Joe Biden’s border shutdown shows how politics around immigration have shifted to the right
As dawn breaks on a new era in American immigration policy, a young boy peels and eats a clementine in the gap between the border fence that separates the United States and Mexico.
A teenage girl wraps herself in a silver thermal blanket and a man passes his mobile phone through the metal slats in the fence for someone on the other side to charge.
They are the lucky ones, in a way, because they are among the final group of migrants to enter the United States before the introduction of a new border policy.
The executive order, issued by President Biden, will temporarily seal the border along the southern states if illegal crossings exceed 2,500 people a day, which they do on a regular basis at the moment.
The order had been a closely guarded secret, until it wasn’t. President Biden used the announcement to criticise Republicans in Congress for failing to pass a bipartisan bill on the border and defend his own immigration policy.
“This action will help us gain control of our border, restore order into the process,” he said. “If the United States doesn’t secure our border, there’s no limit to the number of people who may try to come here. Doing nothing is not an option, we have to act.”
It represented a sharp about-turn for a man who came to power criticising Donald Trump’s draconian action to curb immigration but is now making moves reminiscent of his predecessor.
Pic: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Proponents of the order say it will relieve an overwhelmed system. But critics say it will put the lives of genuine asylum seekers at risk.
Stakeholders on both sides of the political aisle say it is a politically cynical move, five months out from a general election when immigration will be a major factor in voters’ minds.
“It’s setting a very bad precedent,” says Lilian Serrano, director of Southern Border Communities Coalition, a non-government organisation.
Lilian Serrano, director of Southern Border Communities Coalition
“A president making decisions that are politically motivated to gain political points in an election year is more important for President Biden than respecting human rights? That is the message.”
Once the migrants are processed at the border in San Diego, now the busiest place in the country for illegal border crossings, they are bussed to the outskirts of the city and dropped at a roadside.
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Some of them have no idea which city they are in. One man, from Ghana, asks me how to get to New York, almost 3,000 miles away.
Durlei is trying to get to San Francisco
Durlei, a young woman from Colombia, is trying to get to San Francisco to be reunited with a friend.
She was a shoe shop owner in her home country but says she is seeking asylum from gang violence.
“I come here fleeing my country,” she says. “If Biden changes his laws I don’t know where I will go.”
Word has reached Aurelio, from El Salvador, about the new policy. “I’ve heard about the new order,” he says. “I feel fortunate to have arrived before it takes effect, because it’s my dream to be here.”
Children who cross the border unaccompanied are excepted from the new policy, as are victims of human trafficking.
Nevertheless, this is the most restrictive border policy by a Democrat president in decades.
It is a shutout which shows just how much the politics around immigration have shifted to the right.
US President Donald Trump has called for the reopening of notorious prison Alcatraz.
In a post on his social media site Truth Social, Mr Trump said America had been “plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders”.
He added that when the United States was “a more serious nation” it “did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals”.
“That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz, to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders,” he wrote.
Mr Trump said the reopening of the San Francisco prison would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice”.
The US president’s latest policy announcement comes after he fired national security adviser Mike Waltz last week in the first major change to his administration.
US President Donald Trump speaking to reporters on Sunday. Pic: AP
Alcatraz was infamously inescapable and in the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI.
Nearly all of them were caught or did not survive the attempt at escaping.
The prison housed some of America’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone and George Kelly.
It has also been the subject of a number of films, including The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
Alcatraz Island. File pic: AP
Alcatraz Island, which is surrounded by strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters, is now a major tourist site, operated by the National Park Service.
The prison’s closure in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and high repair costs.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said it would “comply with all presidential orders”.
The Bureau of Prisons currently has 16 high-security prisons, including its maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, and a facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, which is home to the federal death chamber.
The United States’ federal law enforcement agency has been the subject of increased scrutiny in recent years after Jeffrey Epstein‘s suicide at a federal jail in New York City in 2019.
A woman in the US who has been missing since 1962 has been found “alive and well”, authorities have said.
Audrey Backeberg left her home in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, in July that year when she was 20 years old, Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said.
Investigators pursued numerous leads over the years but the case eventually went cold.
However, during a review of cold cases earlier this year, a detective reassessed all the case files and evidence, and re-interviewed several witnesses – and found Ms Backeberg.
The 82-year-old was “alive and well” – living outside of the state of Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said.
Ms Backeberg was married and had two children when she disappeared on 7 July 1962, according to the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy organisation.
She left her home to pick up her salary but never returned, causing her husband to ask family members where she was.
Shortly afterwards their 14-year-old babysitter claimed she and Ms Backeberg had hitchhiked to Wisconsin’s capital city Madison and then caught a bus to Indianapolis, Indiana.
The teenager said when she arrived she became nervous and wanted to go home, while Ms Backeberg refused to return and was last seen walking near a bus stop.
Ms Backeberg’s marriage was troubled and there were allegations of abuse, the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy organisation said, with a criminal complaint having been filed days before she went missing.
Her relatives insisted she would never abandon her children, the organisation added, and her husband passed a polygraph test and maintained his innocence.
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‘We talked for 45 minutes’ – detective
Detective Isaac Hanson, who found Ms Backeberg, said her sister’s Ancestry.com account was vital in helping him locate her address.
“That was pretty key in locating death records, census reports, all kinds of data,” he told local news station WISN.
“So I called the local sheriff’s department, said, ‘Hey, there’s this lady living at this address. Do you guys have somebody, you can just go pop in?’
“Ten minutes later, she called me, and we talked for 45 minutes.”
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‘She sounded happy’
Mr Hanson said Ms Backeberg may have left home due to marital issues, but it was unclear why she had stayed away for so long.
He said he had promised to keep their conversation private.
“I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and led her life,” he said.
“She sounded happy. Confident in her decision. No regrets.”
Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said Ms Backeberg made the choice to leave and her disappearance “was not the result of any criminal activity or foul play”.
Donald Trump has posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal regalia on his Truth Social platform – just 11 days after the death of Pope Francis.
Uploaded onto his account early on Saturday morning, it shows the US president with a large gold cross on a chain around his neck.
From there, it was published, without comment or explanation, on the White House X and Instagram accounts and, though it drew fierce criticism, it was liked more than 100,000 times.
It comes just a few days after the world leader joked that he’d like to be the pontiff.
Last week, he was asked by reporters on the White House lawn who he would like to succeed Francis and he replied: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
He went on to say that he did not have a preference, but there was a cardinal in New York who was “very good”.
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‘I’d like to be pope’
Mr Trump was quickly accused of mocking Pope Francis’s death, but, by noon, UK time, the post had been liked more than 58,000 times on Instagram.
User comments, however, were mostly negative, with one saying that the image “isn’t funny. It’s not satire. And it’s not harmless”.
Another simply called it “disgusting”, while other reactions included “disturbing”, “disrespectful” and “offensive”.
On X, where the picture was liked more than 78,000 times, a user commented that Mr Trump was “making a mockery of the pious”, while another judged it “not a wise decision”.
The conclave to select a new pontiff will begin on 7 May after the death of Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Argentinian, who became pope in 2013, died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 due to a stroke and heart failure.
Last weekend, the president was criticised for wearing a non-traditional blue suit for Francis’s Vatican funeral and chewing gum during the ceremony.
However, his meeting in St Peter’s Basilica with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the outdoor mass got under way was dubbed “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in St Peter’s Basilica. Pic: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office
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Mr Trump’s own religious views have long been a matter of speculation.
He was raised as a Presbyterian and publicly identified with it for most of his adult life, before, in October 2020, he renounced it and said he now considered himself a non-denominational Christian.
Many have questioned the depth of his faith, but that hasn’t stopped him appealing to conservative Christians and the Christian right, particularly evangelicals, some of whom have helped him get elected twice.
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Earlier this year, Mr Trump shared a bizarre AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform showcasing what appeared to be a vision of Gaza under his proposed plan.
The footage showed the area transformed into a Middle Eastern paradise with exotic beaches, Dubai-style skyscrapers, luxury yachts and people partying – and featured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk.
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