Islamabad: Cash-starved Pakistan is likely to ink a deal for additional deposits of USD 2 billion from Saudi Arabia after Eid, authorities said on Saturday, a move that will help the country secure the much-required bailout from the IMF.
In March, Pakistan sought Saudi Arabia’s confirmation for funds to ink an IMF deal. Earlier this month Pakistan got Riyadh’s nod for additional funding.
The assistance from Saudi Arabia comes at a crucial time as the IMF programme, signed in 2019, will expire on June 30, 2023, and under the set guidelines, the programme cannot be extended beyond the deadline.
The Washington-based crisis lender has imposed the condition on Pakistan that it should secure USD 3 billion from other countries for the revival of its USD 7 billion bailout package.
A top government official told The News International that the State Bank of Pakistan would sign a deal with the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) soon after Eid for an additional USD 2 billion deposit.
The official added that Saudi Arabia has confirmed the bilateral assistance support to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was also acknowledged by the lender’s staff, the report said.
This agreement is the follow-up on the confirmation of additional financial support of USD 2 billion and USD 1 billion from the Kingdom and the UAE, the official added.
Official sources clarified that Pakistan neither made any fresh request for more support from Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, except for the already confirmed USD 2 billion and USD 1 billion by these countries, respectively.
Saudi Arabia had already rolled over USD 3 billion in deposits for one year, which matured on December 5, 2022. This USD 3 billion deposit is part of foreign exchange reserves of USD 4.43 billion, lying with the State Bank of Pakistan.
In March, Pakistan received a rollover of USD 2 billion in deposits for a period of one year from its all-weather ally China.
Pakistan, currently in the throes of a major economic crisis, is grappling with high external debt, a weak local currency and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
Now, Pelham is facing a felony charge that could result in years of jail time for allegedly firing a 9mm pistol in the direction of deputies.
The sheriff’s deputies indicated that when they arrived at his house, Pelham sent his young daughter outside before he began firing gunshots.
“After putting the child in the patrol car, Deputy J.W. heard gunshots coming from inside the residence,” according to the newly revealed charging documents. “Deputy J.W. reported that the gunshots were spread out in time and that they were not towards the HCSO personnel. Deputy J.W. moved his patrol car away from the front of the residence for additional safety.”
The deputy who first said he shielded Pelham’s daughter arrived at about 8:40 p.m. An hour later, according to the filings, Pelham’s father arrived on the scene and another shot was fired.
“[T]he bullet from this gunshot came in so close proximity to myself that I could hear the distinct whistling sound as the bullet traveled by me and then strike a metal object to my right side,” one of the deputies, identified only as J.W., reported.
An FBI agent arrived on the scene at about 10:40 p.m. to help put Pelham under arrest. He said he heard another six to seven gunshots fired.
The court documents indicate that Pelham has a 2003 Texas felony conviction, which barred him from being in possession of a firearm.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Hyderabad: The class 10 examinations across the state concluded peacefully, which was started on April 3 and ended with the social science examination on Tuesday. According to the SSC board, 99.63 percent of students have appeared for the Class 10 exams.
A total of 4,86,194 lakh regular students applied for the class 10 annual exams and 4,84,384 lakh students appeared for it. As many as 1,809 students did not appear for the exams.442 Students filed applications privately, however, 191 students appeared for the exams.
Three more exams – OSSC Main Language paper-I (Sanskrit & Arabic), SSC vocational course (theory) and OSSC Main Language paper-II (Sanskrit & Arabic) will be held on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
2652 centers have been set up in different districts of the state for SSC examinations. In the initial two examinations, the question papers were leaked from the examination centers, which sparked uproars in the state. Some of the teachers responsible were suspended and some were arrested. Large-scale protests were held by political parties and student organisations. Strict measures were taken by the education department officials after which the rest of the examinations passed peacefully.
In all, 16 malpractice cases were booked, while three invigilators were removed from services and two invigilators, chief superintendents and departmental officers were suspended from duties during exams that commenced on April 3. Apart from this, three invigilators, chief superintendents and departmental officers were relieved from duties on charges of negligence.
From April 13, the evaluation of answer sheets for the class 10 examinations are going to start. Apart from Hyderabad city, a total of 18 centers were set up in different districts of the state. The class 10 exams consist of 6 exams, so the target has been set to complete the testing process by April 21. Preparations are being made to announce the results in the second week of May.
The Tennessee Legislature has captured national attention after three state lawmakers — Reps. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis — used a bullhorn to amplify calls for gun policy reform as demonstrators at the state capitol called for lawmakers to take action last week. The lawmakers approached the lectern without being recognized, interrupting legislative business. House Speaker Cameron Sexton called the protests “an insurrection.”
The lawmakers were quickly stripped of their committee assignments, and GOP lawmakers filed three resolutions this week seeking the Democrats’ removal, in a rare and historic step that the state House has taken only twice since the 1860s. If the vote succeeds, it will mark an unprecedented use of power by Republicans who control both chambers of the Tennessee Legislature. The GOP holds 75 of the 99 seats in the House, and the three Democrats will be removed if the vote falls along party lines. The rare step typically occurs only when members are accused of crimes or ethics violations.
The White House has weighed in twice this week, criticizing the action for its partisan nature amid a national epidemic of gun violence that continues to rock the country. So far this year, the U.S. has seen 141 mass shootings and 65 children have been killed because of gun violence, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The White House on Thursday repeated President Joe Biden’s futile pleas for Congress to reimplement an assault weapons ban. Jean-Pierre also said the president would continue his push for Congress to eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability and to implement universal background checks.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New York: United States former President Donald Trump arrived at New York’s La Guardia Airport on Monday, ahead of his expected arraignment in a Manhattan courthouse, reported CNN.
Alina Habba, who represents Trump in several civil matters, after meeting him in New York, said, “He’s in good spirits. Honestly, he’s as he normally would be. He’s ready to go in and do what he needs to do tomorrow.”
Talking about the game plan for Trump’s appearance in court in Manhattan Tuesday in an interview with Fox News, Habba said, “It’s all mapped out.”
She added, “Barring any surprises, I think that it should be smooth. We’re trying to coordinate and cooperate with everybody to make sure that there are no problems,” according to CNN.
On whether Trump can get a fair trial in Manhattan, Habba said, “No, no. I think it’s very difficult. I’d like to have faith in this state, but I’ve been practicing for him now for a couple of years and going to court in New York for a few years, and I can tell you, it’s not the same as representing anybody else.”
Earlier, the former US President met with his attorneys Susan Necheles and Joe Tacopina at Trump Tower after arriving in New York City Monday, reported CNN.
Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday afternoon, the first former US president to be indicted. A grand jury convened by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had been investigating Trump’s role in hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign, determined on Thursday that there was enough evidence to bring criminal charges against him.
Trump, who is running for the Republican nomination for next year’s presidential race, has denied any wrongdoing and called the probe and the indictment a partisan attack. Bragg is a Democrat.
A team of Secret Service agents accompanied by New York Police Department officials toured the courthouse and its entrances on Friday, apparently mapping the former president’s transit through the building, as per the report in ABC News.
The FBI is warning local and state police agencies around the country about concerns related to a possible indictment of Trump, and even New York City officials plan to close key streets in lower Manhattan as a security measure, reported ABC News.
Nicosia: March has been a month full of surprises in the Middle East, as after the shock created by the announcement that the formerly implacable arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to restore diplomatic relations, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday that Saudi Arabia and Syria agreed to reopen their embassies, after the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr (21-22 April).
This means that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been shunned by Arab leaders, due to the crimes perpetrated by his regime against Syrian citizens, is now expected to be welcomed back to the fold and we may soon see him taking part in Arab summits and the Arab League from which he was suspended in 2011.
A few days ago, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud had hinted that the suspension of Syria from the Arab League could be lifted but hastened to add that it was too early to discuss this possibility, as the matter could be examined during the forthcoming meeting of the Arab League in Saudi Arabia in April.
Syria was suspended from the Arab League in November 2011, at the time of the Arab Spring, when the Syrian regime killed about 5,000 protesters and opponents. In the next ten years of the civil war that broke out in the country, various domestic and foreign forces were fighting the government and often each other, resulting in more than 600,000 deaths.
The Bashar al-Assad regime has committed repeated and massive violations of human rights and on some occasions used chemical weapons.
Most Arab countries imposed travel bans on senior officials of the regime and other sanctions, including limitation of investments and dealings with the Central Bank of Syria.
The only Arab governments that refused to apply any sanctions on the Syrian regime were those of Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, where Iran – the ally of Hafez al-Assad – exercises great influence.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking before the UN General Assembly last year, said that the Syrian government was responsible “for massive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” and added that “the perpetrators of these crimes and the use of chemical weapons against civilians must be held to account.”
Although at the beginning of the war, it seemed that the Assad regime will collapse, the intervention of Iran and mainly Russia, which has been carrying out airstrikes and ground operations in Syria, changed the whole picture and now it has become apparent that the regime will not be defeated.
It should be noted that Saudi Arabia and Qatar sided with some of the rebels, while Turkey fought Islamic State (ISIL), the Kurdish-Arab SDF and the Syrian Army and currently occupies large swathes of land in north-western Syria. The United States fought the ISIL terrorists and sometimes the pro-government forces in Syria.
A growing realization that the Damascus regime has prevailed, compounded by fatigue with the war, has led several Arab governments make second thoughts about the war in Syria and decide that it is in their national interest to restore relations with the Assad regime.
The first country that changed its mind about its relations with Damascus was Tunisia in 2015, followed by the United Arab Emirates which reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018, saying that Arab countries should be present in Syria and work hard to resolve the conflict. Jordan sent a charge d’ affaires to Damascus in 2019 and Oman followed suit in 2020.
Last month, at the prompting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, announced that Cairo supported the normalization of relations between Arab countries and Syria.
The devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria last month, with tens of thousands of dead and millions of people made homeless, created a wave of sympathy for the victims all over the world and prompted several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, to send hundreds of tons of aid to the quake victims.
The announcement about the planned reopening of Embassies in Damascus and Riyadh made a few weeks after the devastating earthquake and the desperate need for the provision of international assistance to the victims, gave the Saudi Government an opportunity to change its policy on Syria, without losing face, and also to remove one of the reasons of confrontation with Iran, which has been a strong supporter of the Assad regime.
If the rehabilitation of Assad and his return to the Arab fold is made dependent on him accepting the safe return of millions of Syrian refugees from Turkey and elsewhere, it would be easier for many countries to accept that he would no longer be an international pariah for the violations of human rights committed by his regime.
The world opinion would more easily accept the bitter pill that he will not be punished for his crimes, if this will improve the plight of Syrian refugees seeking asylum in foreign lands and will allow them to return to their homeland in safety.
James Dorsey, in an article published in Responsible Statecraft, points out that the Arab proposition to bring Assad in from the cold potentially opens a way out of a quagmire because “it would enhance the leverage of the United States and Europe to ensure that political reform is the cornerstone of Assad’s engagement with elements of the Syrian opposition.
In other words, rather than rejecting any solution that does not involve Assad’s removal from power, the United States and Europe could lift sanctions contingent on agreement and implementation of reforms. Similarly, the US and Europe could make sanctions relief contingent on a safe, uninhibited, and orderly return of refugees.”
SRINAGAR: Rains lashed the plains as light snowfall occurred in the higher reaches of Jammu and Kashmir during the last 24 hours, the Met Office said on Saturday.
Hill stations of Gulmarg and Sonamarg received fresh snowfall on Friday.
The Office said that widespread rain/thunderstorm is likely during the next 24 hours in the plains and light snowfall in the hills.
Srinagar recorded 5.8, Pahalgam minus 0.5 and Gulmarg minus 1 degrees Celsius as the minimum temperature on Saturday.
Drass town in Ladakh region had minus 1.1, Kargil 0.2 and Leh minus 3.2 as the minimum temperature.
Jammu registered 13.2, Katra 10, Batote 3.5, Banihal 2.2 and Bhaderwah 3 as the minimum temperature
Hyderabad: Hyderabad received heavy rainfall on March 16, bringing much-needed relief to the residents who were witnessing scorching summer heat for the past few weeks. More downpours are expected on Friday as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Hyderabad issued a yellow alert.
Though rainfall provided much-needed relief, many parts of the city faced power cuts for hours due to it.
As per the Telangana State Development Planning Society (TSDPS), the highest rainfall was recorded in Rajendranagar (49 mm), followed by Serilingampally (34.8 mm). Other areas that received substantial rainfall include Bandlaguda (31.5 mm), Uppal (31.3 mm), Bahadurpura (30.8 mm), Nampally (27 mm), Asifnagar (21.5 mm), Musheerabad (21.5 mm), Secunderabad (21.3 mm), and Charminar (21 mm).
Hyderabad to receive rainfall on March 17
The IMD Hyderabad has issued a yellow alert till March 19. According to the weather department, all six zones in Hyderabad – Charminar, Khairatabad, Kukatpally, LB Nagar, Secunderabad, and Serilingampally – on March 17 will witness a generally cloudy sky, with light to moderate rain or thundershowers and gusty winds of 30-40 kmph and hailstorms towards evening or night.
On March 18 and 19, all zones in the city are expected to witness a generally cloudy sky, with light to moderate rain or thundershowers expected towards evening or night.
IMD Hyderabad issues yellow alert for entire Telangana
The IMD Hyderabad has issued a yellow alert for the entire Telangana region till March 19.
Even the Telangana State Development Planning Society (TSDPS) also forecasted light to moderate rainfall and thunderstorms at many places in the state including Hyderabad.
It also forecasted that the maximum temperature in some districts of the state is likely to fall to as low as 27 degrees Celsius. In Hyderabad, all circles are likely to see a significant dip in maximum temperature.
In view of the forecast made by both IMD Hyderabad and TSDPS, residents are advised to take necessary precautions and plan their travel accordingly.
Biden pledged to halt new oil and gas development on federal land during his 2020 campaign, and he and Democrats in Congress passed landmark climate legislation last summer aimed at weaning huge swaths of the economy off of fossil fuels. But the surge in oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced the administration into an awkward embrace of the oil industry, as Biden countered Republican accusations that his policies were to blame for the skyrocketing price at the gas pump that was stoking inflation.
Approving Willow would be just the latest shift by Biden toward the political center as he moves toward a potential reelection bid. He similarly dismayed liberals last week by saying he would not veto a GOP-led repeal of changes to D.C.’s criminal code.
The White House defended Biden’s environmental record Saturday in comments to POLITICO, saying Biden’s policies have made the U.S. “a magnet for clean energy manufacturing and jobs” with policies that help the U.S. come closer to meeting climate goals. A White House official said that using oil and gas is still consistent with Biden’s near- and long-term emissions targets, which the official said the U.S. is on track to meet.
“This approach has not changed — nor will it. Our climate goals are cutting emissions in half by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050 — not 2023,” the official said. “That has always meant that oil will continue to be a part of the energy mix in the short-term while we shore up domestic clean energy production for the long-term.”
Environmental groups acknowledged Saturday that they were largely in the dark about the White House’s plans, but said they believed that the current discussions inside the administration were largely over whether to limit the number of drilling sites at the Willow project to two rather than three. Conoco had proposed building five well pads.
“It sounds like different groups in the White House are still discussing” the potential size of the project, said one environmental advocate who had been in contact with the administration late Friday.
“They told us they had nothing to offer” on the state of project deliberations, added the person, who was granted anonymity to describe internal White House deliberations.
But if the reports of the approval are true, Biden’s shift to the center on oil would threaten to demoralize the climate activists he needs to support him in 2024, said Jamal Raad, co-founder and senior adviser of the group Evergreen Action.
“It will be harder for us and climate activists to rally around this president come next year,” Raad said, explaining the action would detract from his many accomplishments, such as the $370 billion in climate and clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, while putting the onus on Biden to issue tougher environmental rules on cars and power plants.
Conoco declined to comment until it hears a decision directly from the administration.
Conoco Chief Executive Ryan Lance last week urged the administration to approve Willow, saying the project was in line with the Biden administration’s recent exhortations to the industry to increase oil production to help batten down prices.
“This is exactly what this administration has been asking our industry to do over the last couple of years,” Lance told an energy conference in Houston.
Regardless of the size, any plan would call for drilling oil and building miles of pipelines and roads, a gravel pit, an air strip and other infrastructure in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 36,875-square-mile patch of federal land in the relatively undeveloped Arctic wilderness. It would produce as much as 600,000 barrels of oil over its three-decade lifetime.
The project would also add nearly 280 million tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere over that period, according to the Interior Department’s environmental analysis. That would be the equivalent of adding two new coal-fired power plants to the U.S. electricity system every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions calculator.
The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, originally set aside by the Harding administration for potential oil drilling in 1923, is outside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, another swath of northern Alaska that Biden has declared off-limits for oil development.
Environmentalists said they were still holding onto hope based on the administration’s denial that it made a final decision to OK the project, despite multiple news reports saying that an announcement of the approval would be made in the coming days. (Bloomberg News first reported Friday night that the administration had decided to greenlight it.)
“Great! Then there is still time to turn this all around!!!” Natural Resources Defense Council spokesperson Anne Hawke posted on Twitter after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied on Friday that a final decision had been made.
Hawke also reached out to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg for help persuading Biden, tweeting at the young advocate: “In just days, the US will approve a massive oil project in Alaska. Can you help us tell US @POTUS to #StopWillowProject?”
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a longtime climate advocate, expressed dismay at the news.
“We cannot allow the Willow Project to move forward,” he tweeted late Friday. “We must build a clean energy future — not return to a dark, fossil-fueled past.”
An approval, if it comes, would infuriate environmental groups and continue a year-long strengthening of the administration’s relationship with the oil industry. But it would also come as market analysts are forecasting that oil prices will remain volatile for the next several years, which would make killing the project politically tricky.
Biden himself has softened his rhetoric on transitioning the country away from fossil fuels, and he has repeatedly pressed the oil and gas industry to increase production in the short term to keep prices lower.
“We are still going to need oil and gas for a while.” he said during his State of the Union speech last month.
The Willow development is the rare large-scale oil project to be announced in recent years in the United States, where the industry has instead shifted its focus to drilling smaller, cheaper and faster projects using fracking to tap into shale fields in the Southwest. If approved, construction could start soon, and additional construction in Alaska’s North Slope for Willow will occur throughout the summer and fall, the company has said.
Alaskan native tribes have expressed split opinions on the project, with some warning it would degrade their environment and others welcoming its potential economic gains.
“The Willow Project is a new opportunity to ensure a viable future for our communities, creating generational economic stability for our people and advancing our self-determination,” said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the nonprofit Voice of Arctic Iñupiat, in a statement Saturday. “North Slope Iñupiat communities have waited nearly a generation for Willow to advance.”
Yet that urgency to develop the project, and the signals from the White House, were disheartening to environmental groups.
“To us, it all sucks because it flies in the face of meeting our climate goals. So we’re going to keep fighting until there is a final record of decision,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs with the League of Conservation Voters.
Some of Biden’s green allies suggested the move could have repercussions for Democrats in 2024. Along with the long-debated Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, which Biden effectively killed in one of his first acts as president, Willow has joined the ranks of fossil fuel projects that in earlier decades would have flown under radar but have now taken on outsized political significance.
The Biden administration is caught in the middle, hyping the Inflation Reduction Act it signed into law as the biggest climate-related legislation ever but also asking companies to keep pumping barrels to keep fuel prices low in the here-and-now. That law has also won praise from the oil and gas sector for its incentives for carbon capture and storage and clean hydrogen – technologies the fossil fuel producers are pursuing.
Raad, from Evergreen Action, said the Willow project “was something that really took the internet and social media by storm the last few weeks – because it is a physical thing and a physical place that feels real.” And that has implications for Biden’s hopes for reelection, he added.
“There’s just no escaping the fact that we’re going to need to rally young folks and folks interested in climate next year to win,” Raad said. “And this does not help in any shape or form.”
As of March 2, environmental advocates were citing 9,000 videos protesting Willow on the social media platform TikTok. Former Vice President Al Gore earlier this week weighed in to say it would be “recklessly irresponsible” to approve Willow.
Deirdre Shelly, campaigns director with the youth environmental group Sunrise Movement, said her organization is already strategizing for the next election and that approving Willow would make organizers’ jobs more difficult.
“This is just a huge disappointment. … It does feel like an about-face,” she said. “It makes it even harder for us to convince young people that they need to vote, that the Democratic Party leaders will act on climate.”
But the administration also felt heavy pressure from the oil industry and the state’s politically powerful Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski has long championed Willow as a needed boost to the Alaskan economy, which has been troubled for years as the overall oil industry has picked up stakes to move to the cheaper opportunities in the Lower 48.
Oil and gas companies and energy-state lawmakers would have been ready to blame the rejection of Willow for any subsequent rise in energy costs, even though the Biden Interior Department has approved new permits to drill on public land at a faster rate than his predecessors.
Murkowski, speaking Friday in Houston before the announcement, said she had met with the White House last week to warn that the administration was legally bound to approve the project, given that Conoco held oil leases on federal land.
“The fact of the matter is these are valid existing leases that Conoco holds,” Murkowski told reporters. “If the administration [had] basically not allowed them to be able to access those leases, what follows then? … Alaska litigation is always something that we have to reckon with.”
Catherine Morehouse contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Immigration groups and Florida lawmakers have pushed the Biden administration to redesignate TPS for Nicaraguans living in the U.S., which would allow them to live and work in the country without fear of deportation.
Since taking office, President Joe Biden has leaned on TPS as a tool to grant immigration relief to hundreds of thousands of people as Congress remains in gridlock over fixes to the immigration system. Biden has designated six new countries for TPS since taking office and redesignated six other nations, making an additional 712,000 U.S. immigrants eligible for the status, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Backlogs at the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services have delayed approvals, but nearly 537,000 people had TPS as of November 2022.
Nicaraguans first received TPS in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch wreaked havoc in Central America. The Temporary Protected Status designation, created by Congress in 1990, helps residents from countries struck by natural disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”
There were 4,250 TPS recipients from the country in 2021, the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services said in a congressional report.
A record-number of Nicaraguans sought to illegally enter the U.S. last year, as migrants fled political persecution and poor economic conditions in the country. In fiscal year 2022, border officials said there were 163,876 encounters with Nicaraguans.
In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month, federal lawmakers pointed to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s political “repression” of protesters, clergy and students.
“The increasingly totalitarian nature of the Ortega-Murillo regime and the brutal political repression Nicaraguans face in their daily lives exacerbate the urgent need for the Biden Administration to redesignate and extend TPS to Nicaragua,” the letter said.
The letter also mentioned the government’s release of over 222 political prisoners last month. The Biden administration orchestrated the relocation of the prisoners to the U.S. through its humanitarian parole program and have granted them this status for two years. Biden announced the parole program —aimed to curb the flow of Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans — in January.
That policy forced migrants to apply for asylum from their home country, while expelling those who try to enter the U.S. unlawfully from Mexico. Migrants were only approved if they had a verified sponsor and were allowed to enter the U.S. by air. Border encounters have dropped significantly this year, which Biden officials credit to the new policy.
Last month, the Biden administration announced a proposed rule that will bar some migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they cross the border illegally or fail to first apply for safe harbor in another country. The proposal — which immigrant advocates refer to as the “transit ban” or the “asylum ban” — will take effect on May 11 and serve as its policy solution to the long-awaited end of Title 42, a pandemic-era restriction that lifts the same day.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
