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U.S. announces effort to expedite court cases of migrants who cross the border illegally
The Biden administration on Thursday announced an effort to shorten the time it takes for U.S. immigration judges to decide the asylum cases of certain migrants who enter the country illegally along the border with Mexico.
Migrant adults released by federal border officials after crossing into the U.S. unlawfully will be eligible to be placed in the program, under a joint initiative between the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, which oversees the nation’s immigration courts.
The effort’s objective, senior U.S. officials said, is to speed up the process of granting asylum to migrants with legitimate cases, and rejecting weak cases. Federal officials under Republican and Democratic administrations have said the current years-long timeframe to decide asylum cases serves as a “pull factor” that attracts migration by economic migrants, who don’t qualify for humanitarian protection, but who often use the asylum system to work in the U.S.
Over the past years, the backlog of cases received by the immigration courts has ballooned, leading to wait times that often surpass four years. Fewer than 800 immigration judges are overseeing more than 3.5 million unresolved cases.
Single migrant adults who plan to live in five major U.S. cities — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City — could be selected for the new process, which will instruct immigration judges to issue decisions within 180 days, instead of years.
Since the Obama administration, the U.S. has set up several similar programs, colloquially known as “rocket dockets.” While officials have portrayed them as ways to discourage illegal immigration, advocates have said the rocket dockets trample on migrants’ due process by making it more difficult for them to secure lawyers in time for their hearings.
The scope of Thursday’s announcement was not immediately clear, as U.S. officials declined to provide an estimate of the number of migrants who would be placed in the fast-track proceedings. Ten judges have been assigned to the program, one of the officials said during a call with reporters.
The latest rocket docket is the most recent step taken by the Biden administration to curtail unlawful border crossings, which spiked last year to record levels. Last week, the Biden administration published a proposed rule that would allow immigration officials to more quickly reject and deport asylum-seeking migrants who are deemed to endanger public safety or national security.
Last year, the administration implemented a regulation that presumes migrants are ineligible for U.S. asylum if they enter the country illegally after failing to request refuge in another country. It paired that policy with a vast expansion of avenues for some would-be migrants to enter the U.S. legally.
President Biden, who has increasingly embraced more restrictive border policies, has also been considering a more sweeping measure that would further restrict asylum for those entering the U.S. illegally. The move, which would rely on a presidential authority known as 212(f), would almost certainly face legal challenges.
Administration officials have argued they are exploring unilateral immigration actions due to the collapse of a border security agreement that the White House forged with a bipartisan group of senators earlier this year. While the deal would have severely restricted asylum and increased deportations without legalizing unauthorized immigrants, most Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, rejected it outright.
“This administrative step is no substitute for the sweeping and much-needed changes that the bipartisan Senate bill would deliver, but in the absence of congressional action we will do what we can to most effectively enforce the law and discourage irregular migration,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Thursday.
The Biden administration has faced unprecedented levels of migration along the southern border, including over two million migrant apprehensions in each of the past two years.
HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images
In recent months, however, migrant crossings have plunged, bucking historical patterns that have seen migration soar in the spring. Last month, Border Patrol recorded nearly 129,000 migrant apprehensions, down from 137,000 in March, according to government data. U.S. officials have credited increased deportations and an immigration crackdown by Mexico for the surprising drop.
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A complete mastodon jaw was discovered in the backyard of a home in New York’s Hudson Valley, marking the state’s first such find in more than a decade, officials announced this week.
The Stockton, New York, homeowner initially spotted two teeth hidden in the fronds of a plant on their property and proceeded to uncover two more teeth buried inches underground, the New York State Museum said. Staff from the museum, which is based in Albany and has an archaeological research department, and SUNY Orange launched an investigation at the property.
New York State Museum
Their excavation unearthed additional fossils, including a full, well-preserved adult jaw and fragments of rib and toe bones that once belonged to a mastodon — ancient giants that existed during the Ice Age and became extinct some 10,000 years ago. The term refers to a group of massive elephant-like species, like the mammoth.
“When I found the teeth and examined them in my hands, I knew they were something special and decided to call in the experts,” said the homeowner in a statement to the New York State Museum. “I’m thrilled that our property has yielded such an important find for the scientific community.”
New York State Museum
Remnants of mastodons have been discovered in New York before. According to the museum, more than 150 fossils of these prehistoric creatures have been documented to date statewide, with around one-third of them coming from Orange County, where the latest bones were found.
But experts said the findings offer an opportunity to learn something new.
“This discovery is a testament to the rich paleontological history of New York and the ongoing efforts to understand its past,” said Robert Feranec, a research director and curator at the New York State Museum whose work centers on ice age animals, in a statement. “Fossils are resources that provide remarkable snapshots of the past, allowing us to not only reconstruct ancient ecosystems but also provide us with better context and understanding of the current world around us.”
The mastodon fossils will undergo carbon dating and analysis to determine the creature’s age, diet and habitat while it was alive, the museum said. After that analysis and subsequent preservation work are complete, the bones will be featured on public display in 2025.
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U.K. court says police can seize millions in unpaid taxes from misogynist influencer Andrew Tate
London — A court in the United Kingdom ruled Wednesday that police could seize the equivalent of $3.3 million in frozen financial assets from misogynist social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan to cover years of unpaid taxes.
The money has been held in seven bank accounts, frozen by British authorities, belonging to Tate, who previously lived in the U.K., his brother Tristan and a woman identified by the British authorities only as J.
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court said in his Wednesday ruling that transactions made by the brothers, including transfers amounting to almost $12 million to J, had been a “straightforward cheat” to evade tax authorities.
Lawyers for the Devon and Cornwall Police force had argued that Tate and his brother were serial tax evaders who paid no taxes on around $26.5 million in revenue from their online businesses.
Getty
According to the French news agency AFP, lawyer Sarah Clarke, who represented the police force, quoted during the proceedings from a video posted online by Tate, in which he said: “When I lived in England I refused to pay tax.”
Tate railed against the ruling, accusing the government of “outright theft.”
“This is not justice; it’s a coordinated attack on anyone who dares to challenge the system,” he said in a statement, claiming the seizure of his assets raised “serious questions about the lengths authorities will go to silence dissent.”
The Associated Press quoted a lawyer for the men, Martin Evans, as defending the bank transfers in question as “entirely orthodox” for the owners of online businesses.
Tate gained millions of followers online before being banned by TikTok, Facebook and YouTube when the platforms accused him of posting misogynistic hate speech.
Tate and his brother are currently under house arrest in Romania, where they face criminal human trafficking charges. When that case is concluded, the brothers are set to be extradited to the U.K., where they face additional allegations of human trafficking and rape.
The Tate brothers have denied all the charges of sexual violence and human trafficking.
CIA director reportedly heading to Qatar for Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks
Complete mastodon jaw unearthed in New York after homeowner spots teeth in backyard
U.K. court says police can seize millions in unpaid taxes from misogynist influencer Andrew Tate
CIA director reportedly heading to Qatar for Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks
Complete mastodon jaw unearthed in New York after homeowner spots teeth in backyard