President Joe Biden has “limited ability” to step up security at the U.S.-Mexico border via executive action, a top Democratic lawmaker said on Sunday, arguing that the issue should be addressed with legislation in Congress.

Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democrat who negotiated a bipartisan border security bill introduced this year, said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that U.S. courts would likely strike down sweeping action by Biden.

“The president has such limited ability to issue executive orders that would have an impact on the border. He can’t conjure resources out of thin air,” Murphy said. “If he were to try to shut down portions of the border, the courts would throw that out, I think, within a matter of weeks.”

Biden, a Democrat seeking another term in Nov. 5 elections, has said his administration is looking at executive actions to potentially block migrants at the border after Republicans rejected the bipartisan Senate bill this year. Republicans spurned the measure after former President Donald Trump, Biden’s Republican challenger, came out against it.

Senate Republicans blocked the bill again last week and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said it “doesn’t secure the border” and “incentivizes further illegal immigration.”

The number of migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped this year compared with a monthly record high in December, a trend U.S. officials partly attribute to increased enforcement by Mexico.

Murphy said the decrease was due to “smart, effective diplomacy between the United States and the Mexican government” but warned that the dropoff may not be permanent and that illegal crossings remain high compared with a decade ago.

“We have to just recognize that without updating the laws of this country, without surging more resources to the border, we can’t count on the numbers staying as low as they are today,” Murphy said.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean Pierre said last week that the Senate bill would deliver “significant policy changes, resources, and personnel needed to secure our border and make our country safer.”

Migrants and asylum seekers transit through Mexico to the U.S. to escape violence, economic distress and negative impacts of climate change, according the United Nations.

President Joe Biden on Monday urged Republican leaders in the House and Senate to support a revived bipartisan bill on border security, even as House Speaker Mike Johnson declared the bill would be “dead on arrival.”

Democrats are again trying to pass the Border Act, which they say would reform U.S. asylum laws, hire thousands of border agents and help curtail fentanyl smuggling.

Record numbers of migrants have been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office in 2021 and border security has become one of the leading presidential campaign issues ahead of the Nov. 5 election that will pit Biden against former President Donald Trump.

In February, a version of the bill stalled in the Senate after Trump told Republicans not to support it even though it contained several border-security measures they had sought. Biden and other Democrats said Trump undercut the bill in order to keep the border debate alive during the campaign.

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday announced the Senate would seek to pass the new bill this week, after which the White House said it strongly supported the legislation.

In the president’s calls to Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Biden asked congressional Republicans to “stop playing politics” and quickly pass the legislation, the White House said.

Before the president reached out, leaders of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives called the bill politically motivated.

“Should it reach the House, the bill would be dead on arrival,” Johnson and other Republicans said in a statement.

The previous legislation was tied to U.S. foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel, but this bill would stand alone, Schumer said.

Over half of U.S. voters oppose putting immigrants in the country illegally into detention camps while awaiting deportation, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows, suggesting Americans may be wary of harsher enforcement plans Donald Trump is considering.

Some 54% of registered voters opposed the use of detention camps while 36% supported such a move and 10% said they did not know or did not respond, the poll found. Still, 56% said most or all immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported.

Republican presidential candidate Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a central plank of his reelection campaign against Democratic President Joe Biden. Immigration has emerged as a top issue for voters, particularly Republicans, in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election. 

The New York Times reported last year that former President Trump, if reelected, planned to build large camps to hold immigrants pending a possible deportation.

In an interview with Time Magazine published in April, Trump said he would consider using camps but that “there wouldn’t be that much of a need for them” because people would be rapidly deported.

Tom Homan, a former Trump immigration official who could join a second administration, said tents would be needed as more immigrants in the U.S. illegally are arrested and held for deportation, exceeding existing detention space.

“We’re going to have to hold them someplace,” he said in an interview.

Homan said the tents would adhere to detention standards set by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that they would not be “concentration camps.”

Homan said that National Guard troops could potentially support deportation operations but that law enforcement officers would need to make arrests.

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not comment on the possible use of camps in a statement to Reuters but said Trump would “marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history.”

Biden defeated Trump in 2020 vowing to reverse many of Trump’s hardline immigration policies but struggled with record numbers of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Biden has toughened his approach to the border in the run-up to the election.

Biden campaign spokesperson Maca Casado said in a statement that Americans “want border security and immigration solutions, not the cruel, ineffective chaos Donald Trump is offering.”

ICE stepped up deportations at the end of last year, with 66,000 people removed from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023, according to agency statistics, a far more aggressive pace than other years under Biden.

Some 85% of Republican voters in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said most or all immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported, compared to 26% of Democrats and 61% of independents.

But fewer voters agreed with a statement that immigrants in the country illegally should be arrested and put in detention camps while awaiting deportation hearings. 

Some 62% of registered Republican said they agreed, compared to 12% of Democrats and 35% of independents. 

The poll, conducted online, surveyed 3,208 registered voters nationwide. It had margins of error of about 2 percentage points for responses from all registered voters, about 3 points for registered Republicans and Democrats and about 4 points for independents.

Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, on Friday called for nearly $300 million in additional funding to support ongoing efforts to clean up cross-border sewage.

Peters, along with Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, led the effort to submit a bipartisan request for $278 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission’s (IBWC) construction budget.

This represents a $200 million increase over President Joe Biden’s request and is in addition to the $156 million Peters secured in the FY24 appropriations bill.

The IBWC is the federal agency tasked with operating and maintaining the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant which has fallen into disrepair, contributing to the cross-border sewage problems that continue to plague the American side of the border.

The members also requested language to allow other federal agencies and non-federal entities, such as state and local governments and non-profits, to transfer money to the IBWC, and $89.3 million for the IBWC’s Salaries and Expenses account. That sum represents a $20 million increase over the president’s request.

The letter was signed by fellow local Democrats Juan Vargas, Sara Jacobs and Mike Levin, along with Katie Porter, D-Irvine. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas added his signature.

The representatives were joined by Republicans Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Richard Hudson of North Carolina and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin.

The total funding, if enacted, would be enough for IBWC to fix and upgrade the treatment plant to handle 50 million gallons of wastewater per day, significantly reducing the amount of pollution reaching San Diego County beaches.

In their letter, the members write, “Although there was a significant increase in funding for FY24 from Fiscal Year 2023, the IBWC continues to face obstacles as it seeks to fully carry out its mission. These obstacles include outdated construction equipment, sediment buildup, a need for new levees, ongoing drought, and much more. It also faces an inadequate baseline of funding for staffing and support.”

They also state that the IBWC, “carries a large maintenance backlog for many of its existing assets. In fact, one of its facilities, the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, has for years failed to even meet federal Clean Water Act standards. That plant must be brought back into compliance.”

The White House is weighing ways to provide temporary legal status and work permits to immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are married to American citizens, three sources familiar with the matter said on Monday, a move that could energize some Democrats ahead of the November elections.

Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups have pressured President Joe Biden to take steps to protect immigrants in the country illegally as Biden simultaneously considers executive actions to reduce illegal border crossings.

Immigration has emerged as a top voter concern, especially among Republicans ahead of the Nov. 5 election pitting Biden, a Democrat, against his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump. Trump has said Biden’s less restrictive policies have led to a rise in illegal immigration.

The White House in recent months has considered the possibility of executive actions to block migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border if crossings reach a certain threshold, sparking criticism from some Democrats and advocates.

The Biden administration also has examined the possible use of “parole in place” for spouses of U.S. citizens, the sources said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The temporary status would provide access to work permits and potentially a path to citizenship. No actions are imminent or finalized, the sources said.

A White House spokesperson said the administration “is constantly evaluating possible policy options” but declined to confirm discussions around specific actions.

“The administration remains committed to ensuring those who are eligible for relief can receive it quickly and to building an immigration system that is fairer and more humane,” the spokesperson said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the possible moves.

An estimated 1.1 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally are married to U.S. citizens, according to data by advocacy organization FWD.us.

A group of 86 Democrats sent a letter to Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last year urging them to protect spouses of U.S. citizens and create a family reunification process for those outside the country.

Speaking at an advocacy press conference in Washington on Monday, Philadelphia resident and U.S. citizen Allyson Batista said her Brazilian-born husband still lacks legal immigration status after 20 years of marriage.

Batista and her husband have three children together and run a construction company, she said, pleading with Biden to act.

“Year after year, we continue to live in trauma and fear of separation,” she said, “especially if an unfriendly administration takes over again.”

President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that he and his administration are trying to determine whether he has the authority to act on his own to shut down the U.S.’s southern border with Mexico to migrants, should it be deemed necessary.

Biden told Univision in the interview that because bipartisan legislation that would have granted him the authority to shut the border was stalled by Republicans in Congress, he was being encouraged to try to do it alone.

“We’re examining whether or not I have that power,” Biden said, adding there was “no guarantee” he has the power without legislation.

Migration is a central issue in this year’s presidential campaign. Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s likely Republican opponent in the Nov. 5 election, has accused Biden of bungling border issues.

Just two days after 70 legislators signed a letter urging the White House to prevent a work-permit lapse for immigrants, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Thursday responded.

The agency tripled the automatic extension period after San Diego-area Reps. Juan Vargas and Sara Jacobs joined 68 of their Democratic congressional colleagues in submitting a letter to President Biden, the Department of Homeland Security and the USCIS.

The missive imploring BIden’s administration to lengthen the current automatic extension period for work permits, also known as employment authorization documents.

The USCIS action extended the period from 180 to 540 days, moving the expiration far ahead, to April 19, 2025. It had been less than three weeks away.

“I’m glad to see the Biden Administration take this step to extend work permits for immigrants and asylum seekers whose permits were at risk of expiring soon. This will help give workers and their families more of the certainty they deserve,” Vargas told City News Service.

The letter was signed by 60 representatives and 10 senators in all.

Employment authorization documents are typically valid for 180 days after their set expiration date. In May 2022, USCIS issued a temporary final rule that extended this grace period to 540 days, because the agency faced significant delays in processing renewal applications, the authors of the letter wrote.

That extension period ended Oct. 26, 2023, and since then, all documents were renewed for 180 days, and tentatively set to expire this month.

The temporary measure announced Thursday will prevent already work-authorized non-citizens from having their authorizations and documentation lapse while waiting for federal agencies to process documents.

“Over the last year, the USCIS workforce reduced processing times for most (employment authorization document) categories, supporting an overall goal to improve work access to eligible individuals,” said USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou. “However, we also received a record number of employment authorization applications, impacting our renewal mechanisms.

The agency’s move allows applicants to avoid lapses in employment authorizations, Jaddou said, while giving DHS an additional window to shape long-term solutions and solicit public comments.

Before the extension was approved, nearly 800,000 renewal applicants – including asylum, Temporary Protected Status and green card applicants – were in danger of suffering lapses in their employment authorization.

From 60,000 to 80,000 employers would be negatively impacted as a result of such a lapse, according to a statement from USCIS.

– City News Service

Please don’t save democracy.

If you’re a politician — stop promising to save it.

Just stop trying.

Because you can’t. Democracy isn’t something you save. The sooner we stop talking about saving democracy, the better off democracy will be.

Our mindless recitation of “saving democracy” — everyone from President Biden to Sascha Baron Cohen has pledged its rescue — demonstrates how little we understand about the governing systems that organize our lives.

To start, the words “democracy” and “save” don’t fit together.

Democracy is not a penalty shot saved by a goalkeeper. Democracy is not a dollar saved by in the bank. Democracy is not a file saved in Microsoft Word.

Democracy is not even the migrant saved from drowning in the Rio Grande.

It’s easy to get confused about democracy’s meaning because we use the word “democracy” promiscuously. We use it to refer to things in politics or government with which we agree. We use it to describe the status quo in countries that think of themselves as democracies.

We also use “democracy” to refer to our post-World War II liberal order, supposedly superior to all other systems, even though that order often protects military and corporate powers that undermine democracy. We use “democracy” to mean elections, even though many countries with autocracies stage elections.

After 18 years of convening conversations about democracy around the world, I have found a more useful definition of democracy. Democracy is best understood as four words:

Everyday people governing themselves.

When you think about democracy this way, you realize that democracy isn’t something you save. It’s something you do — with other people. When people in your neighborhood or city or nation are governing themselves — deliberating, making decisions, implementing policies — you are in a democracy.

Thus, democracy is a do-it-yourself enterprise. The philosopher G.W. Chesterton observed in Orthodoxy that democracy is like blowing one’s nose or writing love letters — something “we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly.”

So, when you judge whether a particular place counts as democratic, consider democracy as a spectrum, with “everyday people governing themselves” as its most democratic pole.

Soon, you’ll recognize that most democracy exists at the local level, in the smaller entities where it’s easier for everyday people to get together and govern. As Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “True democracy cannot be worked by 20 men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”

Unfortunately, when asked whether they live in a democracy, people today don’t think of their city, but of their nation-state. They usually answer the question based on whether their national leaders are fairly elected and respect constitutional norms.

The word “democracy” has become a synonym for a safe destination, the political-economic equivalent of a comfortable sofa where we can lie down and relax. From this sofa conception flows the idea that democracy can be “saved” — from authoritarians or foreign powers or misinformation that might tear us from our sofas.

But real democracy is not a sofa. It’s not cushy. Democracy, at least democracy on the spectrum of “everyday people governing themselves,” is not about voting for one powerful person. It’s about decentralizing decision-making power and handing it to regular people.

For this reason, President Biden’s pledges to protect democracy — coming from an officeholder who can govern by executive order and take military action without public deliberation — will never be credible.

Democracy requires us to get off our couches. It also involves faith and competition, which is why it resembles religions or sports more than a system of government.  Democracy is maintained through practice. If people stop going to Mass or listening to the Pope, Catholicism dies. If people stop throwing balls at rounded bats, there is no baseball.

So, if you value democracy, do it — wherever you can. Let the kids in your local sports league vote for the all-stars, instead of the coaches or parents. Let workers and customers make big decisions at your company. Create assemblies of everyday citizens to write your city’s ordinances.

And don’t waste another moment hoping your leaders will save democracy. Get out there and do it yourself.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square, an Arizona State University media enterprise.

Following broad national trends, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump swept to victory in San Diego and delegate-rich California on Tuesday, setting up a historic rematch in November’s general election despite low approval ratings for both candidates.

After voting across 15 states where more than one-third of Republican delegates were up for grabs on Super Tuesday, Trump had all but clinched his third consecutive presidential nomination — despite facing a litany of criminal charges.

In a statement, Biden again cast Trump as a threat to American democracy.

“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” Biden said.

In a victory speech delivered from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump attacked Biden’s immigration policies and called him the “worst president” in history.

“November 5th is going to go down as the single most important day in the history of our country,” Trump said.

Biden had been expected to sail through the Democratic contests, though a protest vote in Minnesota organized by activists opposed to his forceful support of Israel attracted unexpectedly strong results.

The “uncommitted” vote in Minnesota stood at nearly 20% with more than half the estimated vote counted, according to Edison, higher even than the 13% that a similar effort in Michigan drew last week. Biden nevertheless won Minnesota and 14 other states, including a mail-in vote in Iowa that ended on Tuesday.

He did suffer one loss, in the U.S. territory of American Samoa’s caucus, where entrepreneur Jason Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40, according to the American Samoa Democratic Party.

Another campaign between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 — the first repeat U.S. presidential matchup since 1956 — is one few Americans seem to want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.

Immigration and the economy were leading concerns for Republican voters, Edison exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia showed. Trump, who frequently denigrates migrants, has promised to mount the largest deportation effort in U.S. history if elected.

Voters were also casting ballots in down-ticket races, including a contest in California to identify potential successors to the late Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.

In Arizona, independent U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat, said she would not run for re-election, setting up a battle for her seat that could determine control of the closely divided Senate next year.

In North Carolina, Trump-endorsed Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson won the Republican nomination for governor. Robinson, who would be the state’s first Black executive, has drawn criticism for harsh comments about LGBTQ people, women and Muslims.

He will face Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in what will be one of the most hotly contested governor races in the country. 

Pop megastar Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to vote in a post on Instagram, though she did not endorse specific candidates. Biden’s campaign is hopeful Swift will eventually back his candidacy, as she did in 2020.

Trump won the Republican vote in a dozen states, brushing aside his lone remaining rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, whose campaign no longer has a viable path to the nomination. Her only win of the night thus far came in Vermont, Edison Research projected.

Haley’s challenge has highlighted some of Trump’s potential general election vulnerabilities. She reached 40% in some state contests, performing particularly well among independent, well-educated, and suburban voters who could play a crucial role in battleground states in November.

About one-third of North Carolina voters said Trump would not be fit to serve as president if he was convicted of a crime, while in Virginia, 53% said he would be fit for the office if convicted.

Trump is scheduled to begin his first criminal trial on March 25 in New York, where he is charged with falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star during his 2016 presidential run. 

In addition to the New York case, Trump faces separate federal and Georgia state charges for election interference, though it is unclear whether either case will reach trial before November’s election. He also faces federal charges for retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four criminal cases.

Biden faces his own weaknesses, including widespread concern about his age. He is already the oldest U.S. president in history.

Reuters contributed to this report.

CVS and Walgreens, the two largest U.S. pharmacy chains, will start selling the abortion pill mifepristone at stores in several states, including California, this month.

The companies said last year they planned to offer the pill following the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to allow retail pharmacies to sell mifepristone in the country for the first time.

Walgreens said on Friday it expected to begin dispensing the pills within a week, in select locations in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Illinois.

CVS will begin filling prescriptions for the medication in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the weeks ahead and expand to additional states, where allowed by law, on a rolling basis.

Mifepristone, approved by the FDA in 2000, is one of two drugs used in medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions.

The announcements by the pharmacies comes as a legal challenge to mifepristone, brought in Texas by anti-abortion groups and doctors, was due to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ended its recognition of a constitutional right to abortion in 2022 when it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and other groups sued the FDA in 2022, saying it had not adequately considered the risks of the drug when it first approved it, or when it later eased restrictions on its distribution.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the case is expected by the end of June, in the middle of the presidential race.

President Joe Biden’s administration appealed an August decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that would bar telemedicine prescriptions of the drug and shipments by mail.

If the Supreme Court were to uphold the lower court’s decision rolling back FDA rules on how the drug is distributed, CVS and Walgreens would have to reverse their policy, according to Katie Kraschel, a Northeastern University law professor specializing in health policy.

“They would have to stop dispensing it and revert back to FDA’s previous regulations that only allowed patients to receive mifepristone from the clinic where it was prescribed,” Kraschel said in an email.

Biden, who has made access to abortion a key election campaign issue, called the pharmacies’ move a milestone, and encouraged others to seek certification to dispense the drugs.

In a statement, Biden said the stakes could not be higher for women across America, and cited “relentless attacks on reproductive freedom by Republican elected officials.”

The Biden campaign has put abortion rights front and center in the Nov. 5 election in which he will likely face Donald Trump, and argues abortion access is a personal freedom that the former president and his fellow Republicans are denying women.

Republicans have issued restrictive abortion laws in nearly two dozen states since the Supreme Court reversal of abortion rights, arguing that abortion ends the life of a human being and that stricter limits are needed at the state and national level.

It is a galvanizing issue that both sides hope will boost enthusiasm among their base and increase turnout in November’s election.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Rami Ayyub in Washington and Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; editing by Paul Grant, Shinjini Ganguli, Deepa Babington and Chizu Nomiyama)