Biden imposes new sanctions on Myanmar regime after coup
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered new sanctions against the military regime in Myanmar, taking action after the military this month staged a coup in the Southeast Asian country and arrested de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior politicians.
Biden said he was issuing an executive order that will prevent Myanmar’s generals from accessing $1 billion in assets in the United States. Biden added that more measures are to come.
“The military must relinquish power it seized and demonstrate respect for the will of the people of Burma,” Biden said.
Biden said the new sanctions will allow his administration to freeze U.S. assets that benefit Myanmar’s military leaders while maintaining support for health care programs, civil society groups and other areas that benefit the country’s people. He said the administration planned to identify specific targets of the sanctions later this week.
“The people of Burma are making their voices heard, and the world is watching,” Biden said, using an alternate name for Myanmar. “We’ll be ready to impose additional measures and we’ll continue to work with our international partners to urge other nations to join us in these efforts.”
Before Biden spoke from the White House, large crowds demonstrating against the military takeover again took to the streets in Myanmar, even after security forces ratcheted up the use of force against them and raided the headquarters of Suu Kyi’s political party.
It remains to be seen what, if any, impact the U.S. action will have on Myanmar’s military regime. Many of the military leaders are already under sanctions because of attacks against the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a supporter of Suu Kyi, said he appreciated Biden’s “ongoing engagement with Congress on prompt and practical steps to restore democracy in Burma. I hope all nations that respect democracy and the rule of law will join the U.S. in imposing meaningful costs and accountability on the junta.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said shortly before Biden’s announcement that “there’s certainly a recognition that this will need to be a coordinated effort” with the international community to press change in Myanmar.
The U. N. Human Rights Council is scheduled to hold a special session on Myanmar on Thursday.
The protesters in Myanmar are demanding that power be restored to Suu Kyi’s deposed civilian government. They’re also seeking freedom for her and other governing party members detained by the military after it blocked the new session of Parliament on Feb. 1.
Witnesses estimated that tens of thousands of protesters, if not more, turned out Wednesday in Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s biggest cities. Rallies also took place in the capital, Naypyitaw, and elsewhere.
WASHINGTON — The number of migrants taken into custody by U.S. border agents rose again in January, and has increased sharply since President Joe Biden took office, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.
Agents made nearly 78,000 arrests and detentions along the Mexico border last month, a 6 percent increase from December and the first time since 2013 that apprehensions rose between the months of December and January, a period that’s typically a holiday lull.
Economic hardship in Central America triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters have fueled a growing migration wave that gathered steam last spring and has accelerated markedly in recent weeks, statistics show.
The influx could test Biden’s plans to repudiate his predecessor’s immigration policies and make the United States more welcoming to asylum seekers and refugees.
Over the past 10 days, the Border Patrol has averaged more than 3,000 daily apprehensions, deputy chief Raul Ortiz said during a podcast posted Tuesday to YouTube. On Sunday, the agency recorded more than 1,000 “gotaways” by border-crossers who were detected but not detained, Ortiz said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Biden is monitoring trends at the border, and the administration’s message is “now is not the time to come.”
“The vast majority of people will be turned away,” she said. “Asylum processes at the border will not occur immediately, and will take time to implement.”
CBP hasn’t formally published the enforcement figures for January, but historic records show they were the highest in at least a decade. A precise measure of recent migration trends is difficult, however, because the Border Patrol has witnessed soaring levels of repeat crossing attempts, known as recidivism, during the pandemic.
Since last March, border agents have sent the vast majority of those taken into custody to Mexico, leveraging an emergency health order whose stated goal is to avoid the spread of infection inside border stations and detention cells.
The recidivism rate along the Mexico border jumped to roughly 35 percent last year, up from 7 percent in 2019, as agents saw crossers return again and again after being sent back to Mexico.
Soon after Biden took office last month, Mexican authorities stopped accepting some family groups sent back by the United States, citing a new child protection law that has limited government shelter capacity in Mexico.
In late January, CBP started releasing parents with children who cross the border in the Rio Grande Valley, and the releases have occurred on a more limited basis in Del Rio and San Diego, officials said.
CBP’s largest processing center for family groups in South Texas is closed for renovations, but the agency opened a temporary “softsided” facility this week near Donna. The large, climate-controlled, tent-link structures are designed to be far more appropriate for families than the adult detention cells in Border Patrol stations.
“Since April 2020, CBP has seen a steady increase in border encounters from the Western Hemisphere due to worsening economic conditions brought on by the COVID 19 pandemic and natural disasters impacting the area,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday. “The Donna location was chosen because it is central to Border Patrol stations throughout the Rio Grande Valley Sector.”
Photos published by the agency show the temporary facility stocked with diapers and other supplies, as well as medical isolation wards and waiting rooms with play areas for children.
Some of the South Texas communities where families have been released in recent days have been among the hardest-hit in the nation by the pandemic, with more than 100,000 infections across the Rio Grande Valley. The state of Texas has sent testing kits to the area to help identify parents and children whom might be ill.