Washington: In 2022, India sent more students to the United States as compared to the previous year while China sent fewer, according to a new report.
“The number of students from China and India made Asia the most popular continent of origin. Comparable to the drop from the calendar year 2020 to 2021, China sent fewer students in 2022 compared to 2021 (-24,796), while India sent more students (+64,300),” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in its annual report.
According to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), the number of international students enrolled at kindergarten through grade 12 schools increased 7.8 per cent from 2021 to 2022 (+3,887). No K-12 schools hosted more than 700 international students in the calendar year 2022, similar to the calendar year 2021, the report said.
All four regions in the United States saw an increase in international student records from 2021 to 2022, with respective increases ranging from 8 to 11 per cent, the report said.
There were 117,301 pre and post-completion optional practical training (OPT) students with both an employment authorisation document (EAD) and who reported working for an employer in the calendar year 2022, compared to 115,651 in the calendar year 2021 a 1.4 per cent increase, it said.
In the calendar year 2022; 7,683 SEVP-certified schools were eligible to enroll international students, a decrease of 400 schools from 2021 (8,038 schools), it said.
In 2022, California hosted 225,173 international students, the largest percentage of international students (16.5 per cent) of any US state, the report said.
There were 276,723 active exchange visitors in the United States in 2022 compared to 240,479 active exchange visitors in 2021 a 15 per cent increase.
The report said 46 per cent (6,21,347) of all active SEVIS records hailed from either China (3,24,196) or India (2,97,151) in the calendar year 2022, one percentage point fewer than calendar year 2021.
The overall number of active F-1 and M-1 student records coming from Asia increased by 68,678 from the calendar year 2021 to the calendar year 2022, with student record trends varying across different countries.
Seventy per cent of all international students in the United States call Asia home. Other Asian countries that sent fewer students this year compared to last include Saudi Arabia (-4,115), Kuwait (-658) and Malaysia (-403).
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ has transformed the country’s mindset and initiated mass movements towards various social causes such as cleanliness, women empowerment, yoga and protecting the environment, according to a BJP-linked think tank’s report.
Public Policy Research Centre (PPRC) directors Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a senior BJP leader, and Sumeet Bhasin presented the report to party national president J P Nadda on Monday, the BJP said in a statement, a day after the 100th episode of the programme was broadcast.
The radio broadcast has “transformed the country’s mindset and inculcated a positive outlook amongst the people,” the report, titled “Mann Ki Baat Se Jan Ki Baat”, said.
“Through powerful and inspiring messages coupled with a practice of open dialogue, Prime Minister Modi has reformed the mindset of people, helping tackle issues like drug-abuse and chronic exam-related stress amongst students, etc.,” it said.
It was through ‘Mann Ki Baat’ that “a sense of resilience and unity was maintained and sustained in the face of adversities brought by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said.
It added that the programme has ensured the prime minister’s vision of ‘Sabka Sath and Sabka Vikas’ through ‘Sabka Prayas and Sabka Vishwas’.
“‘Mann Ki Baat has brought significant transformation in the Indian demographic, initiating mass movements towards various social causes ranging from ‘swachhata’, environment protection, promotion of ‘Make in India’ products like khadi, women empowerment to yoga, etc., showcasing India’s ‘Jan Shakti’,” the report said.
Many of these issues are linked with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it added.
The report claimed that the prime minister’s appeals during his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme to promote khadi have resulted in manifold increase in its production (115 per cent) and sales (179 per cent) from 2013 to 2020, directly resulting in the empowerment of artisans and weavers involved in its production.
The increase in the production of khadi gave a “significant boost” to the income of artisans and weavers by 33 per cent and 10 per cent respectively, it added.
Through the ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio broadcast, the report said, the prime minister promoted the “Indian way of life”.
“The prime minister has celebrated India’s cultural richness and diversity, reinvigorating India’s ancient soul. The PM has celebrated India’s luminary figures, propagated the teachings and learnings of various ancient texts and different religions and festivals,” the report said.
He promoted tourism, illustrating the beauty of “incredible India”, and revived the tourism sector through people’s participation, it added.
The ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme has helped identify exam-related stress as a chronic problem, urging students to find their inner selves rather than succumbing to external and unhealthy pressure, the report said.
“This has transformational potential for the youth of the country,” it noted.
Through the monthly radio programme, the report said, the prime minister has sought to transform how the general public looks at specially-abled persons.
“PM Modi urged the nation to recognise the specially-abled population as ‘divyang’ due to their inherent divinity and considerable achievements, showcasing their strong will towards life,” it said.
The prime minister has motivated the youth through ‘Mann Ki Baat’ to become self-reliant and focus on skill development, and also promoted the start-up culture in the country along with a special emphasis on developing industry-related skills, the report said.
BJP president Nadda said the prime minister through ‘Mann Ki Baat’ has tied the country and the society together, and inspired and encouraged people with his “soulful dialogue” with them.
“‘Mann Ki Baat’ has become a medium to celebrate the collective spirit of the people of India and has shed light on their inspiring life journeys,” he said.
Singapore: India is fast emerging as a key global aviation market, according to the latest market analysis report of the International Air Transport Association ( ATA).
India’s domestic air travel has continued to grow robustly and as of February, it was a mere 2.2 per cent shy of reaching pre-pandemic levels measured by passenger revenue kilometres (PRK).
The India domestic passenger market also led the rest of the domestic markets in the passenger load factor (PLF) metric in the report which includes the US, China and Japanese domestic markets. It has been the top domestic market measured by PLF for the last four months achieving PLFs of 81.6 per cent in February, 85.2 per cent in January, 88.9 per cent in December 2022, and 87.9 per cent in November 2022.
Globally, traffic is now at 84.9 per cent of February 2019 levels. Total traffic in February 2023, based on RPKs, rose 55.5 per cent compared to February 2022.
The report added, “Asia-Pacific airlines had a 378.7 per cent increase in February 2023 traffic compared to February 2022, maintaining the very positive momentum of the past few months since the lifting of travel restrictions in the region. Capacity rose 176.4 per cent and the load factor increased 34.9 percentage points to 82.5 per cent, the second highest among the regions.”
Domestic air passenger traffic for all markets measured for February rose 25.2 per cent compared to one year ago. Total February 2023 domestic traffic was at 97.2 per cent of the February 2019 level.
At the moment, it is estimated that only about 35 to 40 million Indians travel by air every year. Although World Bank data shows that pre-COVID India had about 168 million air transport passengers, many are repeat flyers. This is much lower than China, which has a similar population and has 660 million air transport passengers during the same period in 2019. Chinese airlines also have about five times as many planes.
With a rapidly growing middle class and rising incomes, together with the right encouragement including lower airfares, many, including airline companies, are expecting India to become the fastest-growing aviation market for years to come.
Swiss airline intelligence provider, ch-aviation reported in March this year that French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that IndiGo Airlines could announce an order for “several hundred” Airbus aircraft at the Paris Air Show to be held at Paris Le Bourget Airport in June.
IndiGo, the largest airline in India has over 300 aircraft and currently provides over 35 per cent of all the available seat kilometres on flights in and out of India’s airports. Measured by flight frequencies, IndiGo provides almost 48 per cent of all flights across India’s international and domestic markets.
Just in February, competitor Air India announced a world record order of 470 aircraft – 250 planes from European manufacturer Airbus and 220 from its US rival Boeing. The deal beats a 2017 order by IndiGo for 420 planes, and an order by American Airlines for 460 planes in 2011.
Besides aircraft manufacturers, foreign Airlines are also eyeing the Indian aviation market.
Singapore Airlines is one of them. Following the takeover of Air India by Tata Sons, it announced a USD267 million investment into the revamped airline giving it a 25.1 per cent stake in the new Air India group. This adds to the money it has already put into Vistara Airlines which is to be merged with Air India.
SIA released a statement during the announcement which said, “The merged entity will be four to five times larger in scale compared to Vistara, with a strong presence in all key airline segments in India. The proposed merger will bolster SIA’s presence in India, strengthen its multi-hub strategy, and allow it to continue participating directly in this large and fast-growing aviation market.”
Etihad Airways under new CEO Antonoaldo Neves is another airline that is planning to expand its presence in the India aviation market.
In an interview with Reuters published on April 27, the former CEO of TAP Air Portugal said that: “Etihad has India as a priority.” He added that the country is among its top three markets but declined to name the other two.
Etihad, which flies to places like Delhi and Mumbai, has identified six other Indian cities it does not serve but wants to launch flights to, he said.
He also announced plans for Etihad to double its fleet to 150 planes and triple its passenger number to 30 million annually by the end of the decade.
The expansion plans of the Middle Eastern airline will focus on medium and long-haul destinations, and the airline will avoid operating ultra-long-haul flights, where it can be tough to make money. Neves explained that the goal will be connecting places like China, Southeast Asia, India, and Gulf countries, with Europe and the East Coast of the United States.
Neves said that he expects Etihad’s growth to be organic relying on more code sharing and interline agreements. It will not look at mergers or equity partnerships as it had done in the past. It once had a stake in the now-defunct Jet Airways.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ took full control of Etihad last October and appointed Neves who had previously led a turnaround at Portugal’s TAP.
Whereas in the past, Etihad was seemingly willing to grow at any cost, this is set to change. Neves emphasises that growth will only be possible with profitability, especially as the airline is now owned by ADQ. As he explained, “Our mandate is very clear, we don’t fly to places where we don’t make money.”
At the heart of the battle: Section 702 is a powerful spying program that allows the intelligence community to snoop on the emails and other digital communications of foreigners located abroad. But the FBI does not need a warrant to search communications that have already been collected under the statute — and its growing use, and misuse, of those powers to snoop on Americans in recent years have made lawmakers reticent about reupping the program as is.
Showing restraint: The substantial decline documented within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2023 Annual Statistical Transparency Report buttresses the administration’s claims that it has managed to rein in FBI searches on Americans, a senior FBI official told reporters ahead of the report’s release.
The report “aptly illustrates how built-in oversight that Congress put in the statute works to … repair trust and transparency,” said the official, who provided the briefing to reporters on condition of anonymity.
The data: The FBI sifted through — or “queried” in intelligence community parlance — the 702 database for details on Americans roughly 120,000 times last year after conducting nearly 3 million such searches in 2021 and 850,000 thousand searches in 2020, the report says.
The bureau conducted those 120,000 searches due to alleged connections to foreign spies and security threats.
The bureau also has the ability to scour through the database for details on purely domestic crimes — another hot-button issue that has surfaced amid the reauthorization debate. But the FBI made only 16 such searches last year and 13 the year prior, according to the report.
Zooming out: The new report is the first to disclose the impact of a series of fixes the intelligence community implemented in 2021 after a secret intelligence court overseeing the program determined in rulings from 2021 and 2020 that the bureau committed “apparent widespread violations of the querying standard.”
The reforms amounted to a series of internal measures to discourage bureau personnel from improperly probing the database, like requiring agents to affirmatively opt-in to 702 searches and setting an upper limit on the number of terms that could be used at a time.
Falling on deaf ears: But the new data doesn’t appear to be getting traction with lawmakers who believe the spying program should not be reauthorized absent new safeguards for the federal law enforcement agency.
“While there was a sharp decline in U.S. person queries from December 2021 to November 2022, it is incumbent upon Congress, not the Executive Branch, to codify reforms to FISA Section 702,” Reps. Mike Turner (R-Oh.) and Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) said in a statement upon the report’s release.
“Today’s report highlights the urgent need for reforms to government surveillance programs in order to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans,” added Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime privacy advocate, in a statement.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
A leaked internal review commissioned by Amnesty International is said to have concluded there were significant shortcomings in a controversial report prepared by the rights group that accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by placing armed forces in civilian areas.
The report, issued last August, prompted widespread anger in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and a promise of a review by external experts of what went wrong. Among those who condemned the report was Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who accused Amnesty of “shift[ing] the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”.
Leaked to the New York Times, that unpublished review has concluded that the report was “written in language that was ambiguous, imprecise and in some respects legally questionable”, according to the newspaper.
In particular, the report’s authors were criticised for language that appeared to suggest “many or most of the civilian victims of the war died as a result of Ukraine’s decision to locate its forces in the vicinity of civilians” at a time when Russian forces were deliberately targeting civilians.
“This is particularly the case with the opening paragraphs, which could be read as implying – even though this was not AI’s intention – that, on a systemic or general level, Ukrainian forces were primarily or equally to blame for the death of civilians resulting from attacks by Russia.”
In the immediate aftermath of publication, the initial report was seized on by Russia, including the embassy in London, to claim that Ukrainian tactics were a “violation of international humanitarian law” at a time when Russian forces were being accused of serious war crimes.
The paper added, however, that sources had told it that Amnesty’s board had sat on the 18-page review for months amid suggestions there had been pressure to water down its conclusions.
At the centre of the controversy was Amnesty’s claim that by housing military personnel in civilian buildings and launching attacks from civilian areas, Ukraine had been in breach of international law on the protection of civilians.
The expert review was conducted by five experts including Emanuela-Chiara Gillard of the University of Oxford; Kevin Jon Heller of the University of Copenhagen; Eric Talbot Jensen of Brigham Young University; Marko Milanovic of the University of Reading; and Marco Sassòli of the University of Geneva.
Experts questioned whether the authors of the original report had correctly interpreted international law regarding Ukraine as a victim of aggression and whether there was evidence that Ukraine had put civilians in “harm’s way”.
The leaked report also disclosed that there had been significant unease within Amnesty before publication, not least over the issue of whether the government of Ukraine had been sufficiently engaged with.
“These reservations should have led to greater reflection and pause” before the organisation issued its statement, the review added.
Oksana Pokalchuk, the former head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office, who resigned over the report, said she believed the review should be made public as well as a promised internal review of relations inside the organisation on how decisions were made around the report.
“I want justice to be done and to be seen done,” she told the Guardian. “One of the things that was very important to me at the time was that we should be in communication with the Ukrainian government, formally or informally, to get information from them. This wasn’t done, and it caused a lot of damage.
“What I have also not seen so far in the reporting of this review is any discussion of the larger context of the war and how this report played in favour of Russian propaganda. We need to talk about who is the aggressor and who is the victim of this war.”
An Amnesty International spokesperson said: “Amnesty commissioned a panel of external experts in the field of international humanitarian law to conduct an independent review of the legal analysis in our 4 August press release.
“Amnesty staff reviewed a first draft of the panel’s report, and their comments were taken into account in the final version, to the extent the legal panel itself deemed appropriate.
“This is part of an ongoing internal learning process, and we welcome the full findings which will inform and improve our future work.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
New Delhi: Eight Indian Navy officers, who have been in the custody in Qatar since the past eight months on espionage charges, are learnt to be facing a potential death sentence, according to a Pakistan media report.
The Express Tribune report claims that the officers are accused of spying for Israel.
The accused have been identified as working for the India’s intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and were reportedly caught carrying out espionage activities in Qatar, the report further claimed.
The arrested officials reportedly provided Israel details of Qatar’s secret programme to buy advanced submarines from Italy, says The Express Tribune.
The CEO of a private defence company and the head of international military operations of Qatar have also been arrested in the same case, according to the report.
All eight officers of the Indian Navy were also employed in the same company, it added.
The newspaper further claimed that the accused are set to face serious charges, including the possibility of death penalty, at their upcoming court hearing on May 3.
Qatari authorities said that they have technical evidence supporting the allegations, it added.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Prayagraj: In a shocking development, the forensic examination report has confirmed that the blood stains found in the partially demolished office of gangster Atiq Ahmed in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj district was human blood, police said.
The report was handed over to the Special Investigation Team late on Wednesday night.
The blood stains and a blood smeared knife was found inside the office in Chakia on Monday after which the forensic team was called in to take the samples.
Police sources said that investigations had revealed that the demolished and abandoned building was being frequented by some local drug addicts.
The police have detained some of the addicts for interrogation and some of them had injuries.
The development follows days after Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf were shot dead by three men while they were being taken for medical examination in Prayagraj by a police team. The two brothers were in police custody and the entire shooting was captured live on camera.
Protesters gather outside the Supreme Court in the wake of the court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
The number of adults living in states where abortion is banned or restricted who believe that access to abortion should be easier has grown since 2019, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.
In states that implemented bans on nearly all abortions after the Dobbs decision last year, 43 percent of adults said they believe it should be easier to get an abortion where they live, compared to 31 percent in 2019. In states that have seen new restrictions, either implemented or tied up in legal disputes, 38 percent believe access should be easier, up from 27 percent in 2019. The numbers are also up in states without any new abortion restrictions, now at 27 percent compared to 24 percent in 2019.
The report, released Wednesday, included data from 5,079 respondents with a margin of error of +/- 1.7 percentage points. The survey was conducted between March 27 and April 2.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Here’s our verdict, using the following scale: Kept his promise, in progress, stalled, broke his promise.
Combating Covid-19
GRADE: KEPT HIS PROMISE
What Biden pledged: “When I’m elected your president, I’m going to act, and I’m going to act on day one. Folks, we’re going to act to get this Covid under control. … I’m never going to raise the white flag and surrender. We’re going to beat this virus. We’re going to get it under control, I promise you.”
What he’s done: Biden rolled out a far-reaching plan to rein in the pandemic on his first day in office, prioritizing efforts to mass-vaccinate the country and spark a rapid economic recovery that saw significant initial success.
The administration suffered multiple setbacks in the following months — notably misjudging both Covid’s ability to evolve and Americans’ willingness to keep up the fight against a deadly virus. But Biden did manage to blunt the pandemic threat through multiple rounds of shots and treatments that have allowed most people to return to their pre-pandemic lives.
The White House is now poised to end the Covid national emergency in May, in what amounts to the symbolic end of the Covid crisis. Deaths from the virus are now down to their lowest point since the early days of the pandemic. Still, Biden’s inability to stamp out Covid more completely means he will face the ongoing threat of a resurgence.
Rebuilding the economy
GRADE: Kept HIS PROMISE
What Biden pledged: “We’re going to invest in infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing, and so much more. We’ll create millions of good paying American jobs and get the job market back in the path to full employment.”
What he’s done: Biden presided over a swift economic recovery buoyed by bills he championed allocating billions of dollars in Covid aid, as well as major investments in manufacturing and infrastructure projects.
Three years after Covid shuttered much of the country, the unemployment rate is near 50-year lows, the economy has added tens of millions of jobs and wages are rising on average.
But high inflation through much of 2022 overshadowed those gains for many, denting Biden’s economic record and miring the administration for a time in debates over whether its stimulus efforts were too aggressive. The White House has since emphasized various cost-cutting initiatives aimed at balancing out rising prices, most notably winning reductions in certain prescription drug costs. The pace of inflation is now cooling, though not enough yet to fully alleviate concerns.
Ending gun violence
GRADE: STALLED
What Biden pledged: “No one needs an AR-15. … I promise you, I will get these weapons of war off the street again and out of our communities.”
What he’s done: Biden oversaw passage of the most comprehensive gun safety legislation in nearly three decades. The only problem: It fell well short of taking the kinds of decisive actions that he pledged to deliver on the campaign trail.
The gun safety law passed in June 2022 made only limited improvements to background checks and did nothing to restrict access to assault weapons. And despite Biden’s promise to ban those weapons in the aftermath of several mass shootings over the last year, he’s made no progress toward convincing Congress to act.
The White House in the interim has issued a range of executive orders aimed at reducing gun violence, but even Biden himself recently admitted he’s effectively powerless on the issue, saying he’s “gone the full extent of my executive authority to do, on my own, anything about guns.”
Restoring U.S. leadership abroad
GRADE: Kept HIS PROMISE
What Biden pledged: “As president, I will ensure that democracy is once again the watchword of U.S. foreign policy, not to launch some moral crusade, but because it’s in our enlightened self-interest. We have to restore our ability to rally the free world so we can once more make a stand upon new fields of action together to face new challenges.”
What he’s done: The Biden administration angered its allies and hurt its global credibility by botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the Taliban reconquered in 2021. Barely six months later, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden formed a global coalition that has held together through more than a year of fighting, providing Ukraine with the aid necessary to defend its territory far more effectively than originally expected.
That alliance has shown signs of shakiness at times, but has never cracked, winning Biden praise both at home and abroad for rebuilding America’s reputation as a diplomatic force.
Yet that’s a job that will only grow more challenging as the war drags on and with no clear consensus on an endgame in sight. Biden must also repair the damage done by an embarrassing leak of classified documents that illustrated spying efforts on a handful of allies and concerns about the state of the war in Ukraine.
Strengthening voting rights
Grade: stalled
What Biden pledged: “One thing the Senate and the president can do right away is pass the bill to restore the Voting Rights Act. … If they don’t, I’ve been saying all along, it’s one of the first things I’ll do as president if elected. We can’t let the fundamental right to vote be denied.”
What he’s done: Biden’s attempts to muster momentum for legislation strengthening voting rights fell flat, even after he backed abolishing the filibuster to pass it.
The president later signed the Electoral Count Act, which clarified the counting and certification process for electoral votes, but the administration has made little major headway on an issue that Biden made a central element of his 2020 campaign.
Judging by Biden’s reelection announcement video, voting rights will play a prominent role in his 2024 run as well. But there’s little apparent ability to do much in the interim that would help make good on his initial pledge.
Protecting access to abortion
Grade: In progress
What Biden pledged: “We’re in a situation where I would codify Roe v. Wade as defined by Casey. It should be the law, and there’s no reason why, if the Supreme Court makes the judgment that everybody’s worried about with these appeals going to the Supreme Court, that in exchange, I would codify Roe v. Wade and Casey.”
What he’s done: The Supreme Court ended up making the judgment that Democrats were worried about, striking down the constitutional right to abortion. But though Biden has advocated codifying Roe v. Wade since then, he doesn’t have the votes to do it.
The White House has instead done as much as it believes it can do on its own, including unraveling Trump-era restrictions on family planning funding and taking steps to protect access to medication abortion and help women travel across state borders to obtain the procedure. It’s also defending against other lawsuits aimed at further restricting access to reproductive health.
But those threats are ongoing, and will continue to test Biden’s desire to balance safeguarding abortion access with his reluctance to take more drastic steps pushed by activists that he worries could further draw the administration into a protracted legal battle.
Expanding health care
Grade: KEPT his promise
What Biden pledged: “I’ll not only restore Obamacare, I’ll build on it. … I’m going to increase subsidies to lower your premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses, out-of-pocket spending, surprise billing. I’m going to lower prescription drugs by 60 percent, and that’s the truth.”
What he’s done: Biden followed through on multiple health care promises with the passage of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, expanding Obamacare subsidies and placing new restrictions on pharmaceutical prices.
Those provisions fell somewhat short of what Biden aspired to — placing an expiration date on the subsidy expansion and limiting a cap on insulin prices to only certain patients. But the IRA did also accomplish a longtime Democratic priority: Empowering Medicare to negotiate the cost of certain drugs.
Biden must still ensure those policies are effectively implemented. But taken together, they’re expected to make coverage more affordable and accessible for millions of people.
Overhauling immigration policies
GRADE: Broke his promise
What Biden pledged: “We’re going to restore our moral standing in the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers, and those fleeing violence and persecution.”
What he’s done: In an approach that’s dismayed Democrats and immigration advocates, Biden maintained the strict Trump-era border policy known as Title 42 that has allowed the government to quickly expel migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The administration now plans to lift Title 42 next month, though there are few signs that Biden will significantly loosen his approach to immigration. A new policy rolled out earlier this year would largely prohibit migrants from applying for asylum at the southern border.
And though Biden rolled back some of former President Donald Trump’s most stringent immigration policies, his administration’s approach grew more restrictive after record numbers of migrants began arriving at the border. Biden has encouraged Congress to negotiate more comprehensive legislation to overhaul the immigration system, but there has been no progress toward accomplishing that.
Tackling climate change
GRADE: Kept his promise
What Biden pledged: “My time table for results is my first four years as president, the jobs that we’ll create, the investments we’ll make, and the irreversible steps we’ll take to mitigate and adapt to the climate change and put our nation on the road to net zero emissions no later than 2050.”
What he’s done: Biden is following through on his climate goals largely through a range of investments in the IRA designed to accelerate the nation’s transition toward clean energy.
Experts project the legislation could help cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by up to 42 percent by the end of the decade, compared to 2005 levels. Further regulatory changes that the administration plans to impose could help Biden meet his pledge of cutting total emissions in half by 2030. Biden also took unilateral steps requiring the federal government to be carbon-neutral by 2050.
But those are long-term projects, and will require the administration to implement all the new policies — and do it fast enough for them to have the necessary environmental impact to meet Biden’s timeline. There are also lingering questions over how the White House will juggle its climate ambitions with ongoing fossil fuel projects, after Biden broke a commitment to halt drilling on federal lands, most notably by approving the Willow oil and gas project in Alaska.
Expanding child and elder care access
Grade: Stalled
What Biden pledged: “My childcare plan is straightforward, straightforward. Every 3- and 4-year-old child will get access to free high quality preschool like students have here. And low- and middle-income families won’t spend more than 7 percent of their income on childcare for children under the age of five.”
What he’s done: The president’s vast plan to expand the “care economy” was cast aside during negotiations over the IRA and has yet to recover. Once a centerpiece of his vision for rebuilding the post-2020 economy, lawmakers axed policies to build out access to child-care and long-term care over concerns it would be too costly.
And despite Biden’s continued support for revisiting those efforts, there’s been no significant renewed push yet to get those policies through a divided Congress. Instead, Biden recently signed a series of executive orders directing federal agencies to try to make care more accessible.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
