Video Duration 28 minutes 35 seconds 28:35

Asylum seekers have been rushing towards the United States border as Trump-era restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic are lifted.

The Biden administration is replacing the previous rules with strict new measures.

Critics have said the new rules make it tougher for asylum seekers, but supporters say they amount to a fair yet robust approach.

What impact will they have? And how do they differ from Trump’s policy?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Richard Goodstein – Democratic political consultant and former adviser to US President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore

Alex Miller – Director of the Immigration Justice Campaign at the American Immigration Council

Adolfo Franco – Republican strategist and former assistant administrator for the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau at US Agency for International Development

Jerusalem/Gaza – The Christians of Palestine celebrated the Sabbath of Light on Saturday in occupied East Jerusalem, Gaza and other Palestinian cities amid strict restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities.

After the Holy Light flooded the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem, its flames were sent to the city of Ramallah and many other Palestinian towns, as well as to several neighbouring Arab countries and other European countries.

For the second year in a row, Israeli forces imposed strict restrictions on Sabbath of Light celebrations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, tightening procedures and closures and preventing worshippers from reaching the church.

Videos showing Israeli soldiers beating young men, physically struggling with women, and pushing clerics who were heading to the church went viral on social media platforms.

In Jerusalem, William Khoury, former deputy head of the Palestinian Orthodox Club and a member of the Arab Orthodox Christian community, told Al Jazeera that what happened was “nothing new”.

“For more than 10 years, we’ve been suffering from the occupation authorities placing metal barriers, police, and armed soldiers on the day of the Holy Fire,” he said.

“This is the holiest day for Christians in this holy land. As Orthodox Christians and Arabs, we tell the world that this city is ours, this church ours us and this holy occasion is ours as well. No one has the right to disrupt our celebrations on this day.

“We are Palestinians and we take pride in this identity,” Khoury said.

Fadi Halabi, a security analyst based in Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera the dozens of checkpoints erected by Israeli forces prevented nearly 80 percent of Palestinian Christians from reaching the Church of Holy Sepulchre.

“Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian Christians are not new and are part of the unfortunate decisions taken by the country’s right-wing government,” Halabi said.

“They are part of the deliberate decades-long policies to erase other local communities in Jerusalem in an effort to try and show that Jerusalem is exclusive to a Jewish identity.”

Halabi said that, in recent years, Israeli attacks on and vandalism of Christian sites and churches have increased “with little or no efforts to arrest the perpetrators clearly filmed on security surveillance cameras”.

Christians once comprised 20 percent of Jerusalem’s population – they now account for less than 2 percent.

Fewer Palestinians allowed from Gaza to Jerusalem

In Gaza, the Greek Orthodox community celebrated Holy Saturday in the Church of Saint Porphyrius in the Zaitoon neighbourhood of the Old City of Gaza. Dozens of families attended the ceremonies of the outpouring of Christ’s light according to the Bible. Celebrations began with a display by the scouts and the bishop’s welcome.

Khader Nasrawi, 45, a freelance graphic designer and father of two, told Al Jazeera that he and his family love to celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Jesus.

“This occasion is not a just special occasion for Christians, but it shows the sanctity of Palestine, Jerusalem, and Jesus Christ,” Nasrawi told Al Jazeera.

Although Nasrawi and his family have a special affection for this holiday, he said that, as Christians living in Gaza, their joy is incomplete.

“Every year we face difficulties in leaving the Gaza Strip and obtaining permits from the Israeli side to go, whether to Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to attend the Holy Light ceremonies,” Nasrawi said.

According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israeli authorities have ramped up their restrictions on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre this year, limiting the number who can attend the Holy Sabbath to only 1,800 people.

Every year, Christians in Gaza fill out applications in hopes the authorities will allow them to attend the holy days in Jerusalem or Bethlehem. Usually, there are only a few permits given, but this year Wafa said there were fewer than ever, leaving many Christians in Gaza heartbroken.

Nasrawi was given a permit to go to Jerusalem this Easter, but he didn’t go as his wife and children weren’t given permits.

“My wife hasn’t gotten a permit for three years, and my children didn’t get one; there’s no joy in going to the celebration without them,” he said.

“Easter is an occasion to emphasise the holy message of Christ … a message of love and peace for the world. I wish the world that the coming days will be days of peace, goodness, and love,” he added.

Fouad Ayad, 33, said that for him this Easter is one of the worst, as he was very much hoping to obtain a permit to celebrate in Jerusalem.

“It is true the situation in Jerusalem is tense and does not encourage me to go, but I am tired of being prevented from visiting for several years for no reason, despite my being of Jerusalemite origin,” said Ayad, who is father to a one-year-old daughter and works in a school.

“I came here to celebrate Holy Saturday with the other Christian families in Gaza,” Ayad told Al Jazeera.

“It is known that the Christian community is a minority in Gaza, and they face great difficulties in movement and travel through the Israeli crossings,” he said, adding that he has been trying to get a permit for his Egyptian wife since they got married three years ago, to no avail.

“There are big complications at every step here, but we hope things get easier and the years to come will be better,” he added.

For her part, his wife, 24-year-old Angie Ayad, told Al Jazeera that she finds the Easter atmosphere beautiful and spiritual in the churches of the Gaza Strip.

“Since I was in Egypt, I always wanted to visit Jerusalem with my family and attend the Easter celebrations there, but this is all very difficult because of the Israeli complications and exceptional conditions in the Palestinian territory,” she said.

“I tried to apply for a visitor permit since I got married and moved to the Gaza Strip, but this also seems difficult.”

Despite that, Angie Ayad said she enjoys living in Gaza, contrary to what she expected and saw in the media. “Life here is beautiful and simple, the people are simple, and I am happy to be here with my child and my husband.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Madonna Ayad, who is also Egyptian, also sees life as beautiful in Gaza “except for the wars”.

The two friends got married and came to Gaza in 2020 and are still waiting to obtain their official identification papers.

Madonna Ayad sees the festive atmosphere of Easter in Gaza as very close to the celebrations in Egypt.

“Usually, Christians can go from Egypt to Jerusalem and Bethlehem to pray normally, but it is difficult to obtain a visitor’s permit from Gaza without a family reunion and a large set of conditions,” she said.

Madonna Ayad’s husband, 34-year-old Imad Ayad – who is related to Fouad – told Al Jazeera the problem Christians face in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territory is simply that they are “Palestinians”.

“What happened in Jerusalem yesterday was very sad. It’s a blessed Eid that people wait from year to year to be violently attacked by Israeli forces. It is beyond possibility”.

Elias al-Jilda, a member of the Council of Deputies of the Arab Orthodox Church in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that this year’s Easter celebrations come against the backdrop of great harassment against Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem, such as attacks on worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

“There are also racist practices that we saw in the media by Israeli extremists who were spitting on Christian nuns in Jerusalem. This is evidence of the fanaticism and extremism practised by the Israeli occupation, especially by the extremist Israeli government led by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.

“These restrictions aim to empty Jerusalem of Christians and Muslims and push them to emigrate outside the country, as is happening, and this is a direct form of religious persecution,” al-Jilda said.

Christians in Gaza, he said, suffer the most from the continued refusal of permits to visit Jerusalem or Bethlehem, where the number of approved permits is always very few.

“This is an intentional ban on exercising our natural right to practice our religious rites, and this is contrary to all international, legal and human laws,” al-Jilda noted.

“We send a message to the international community and advocates of peace and human rights that the persecution of the right to worship in Palestine against Muslims and Christians is unacceptable and needs urgent intervention. Our people have the right to get rid of the occupation and live in dignity and freedom.”

The Greek Orthodox Church on Wednesday slammed what it called Israel’s “heavy-handed restrictions” on freedom of worship as it prepares to celebrate Easter in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli police said the limits are needed for safety during Saturday’s “Holy Fire” celebration at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the 12th-century holy site where Jesus is believed by Christians to have been crucified, buried and resurrected.

Israeli authorities claim the measures are related to recent violence in the Old City, touched off by Israeli police raids on Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, the compound that is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and its attacks on Muslim worshippers.

But many Christian leaders, who say there is no need to alter a ceremony that has been held for centuries, believe this is part of an ongoing Israeli policy to push them out of their homeland.

Every year, Israeli police have limited the number of pilgrims who can attend Christian celebrations, including the “Holy Fire” ceremony, irrespective of the security situation.

“They’ve locked down the Christian and Armenian quarters on the actual day [of the ceremony – Saturday] and pretty much let no one else into the city except for those issued tickets by the police for the Holy Fire,” said Donald Binder, chaplain to the Anglican archbishop of Jerusalem.

“[Christianity] is the biggest religion in the world and yet Christians are being kept out of their quarter of the holy city on the holiest day of the year for them,” he told Al Jazeera.

Last month, in a joint Easter message, churches in Jerusalem denounced the fact that “over the past year, some of our churches, funeral processions and places of public gathering have become targets of attack,” with some ceremonies “closed off to thousands of worshipers”.

Israeli police attacked mourners during the funeral procession of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a Christian who was shot dead by Israeli forces in Jenin in the West Bank almost a year ago.

With the breakdown of talks between Christian leaders and Israeli security forces, Father Mattheos Siopis from the Greek Orthodox Church urged “all who wish to worship with us to attend”.

“With that made clear, we leave the authorities to act as they will. The churches will freely worship and do so in peace,” he said.

Church officials told reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday that negotiations with the police over restrictions had failed.

“After many attempts made in goodwill, we are not able to coordinate with the Israeli authorities as they are enforcing unreasonable restrictions,” Siopis said.

“These heavy-handed restrictions will limit access to … the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and to the Holy Light ceremony,” he told journalists.

Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that on the Saturday before Easter, a miraculous flame appears inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – marking the most important event in the Orthodox calendar.

The Greek patriarch enters the Holy Edicule, a chamber built on the traditional site of Jesus’s tomb, and emerges with two lit candles. He passes the flame among thousands of people holding candles, gradually illuminating the walls of the darkened basilica.

Worshippers clutching candles fill the church, with many more gathering in the surrounding alleys of the Old City, before the flame is flown to Orthodox communities internationally.

“The ceremony has been faithfully taking place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for nearly 2,000 years,” said Siopis.

The sacred site lies in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the country’s police force has for the second consecutive year told church leaders that access must be considerably restricted.

Limiting church attendance to 1,800 people, including clergy from the various Orthodox denominations, is a necessary safety precaution, Israeli police said on Wednesday.

“We are going to regulate the movement of crowds,” said Chief Superintendent Yoram Segal of the Jerusalem District Police, adding that the ceremony will be available to view throughout the city on video screens.

Since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history, Palestinian Christians say their 2,000-year-old community in the Holy Land has come under increasing attack.

In March, two Israeli men assaulted a priest in a church at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary.

In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalised by an American Jewish tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Christians believe Jesus was flogged and sentenced to death.

A month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were desecrated by two Jewish Israeli teens at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion, where Christians believe Jesus’s Last Supper took place.

In November, two soldiers from the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade were detained for spitting at the Armenian archbishop and other pilgrims during a procession in the Old City.

Saudi-backed government says commercial ships will be allowed to dock directly in southern ports, including Aden.

A Saudi Arabian-led military coalition has lifted eight-year-old restrictions on imports headed for Yemen’s southern ports as moves towards peace continue.

The announcement signals progress in peace talks with the Houthi rebel group in the north and follows the easing of restrictions on commercial goods entering the Houthi-held western port of Hodeidah, the country’s main seaport.

It comes as Yemen’s warring sides work to reinstate an expired United Nations-brokered truce.

The Saudi-backed government based in the south said in a statement late on Thursday that commercial ships would be allowed to dock directly in southern ports, including Aden, and all goods would be cleared, with some exceptions.

Abu Bakr Adeed, deputy head of Yemen’s Chambers of Commerce, said ships would not have to stop at the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah for security checks for the first time since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015.

Adeed said more than 500 types of goods, including fertilisers and batteries, would be allowed back into Yemen through southern ports after they were removed from a list of banned products.

There was no immediate response from the Saudi government.

The moves to increase the flow of goods to ports across the country appear to be an indication of progress in direct talks between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which run in parallel with United Nations peace efforts.

The Houthis, who removed the internationally recognised government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014, are de facto authorities in north Yemen and say they are fighting a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both nations recently agreed to restore relations severed in 2016 in a move seen as supporting peace efforts in Yemen.

The Saudi-Houthi talks are focused on a full reopening of Houthi-controlled ports and Sanaa’s airport, the payment of wages for public servants, and a timeline for non-Yemeni forces to exit the country, sources say.

The Saudi-led coalition had since 2015 imposed severe restrictions on the flow of goods into import-reliant Yemen, where war has devastated the economy contributing to what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Twelve states, led by Washington and Oregon, have filed a lawsuit against the United States government over access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

They accused the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of placing “particularly burdensome” restrictions on the pill, making it harder for patients to access the medication when they need it.

The lawsuit alleged that the FDA “has continued to hamper access by singling out mifepristone — and the people in the Plaintiff States who rely on it for their reproductive health care — for a unique set of restrictions”.

The availability of pills to end early pregnancy has become a pivotal battleground for reproductive rights in the US, particularly following the Supreme Court decision last June to overturn Roe v Wade, which previously upheld abortion as a constitutional right.

The states involved in the lawsuit, filed Thursday, included Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont. All 12 are Democrat-led.

“The availability of medication abortion has never been more important,” the states wrote. “As states across the country have moved to criminalise and civilly penalise abortion, the Plaintiff States have preserved the right to access abortion care and have welcomed people from other states.”

Developed in 1980, mifepristone has been approved by the FDA since 2000 as the first part of a two-drug regimen to end pregnancies under 10 weeks. It is taken in combination with misoprostol, another pill.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health nonprofit, an estimated 54 percent of abortions in the US employ abortion pills, with that number expected to rise as telehealth increases the frequency of remote medical consultations.

But the FDA has categorised mifepristone under its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) programme, a drug safety framework for “certain medications with serious safety concerns”.

The 12 states are pushing for the US District Court in the Eastern District of Washington to remove mifepristone from the programme.

They argue that mifepristone has been used more than five million times “with very low rates of complications” — and that the REMS designation puts the pill in a “very limited class of dangerous drugs”.

The federal government “has imposed REMS for only 60 of the more than 20,000 FDA-approved prescription drug products marketed in the US”, the lawsuit alleges.

“These cover dangerous drugs such as fentanyl and other opioids, certain risky cancer drugs and high-dose sedatives used for patients with psychosis.”

After a review, the FDA agreed to modify mifepristone’s REMS programme, effective on January 3, “to reduce burden on the health care delivery system”.

But under the updated guidelines, the pill must still be prescribed by a healthcare provider and dispensed under the supervision of a certified prescriber, with documentation signed and reviewed along the way.

That “burdensome documentation”, the states wrote, was making “telehealth less accessible and creating a paper trail that puts both patients and providers in danger of violence, harassment and threats of liability amid the growing criminalisation and outlawing of abortion in other states”.

In its description of mifepristone, the FDA warned that any kind of abortion, miscarriage or childbirth carries the risk of “serious and potentially life-threatening bleeding, infections or other problems”. But it underscored that those risks are rare, and that there was no information that mifepristone has caused any deaths.

Thursday’s lawsuit came in the wake of another legal challenge to abortion pill restrictions in North Carolina and West Virginia, filed in January.

The challenge, brought by a physician and the drug company GenBioPro, alleged that the states have violated federal authority in restricting a pill deemed by the FDA to be safe and effective.

And this month, a Texas judge, appointed under former Republican President Donald Trump, is expected to rule in a case that could overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

As of January, 13 states have bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, and 19 have laws controlling the prescription and use of abortion pills.

By contrast, some of the states involved in Thursday’s lawsuit — including Michigan, California and Vermont — have taken steps to protect abortion access in their constitutions.

From: UpFront

‘Everybody is trying to grasp something that gives them hope, and that hope is getting eliminated on a daily basis.’

When the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in August 2021, it sought to reassure Afghans and the international community that the rights of women and girls would be respected and that they would remain active members of Afghan society.

Nearly a year and a half later, however, the situation for women and girls in the country is dire.

The Taliban has effectively barred women and girls from secondary schools and universities. It has restricted their employment, and even altogether banned their presence in many public spaces.

But as former Afghan ambassador to the United States, Adela Raz, tells Marc Lamont Hill, Afghan families are still “trying”.

“Each single family inside the country are still trying, and knocking every single door to find a way for their daughters to go and study,” Raz says.

So, what does this mean for the future of Afghanistan? And is there any hope in sight for Afghan women?

On UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to Raz, the current director of Princeton University’s Afghanistan Policy Lab.

Supporters of abortion rights in the United States have filed separate lawsuits on Wednesday challenging two states’ abortion pill restrictions, the opening salvo in what is expected to be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications.

The lawsuits argue that limits on the drugs in North Carolina and West Virginia run afoul of the federal authority of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy.

The cases were brought by a North Carolina physician who prescribes the pill, mifepristone, and the company GenBioPro, which makes a generic version of the drug and sued in West Virginia.

While the federal court lawsuits target specific state laws, they represent key legal tests that could eventually determine access to abortion for millions of women. Medication recently overtook in-clinic procedures as the most common form of abortion in the US.

The new litigation turns on a longstanding principle that federal law, including FDA decisions, preempts state laws. Indeed, few states have ever tried to fully ban an FDA-approved drug because of past rulings in the agency’s favour.

But with the fall of Roe v Wade, the legal decision that had previously protected abortion as a constitutional right, there is little precedent for the current patchwork of laws governing abortion.

After the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June, previously adopted restrictions on abortion kicked in and two states adopted new ones. Currently, bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy are being followed in 13 states.

On top of that, 19 states — including North Carolina and West Virginia — have separate laws controlling how, when and where physicians can prescribe and dispense abortion drugs.

“West Virginia cannot override the FDA’s safety and efficacy determinations, nor can it disrupt the national market for this medication,” David Frederick, a lawyer representing GenBioPro, said in a statement.

Legal experts foresee years of court battles over access to the pills.

North Carolina bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exceptions for urgent medical emergencies. Physicians can only prescribe medication for abortion after state-mandated counselling for their patients and must dispense the drug in person.

The lawsuit — filed by Dr Amy Bryant, an obstetrician and gynaecologist — argues that such requirements contradict FDA-approved labelling for the drug and interfere with her ability to treat patients.

“We know from years of research and use that medication abortion is safe and effective — there’s no medical reason for politicians to interfere or restrict access to it,” Bryant said in a statement provided by the Expanding Medication Abortion Access project, a pro-abortion rights group working on legal challenges to state laws.

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a defendant in the complaint because he is the state’s chief law enforcement officer, was reviewing the complaint on Wednesday, his spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed wrote in an email. Stein, a Democrat who announced last week a bid for governor in 2024, is a pro-abortion rights supporter.

The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 to end pregnancy when used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol. The combination is approved for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy.

For more than 20 years, the FDA limited the dispensing of the drug to a subset of speciality offices and clinics due to safety concerns. In rare cases, the drug combination can cause excess bleeding, requiring emergency care.

But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency has repeatedly eased restrictions and expanded access, increasing demand even as state laws make the pills harder to get for many women.

In late 2021, the agency eliminated the in-person requirement for the pill, saying a new scientific review showed no increase in safety complications if the drug is taken at home. That change also permitted the pill to be prescribed via telehealth and shipped by mail-order pharmacies.

Earlier this year, the FDA further loosened restrictions by allowing brick-and-mortar pharmacies to dispense the drug, provided they undergo certification.

That change was made at the request of the two drug manufacturers: GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, which makes a brand-name version of mifepristone called Mifeprex.

In its West Virginia lawsuit, GenBioPro argues that state laws interfere with drug regulations crafted by the FDA, which has sole authority over the approval and regulation of all US drugs.

West Virginia outlaws most abortions, with some exceptions for rape and incest victims and in cases of life-threatening medical emergencies and nonviable pregnancies. The near-total ban, signed into law in September, supersedes earlier laws on abortion pill access.

“The ban and restrictions make it impossible for GenBioPro to market and distribute mifepristone in West Virginia in accordance with FDA’s requirements,” the company states in its suit filed in the state’s southern federal district.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he would defend the new abortion law. “While it may not sit well with manufacturers of abortion drugs, the US Supreme Court has made it clear that regulating abortion is a state issue,” he said in a statement.

Abortion opponents have filed their own lawsuits seeking to halt use of the pill, including a Texas suit arguing that the FDA overstepped its authority in approving the medication. Anti-abortion rights groups on Wednesday promised to support state abortion limits.

“We stand with the people of North Carolina and West Virginia against the abortion lobby’s reckless push to mandate abortion on demand in every state,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America group.

Mifepristone dilates the cervix and blocks the effects of the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. Misoprostol, a drug also used to treat stomach ulcers, is taken 24 to 48 hours later. It causes the uterus to cramp and contract, causing bleeding and expelling pregnancy tissue.

Migration rights advocates in the United States have condemned the Biden administration’s new border restrictions for asylum seekers, saying the expansion of a contentious expulsion policy put peoples’ lives in danger.

US President Joe Biden unveiled the new measures on Thursday, including the forced return to Mexico each month of as many as 30,000 migrants and refugees from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela who come to the US’s southern border in search of protection.

“If you’re trying to leave Cuba, Nicaragua or Haiti … do not just show up at the border. Stay where you are and apply legally from there,” Biden told reporters from the White House, stressing that the new rules aimed to reduce a surge in border arrivals.

Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance support group, said on Friday that by urging migrants and refugees to stay where they are, Biden effectively told them to “stay where they are to die”.

“‘Do not come, stay where you are,’ has been a rhetoric of the US government, of the Biden administration, that is unacceptable, that is completely disconnected of the reality of people fleeing to seek asylum,” Jozef told reporters during a press call.

Returning Haitians to Mexico, she added, “where they are unsafe and unable to survive, is unacceptable.”

New rules

The new US immigration rules came amid an increase in refugee and migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border, which has fuelled a political campaign by Republican legislators who accuse the Biden administration of not doing enough to address the situation.

On Thursday, Biden said the US will allow as many as 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals into the country each month and give them two-year work permits. But this process, known as “parole”, will only apply to individuals who have a US-based sponsor to provide financial support and who pass rigorous vetting.

In turn, anyone from the four countries who tries to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border will be turned away and barred from accessing the new programme; Biden said that Mexico agreed to take back 30,000 migrants and refugees monthly from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

That effectively amounts to an expansion of Title 42, a widely denounced and contentious border policy that allows US authorities to rapidly expel most asylum seekers who arrive at the border in search of protection.

The Biden administration has been ordered to end Title 42 – first invoked in March 2020 under the guise of the COVID-19 pandemic – but it remains in place as the US Supreme Court considers a request by Republican-led states to join a case seeking to keep the restriction in place.

While rights groups welcomed the new parole programme, among other measures announced this week, the expansion of Title 42 drew immediate criticism.

“The administration’s statements seem to assume that coming to the border to seek asylum is not a legal pathway,” Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law in California, said during Friday’s news call.

“But under US laws and treaty obligations, people have the right to come to the border and ask for asylum regardless of what country they come from, how they reach US territory, or what documents they hold.”

Washington also signalled that anyone who enters Mexico and Panama without authorisation will be ineligible for the new parole programme, which allows people to enter the US but does not give them a path to permanent status.

That, the Washington Office on Latin America said, “will leave thousands of migrants stranded throughout the route and place additional burden on those countries”.

Savitri Arvey, senior policy adviser at the Women’s Refugee Commission’s migrant rights and justice programme, also pointed out that many people will continue heading towards the border because they cannot afford to wait in their home countries, or will not qualify for the parole scheme.

“This approach does not present a solution — it instead will exacerbate the danger — for many of the most vulnerable individuals in need of our protection,” Arvey said in a statement on Friday.

Regional crises

Gang violence, political instability, and economic crises made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic are among the many factors driving record migrant and refugee arrivals at the US-Mexico border in recent months.

With Venezuela continuing to reel from years of political and socioeconomic insecurity, more than 7.1 million refugees and migrants have been displaced, according to United Nations figures

Economic hardships have fuelled the largest wave of outward Cuban migration in years; Haitians face a surge in gang violence, political instability, and a new outbreak of cholera, and in June, the UN rights chief warned of an “unprecedented” exodus from Nicaragua amid a political crisis there.

While Biden has acknowledged these crises across the region, and promised to take a more human approach to migration than former President Donald Trump, his administration continues to pursue a “deterrence” strategy on migration.

Jozef at the Haitian Bridge Alliance said though she welcomed Biden’s expanded pathways for parole, the US should not close the door to the many asylum seekers who have little choice but to try to seek asylum at the border.

“Now imagine, you are a woman who was raped, fleeing without a passport, in the middle of the Darien Gap,” she told reporters, referring to the popular migration route between Panama and Colombia that is rife with violence and other dangers.

“You do not have a phone. You do not have access to an embassy. How are you going to be able to apply for a programme that is supposed to save your life?”

US officials express concern over lack of transparency about China’s rising COVID cases.

The United States is considering entry restrictions for travellers from China, as officials express concern about a lack of transparency about the country’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak.

“There are mounting concerns in the international community on the ongoing COVID-19 surges in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, being reported from the PRC,” US officials said on Tuesday, local time, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

The lack of genomic data makes it “increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure that they will be able to identify any potential new variants and take prompt measures to reduce the spread,” the US officials said.

The comments come after Japan, India and Malaysia stepped up measures for arrivals from China, citing surging cases.

Infections have surged across China following the unwinding of its ultra-strict “zero-COVID” policy, prompting US officials to express concern at the potential for new variants to be unleashed.

On Monday, Beijing said it would scrap mandatory COVID quarantine for overseas arrivals from January 8, prompting many in China to rush to plan trips abroad.

Beijing authorities have acknowledged the outbreak is “impossible” to track and have done away with much-maligned case tallies, in addition to narrowing the criteria by which COVID fatalities are counted.

While authorities have officially reported just a handful of COVID deaths in recent weeks, hospitals and funeral homes in China have been overwhelmed as the virus spreads largely unchecked across the country of 1.4 billion people.

Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that countries should uphold “scientific and appropriate” disease controls that “should not affect normal personnel exchanges”.

More than 780,000 people of Moroccan origin live in France and visa restrictions had made it difficult for relatives to visit.

France’s foreign minister Catherine Colonna said Paris has restored normal consular relations with Morocco following a year-long dispute linked to France’s decision to slash the number of visas for Moroccans visiting France.

The announcement on Friday comes two days after France and Morocco played each other in the football World Cup semifinals in Qatar.

France won the highly anticipated match, which had also driven much analysis of Morocco’s relationship with its former colonial rulers and the links between the two countries’ dual nationals. Morocco’s stunning qualification for the World Cup semifinal saw the country become the first Arab and first African nation to make it so far in the global football tournament.

“Our objective is to improve the human exchanges between France and Morocco and enhance the deep interlinks between our two societies which makes our relations so particular,” Colonna said in a news conference with her Moroccan counterpart during a visit to the capital Rabat.

France, under public pressure to curb undocumented immigrants, announced last year it would significantly reduce the number of visas granted to nationals from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia because of the North African countries’ refusal to take back their citizens living illegally in France.

According to the French Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, there are more than 780,000 people of Moroccan origin in France and the visa dispute has made it difficult for their relatives in Morocco to visit them.

Morocco’s foreign minister Nasser Bourita said the French move to normalise relations “goes in the right direction” following the tensions prompted by the visa dispute.

Bourita said France had made a unilateral decision to end restrictions on visas after what he said was also a unilateral decision to introduce the restrictions.

“Of course, there were popular reactions and also from people who were affected by this decision. I think that everyone is aware of this,” he said.

“Today, the decision to restore normal consular relationships is again a unilateral decision that Morocco respects and would not comment on officially,” he added.

Both ministers stressed that the two countries were important partners in terms of the economy, education and security and shared the same points of view regarding many international issues in Africa and the Middle East.

It was not immediately clear whether France had gotten anything in return from Morocco.