A growing chorus of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called on the Biden administration to allow reporters and journalists into facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children who have sought asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The appeal for greater transparency with the American public and those who cover it comes as the U.S. faces a growing humanitarian crisis at its southwest border, driven by Central America’s economic devastation, climate change, gang violence and political persecution, as well as a new presidential administration.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas predicts the U.S. is on pace to encounter more migrants at its southwest border than in 20 years. Amid the ongoing surge in crossings, President Biden said Sunday that “at some point” he will be going to the border.
Senator Rob Portman, ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and one of four senators who accompanied Mayorkas to the border on Friday, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that he will “absolutely” push to open Custom and Border Protection (CBP) facilities to journalists amid calls for transparency.
“This should be transparent,” Portman said. “It’s amazing to me how little my constituents know about what’s going on down along the border. It is a situation spiraling out of control.”
Senator Chris Murphy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, also participated in the trip to the U.S.-Mexico border. The Democratic lawmaker told NPR on Saturday that opening up access to media coverage is “something that we should all press the administration to do better on.”
“We want to make sure that the press has access to hold the administration accountable,” he said. “That’s the reason I was there, to hold them accountable. And they’ve seen a surge that began last year, that began under the Trump administration, but it’s real. It’s pressing their resources.”
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer awaits immigrants crossing into the United States on March 16, 2021 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
John Moore / Getty Images
As of Saturday morning, more than 5,000 unaccompanied minors remained in a CBP tent holding facility in south Texas and other stations along the border with Mexico. According to the government records, unaccompanied children are spending an average of 136 hours in CBP custody, far beyond the 72-hour legal limit.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was also housing nearly 10,500 unaccompanied children in emergency housing facilities and shelters licensed by states to care for minors, according to department spokesperson Mark Weber.
Another lawmaker on the trip, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, told The Washington Post on Saturday that more than 200 border agents have been diverted to a Customs and Border Protection processing center in El Paso to care for children.
According to Capito, as many as 100 migrant children were being held in a large room at the facility amid the coronavirus pandemic, and many are being held in CBP custody beyond the legal limit of 72 hours before transfer into HHS custody. Capito expressed concern about the overstay in CBP facilities, noting, “They’ll move 50 out a night [and] have another 100 come in that night.”
The Republican senator also told The Washington Post that she reinforced to the DHS secretary that reporters should be allowed inside border facilities. “I pleaded with him to have as much transparency with us … but with the press as well,” Capito said.
In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Mayorkas cited both privacy and health concerns in letting reporters into the facilities. “Let me be clear, we’re in the midst of the pandemic. We’re talking about a crowded Border Patrol station where we are focused on operations,” Mayorkas said.
“At the same time, and let me assure you, that we are working on a plan to provide access so that people could see what is going onat Border Patrol stations,” the DHS secretary continued. “I would encourage people to also see the Department of Health and Human Services facility where the children are sheltered and where they belong and where we are moving them to.”
The delegation’s trip to the border on Friday remained closed to press “due to privacy and COVID-19 precautions,” according to the DHS statement.
A Biden administration official indicated on Thursday that DHS made an “operational decision” in March 2020 “to discourage visitors” because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and that rule “still stands.”
Journalists were permitted into government facilities to inspect the conditions and speak with asylum seekers during past migrant surges, including under the Trump administration in 2018 and Obama administration in 2014.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that the Biden administration did not have a timeline for when the public would be able to see the conditions inside border facilities, amid repeated questioning in the White House briefing room.
“We remain committed to sharing with all of you data on the number of kids crossing the border, the steps we’re taking, the work we’re doing to open up facilities, our own bar we’re setting for ourselves, improving the and expediting the timeline and the treatment of these children,” Psaki said, deferring further questions to the Department of Homeland Security. “And we remain committed to transparency. I don’t have an update for you on the timeline for access, but it’s certainly something we support.”
In addition to media access, the Biden administration has not provided photos nor video documenting the inside of crowded government facilities housing migrant children amid the COVID-19 public emergency.
But the Biden administration, including Homeland Security officials, have repeatedly vowed to expand transparency and access into department operations since before the president’s inauguration. In his confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on January 19, Mayorkas promised “to elevate the level of public engagement, so that we are a transparent agency — transparent not only to the public that we serve, but to the media whose responsibility it is in part to hold us accountable.”
The U.S. Supreme Court will review a lower court’s decision from last summer that vacated the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Here, artist Jane Flavell Collins pulls down her courtroom sketches outside the Moakley federal courthouse in Boston after Tsarnaev was sentenced.
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The U.S. Supreme Court will review a lower court’s decision from last summer that vacated the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Here, artist Jane Flavell Collins pulls down her courtroom sketches outside the Moakley federal courthouse in Boston after Tsarnaev was sentenced.
John Blanding/Boston Globe via Getty Images
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will consider whether to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The 2013 bombing, which Tsarnaev carried out with his brother Tamerlan, killed three people and injured 264 others. The Chechen immigrant was convicted of all 30 charges brought against him in2015, and a court imposed six death sentences and 11 concurrent life sentences.
But last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals, based in Boston, threw out the death penalty sentences after finding that the trial judge had failed to ensure proper questioning of prospective jurors, and whether their opinions had been influenced by the wall-to-wall press coverage of the bombing.
The Trump administration then appealed to the Supreme Court seeking to revive the capital sentences. And on Monday the justices, in a one-sentence order, agreed to consider reinstating Tsarnaev’s death sentences. They will not hear arguments in the case until next term.
A decision in favor of Tsarnev would put President Biden in a difficult position. The initial decision to seek death penalty in Tsarnaev’s case was made by the Obama administration — during Biden’s tenure as vice president. But Biden pledged during the campaign to push for the elimination of the death penalty in the federal system.
Tsarnaev’s defense team has not denied that he participated in the attack, in which two pressure cooker bombs were detonated as runners crossed the race’s finish line. But they argued that he was under the strong influence of his older brother, who was killed during the massive manhunt that locked down most of the Boston metropolitan area in the days after the attack.
Tsarnaev, 27, is being held at the high-security supermax federal prison near Florence, Colo.
The appeals panel said the judge who presided over Tsarnaev’s trial, Judge George A. O’Toole, had rejected the defense team’s request for a more distant trial venue, where prospective jurors might be less likely to be biased against Tsarnaev than in eastern Massachusetts, and, they maintained he committed other important trial errors that barred adequate screening of prospective jurors.
“A core promise of our criminal-justice system is that even the very worst among us deserves to be fairly tried and lawfully punished,” the appeals court said in a 224-page opinion written by Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson.
He said that the judge stopped Tsarnaev’s counsel from asking prospective jurors questions such as what they knew about the case before coming to court, or what stood out to them from the media coverage they had seen about the bombing and its aftermath.
Appeals Court Judge Juan Torruella, who died late last year, wrote that the district court judge had relied on “self-declarations of impartiality” by prospective jurors, some of whom admitted before the trial that they were convinced Tsarnaev was guilty.
For example, Torruella noted that the woman who became the jury’s foreperson withheld from the court dozens of relevant social media comments that mourned the death of an 8-year-old victim, praised law enforcement officers and called Tsarnaev “a piece of garbage.”
The ruling from last July ordered the district court to impanel a new jury to hold a sentencing retrial for the death penalty convictions. But the appeals panel noted that Tsarnaev, who told the courtroom on the day of his sentencing that he was “guilty of this attack,” would remain in prison for the rest of his life regardless of whether the death sentence is imposed.
The Trump administration prioritized carrying out federal executions in its final year — resuming a practice that had been paused for nearly two decades and prompting pushback from activists and lawmakers.
In the final six months of the administration, 13 people on death row in the federal system were executed, including three in the week before Biden took office.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any enthusiasm on our side for a tax increase,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told reporters last week. He predicted the administration’s infrastructure plan would be a “Trojan horse” for tax increases.
Mr. Biden’s team has debated the merits of aggressively pursuing compromise with Republicans and business leaders on an infrastructure package, which would most likely require dropping or scaling back plans to raise taxes on corporations, or preparing to move another sweeping bill through a special parliamentary process that would require only Democratic votes. Mr. Biden’s advisers plan to present the proposal to congressional leaders this week.
“President Biden and his team are considering a range of potential options for how to invest in working families and reform our tax code so it rewards work, not wealth,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said. “Those conversations are ongoing, so any speculation about future economic proposals is premature and not a reflection of the White House’s thinking.”
Mr. Biden said in January that his relief bill would be followed by a “Build Back Better Recovery Plan,” echoing the language of his campaign agenda. He said that plan would “make historic investments in infrastructure and manufacturing, innovation, research and development, and clean energy. Investments in the caregiving economy and in skills and training needed by our workers to compete and win the global economy of the future.”
The timing of that proposal — which Mr. Biden initially had said would come in February — slipped as administration officials focused on completing the relief package. In the interim, administration officials have concluded their best chance to advance Mr. Biden’s larger agenda in Congress will be to split “Build Back Better” into component proposals.
The first plan, centered on infrastructure, includes large portions of the plan Mr. Biden offered in the 2020 election. His campaign predicted that Mr. Biden’s investments would create 5 million new jobs in manufacturing and advanced industries, on top of restoring all the jobs lost last year in the Covid-19 crisis.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A party-ending curfew imposed after fights, gunfire, property destruction and dangerous stampedes broke out among huge crowds of people in Miami Beach could extend through the end of spring break.
Miami Beach commissioners voted unanimously Sunday to empower the city manager to extend the curfew in the South Beach entertainment district until at least April 12, effectively shutting down a spring break hot spot in one of the few states fully open during the pandemic.
SWAT teams and law enforcement officers from at least four other agencies sought to contain the raucous crowds, but confrontations continued for days before Miami Beach officials enacted the curfew, which forces Ocean Drive restaurants to stop outdoor seating entirely.
City Manager Raul Aguila said many people from other states were coming in “to engage in lawlessness and an ‘anything goes’ party attitude.” He said most weren’t patronizing the businesses that badly need tourism dollars, and instead merely congregating by the thousands in the street.
Miami Beach Police said more than 1,000 people have been arrested this spring break season, with about 80 guns seized. Police Chief Richard Clements said the trouble intensified on Monday, when an unusually large crowd blocked Ocean Drive “and basically had an impromptu street party.” By Thursday, fights were breaking out, setting off dangerous stampedes of people fleeing for safety.
The partying was out of control by Friday night, he said — one restaurant was “turned upside down” in a melee, its “chairs were used as weapons,” and broken glass covered the floor. The iconic Clevelander South Beach bar next door had to suspend all food and beverage operations. Gunshots were fired, and a young woman was hospitalized with a badly cut leg, police said.
“How many more things are we going to allow to occur before we step in?” Clements said during Sunday’s meeting. He defended the city’s curfew, which also closes three causeways leading to South Beach in an effort to keep all but residents and employees from driving onto the island from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Thursday through Sunday. “I think this was the right decision,” the chief said.
The crowd was defiant but mostly nonviolent on Saturday night, refusing to submit to the curfew that had only been enacted four hours earlier, when officers in bulletproof vests released pepper spray balls to break up the party. A crowd showed up again Sunday night, defying the curfew yet again.
The situation ignited racial tensions. Some white residents referred to the crowd of predominantly Black tourists as “animals” or “thugs” on social media.
“We have to realize that we are definitely fighting an undertone of racism,” DeAnne Connolly Graham, a member of Miami Beach’s Black Affairs Advisory Committee, told the Miami Herald.
But Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber rejected the claim that anyone has been targeted for their race.
“When hundreds of people are running through the streets panicked, you realize that’s not something that a police force can control,” he said during the commission meeting Sunday.
Very few people in the crowds were covering their faces with masks, as is required by a Miami Beach ordinance imposed in hopes of containing the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 33,000 people in Florida so far.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has insisted that Florida have no statewide mask rules, limits on capacity or other public health restrictions, which he credits for keeping the tourism economy going. “If you look at South Florida right now, this place is booming,” DeSantis said last month. “Los Angeles isn’t booming. New York City isn’t booming.”
Miami’s tourism arm just spent $5 million on its biggest national advertising campaign in 20 years, seeking a rebound after billions of dollars were lost to the pandemic, canceling last year’s spring break and forcing beach closures across the Sunshine State.
Miami Beach, meanwhile, banned alcohol from the beach, along with all alcohol sales after 10 p.m., and even sent text messages to tourists warning, “Vacation Responsibly or Be Arrested.”
Several commissioners said South Beach needs a new marketing campaign to rebrand its party-city image. They pointed to the handful of arrests in Fort Lauderdale, which has raised its hotel rates and promoted a “family friendly” spring break.
None of it sits well with people who were hoping to finally let loose in the pandemic.
“I just feel like it’s really not fair,” tourist Heather Price told NBC 6. “People paid a lot of money to come all the way out here, just to not be able to do the activities they wanted to.”
‘The Next Revolution’ host says what’s happening at the southern border is an ‘entirely avoidable, unnecessary, humanitarian disaster.’
A leaked document revealed that 823 unaccompanied migrant children have spent over 10 days in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol, a significantly longer period of time than the 72 hours that a child is legally intended to be held, according to a report Sunday.
Axios reported that the document, which was not viewed by Fox News, indicated that as of Saturday, 3,314 migrant children, who are unaccompanied, have been held in custody longer than 72 hours. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News.
The report pointed to a tweet from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-N.J., after his visit to the southern border. He tweeted that he just “left the border processing facility” and witnessed hundreds of children packed into “big open rooms.”
“In a corner, I fought back tears as a 13 yr old girl sobbbed [sic] uncontrollably explaining thru a translator how terrified she was, having to be separated from her grandmother and without her parents,” the tweet read. He later clarified that the children “are no longer separated from their parents at the border (in this case, the girl’s parents are in the US).”
The Biden administration has been scrambling to manage a growing humanitarian and political challenge at the U.S.-Mexico border that threatens to overshadow his legislative agenda.
Biden told reporters Sunday at the White House that “at some point” he would go to the border and that he knows what is going on in the border facilities.
“A lot more, we are in the process of doing it now, including making sure we re-establish what existed before, which was they can stay in place and make their case from their home countries,” Biden said upon returning from a weekend at Camp David.
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities have been operating far beyond capacity amid a troubling surge in border crossers. The agency announced that it had encountered more than 100,000 migrants at the border in February.
Former President Trump said in a statement Sunday that Biden turned “a national triumph into a national disaster” with his handling of the crisis.
“We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history,” the statement read. “All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast.”
Fox News’ Yael Halon and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Miami Beach officials on Sunday said the city would extend curfews and closures through April 12 after a SWAT team was called in Saturday night to break up a rowdy crowd of spring breakers that had defied an 8 p.m. curfew.
City commissioners unanimously voted on the move during an emergency meeting on Sunday. Interim City Manager Raul Aguila, who recommended extending the curfew, needed commission support to extend the curfew beyond Tuesday.
Aguila told The Miami Herald that the measure aims to “contain the overwhelming crowd of visitors and the potential for violence, disruption and damage to property.”
The vote comes after law enforcement officers in bulletproof vests dispersed pepper spray balls Saturday to break up groups that descended on sunny South Beach by the thousands, trashing restaurants and flooding the streets without masks or social distancing despite COVID restrictions.
City of Miami Beach Police officers are ready to enforce strict rules part of the zero tolerance campaign Miami Beach Vacation Responsibly as spring break has officially begun Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021 in Miami Beach, Fla. (Miami Herald via AP)
After days of partying – including several confrontations between police and large crowds – Miami Beach officials ordered an emergency curfew from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m., forcing restaurants to stop outdoor seating entirely during the three-day emergency period, and encouraging local businesses to voluntarily shut down.
On Saturday, a military-style vehicle was seen rolling down the palm-tree-lined Ocean Drive on social media as outnumbered Miami Beach police officers struggled to disperse the raucous crowds. Tourists were urged to stay inside their hotels and pedestrians or vehicles were not allowed to enter the restricted area after 8 p.m.
Despite the curfew, Ocean Avenue, the city’s main strip, remained jam-packed with revelers well past the 8 p.m. deadline. A SWAT team was on the perimeter by they reportedly left the area around 8:45 p.m.
Paul Acosta, assistant chief of police at the Miami Beach Police Department, said the main part of Ocean Avenue was clear of crowds shortly after 9 p.m.
City of Miami Beach Police officers arrest several males on Ocean Drive and 10th Street as spring break has officially begun Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021 in Miami Beach, Fla. (Miami Herald via AP)
Miami Beach police enforced the curfew by blockading Ocean Drive, Washington Avenue, and Collins Avenue from to 16th streets, Miami’s WSVN 7 reported.
Eastbound traffic on the city’s three main causeways – the MacArthur, Julia Tuttle, and Venetian – were shut down at 10 p.m. and stayed closed until 5 a.m. to people who were not residents, hotel guests, or people going to work, according to the station.
Miami Beach police said Sunday afternoon they have made more than 50 arrests and confiscated at least eight firarms since Friday.
Fox News has reached out to Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber and City Commissioner Michael Gongora with a request for comment but did not hear back before publication.
Fox News’ Paul Best and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
“When it comes to measures that draconian, you are going to disenfranchise people who are big China fans and are not allowed to return to the country they have made their home,” said Alexander Style, the British owner of a Shanghai-based company that makes electric vehicle parts for export, who has been forced to relocate with his family to New Jersey.
Other countries have their own travel restrictions, though few are as tight. The United States, for example, bans foreigners traveling directly from China unless they are green card holders or certain immediate family members of American citizens. It also bans foreigners leaving from Europe, as well as Brazil and other countries.
In China, officials regard travel limits as crucial to their success in containing the virus. Since the outbreak started, China has reported more than 101,000 Covid cases. Although questions have been raised about the accuracy of the numbers, they are far lower than in the United States, where 29.8 million people have tested positive for the virus. China’s strategy reflects its strengths as well as its weaknesses.
China was the only major economy to grow last year. It knows businesses will find a way to keep their Chinese operations running, with or without expatriates, and it is betting that they will come back when the pandemic eases. At the same time, China’s restrictions highlight the inadequacies of its vaccine rollout, which has been slow compared to those of the United States, Britain and other countries.
Researchers say they may have found a reason for a rare blood clotting condition that has occurred in some people who received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
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Researchers say they may have found a reason for a rare blood clotting condition that has occurred in some people who received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
Two teams of European scientists, working independently, say they believe they’ve identified the cause of a rare blood clotting condition that has occurred in some people after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
If correct, their research could mean any blood clots that occur could be easily treated.
There were reports earlier this month of roughly 30 blood clots occurring after vaccination, a few of them fatal. This led more than a dozen European countries to suspend their use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Most countries resumed using it, however, after the European Medicines Agency conducted an investigation and declared on Thursday that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and effective. The EMA said the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the potential risks — and pointed out that the rate of post-vaccine blood clots was actually lower than the expected rate in the general population.
Now, a group of German researchers, led by professor Andreas Greinacher at the University of Greifswald, said on Friday in a statement that they believe the AstraZeneca vaccine, in some cases, prompts overactivation of platelets in the blood, which can then cause potentially deadly clots. They said it’s similar to what happens with a condition called heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.
Greinacher and his colleagues analyzed the 13 cases of cerebral blood clots reported in Germany following the administration of roughly 1.6 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in that country. Of the 13 cases, 12 were women, and all the cases occurred between four and 16 days after the shot was administered. The EMA had also noted that almost all the reported clotting incidents were in women under the age of 55.
Greinacher and his colleagues say that in four of the patients, they were able to isolate and identify the specific antibodies that provoke the immune reaction leading to the cerebral blood clots.
While Greinacher and his colleagues were studying the cases in Germany, researchers at the Oslo University Hospital were investigating three post-vaccination blood clots in Norway. All the Norwegian cases were health care workers under the age of 50. One of them has since died.
Professor Pål Andre Holme told the Norwegian newspaper VG that he’s confident they’ve identified antibodies prompted by the vaccine that caused an overreaction by the immune system leading to the blood clots.
“Our theory that this is a strong immune response that most likely comes after the vaccine,” Holme said. It’s the same theory that Greinacher and his colleagues have put forward in Germany.
“There is no other thing than the vaccine that can explain this immune response,” he said.
Pushed by the local newspaper as to why he’s so confident, Holme added that there’s “no other history in these patients that can give such a strong immune response. I’m pretty sure it’s these antibodies that’s the cause, and I see no other reason than that it’s the vaccine that triggers it.”
Not everyone, including the European Medicines Agency, is convinced that the cause of these clots has been found.
On Friday, the EMA said that there is “no increase in overall risk of blood clots” among people who’ve gotten the AstraZeneca vaccine. The European regulator said it had reports of 25 clots so far among the roughly 20 million people who’ve received the AstraZeneca shot. The EMA, however, didn’t rule out a possible connection entirely. “A causal link with the vaccine is not proven,” the EMA said in a statement, “but is possible and deserves further analysis.”
The German researchers say the good news is that if their theory is correct, this rare adverse reaction to the jab can be identified and treated.
They say recipients should be on the lookout for unusual bruising, swelling or headaches that start four or more days after getting the vaccination. If identified quickly, they say, the clotting problem can be managed relatively easily by health professionals.
Rep. Buddy Carter R-Ga., joins ‘Fox Report’ to discuss the Biden administration’s response to the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
EXCLUSIVE: Fox News confirmed Sunday that Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) have begun to process and release illegal border crossers who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA) – allowing them to depart custody without scheduling a court date for a hearing.
The unprecedented move places the responsibility of seeking an asylum hearing on the migrants through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or legal assistance.
Multiple Border Patrol agents confirmed the new process to Fox News, revealing that they have been directed to use prosecutorial discretion (PD) to forgo the hours-long process of paperwork required to issue an NTA amid the surge of migrants at the border.
Instead, migrants are registered into the system with biometrical data taken and largely released into the public – in one instance – at a bus station in McAllen, TX. The processing is being done mostly at a temporary outdoor processing site. Border Patrol agents emphasized that this does not apply to unaccompanied children.
A senior source with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told Fox News on Saturday that officials were considering the controversial move because the ongoing crisis on the border has “become so dire that BP [Border Patrol] has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people even to do necessary NTA paperwork.”
The process of issuing each migrant an NTA can take hours per individual or family.
The decision comes as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working to open another facility for unaccompanied child migrants in Pecos, Texas, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) announced Saturday.
The Temporary Influx Care Facility would house at least 500 unaccompanied minors to start, with the capacity to house 2,000 children.
“While ORR has worked to build up its licensed bed capacity to almost 13,500 beds, additional capacity is urgently needed to manage both enhanced COVID-19 mitigation strategies and the increasing numbers of UC referrals from DHS,” an ORR spokesperson said.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that border crossings were on track to be the highest in 20 years.
CBP announced it had encountered more than 100,000 migrants at the border in February, while numbers of child migrants in custody have also increased dramatically. The Biden administration has been moving to increase capacity of facilities to house migrants, and building a number of extra facilities — including looking at NASA sites and military bases.
The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
Host Mark Levin posited to Homan that the Biden administration’s strategy in dealing with the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is “overwhelm the system, break the system, then blame the system and take control.”
“You’re correct,” Homan responded. “The Biden administration is still trying to blame President Trump for what’s going on the border right now. They’re ignoring the fact that — I don’t care if you love President Trump or hate him — you cannot deny the fact that he gave us the most secure border in my career, which is almost thirty-five years.
“I started in 1984 as a Border Patrol agent,” Homan added. “I spent my entire career on border enforcement, immigration enforcement, and President Trump got it right. He had unprecedented success on that border.”
Homan went on to explain that Trump “understood that 90% of the Central Americans that come to our border to claim asylum never get relief from U.S. courts. They simply don’t qualify. That data’s easily available on the Department of Justice website; anybody can look at it.
“I doubt President Biden has looked at it or [DHS Secretary] Alejandro Mayorkas has looked at it, because if they did, then they’re facilitating immigration fraud on the border.”
Homan recalled that during Barack Obama’s second term, when Biden was vice president and Mayorkas was deputy homeland security secretary, “we built detention facilities, thousands of them. We held people long enough to see a judge. We let ICE remove them and we took away the enticements.”
Now, however, “Joe Biden has sold out this country to the progressive left to win an election,” Homan claimed. “He’s a different person … Alejandro Mayorkas is a different person.”
As a result, Homan concluded, migrants detained at the border are being released “as soon as they can, within three days. ICE has been decapitated. They lost 90% of their authority. They’re not executing judges’ orders, and we keep throwing out more enticements.
“This isn’t incompetence. This is by design. This is an open borders agenda that we all knew was coming.”
A lifeguard calls to swimmers at a beach in Miami on March 5. Amid fears of crowds fueling a new surge in coronavirus cases, Miami Beach on Saturday announced an abrupt curfew to curb swelling crowds of spring breaker visitors.
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A lifeguard calls to swimmers at a beach in Miami on March 5. Amid fears of crowds fueling a new surge in coronavirus cases, Miami Beach on Saturday announced an abrupt curfew to curb swelling crowds of spring breaker visitors.
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
For anyone looking forward to the annual frivolity of spring break or the diversion offered every year by March Madness, the coronavirus pandemic is once again reminding: not so fast.
Just as tens of thousands of revelers were dreaming of dancing the night away in Miami Beach on Saturday, the city abruptly declared a state of emergency. Local officials shut down traffic on the causeways leading into the beach mecca, ordered outdoor restaurants to suspend outdoor dining starting at 7 p.m. and banned strolling on the city’s iconic Ocean Drive after 8 p.m. The announcement came after cheap flights, discounted hotel rooms and new rules rolling back state-mandated COVID-19 restrictions led to a surge of visitors into Miami Beach and other Florida hot spots just as U.S. colleges pause for spring break.
“Too many people are coming here right now,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said on Saturday as he proclaimed the state of emergency.
“And too many people are coming here with bad intentions,” Gelber said about large crowds that trashed outdoor seating areas at several restaurants on Friday night in the art deco section of the city adjacent to the beach.
“At night there is no question that it becomes a place that feels a little out of control or a lot out of control,” the mayor said as he announced the 72 -hour lockdown. “At times you see things that shouldn’t happen and no community should have to endure.”
Gelber said he was imposing the 8 p.m. curfew and entry restrictions into Miami Beach preemptively before things get worse. Videos of the area show dense crowds of revelers, many of them maskless, drinking, dancing and ambling along Ocean Drive on Saturday night before police moved in to disperse them.
Police say they arrested “at least a dozen” people for violating the state of emergency on Saturday night. This is actually fewer arrests than last week, when Miami Beach police detained nearly 100 people as cops tried to break up spring break crowds.
As in much of the U.S., COVID-19 numbers in Florida have dropped from a peak in January, but that previous nationwide surge followed soon after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Public health officials are now warning that gatherings for spring break and the upcoming Easter holiday could again amplify coronavirus transmission as pandemic fatigue prompts people to let their guard down.
“Every time there’s a surge in travel, we have a surge in cases in this country,” the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said this month. “We are really trying to restrain travel at this current period of time.”
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, echoed that sentiment in an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly this month. Collins said Americans need to be patient and continue with masks and social distancing for a bit longer.
“We have been on a marathon since this all started a year ago. And, you know, when you’re running a marathon, you don’t want to stop at the 24th mile,” Collins said.
“Everybody is incredibly frustrated and tired of all of this. We just have to stick it out here for a few more weeks and months to make sure that we get to that finish line in a way that saves the maximum number of lives.”
In another disruption to the national rites of spring, the pandemic blew out some March Madness brackets over the weekend. In the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, a surreal score line of 1-0 popped up on tracking apps for the game between Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Oregon. VCU was forced to pull out of the event after reporting multiple positive coronavirus tests.
“This has been a crazy couple of days, and the last six hours has just been heartbreaking,” VCU coach Mike Rhoades said on a videoconference Saturday night announcing his team’s withdrawal from the tournament.
Rhoades said there were “no dry eyes” when he told his players the news.
“This is what you dream of as a college player and a coach, and to get it taken away like this is just a heartbreaking moment in their young lives.”
But Rhoades added that all his squad did was lose a basketball game, while “500,000 people have lost their lives.”
“I do think that we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here, with his own platform,” Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told Fox News’ “#MediaBuzz” on Sunday. “And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media, it’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does.”
Miller said he was unable to provide much more in terms of details at this point, but he did reveal that Trump has been having “high-powered meetings” at Mar-a-Lago with various teams regarding the venture, and that “numerous companies” have approached Trump.
“This new platform is going to be big,” Miller said, predicting that Trump will draw “tens of millions of people.”
In the meantime, Miller said that Trump will continue to endorse Republican candidates, teasing one that is expected to come on Monday.
“Pay attention to Georgia tomorrow, on Monday. There’s a big endorsement that’s coming that’s going to really shake things up in the political landscape in Georgia. It’s big, it’s coming tomorrow, and just be sure to tune in.”
NOTE: Appointments are based on vaccine supply, and while supply is increasing, you can still expect some delays and backlogs, depending on where you live. Register wherever you can.
What are considered eligible medical conditions?
Certain underlying medical conditions are at increased risk for severe illness from the virus that causes COVID-19. Severe illness from COVID-19 is defined as hospitalization, admission to the ICU, intubation or mechanical ventilation, or death.
The following medical conditions might place an individual at an increased risk for severe illness from the virus that causes COVID-19, and are therefore also eligible for vaccination in ages 50 and above at this time:
There isn’t enough vaccine for the groups currently being vaccinated, why are we adding more?
MDHHS: It is important to note that phases of vaccination will be adjusted based on many factors which include efficiency, effectiveness and equity. Data is being evaluated to ensure that those with the highest risk and roles in supporting communities are identified for vaccination based on the available supply. We understand the challenges and appreciate everyone’s patience while we work to utilize all vaccine accordingly.
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