Vox Sentences - Biden's border crisis

The Biden administration is piloting an at-home detention system for migrants, run by a for-profit company, while congressional Democrats request an inquiry into the treatment of Black migrants; the top European court rules that the EU can restrict funds over rule-of-law abuses. 

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

Will Biden make big changes in immigration policy?

Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images

• A for-profit prison operator, GEO Group, will administrate a pilot program that will place hundreds of migrants who have crossed the southern US border under house arrest, through its subsidiary BI Incorporated. The Biden administration had previously announced its intention to provide alternative detention arrangements for migrants who have entered the US via the border with Mexico. [Reuters / Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg]
• The administration plans to include as many as 400,000 migrants in the program, which will have detainees confined to their places of residence for 12 hours per day and monitored by the company. Immigrants rights groups have denounced the decision, saying that it continues to enrich private corporations on the backs of vulnerable people. [The Hill / Rafael Bernal]
• “Digital prisons may be less expensive than locking people in cages, but the goal here is to shut down privatized detention, not shape-shift,” Jacinta Gonzalez, senior campaign organizer with Mijente, a nonprofit focused on Latinx political organizing, said in a statement to Vox. “It is reprehensible that corporations are still making a profit from incarceration.”
• At present, about 180,000 migrants awaiting their hearings are already monitored using ankle bracelets or other devices as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce the number of people in detention facilities. The new program is set to pilot in Baltimore and Houston, and will expand to a nationwide program later in the year. [Axios / Stef Knight]
• Democrats in Congress are also pushing the Biden administration to look into the border enforcement treatment of Black migrants, citing specifically the mass deportation of Haitian migrants last year. One hundred legislators in both chambers are urging the administration to abrogate Title 42 — a Trump-era policy that allowed deportations for public health reasons — which the Biden administration is still using. [NYT / Eileen Sullivan]
• The legislators' letter describes the US’s history of cruelty toward Haitian migrants in particular, including “interdicting Haitian refugees in the high seas and over the course of the next decade sent some 25,000 asylum seekers back to an island suffering under the rule of brutal U.S.-backed dictatorships.” The letter also recounts the first Bush administration’s detention of more than 300 Haitians who had been exposed to HIV in a detention center at Guantanamo Bay. [Rep. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)]

EU high court can cut billions in funding to Poland, Hungary

• The European Union’s highest court has ruled that the 27-member bloc can cut funding to Poland and Hungary, two member nations that have repeatedly flouted the laws and values of the group. Hungary and Poland have both moved in increasingly nationalist and illiberal directions in recent years. [NYT / Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Monika Pronczuk, and Benjamin Novak]
• The two nations had put forth legal challenges to an EU mechanism allowing the bloc to punish member states that violate the union’s collective laws; the European Court of Justice dismissed Hungary’s and Poland’s cases “in their entirety.” They had initially challenged a clause in the bloc’s 2021-2027 budget that made funding dependent on member nations’ respect for the rule of law. [Al Jazeera]
• Both countries are set to receive billions in aid through 2027, including for climate measures, public health initiatives, and technology upgrades. That funding, as well as billions for pandemic relief, could be denied due to Warsaw's and Budapest’s authoritarian stances on judicial independence, freedom of the press, and freedom to protest, among other illiberal moves. [Reuters / Gabriela Baczynska]
• Hungary’s Justice Minister Judit Varga called the court’s decision “living proof that Brussels is abusing its power,” while Polish Deputy Minister for Justice Sebastian Kaleta called the ruling “historic blackmail.” The two nations have also been accused of misusing EU funds, and the bloc could decide to suspend Hungary’s and Poland’s self-administration of farm and infrastructure subsidies. [Washington Post]

French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce the departure of French troops from Mali after nine years, due to a breakdown in relations, particularly after two successive coups. [Al Jazeera]

• The GOP-led Arizona Senate has just passed a bill making it illegal for doctors to perform abortions after 15 weeks and threatening those who break the law with up to a year in prison and the loss of their medical license. [The Hill / Olafimihan Oshin]
• Britney Spears has been invited to testify before Congress about her 13-year conservatorship, which ended in November; she has not publicly stated whether or not she will testify. [Variety / Elizabeth Wagmeister]
• San Francisco voters recalled three members of the city’s school board over frustration with the board’s pursuit to end competitive admissions at an elite high school and rename 44 schools, instead of focusing on reopening schools safely. [AP / Jocelyn Gecker]

“It is time to undo the United States’ draconian immigration policies, particularly policies introduced under the Trump Administration, such as the use of Title 42, that circumvent our humanitarian obligations. In addition to stopping removals to regions such as Haiti that face serious insecurity, we also urge you to take steps to address the systemic challenges Black migrants face to receiving equal treatment.”

[Democratic legislators, in a letter to President Joe Biden, urging the administration to address decades of what they allege to be unequal and inhumane treatment of Black migrants]

Today's the day: We're celebrating 1,000 episodes of Today, Explained and co-host Noel King's debut! Don't miss this very special episode.

If you love our podcasts, we have one ask: Send this episode to your friends so they can subscribe & listen.

Read more from Vox

Nice raise. Too bad about inflation. 

What we don’t know about war and peace

The bureaucratic backlog that’s putting people out of work

When celebrity nudes were everywhere

Why there’s been a surge of bipartisan activity in Congress

This email was sent to you. Manage your email preferences or unsubscribe. If you value Vox’s unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring contribution.

View our Privacy Notice and our Terms of Service.

Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036.
Copyright © 2022. All rights reserved.