Wall Street Journal notes that British example may not be a good one, as ‘plan hasn’t gone into effect yet ‘amid legal challenges’

Aides to Donald Trump working to transform US immigration policy should he return to power are pursuing goals including “the largest mass deportation in US history” while “part-inspired” by the UK government’s deal to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda, the Wall Street Journal reported .

The Conservative UK government reached an agreement with the African country in 2022. Since then, however, the Rwanda policy has proved politically controversial , legally vulnerable , highly inefficient and vastly expensive .

With presidential election looming, officials in swing states like Nevada and Arizona are prioritizing issues crucial to constituents

As the presidential election looms, Latino elected officials in swing states such as Nevada and Arizona are prioritizing the election issues that are most crucial to their constituents. On Tuesday, leaders held a press conference to urge Joe Biden to extend work permits for long-term undocumented immigrants.

For more than a year, the Biden administration has used a humanitarian parole program to grant work permits to hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. But long-term immigrants say it is time they are provided work authorization as well.

New rule would restrict access sooner for people deemed to pose ‘national security or public safety risk’ in attempt to streamline

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new rule that it said would streamline the asylum process by restricting access earlier for certain migrants deemed to “pose a national security or public safety risk”.

According to a Department of Homeland Security memo, the changes would address the stage in the process at which certain individuals are determined to be ineligible for asylum. The rule targets migrants who have been “convicted of a particularly serious crime”, who have “participated in the persecution of others”, who are “inadmissible on national security or terrorism-related grounds” or for whom there are reasonable grounds to deem them a danger to the security of the United States.

Gregg Abbott’s strategy to deter immigration isn’t just harming people and costing billions – it’s ruining the Rio Grande’s ecosystem

Strong-arm strategies by Texas along the US-Mexico border have eroded more than human rights for migrants seeking asylum in the US; they have degraded the environment – and now the destruction is escalating.

In the hotspot of Eagle Pass, environmental damage from years of expansion of anti-migration security measures can be seen everywhere.

US president says ‘immigrants are what makes us strong’ and criticizes countries, plus China and Russia, over migration policy

Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the US on immigration.

The remarks, at a campaign fundraising event Wednesday evening, came just three weeks after the White House hosted Fumio Kishida , the Japanese prime minister, for a lavish official visit , during which the two leaders celebrated what Biden called an “unbreakable alliance,” particularly on global security matters.

Focus of rally went beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism, as Trump held campaign event nearby

Led by a mariachi band, hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday morning marched across Milwaukee to Fiserv Forum – the home of the Milwaukee Bucks and, in July, the venue of the Republican National Convention.

The rally, organized by the immigrant and workers ’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, is an annual event, but in 2024 it holds particular weight. The focus of the rally extended beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism under Republican candidate Donald Trump and critique of President Joe Biden’s handling of the US role in Israel and Gaza.

CBP One app offers far too few appointments, meaning asylum seekers must wait or pay human trafficking groups, report reveals

A US government smartphone app that tightly limits asylum appointments at the US-Mexico border is stranding vulnerable migrants in Mexico and enriching organised crime groups, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report, which draws on interviews with more than 100 migrants, as well as officials and activists, documents how the CBP One app – which is all but mandatory for asylum seekers – offers 1,450 appointments a day, when arrivals at the border averaged 7,240 a day between May 2023 and January 2024.

I quit when it sank in that pushing back at my routine embassy job felt less like resistance than complicity

When I began working as a consular officer at the US embassy in Ankara, Turkey, I was at the beginning of what was supposed to be a 20-year diplomatic career. Maybe I didn’t love all of US foreign policy, but in my routine visa assignment I was deeply committed to treating everybody I interviewed fairly and playing my part in facilitating the American immigrant dream. Then, on 27 June 2017, Donald Trump issued orders to begin implementing the “Muslim ban” . My routine job had suddenly become deeply morally fraught and instead of blandly facilitating the American dream, I was denying it to people based on their faith.

My first instinct was to draft a resignation letter, but I didn’t immediately send it because it felt at the time like I was part of a nigh-unanimous institutional rejection of an illiberal policy. More than 1,000 US diplomats put their signatures on an internal dissent cable against the Muslim ban when it was proclaimed. My boss hated the ban, my boss’ boss hated the ban, and the dozens of US ambassadors summoned to the foreign ministries of Muslim-majority countries to explain the policy tried to disown it as much as they possibly could. When I pushed back as much as I could, I did so with the full support of my bosses and colleagues. But, and this is the most important part, we always did so within the regulations.

Josef Burton is a former US diplomat who served in Turkey, India and Washington DC

Republican presumptive nominee struggles to articulate position on divisive issue after meeting with House speaker

Facing the press alongside the House speaker, fellow Republican Mike Johnson, Donald Trump bragged: “We broke Roe v Wade.”

The former president made the stark admission about his dominant role in attacks on abortion rights at the end of a week in which the rightwing Arizona state supreme court ruled that an 1864 law imposing a near-total ban could go back into effect.