Biden can’t enforce 100-day deportation ban, US judge says
HOUSTON — A federal judge Tuesday barred the U.S. government from enforcing a 100-day deportation moratorium that is a key immigration priority of President Joe Biden.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton issued a temporary restraining order sought by Texas, which sued on Friday against a Department of Homeland Security memo that instructed immigration agencies to pause most deportations. Tipton said the Biden administration had failed “to provide any concrete, reasonable justification for a 100-day pause on deportations.”
Tipton’s order is an early blow to the Biden administration, which has proposed far-reaching changes sought by immigration advocates, including a plan to legalize an estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Biden promised during his campaign to issue the moratorium.
The order represents a victory for Texas’ Republican leaders, who often sued to stop programs enacted by Biden’s Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama. It also showed that just as Democratic-led states and immigration groups fought former President Donald Trump over immigration in court, often successfully, so too will Republicans with Biden in office.
While Tipton’s order bars enforcement of a moratorium, it does not require deportations to resume at their previous pace. Immigration agencies typically have latitude in processing cases and scheduling removal flights. Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
David Pekoske, the acting
Homeland Security secretary, signed a memo on Biden’s first day directing immigration authorities to focus on national security and public safety threats as well as anyone apprehended entering the U.S. illegally after Nov. 1. That was a reversal from Trump administration policy that made anyone in the U.S. illegally a priority for deportation.
Filibuster fight cools: Easing off a stalemate, the Senate moved forward Tuesday with a power-sharing agreement in the evenly split chamber after Republican leader Mitch McConnell backed off his demand that Senate Democrats preserve the procedural tool known as the filibuster.
The stand-off between McConnell and new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had all but ground the Senate to a halt in the early days of the Democratic majority and threatened President Joe Biden’s agenda. Schumer refused to meet McConnell’s demands.
“I’m glad we’re finally able to get the Senate up and running,” Schumer said Tuesday as he opened the chamber. “My only regret is it took so long because we have a great deal we need to accomplish.”
While the crisis appeared to have resolved, for now, the debate over the filibuster — the procedural tool that requires a 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation — is far from over.
Tractor rally in India: Tens of thousands of protesting farmers drove long lines of tractors into India’s capital Tuesday, breaking through police barricades, defying tear gas and storming the historic Red Fort as the nation celebrated Republic Day.
They waved farm union
and religious flags from the ramparts of the fort, where prime ministers annually hoist the national flag to mark the country’s independence.
Thousands more farmers marched on foot or rode on horseback while shouting slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Leaders of the farmers said more than 10,000 tractors joined the protest.
For nearly two months, farmers — many of them Sikhs from Punjab and Haryana states — have camped at the edge of New Delhi, blockading highways connecting the capital with the country’s north in a rebellion that has rattled the government. They are demanding the withdrawal of new laws that they say will commercialize agriculture and devastate farmers’ earnings.
Weinstein bankruptcy: A Delaware judge has approved a revised Weinstein Co. bankruptcy plan that provides about $35 million for creditors, with roughly half that amount going to women who have accused disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
The judge approved the plan after a hearing Monday, overruling objections by attorneys representing producer Alexandra Canosa and actresses Wedil David and Dominique Huett, who have accused Weinstein of sexual assault, and a former Weinstein Co. employee who claims she was subjected to a hostile work environment.
The settlement amount is $11.5 million less than under a previous plan, which was scrapped after a federal judge in New York refused to approve a proposed $19 million settlement between Weinstein and some of his accusers. The settlement in that purported class-action lawsuit was a key component of the initial bankruptcy plan.
Grim virus toll in Britain: Britain’s official death toll in the coronavirus pandemic passed 100,000 Tuesday, a dreaded milestone reached as the government considered imposing hotel quarantines on international travelers to stop new virus variants reaching the country.
The government said 100,162 people have died in the pandemic after testing positive for the virus, including 1,631 new deaths reported Tuesday.
“It is hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic,” a somber Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “The years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and, for so many relatives, the missed chance even to say goodbye.”
Britain is the fifth country in the world to record 100,000 virus-related deaths, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, and by far the smallest. The U.S. has recorded more than 424,000 COVID19 deaths, the world’s highest total, but its population of about 330 million is about five times the size of Britain’s 67 million.
Italy politics: Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte resigned Tuesday after a key coalition ally pulled his party’s support over Conte’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, setting the stage for consultations this week to determine if he can form a third government.
Conte tendered his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella, who held off on any immediate decision other than to ask Conte to keep the government running in the near-term, Mattarella’s office said. The president will begin consulting with leaders of political parties on Wednesday.
Conte hopes to get Mattarella’s support to try to form a new coalition government that can steer the country as it battles the pandemic and an economic recession and creates a spending plan for the $254 billion Italy is getting in European Union recovery funds.