may not happen, but I think you got to take a run at it.”

Senator ‘hopeful’

The broader security package includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, which is mainly used to purchase U.S. weaponry to fight the war and to shore up its own government operations, along with some $14.5 billion for Israel, about $14 billion for border security, and additional funds for other security needs.

Biden opened the door to a broader U.S.-Mexico border security package late last year and the changes being discussed could be difficult for some Democrats who oppose strict restrictions on immigration.

Schumer said negotiations over the border security package have made progress in recent weeks and he was “hopeful that things are headed in the right direction.”

Schumer said he expects the meeting with Biden will reinforce that the national security package is urgent and “any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have support from both sides of the aisle.”
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Maine Court Puts Trump Ballot Decision on Hold Until After US Supreme Court Acts

Washington — A Maine court on Wednesday ordered the state’s top election official to reevaluate a decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a related case from Colorado. 

State Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy found that the Supreme Court’s decision to take the Colorado case “changes everything about the order in which these issues should be decided and by which court.” 

The judge ordered Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows, a Democrat, to reassess her decision to bar Trump from the ballot within 30 days after the Supreme Court rules. 

In December, Bellows determined that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was ineligible to hold office again under a provision in the U.S. Constitution that bars people who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office. 

Depending on the sweep of its ruling in the Colorado case, the U.S. Supreme Court could resolve the issue nationwide in the coming weeks, with oral arguments scheduled for February 8. 

Maine and Colorado are so far the only two states to disqualify Trump under the constitutional provision, known as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Both states have put their decisions on hold while Trump appeals. 

Courts and election officials in several other states have rejected similar ballot challenges to Trump’s candidacy.  
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Dangerous Cold Snap Blankets Iowa Ahead of Caucus

As Democrats shift their presidential preference caucus to mail-in balloting in Iowa with incumbent President Joe Biden the likely winner, Republicans take center stage during Iowa’s 2024 Caucus, when supporters assemble in person to choose their candidate for the Republican nomination. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from Iowa.
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