Politics
In Ukraine, relief and rejoicing over U.S. aid vote
Ukrainians heaved a collective sigh of relief Sunday after the U.S. House of Representatives approved a long-sought $61 billion in aid, breaking a legislative logjam that had deepened hardships on the war’s front lines, and made it difficult for Ukrainian forces to fend off Russian attacks on civilian neighborhoods and critical infrastructure.
However, with a fresh infusion of aid ready to be rushed in as soon as the Senate approves the measure and President Biden signs the measure into law — both expected to happen by midweek — it may now take some time to determine whether Russian forces’ battlefield momentum of recent months can be reversed, analysts said.
And Ukrainians were braced for at least a short-term redoubling of the near-nightly pummeling of cities and towns across the country with missiles and drones — which in recent weeks was exacerbated by an alarming depletion of Ukrainian air defenses. An angry Russia could try to get in more punishing attacks before more air-defense help arrives, some feared.
“First of all — thank you, thank you,” said Anastasia Chuchin, 36, who was hurrying to catch a train on a rain-soaked morning in the capital, Kyiv. “We’re very grateful for this assistance. But we may still have some really hard days ahead of us.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a statement of appreciation moments after the vote, which occurred late Saturday evening Ukraine time. He thanked by name House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who had been heavily lobbied by Ukraine’s supporters to bring the measure to a vote despite bitter opposition from his party’s far-right flank.
“This is a life-saving decision,” Zelensky said in a Saturday night address to the country in which he expressed gratitude to all those in the United States who, “like us in Ukraine, feel that Russian evil definitely should not prevail.”
Just as important in that initial reaction was what Zelensky did not say. The Ukrainian leader carefully refrained from alluding to Ukrainians’ frustrations over how long it had taken to move the aid measure forward — or to widespread fears here that American assistance might be on the verge of drying up altogether, particularly if former President Trump, the Republican nominee, wins back the White House in November.
In an interview aired Sunday, though, the Ukrainian leader took a starker tone about setbacks directly tied to the fact that “the process stalled for half a year.”
“We had losses …. in men, in equipment,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” particularly citing the deteriorating situation in Ukraine’s Donbas region, its industrial heartland.
“The east was very difficult, and we did lose the initiative,” he acknowledged. “Now we have the chance to stabilize this situation.”
As the political infighting dragged on in Washington, Ukrainian officials expressed particular alarm over the systematic destruction of crucial energy infrastructure, such as a power plant wrecked by missiles outside Kyiv this month. In some parts of the country, the targeting of electricity-generating plants has caused power cuts of a scope and duration comparable to those seen much earlier in the war.
U.S. defense officials have not provided a detailed breakdown of what will be in the first tranche of assistance, but the first order of business will likely be to replenish stores of munitions used by Ukrainian forces along a front line that stretches for hundreds of miles, arcing through the country’s south and east. Field units have reported rationing artillery shells and precision rockets even as Russian troops mount an aggressive push in places like the key eastern town of Chasiv Yar.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was confident the U.S. would be able to resume shipments of equipment by the end of the week.
“This should have happened six months ago,” Warner said of the House vote to approve the aid. “The next best time is now, this week. … If [Ukrainians] don’t have the materiels, they can’t carry this fight to the Russians.”
U.S. and Ukrainian officials said resupply efforts could take place relatively quickly, because of supply chains and logistical networks established early in the more than two-year-old conflict. Some of those could be reactivated within days.
Even so, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, noted that “Ukrainian forces may suffer additional setbacks in the coming weeks” while waiting for the arrival of weaponry that will allow them to stabilize the front lines.
While Russia has not managed any major battlefield breakthroughs since capturing the eastern town of Avdiivka in February, independent military analysts had reported steady incremental advances, amounting to hundreds of square miles of territory, that could have left Ukrainians hard-pressed to contain a concerted Russian push.
With the imminent arrival of aid, though, Ukrainian forces “will likely be able to blunt the current Russian offensive assuming the resumed U.S. assistance arrives promptly,” the institute said.
Russia, predictably, hammered on what has become a key talking point — that U.S. assistance would do little more than prolong a bloody confrontation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also suggested that the main idea behind the package was to funnel money to U.S. weapons manufacturers.
The House vote “will make the United States of America richer, further ruin Ukraine and result in the deaths of even more Ukrainians, the fault of the Kyiv regime,” Peskov said, according to official Russian media.
Some U.S. lawmakers said coming to Ukraine’s aid now had helped avert sending a dangerous signal of U.S. weakness to Moscow.
“If we surrender Ukraine like we did Afghanistan, which was a debacle, will the United States be weaker or stronger?” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“We were running out of time,” McCaul said. “Ukraine was about to fall.”
In the NBC interview, Zelensky said the passage of the bill would send a powerful message to Russia that Washington stands by Kyiv, and that the war would not devolve into “a second Afghanistan.”
“I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine, and we will have a chance for victory,” Zelensky said through an interpreter.
European allies, for their part, had watched the drawn-out aid drama with mounting anxiety and exasperation. But most quickly pivoted to public expressions of optimism and unity.
“Ukraine is using the weapons provided by NATO Allies to destroy Russian combat capabilities. This makes us all safer, in Europe & North America,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg posted on the platform X.
A few, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, could not suppress a slightly sardonic tone even in expressing relief. NATO allies that feel more directly threatened by Russia, including the Baltic states and Poland, have long viewed the conflict with a sense of crisis and urgency, and were at times incredulous as U.S. support appeared to flag.
“Better late than too late,” Tusk wrote crisply on X, referring to the long-delayed House vote. “And I hope it is not too late for Ukraine.”
Many Ukrainians, whose days and nights are punctuated by air alerts that send people scurrying into basement bunkers or taking makeshift shelter behind a “second wall” at home, were eager to make the point that not only their own safety was at stake.
“This is a recognition that helping us in our fight against Russia and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin helps Europe, helps democracy, helps the entire whole world,” Dmytro Laba, a 36-year-old IT specialist in Kyiv, said of the House vote. “Even the United States of America.”
King reported from Kyiv and Wilkinson from Washington.
Politics
U.S. Reveals Once-Secret Support for Ukraine’s Drone Industry
The Biden administration declassified one last piece of information about how it has helped Ukraine: an account of its once-secret support for the country’s military drone industry.
U.S. officials said on Thursday that they had made big investments that helped Ukraine start and expand its production of drones as it battled Russia’s larger and better-equipped army.
Much of the U.S. assistance to the Ukrainian military, including billions of dollars in missiles, air defense systems, tanks, artillery and training, has been announced to the public. But other support has largely gone on in the shadows.
That included helping Ukraine develop a new generation of drones and revolutionize how wars are fought, according to U.S. officials.
The innovations in Ukraine’s drone industry have been hailed as transformative, but the U.S. support has been less well understood. In addition to technical support, the U.S. has spent significant money, including $1.5 billion sent last September, to boost Ukraine’s drone production, officials said.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said the support had “a real strategic impact” on the war.
“We saw how UAVs were becoming increasingly central to the fight in Ukraine and will be central to all future fights,” Mr. Sullivan said in a statement on Thursday, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles.
The U.S. effort included money to support drone makers and to purchase parts. The United States also sent intelligence officials to Ukraine to help build its program, according to people who know about the effort.
In an interview this week, the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, referred indirectly to his agency’s support for the drone program in Ukraine.
“I think our intelligence support has helped the Ukrainians to defend themselves,” Mr. Burns said. “Not just in the sharing of intelligence, but support for some of the systems that have been so effective.”
The White House declassified information about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine ahead of the invasion. During the war, officials have regularly declassified information about Iranian and North Korean arms shipments to Russia.
Mr. Sullivan said the drone effort began after the Ukrainians’ first counteroffensive in the fall of 2022 as the limits of Ukraine’s conventional capabilities became clear.
The efforts accelerated, Mr. Sullivan said, in the preparation for Ukraine’s second counteroffensive. That push, in 2023, was ultimately less successful. Ukraine did not gain as much ground as it had wanted, in part because of Russia’s use of drones.
That 2023 counteroffensive was a hard lesson, U.S. officials said. Russian drones attacked U.S.- and European-provided tanks and armored vehicles as they tried to navigate minefields.
After the counteroffensive, U.S. officials said they rapidly increased support to Ukrainian drone makers, building on Kyiv’s efforts to grow its own industry. In addition to financial aid, the Biden administration worked to build ties between American technology companies and Ukrainian drone makers.
Last fall, the Pentagon allocated $800 million to Ukraine’s drone production, which was used to purchase drone components and finance drone makers. When President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the White House in September, President Biden said another $1.5 billion would be directed to Ukraine’s drone industry.
American officials said on Thursday that they believe the investments have made Ukraine’s drones more effective and deadly. They noted that Ukraine’s sea drones had destroyed a quarter of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and that drones deployed on the front lines had helped slow Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine.
Mr. Sullivan said the drive to build Ukraine’s drone industry had provided “invaluable lessons” that the Biden administration had started to integrate into America’s own defense industry.
Politics
DeSantis' chosen Rubio replacement Moody wants to tackle inflation, spending, border: 'Audit the Fed!'
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who is slated to become a U.S. senator, is calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve, pledging to vocally oppose government spending, and declaring that she will fight to bolster the border and remove individuals who enter the U.S. illegally.
With Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., poised to soon leave office to serve as Secretary of State in the new Trump administration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Moody as his pick to replace Rubio in the U.S. Senate.
And with even some Democrats planning to support confirmation, Rubio is likely to sail through the confirmation vote.
“Here’s a priority of mine in the Senate: our inflation has been fueled by the Federal Reserve. We must audit the Fed!” Moody declared in a post on X.
DESANTIS ANNOUNCES CHOICE FOR SENATE APPOINTMENT AFTER RUBIO’S EXPECTED RESIGNATION
“As Florida’s next U.S. Senator, I will work tirelessly to reduce the bloat of Washington and speak out loudly against government spending,” she noted in another post. “Like we’ve done in Florida, this country needs to cut spending and get fiscally responsible. I look forward to working with DOGE, and I will work hard to leave the next generation of our country on a much stronger financial footing.”
When discussing her role in confirming judges and justices, she specifically mentioned Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“As a former judge, I will take my role confirming judges and justices seriously to ensure that, like Justices Thomas and Alito, they share the values and concepts of law as our Founding Fathers understood them,” she said in a tweet. “I will work through the Senate confirmation process to ensure those who get confirmed are strong nominees and know that it is their duty to interpret the Constitution as it is written.”
WHO IS ASHLEY MOODY? MEET THE SENATE’S NEWEST MEMBER FROM FLORIDA
Sharing Moody’s post, DeSantis called Alito and Thomas “the gold standard.”
“In the U.S. Senate, I will support President @realDonaldTrump and fight for legislation that strengthens the border, builds the wall, and removes those who entered unlawfully,” Moody noted in a tweet.
DESANTIS TOUTS FLORIDA’S ‘FUTURE WAY OF THINKING,’ VOWS STATE WILL ‘DO OUR DUTY’ TO HELP INCOMING TRUMP ADMIN
DeSantis responded, declaring, “Make Illegal Immigration Illegal Again.”
Politics
Migration across the U.S.-Mexico border, in 5 charts
WASHINGTON — A historic uptick in migration during Joe Biden’s presidency led to attacks as he ran for reelection, with Donald Trump and fellow Republicans blaming Democrats for the swelling number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Now, after campaigning on promises to secure the border and deport undocumented immigrants, President-elect Trump is poised to take office Monday amid a steep drop in border crossings.
Here are five key facts about migration across the U.S.-Mexico border over the last several years.
1. Arrivals at the border are the lowest they’ve been since Trump left office
When Trump left office in January 2021, people were stopped at the southern border more than 78,000 times that month, according to figures from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s compared with roughly 96,000 stops last month. The highest monthly total during the Biden administration was nearly 302,000 in December 2023, and Trump’s highest total was just over 144,000 in May 2019.
These figures include arrivals at land ports of entry, where asylum seekers wait for appointments to enter legally, as well as those caught crossing illegally elsewhere along the border. Figures from November and December showed, for the first time, more migrants being processed through ports of entry than those who were arrested after entering the U.S. illegally.
In June, the Biden administration began effectively blocking migrants from seeking asylum along the U.S. border with Mexico. The restrictions don’t apply to those who enter at official ports of entry or use other legal means.
For parts of last year, San Diego became the top destination for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time in decades. The change reflects how smuggling routes, which used to be consistent for many years, have begun to shift every few months since 2021. That’s in part because of the post-pandemic increase in global migration to the U.S.
The San Diego region saw 10,117 border arrests in December — the second-highest after the Rio Grande Valley in Texas — though that’s down by 70% from a year earlier.
2. There hasn’t been much of an increase in border arrivals ahead of Trump’s inauguration
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration, most regions across the border have seen little change in arrivals of migrants. But Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez of the Rio Grande Valley Sector in south Texas, who posts local arrest numbers on social media every week, reported 1,206 migrant stops over the final weekend of December, and 1,276 the weekend before. That’s double the number in recent weeks of fewer than 600 arrests.
“It is the first quantitative indicator of an increase in migration since the U.S. election, which raised expectations — so far unmet — that many migrants might rush to enter the United States before Election Day,” Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the advocacy organization the Washington Office on Latin America, wrote in a recent newsletter.
That trend appeared to have waned in the new year, with Chavez reporting 669 arrests the weekend that ended Jan. 5 and 699 arrests the weekend that ended Jan. 12.
Isacson noted that in 2016, asylum seekers rushed to enter the U.S. before Trump began his first term. But border policies are different now, with Biden administration rules already preventing most people who enter illegally from qualifying for asylum.
“Their only hope is to not be apprehended,” he said. “Some people might be trying, and if they’re successful they won’t show up in the numbers.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the left-leaning American Immigration Council, said tens of thousands of migrants are waiting in Mexico.
“Today it is harder for migrants to make it to the border and seek asylum than at any point in modern U.S. history,” he said. “Despite this massively increased infrastructure at the border, the U.S. continues to remain, in the eyes of people around the world, a place of safety and security.”
3. The U.S. border used to draw mostly Mexican and Central American migrants. Now people from all over the world flock here
The U.S. has historically drawn migrants from its southern neighbor. Although Mexicans still make up the highest proportion of those seeking entry, arrivals of people from other countries have shot up over time. During Trump’s first term, people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador flocked to the U.S. border due to instability in their home countries.
That started to change around 2019. Throughout Biden’s presidency, greater numbers of people began to arrive from Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia. People also came from farther away — Afghanistan, Ukraine and China.
The San Diego region has what is considered the most international border, drawing people from all over the world.
Chinese migrants in search of jobs and freedom from the repressive government there started arriving in record numbers — increasing from just 949 arrests in fiscal year 2022 to more than 37,000 last fiscal year. Republicans seized on the increase, painting it as a national security issue.
Numbers began to decrease last year after the Biden administration imposed asylum restrictions and Ecuador began requiring Chinese nationals to have a visa to fly there.
4. Immigrant detention has ramped back up since COVID-19 decreases
The government’s operation for detaining people who violate immigration laws has seen wild swings in recent years. During Trump’s first term, the population detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached historic highs of more than 55,000 people.
As COVID-19 spread through lockups, killing detainees, courts ordered some immigrant detention centers to reduce their populations. The detention population reached a low of about 13,000 people in February 2021, the month after Biden took office. (The Adelanto ICE Detention Facility east of Los Angeles has remained under a COVID-era court order that prevented new detainees, dwindling the population of the nearly 2,000-bed facility to just two people.)
As of Dec. 29, more than 39,000 people (most of whom have no criminal record) are being held in civil immigrant detention facilities, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization. That number has remained fairly steady for the last year, generally fluctuating between 35,000 and just under 40,000 since late 2023.
Numbers are widely expected to increase again after Trump takes office, as he works to make good on his promise of mass deportations.
5. Historic arrivals under the Biden administration added to the already enormous backlog in immigration court
Immigrants placed in deportation proceedings can plead their case before an immigration judge. With historic arrivals of migrants under the Biden administration, the immigration court backlog now has more than 3.7 million pending cases, according to TRAC.
Biden inherited an already backlogged immigration court system with 1.3 million cases. When Trump assumed office in 2017, just over 542,000 cases were pending.
In fiscal year 2024, immigration courts closed more than 900,000 cases — the most of any single year. New cases have fallen sharply as fewer immigrants are processed at the border.
Los Angeles County has nearly 115,000 cases, the second-highest after Miami-Dade County. Experts say the backlog can’t be eliminated without funding hundreds more immigration judges and support staff, as well as systemic reforms.
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