It began in El Paso, Texas, with up to 50 migrants to be returned daily to Ciudad Juarez, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because details were not made public.

The Homeland Security Department confirmed that returns began at one location and will be expanded to six others. It declined to identify the launch city or how many migrants will be processed, citing “operational security reasons.”

Revival of the “Remain in Mexico” policy comes even as the Biden administration maneuvers to end it in a way that survives legal scrutiny. President Joe Biden scrapped the policy, but a lawsuit by Texas and Missouri has forced him to put it back into effect, subject to Mexico’s acceptance.

WHAT IS THE ‘REMAIN IN MEXICO’ POLICY?

About 70,000 asylum-seekers have been forced to wait in Mexico for U.S. hearings under the policy that President Donald Trump introduced in January 2019 and which Biden suspended on his first day in office.

Illegal border crossings fell sharply after Mexico, facing Trump’s threat of higher tariffs, acquiesced in 2019 to the policy’s rapid expansion. Asylum-seekers were victims of major violence while waiting in Mexico and faced a slew of legal obstacles, such as access to attorneys and case information.

Only 1% of asylum-seekers subject to the policy were granted relief, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. About six of 10 claims were denied or dismissed, and the rest are pending.

Only about one of every 10 had legal representation, well below the average in U.S. immigration court.

Trump administration officials insist the policy was critical to deter illegal crossings. Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s homeland security secretary, said the policy, likely contributed to a drop in crossings in 2019 but with “substantial and unjustifiable human costs” to asylum-seekers who were exposed to violence while waiting in Mexico. Critics say the policy, officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols,” ignores U.S. law and international obligations for asylum, which Trump called “a sham.”

HOW IS ‘REMAIN IN MEXICO’ 2.0 DIFFERENT?

Biden’s version expands the policy to migrants from Western Hemisphere countries, while Trump largely limited it to the hemisphere’s Spanish-speaking countries. Mexicans continue to be exempt.

The expansion is especially significant for Haitians, who formed a massive camp in the Texas border town of Del Rio in September. Brazilians, who were largely spared under Trump, may also be heavily affected.

The U.S. will try to complete cases within 180 days, a response to Mexico’s concerns that they will languish in a court system that is backlogged with 1.5 million cases.

U.S. authorities will ask migrants if they fear being returned to Mexico instead of relying on them to raise concerns unprompted. If migrants express fear, they will be screened and have 24 hours to find an attorney or representative.

Migrants will also have an opportunity to meet with attorneys before each hearing, U.S. officials say. The State Department is working with Mexico on locations for video and phone access to attorneys in the U.S.

Many U.S.-based legal aid groups that have represented asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico say they will no longer take such cases. Advocates are highly skeptical of claims by U.S. and Mexican officials that other lawyers will likely come forward.

WHAT DOES MEXICO SAY?

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, wrote in his Aug. 13 ruling that reinstating the policy was subject to Mexico’s acceptance. Mexico’s foreign relations secretary said Thursday that it would allow returns “for humanitarian reasons” after changes and additions that the Biden administration promised.

All migrants subject to the policy will be vaccinated against COVID-19. Adults will get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires only one shot. Children who are eligible under U.S. guidelines will get the Pfizer shot, with second shots when they come to the U.S. for their first hearings.

During negotiations, Mexican officials expressed concern about returning migrants to Tamaulipas state, an especially dangerous area across the border from South Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. They sought U.S. financial support for more shelter space but got only vague commitments.

The policy will eventually be expanded to six other locations besides El Paso: San Diego and Calexico in California; Nogales, Arizona; and the Texas border cities of Brownsville, Eagle Pass and Laredo.

Arrangements to provide transportation to and from the border within Mexico are being worked on. Migrants returned to Tamaulipas from Brownsville, Eagle Pass and Laredo may be moved deeper into Mexico for personal safety.

ELLIOT SPAGAT | AP Nwws

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On Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who worked in the Obama administration, will lead a “whole of government” effort to root out “domestic terrorists.” These domestic terrorists, you will not be surprised to learn, are the same so-called “White supremacists” who engaged in what Democrats repeatedly call “the worst insurrection since the Civil War” on January 6. What that hyperbolic to the point of dishonest phrase describes is trespassing in Congress, something that has always been a preserve of the left. Of course, this time, it had a twist, because no Capitol police officer ever killed an unarmed leftist in cold blood.

Sundance, at The Conservative Treehouse, spells out what this means:

The purpose of this announcement should be crystal clear to everyone. We discussed and outlined the background previously.

In the background of these maneuvers Big Tech and Corporate Media have been instructed to push the “domestic extremist” narrative; and any truth-tellers are considered subversive, ie. against the interests of the U.S. government.

The January 6th DC protest is being used as evidence for that narrative. Deplatforming, censorship and ultimately control of voices who would warn of the larger issues continues daily.

Let me be very clear… stop and hear the drums… Something is about to happen. Approximately 100 million American voters are considered dissidents now.

Also on Tuesday, The Revolver published the results of its review of the charging documents the FBI wrote to justify the hundreds of arrests it carried out following January 6. As you think about these charges, keep in mind, again, that the only serious physical injury occurred when a Capitol police officer shot Ashli Babbitt in cold blood, that we know that the police invited people into the Capitol and that the Biden administration has refused to prosecute Antifa and BLM activists who grievously destroyed federal property and waged violent war against federal law enforcement:

• In the year leading up to 1/6 and during 1/6 itself, to what extent were the three primary militia groups (the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters) that the FBI, DOJ, Pentagon and network news have labeled most responsible for planning and executing a Capitol attack on 1/6 infiltrated by agencies of the federal government, or informants of said agencies?

• Exactly how many federal undercover agents or confidential informants were present at the Capitol or in the Capitol during the infamous “siege” and what roles did they play (merely passive informants or active instigators)?

• Finally, of all of the unindicted co-conspirators referenced in the charging documents of those indicted for crimes on 1/6, how many worked as a confidential informant or as an undercover operative for the federal government (FBI, Army Counterintelligence, etc.)?

From now on, all discussion of 1/6 must give way to a laser-like focus on the questions above, with an unwavering persistence at obtaining the answers.

If the narrative about 1/6 does not conform to the questions above, the American people will never learn the most important truth about what 1/6 is, and what kind of country they’re really living in.

If it turns out the federal government did in fact have undercover agents or confidential informants embedded within the so-called militia groups indicted for conspiring to obstruct the Senate certification on 1/6, the implications would be nothing short of seismic. Especially if such agents or informants enjoyed extremely senior-level positions within such groups.

Andrea Widburg • American Thinker

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Paramedics were called regularly to treat children suffering from panic attacks so severe their hands would constrict into balls and their bodies would shake. The outbursts often occurred after other children were taken away to be reunited with families, dashing the hopes of those left behind at the largest emergency shelter set up by the Biden administration to hold minors who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone.

The conditions described by a federal volunteer who spent two weeks in May at the shelter at Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, Texas, highlight the desperation and stress of thousands of children held at unlicensed facilities, waiting to reunite with relatives.

Some had marks on their arms indicating self-harm, and federal volunteers were ordered to keep out scissors, pencils or even toothbrushes that could be used as a weapon. While girls made origami and braided friendship bracelets, a large number of the children spent the day sleeping, the volunteer said. Some had been there nearly two months.

The volunteer spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk publicly about what she witnessed on the base from May 12 to May 25. She said she was compelled to speak out because of the despair she observed. Much of what she described mirrored what advocates who visited the shelter recently recounted to The Associated Press and what children there told them.

The conditions raise concerns about why it is taking more than a month on average to release the children when most have family in the United States. More staffing has been added since the emergency shelters were opened this spring amid an unprecedented arrival of migrant children, and the flows have subsided.

“I think there is a general consensus that no child should be in these emergency shelters for more than two weeks,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the advocacy group American Immigration Council.

Lawyers and advocates question why most of the children are at unlicensed shelters.

As of May 31, nearly 9,000 children were kept at unlicensed sites, compared with 7,200 at licensed shelters, court filings by the U.S. government said. While the unlicensed facilities were running at near capacity in May, the licensed facilities were only about half full, according to a report filed by the agency tasked with the children’s care.

Advocates say the government should be pouring more resources into the safe release of children, and those without relatives or a family friend, known as a sponsor, should be immediately going to licensed facilities that are required to have a care worker for every eight children during the day and a mental health clinician per every 12 children.

The volunteer was one of more than 700 at the time, when Fort Bliss housed more than 4,600 children in giant, air-conditioned military tents filled with cot-style bunkbeds. The number of children there is now down by nearly half, at fewer than 2,500.

The volunteer said she met children who had been there 54 days. She saw bubbly girls grow angry and quiet and sleep so much they had to be woken to eat.

Several had panic attacks after seeing friends leave to join their families. One day, ambulances were called four times, the volunteer said.

“Paramedics would come into the tent and take them away on a stretcher because their hands would constrict up, their heads would sometimes go to one side, and their limbs would shake and it was obvious that it was very uncontrolled,” she said.

The children could call their families twice a week.

An official from the Department of Health and Human Services did not comment specifically on the allegations regarding first responders treating children suffering from panic attacks and other concerns about the minors’ safety, but said the administration was working on expanding indoor recreation space, mental health support, wellness activities and educational services. The official said mental health services and counseling are available to everyone at the emergency facilities.

The record arrivals of migrant children have tested the Biden administration, with the U.S. government picking up nearly 60,000 children traveling without their parents across the Mexican border from February to May.

The government’s goal is to unite every child safely and swiftly with their parents or sponsors, but it takes time to do the extensive screening that includes interviews, background checks and sometimes home visits, the government official said.

The administration has maintained it followed best practices when it opened 14 emergency intake sites this spring to respond quickly to overcrowding at Customs and Border Protection facilities, and said improvements are being made constantly.

They include the addition of virtual case managers to assist staff on the ground to expedite the release of children, and efforts to identify complicated cases or children without relatives or sponsors to move them to licensed facilities.

The number of children in the shelters has dropped from a high of more than 23,000 to 16,000. Four emergency shelters have closed, while two more are slated to close soon.

The government is no longer anticipating Fort Bliss will need to expand to 10,000 beds, the official said.

Attorneys and advocates say the Fort Bliss shelter should be shuttered as soon as possible.

Advocates say better options are being underutilized like the convention center in Long Beach, California, where immigration attorneys meet with children regularly, and musical performers and yoga instructors have been invited in.

A Pomona, California, facility is housing about 500 children but has space for more than 2,000. It has consistently met its goal of reunifying 20% of the children by the end of each week, said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center in California.

“One of the questions I have is why are children continuing to be held in places like Fort Bliss, where conditions are being reported as so dire, when there are places like Pomona?” she said.

The government said every shelter offers mental health care, and it has added more behavioral health, spiritual and educational services, including at Fort Bliss, which also opened more indoor recreational space.

Even so, none of the emergency shelters can properly care for children with the trauma of fleeing violent homelands, said Leecia Welch, an attorney at the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law who monitors the care of immigrant children in U.S. custody to ensure the facilities adhere to conditions set out by a long-standing court settlement.

“There is not enough focus on releasing children to their families,” said Welch, whose team visited Fort Bliss on June 3 and 4.

Releasing children in U.S. custody has become more critical since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this month directed a state agency to discontinue licenses for facilities sheltering migrant children.

Advocates fear shelters could close and result in more minors in unlicensed shelters like Fort Bliss.

The volunteer said she could see the toll it was taking.

With more than 900 girls there at the time, the volunteers divided them into pods to better care for them. Her pod watched over 25 girls. Some required one-on-one supervision 24 hours a day after showing a tendency to harm themselves, she said.

Weeks after she was admitted to Fort Bliss, a shy 13-year-old girl was finally given a new pair of shoes to replace the tattered ones she wore when she left Guatemala and walked for days, the volunteer said.

When she got them, she held them to her chest, she said.

The government notified the volunteers on May 24 that they were no longer needed because the contractor had hired enough staff to have one worker for every 15 children.

“I know that this is very upsetting news to many of us and that we all have concerns about the children being treated humanely after we leave,” the email stated, assuring the volunteers they would be let go gradually.

The contractor, Rapid Deployment Inc., declined to comment, referring questions to the administration.

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The announcement is another step toward making good on President Joe Biden’s target of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, a goal that would generate enough energy to power 10 million homes, according to the administration. It also expects these developments to support more than 75,000 jobs.

The administration identified two areas slated for offshore wind development. One is a 399-square-mile region near Morro Bay, in central California. The other is off the coast of Humboldt County near the Oregon coast.

The water along the Pacific coast is much deeper than the Atlantic, and given that constraint, the administration said the wind turbines there will be floating — a technology that the Department of Energy has invested $100 million in researching.

At three gigawatts, the proposed Morro Bay wind farm would dwarf the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project the Biden administration announced earlier this month. The Vineyard farm, which will be located 12 miles off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard, is expected to include up to 84 turbines, according to the administration.

“We’re talking about a game-changing investment in a green energy future,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. The offshore wind projects will generate power “without impacting diverse communities, but benefiting diverse communities,” he said.

The Department of Defense has up until now opposed offshore wind along the Pacific coast because of the potential disruption to military training and testing. Undersecretary for Defense Policy Colin Kahl said Tuesday that the “defense department is satisfied that there’s not a tradeoff between our green energy goals” and other military goals.

“It’s our view that the world faces a grave and growing climate crisis,” Kahl said. “Climate change is both a threat to the Department of Defense’s operations around the world and an existential challenge to our ability to maintain resilience here at home.”

Angela Fritz and Drew Kann | CNN News

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department said Monday that 39 million families are set to receive monthly child payments beginning on July 15.

The payments are part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which expanded the child tax credit for one year and made it possible to pre-pay the benefits on a monthly basis. Nearly 88% of children are set to receive the benefits without their parents needing to take any additional action.

“This tax cut sends a clear and powerful message to American workers, working families with children: Help is here,” Biden said in remarks at the White House.

Qualified families will receive a payment of up to $300 per month for each child under 6 and up to $250 per month for children between the ages of 6 and 17. The child tax credit was previously capped at $2,000 and only paid out to families with income tax obligations after they filed with the IRS.

But for this year, couples earning $150,000 or less can receive the full payments on the 15th of each month, in most cases by direct deposit. The benefits total $3,600 annually for children under 6 and $3,000 for those who are older. The IRS will determine eligibility based on the 2019 and 2020 tax years, but people will also be able to update their status through an online portal. The administration is also setting up another online portal for non-filers who might be eligible for the child tax credit.

The president has proposed an extension of the increased child tax credit through 2025 as part of his $1.8 trillion families plan. Outside analysts estimate that the payments could essentially halve child poverty. The expanded credits could cost roughly $100 billion a year.

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JOE BIDEN HAS been president for only four months, but he’s already been hailed as the country’s most pro-labor leader since Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He wants to make it easier for workers to unionize and would raise the national minimum wage to $15. He opposed Proposition 22, the California ballot measure that allowed gig platforms like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash to continue treating their workers as independent contractors. In March, he backed the (doomed) union drive in a Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon warehouse. “Unions put power in the hands of workers,” he said then. “They level the playing field.”

Tuesday, though, Biden frustrated some worker advocates when he announced a deal with the ride-hail companies Uber and Lyft to get more Americans to vaccination sites—despite his unease with their business model. The program, to start on May 24, will point users on the apps to nearby vaccination sites and will cover $15 rides in either direction. Lyft says that, based on previous rides to vaccination sites, it expects the amount to cover “most, if not all” of fares to and from the sites.

Biden, it turns out, has other priorities, and a self-imposed deadline: He wants Americans to feel safe attending normal(ish) Fourth of July barbecues. The White House has set a goal of getting 70 percent of US adults at least one Covid-19 shot by the summer holiday. At this point 59 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The vaccine is the key to getting us all moving again, and we’re proud to do our part to move the country forward,” John Zimmer, the cofounder and president of Lyft, said in a statement. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called the partnership a “proud moment for me, for Uber, and for our country.”

But labor activists said Tuesday the deal put the White House at odds with some of its leaders’ stated principles. “If this is something that this administration has OK’d, it does not bode well for what we will see in terms of enforcement actions,” says Veena Dubal, a professor of labor law at the UC Hastings College of the Law.

So far, the Democratic administration has signaled support, tepidly, for changing the rules on worker classification. Today, all states allow companies like Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers and delivery people as independent contractors, who can sign in to work on the app any time but are not entitled to traditional benefits like health care insurance and workers’ compensation. Last week, labor secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters, “In a lot of cases, gig workers should be classified as employees.” He nominated David Weil, a former Obama appointee and Uber critic, to head the department’s Wage and Hour Division. The Labor Department last week also repealed a Trump administration rule that labor advocates had feared would be used to maintain gig workers’ independent contractor status. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

The CDC has pinpointed lack of transportation as a factor in preventing people, and especially vulnerable populations, from getting the vaccine. After listening sessions with local groups and agencies held earlier this year, the agency recommended governments work with community and faith-based organizations, Medicaid and Medicare programs, transportation companies, and ride-hail services to get more shots into arms. A number of cities, states, and transit agencies already offer free transportation programs to vaccination sites.

The ride-hail partnership likely won’t help everyone. Some local agencies say their biggest challenge is transporting older or homebound adults. In 2018, just 24 percent of Americans aged 50 and older said they had used a ride-hail service. Public health officials have also begun to stress the importance of reaching people in rural areas, where vaccine rates lag and where ride-hail service can be especially hard to come by.

But the deal gives the ride-hail companies another way to show they’re an irreplaceable part of the national infrastructure, in a moment where regulation could put their business models at risk.

For years, Uber and Lyft have tried to become one-stop shops for all Americans’ transportation—and for Uber, delivery—needs. Khosrowshahi has pinned Uber’s hopes on becoming the “Amazon for transportation.” To that end, both companies have extended hands—and wheels—to governments. Both have formed partnerships with local transit agencies, with Uber actually taking over the operation of some smaller systems and selling software to others in the US and Canada. Lyft’s bike-share arm operates the largest systems in the country, with contracts ensuring its continued (and in some cases, exclusive) relationship with cities. In November, the General Service Administration announced the companies had jointly won a five-year contract worth up to $810 million that allows federal employees to use Uber and Lyft when traveling. The feds said they had negotiated 2 to 4 percent discounts, beyond what the companies offered other large commercial customers.

Lyft has made other inroads in health care, with a division dedicated to programs that allow medical providers and insurance companies to pay for patients’ rides. The company is working with at least 35 state Medicaid programs or Medicaid-managed care organizations to give rides to those on the plans. On a call with investors last week, Zimmer, the Lyft president, said the company would continue to invest in its health care programs. The goal is simple: Whoever you are, whatever you need—including now a shot—reach for our apps.

AARIAN MARSHALL | Contributed

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday formally raised the nation’s cap on refugee admissions to 62,500 this year, weeks after facing bipartisan blowback for his delay in replacing the record-low ceiling set by former President Donald Trump.

Refugee resettlement agencies have waited for Biden to quadruple the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year since Feb. 12, when a presidential proposal was submitted to Congress saying he planned to do so.

But the presidential determination went unsigned until Monday. Biden said he first needed to expand the narrow eligibility criteria put in place by Trump that had kept out most refugees. He did that last month in an emergency determination. But it also stated that Trump’s cap of up to 15,000 refugees this year “remains justified by humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national interest,” indicating Biden intended to keep it.

That brought sharp pushback for not at least taking the symbolic step of authorizing more refugees to enter the U.S. this year. The second-ranking Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, called that initial limit “unacceptable” and within hours the White House made a quick course correction. The administration vowed to increase the historically low cap by May 15 — but the White House said it probably would not hit the 62,500 Biden had previously outlined.

In the end, Biden returned to that figure.

Biden said he received additional information that led him to sign the emergency presidential determination setting the cap at 62,500.

“It is important to take this action today to remove any lingering doubt in the minds of refugees around the world who have suffered so much, and who are anxiously waiting for their new lives to begin,” Biden stated before signing it.

Biden said Trump’s cap “did not reflect America’s values as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees.”

But he acknowledged the “sad truth” that the U.S. would not meet the 62,500 cap by the end of the fiscal year in September, given the pandemic and limitations on the country’s resettlement capabilities — some of which his administration has attributed to the Trump administration’s policies to restrict immigration.

The White House insisted it was unable to act until now because the administration was being taxed by a sharp increase in unaccompanied young migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras arriving at the southern U.S. border, though any link between the border and the government’s decision on refugees was not immediately clear. Refugee advocates, including Durbin, accused Biden of playing politics.

Biden said Monday it was important to lift the number to show “America’s commitment to protect the most vulnerable, and to stand as a beacon of liberty and refuge to the world.”

It also paves the way for Biden to boost the cap to 125,000 for the 2022 fiscal year that starts in October.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said work is being done to improve U.S. capabilities to process refugees in order to accept as many of them as possible under the new cap. Since the fiscal year began last Oct. 1, just over 2,000 refugees have been resettled in the U.S.

Travel preparations are being made for more than 2,000 refugees who were excluded by Trump’s presidential determination on Oct. 27, 2020.

Refugee resettlement agencies applauded Biden’s action.

“We are absolutely thrilled and relieved for so many refugee families all across the world who look to the U.S. for protection,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, head of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of nine resettlement agencies in the nation. “It has a felt like a rollercoaster ride, but this is one critical step toward rebuilding the program and returning the U.S. to our global humanitarian leadership role.”

Biden has also added more slots for refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central America and ended Trump’s restrictions on resettlements from Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Some 35,000 refugees have been cleared to go to the United States, and 100,000 remain in the pipeline. Resettlement agencies that closed more than 100 offices during the Trump administration said the cap needed to be raised to unleash resources.

“The way you rebuild capacity is by setting ambitious commitments that signal to domestic and international stakeholders that U.S. leadership is back,” said Nazanin Ash of the International Rescue Committee.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will unveil a series of executive actions aimed at addressing gun violence on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the plans, delivering his first major action on gun control since taking office.

He’s also expected to nominate David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords, to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Chipman’s nomination is expected to be announced Thursday. The people could not discuss the matter publicly ahead of an official announcement and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity. If confirmed, Chipman would be the agency’s first permanent director since 2015.

Biden has faced increasing pressure to act on gun control after a spate of mass shootings across the U.S. in recent weeks, but the White House has repeatedly emphasized the need for legislative action on guns. While the House passed a background-check bill last month, gun control measures face slim prospects in an evenly-divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals.

Biden is expected to announce tighter regulations requiring buyers of so-called “ghost guns” to undergo background checks. The homemade firearms — often assembled from parts and milled with a metal-cutting machine — often lack serial numbers used to trace them. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop and there is no federal requirement for a background check.

The president’s plans were previewed by a person familiar with the expected actions who was not authorized to publicly discuss them. Biden will be joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland at the event.

The ATF is currently run by Acting Director Regina Lombardo. Gun-control advocates have emphasized the significance of the ATF director in enforcing the nation’s gun laws, and Chipman is certain to win praise from them. During his time as a senior policy adviser with Giffords, he spent considerable effort pushing for greater regulation and enforcement on “ghost guns,” reforms of the background check system and measures to reduce the trafficking of illegal firearms.

Prior to that, Chipman spent 25 years as an agent at the ATF, where he worked on stopping a trafficking ring that sent illegal firearms from Virginia to New York, and served on the ATF’s SWAT team. Chipman is a gun owner himself.

Chipman and a White House spokesman both declined to comment.

During his campaign, Biden promised to prioritize new gun control measures as president, including enacting universal background check legislation, banning online sales of firearms and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But gun-control advocates have said that while they were heartened by signs from the White House that they took the issue seriously, they’ve been disappointed by the lack of early action.

Biden himself expressed uncertainty late last month when asked if he had the political capital to pass new gun control proposals, telling reporters, “I haven’t done any counting yet.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month, however, that executive actions on guns were coming as well, calling them “one of the levers that we can use” to address gun violence.

For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes and in recent years have been turning up more and more when federal agents are purchasing guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.

It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don’t even contact the federal government about the guns because they can’t be traced.

Some states, like California, have enacted laws in recent years to require serial numbers be stamped on ghost guns.

The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80-percent receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.

A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 who had been prohibited from owning firearms built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.

Plans for Biden’s announcement Thursday were first reported by Politico.

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SAN DIEGO (AP) — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday during a visit to El Paso, Texas, that, “It’s more than a crisis. This is human heartbreak.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday called the wave of migrants a difficult challenge but nothing new.

Spin and semantics aside, migration flows to the U.S. from Mexico are surging in a major way for the third time in seven years under Republican and Democratic presidents — and for similar reasons.

HOW HAVE FLOWS CHANGED SINCE JOE BIDEN BECAME PRESIDENT?

Border encounters — a widely-used but imperfect gauge that tells how many times U.S. authorities came across migrants — rose sharply during Donald Trump’s final months as president, from an unusually low 17,106 last April to 74,108 in December. Last month, encounters topped 100,000 for the first time since a four-month streak in 2019.

That’s only part of the picture, though. Who’s crossing is just as important a gauge as how many are making the attempt, if not even more.

Mexican adults fueled last year’s rise, a throwback to one of the largest immigration waves in U.S. history, from 1965 through the Great Recession of 2008. Last March, the Trump administration introduced pandemic-related powers to immediately expel people from the United States without an opportunity to seek asylum. Facing no consequences, Mexican men kept trying until they made it.

The percentage of encounters that were repeat crossers hit 38% in January, compared to a 7% rate in the 12-month period that ended in September 2019. The recidivism rate was 48% among Mexican adults during one two-week stretch last year in San Diego.

Families and children traveling alone, who enjoy more legal protections and require greater care, became a bigger part of the mix after Biden took office. They accounted for 29% of all encounters in February, up from 13% two months earlier.

The Border Patrol encountered 561 unaccompanied children on Monday, up from an average daily peak of 370 during Trump’s presidency in May 2019 and 354 during a peak in Barack Obama’s presidency in June 2014. A U.S. official provided Monday’s total to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because it was not intended for public release. The daily average was 332 in February, up 60% from a month earlier.

WHY ARE FAMILIES AND CHILDREN SUDDENLY COMING NOW?

Trump, responding to a massive increase in Central American families and children that peaked in May 2019, expanded his “Migrant Protection Protocols” policy to force asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. It was unquestionably effective at deterring asylum — less than 1% have won their cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse — but asylum-seekers were exposed to violence in Mexico, as documented by advocacy group Human Rights First and others. Attorneys were extremely difficult to find in Mexico.

Other Trump-era policies included fast-track asylum proceedings inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding facilities, where access to attorneys was next to impossible. Agreements were struck with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for the U.S. to send asylum-seekers to the Central American countries with an opportunity to seek protection there instead.

Biden quickly jettisoned those Trump policies as cruel and inhumane, making good on campaign promises. He has kept in place Trump’s pandemic-related expulsion powers but exempted children traveling alone.

Biden wants Congress to give $4 billion to address root causes of migration in Central America such as poverty and violence, which have driven people to the U.S. for decades, including a surge of children in 2014.

WHAT IS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DOING?

In addition to ending Trump policies and seeking foreign aid, the Biden administration wants to speed the release of children to parents, relatives and others in the United States, avoiding detention conditions that drew widespread criticism during surges in 2014 and 2019.

The administration was scheduled to begin processing unaccompanied children as early as Wednesday at the Dallas Convention Center, days after establishing a makeshift facility in Midland, Texas. The U.S. official who spoke to the AP said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was looking at additional holding facilities at Moffett Federal Airfield, near San Francisco, and in Pecos, Texas, as well as expanding into Donna, Texas, in a joint effort with Customs and Border Protection.

Nearly 1,900 of about 2,500 unaccompanied children in custody in the Rio Grande Valley on Monday were there longer than the 72-hour limit established in agency policy, the official said.

About seven of every 10 encounters in February resulted in expulsion under pandemic powers, limiting need for detention space. Mexican and Central American adults and families were sent back to Mexico. Mexican authorities have resisted taking back Central American families from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, prompting U.S. authorities to fly them to El Paso, Texas, and San Diego to be expelled.

Others picked up at the border may be released in the United States with notices to appear in immigration court.

The Biden administration is also stepping up efforts to have children apply for asylum from their homes in Central America instead of making the dangerous journey to the U.S. border.

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