Biden news: President makes first response to classified papers trove as GOP accused Dems of hypocrisy

Democratic congress members are calling on Joe Biden to deport former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro back to his country after his supporters stormed the National Congress in an effort to reinstate his power.

Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs and invaded the country’s National Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace in capital Brasilia on Sunday, in violence reminiscent of the US Capitol insurrection two years ago.

Brazil’s former far-right leader reportedly fled to Florida before the inauguration of the newly-elected president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took charge on 1 January.

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Joe Biden visited El Paso, Texas as his administration faces important questions about how to address the ongoing tide of thousands of Central- and South Americans hoping to seek asylum in the US every month.

The president’s voyage marks his first trip to the US-Mexico border as commander-in-chief and comes specifically as his administration is fighting in the courts to end Title 42, a controversial public health protocol used by both the Trump administration and now his own as legal justification for turning migrants away at the border.

John Bowden reports.

Governor Greg Abbott says President Joe Biden was “cordial” when they met during the president’s visit to the southern border on Sunday.

Speaking on Fox News, Mr Abbott claimed that Mr Biden was “noncommittal” about immigration policy changes and that until the administration steps up and enforces the border everything else that is being done is “nothing more than a dog and pony show”.

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The Biden administration has not received any request from Brazil to extradite former presdient Jair Bolsonaro.

One of the most important diplomatic decisions by President Joe Biden at the gathering this week of North American leaders might have been his choice of airport.

Biden arrived in Mexico City on Sunday evening via Mexico’s newest hub, the Felipe Angeles International Airport, a prized project by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The hub was christened last year with much fanfare, though it’s located more than an hour’s drive north of the city center, has few flights and until recently lacked consistent drinking water.

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As thousands of children were taken from their parents at the southern border during a Trump administration crackdown on illegal crossings, a federal public defender in San Diego set out to find new strategies to go after the longstanding deportation law fueling the family separations.

The resulting legal defense that Kara Hartzler would help draft in the coming years — work that continued even after a judge halted the general practice at the US-Mexico border in June 2018 — was unprecedented.

It exposed Section 1326 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes it a crime to unlawfully return to the US after deportation, removal or denied admission, as racist and a violation of equal protection rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

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Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador said Monday he would consider accepting more migrants than previously announced under President Joe Biden’s plan to turn away people from four nations who cross illegally into the United States.

The comments came as Mr López Obrador, Mr Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were gathering in Mexico City for a meeting of the three North American leaders.

“We don’t want to anticipate things, but this is part of what we are going to talk about at the summit,” Mr López Obrador said. “We support this type of measures, to give people options, alternatives,” he said, adding that “the numbers may be increased.”

Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security adviser, cautioned nothing was decided yet.

“What we need is to see how the program announced last week works in practice, what if any adjustments need to be made to that program and then we can talk about taking the next steps,” he said.

AP

Canada has finalised an agreement with Lockheed Martin Corp and the US government to purchase 88 F-35 fighter jets, government officials said on Monday.

The first four aircraft are anticipated to be delivered in 2026 with full operational capacity for the fleet expected between 2032 and 2034.

The government has budgeted about $19bn Canadian (US$15bn) for the purchase in what is the largest investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force in more than 30 years. Each jet costs about US$85m. The full life cycle of the program is expected to cost $70bn (US$52bn).

Canada has a close defense relationship with the United States, which includes using fighter jets together to defend North American air space. The announcement comes as Trudeau is set to meet with US President Joe Biden at the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico.

The government said last year Lockheed Martin’s F-35 was deemed to be the top-ranked bidder for a new fighter jet to replace aging F-18s, deciding against Boeing’s Super Hornet. Meanwhile Canada purchased some Australian F-18s to help extend the life of the Canadian F-18 program until 2032.

Before becoming prime minister, Mr Trudeau had said Canada wouldn’t buy the F-35. A former Conservative Canadian government had announced the purchase of the F-35 but Trudeau’s Liberal government delayed that purchase and opened up the bidding to competition.

AP

Andrew Feinberg writes:

When President Joe Biden announced that the United States would begin expelling any migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who cross into the US illegally between ports of entry, he implicitly blamed the US Congress for contributing to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The influx has overwhelmed border towns in California, Texas and Arizona, and Mr Biden called out the refusal to update what he described as a “patchwork” of immigration laws which “simply doesn’t work as it should” and said the new programme he was ordering was just a stopgap.

“Until Congress passes ... a comprehensive immigration plan to fix the system completely, my administration is going to work to make things better at the border using the tools that we have available to us now,” Mr Biden said.

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