News:
United States
Immigration
Republican Senators grilled Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a hearing on the border crisis on Wednesday. “Why not enforce the laws that you have now instead of sit there and ask for new ones?” Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) asked Alejandro Mayorkas. Despite Republican Senators appearing to posture as if they were challenging Mayorkas, a former Trump White House official noted that they are still behind the curve, per Breitbart News:
Republicans at the hearings portrayed Mayorkas’s migration inflow as illegal, but he is using his legal loopholes, gaps, and federal funds to carefully smuggle the growing tide of migrants into Americans’ cities.
A Federal Judge recently ruled
against the Biden administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to end its “catch and release” policy. As per the Center Square, federal law requires illegal immigrants who are apprehended to be detained until “a judges determine if they have a valid reason to enter the country.” However, because the DHS does not have the capabilities to detain all illegals who are apprehended, the White House must decide whether to:
a) Remove the illegals from the U.S. and make them wait for their court hearing in a different county, which was the Trump administration's policy via “Remain in Mexico.”
b) Implement the Obama-era “Catch and Release” policy, which releases the illegals into the U.S. interior while giving them a notice to appear in court. Most notices contain little information about their hearings, and most illegals ignore the order altogether.
Mexico has agreed to take back Nicaraguan and Cuban migrants expelled by the U.S. under Title 42 law. It is expected that Mexico will carry out deportation flights to their country of origin following their arrival to Mexico, according to officials from both the U.S. and Mexican governments via the Washington Post.
Economics
The Biden administration is divided on cutting tariffs on Chinese imports. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo favor easing tariffs on approximately $360 billion of annual Chinese imports, while Trade Representative Katherine Tai and others are hesitant to remove tariffs. (Wall Street Journal)
During the first quarter of the year, worker productivity plummeted by 7.5 percent—the largest decline since the third quarter in 1947. Furthermore, labor costs soared by 11.6 percent, the largest increase since the third quarter of 1982. (@GretaLWall/Twitter)