Voice of America’s immigration news

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

SYDNEY — Australia said it will spend $23 million to support policing in East Timor, boosting disaster response and technology capabilities in the small Southeast Asian neighbor that recently upgraded ties with China. Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy arrived in East Timor on Monday and met with Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão. "Australia is committed to working with Timor-Leste to deliver skilled and professional policing services that contribute to a stable and secure Timor-Leste," Conroy said in a statement. Australia will provide the $23 million to continue a policing partnership between the two nations that began 20 years earlier, he added. East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta said in September a strategic partnership signed by Gusmão with China would boost Chinese investment and infrastructure, but did not extend to military cooperation, and Australia remained its top security partner. Australia is concerned at China's efforts to increase security and policing ties in the Pacific region, after Beijing struck a security pact with Solomon Islands. East Timor is a developing nation around 700 kilometers northwest of Australia. China's ambassador to Australia said this month Beijing has a strategy to help Pacific Island nations with policing, not defense, and its growing presence in the region should not alarm Australia. Conroy will travel on Tuesday to Nauru, which switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing earlier this month.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court on Monday ordered the liquidation of property giant China Evergrande Group, a move likely to send ripples through China's crumbling financial markets as policymakers scramble to contain a deepening crisis. The decision to liquidate the world's most indebted developer with more than $300 billion of total liabilities was made by Hong Kong Justice Linda Chan, who noted Evergrande had been unable to offer a concrete restructuring plan despite months of delays. "It is time for the court to say enough is enough," she said. It is expected a provisional liquidator will be appointed to oversee Evergrande ahead of a permanent appointment. Evergrande, which has $240 billion of assets, sent a struggling property sector into a tailspin when it defaulted on its debt in 2021 and the liquidation ruling will likely further jolt already fragile Chinese capital and property markets. Beijing is grappling with an underperforming economy, its worst property market in nine years and a stock market wallowing near five-year lows, so any fresh hit to markets could further undermine policymakers' efforts to rejuvenate growth. "Evergrande's liquidation is a sign that China is willing to go to extreme ends to quell the property bubble," said Andrew Collier, Orient Capital Research managing director. "This is good for the economy in the long term but very difficult in the short term." Evergrande's shares were trading down as much as 20% before the hearing. Trading was halted in China Evergrande and its listed subsidiaries China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group and Evergrande Property Services after the verdict.   Complicated process Evergrande applied for another adjournment on Monday as its lawyer said it had made "some progress" on the restructuring proposal. In the latest offer, the developer proposed creditors swap their debts into all the shares the company holds in its two Hong Kong units, compared to stakes of about 30% in the subsidiaries ahead of the last hearing in December. The liquidation process could be complicated, with potential political considerations, given the many authorities involved. But it is expected to have little impact on the company's operations including home construction projects in the near term, as it could take months or years for the offshore liquidator appointed by the creditors to take control of subsidiaries across mainland China - a different jurisdiction from Hong Kong. Ahead of the Evergrande decision, China's Supreme Court and Hong Kong's Department of Justice said they signed an arrangement on the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial cases effective immediately in both places. Evergrande had been working on a $23 billion debt revamp plan with a group of creditors known as the ad hoc bondholder group for almost two years. Its original plan was scuppered in late September when Evergrande said its billionaire founder Hui Ka Yan was under investigation for suspected crimes. The liquidation petition was first filed in June 2022 by Top Shine, an investor in Evergrande unit Fangchebao which said the developer had failed to honor an agreement to repurchase shares it had bought in the subsidiary. The proceedings had been adjourned multiple times and Justice Chan had said previously the December hearing would be the last before a decision was made whether to liquidate Evergrande in the absence of a "concrete" restructuring plan. Before Monday, at least three Chinese developers have been ordered by a Hong Kong court to liquidate since the current debt crisis unfolded in mid-2021.  

TOKYO — Japan's moon lander has resumed operations, the space agency said on Monday, indicating that power had been restored. After it landed on Jan. 20, JAXA had said that problems with the craft's solar batteries meant they were not generating power. "Last evening we succeeded in establishing communication with SLIM, and resumed operations," JAXA said on X, formerly Twitter. "We immediately started scientific observations with MBC and have successfully obtained first light for 10-band observation," it said, referring to the lander's multiband spectroscopic camera. The agency posted on X an image shot by the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) of "toy poodle," a rock observed near the lander. The touchdown made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India. But around three hours after landing, JAXA decided to switch SLIM off with 12% power remaining to allow for a possible resumption when the sun's angle changed. The lander achieved its goal of landing within 100 meters of its target, touching down 55 meters away. That is much more precise than the usual landing zone range that experts put at several kilometers. SLIM was aiming for a crater where the moon's mantle, the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust, is believed to be exposed on the surface. Two probes detached successfully, JAXA said — one with a transmitter and another designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth. This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly bigger than a tennis ball, was co-developed by the firm behind the Transformer toys. Russia, China and other countries from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates are also trying to reach the moon. U.S. firm Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander began leaking fuel after takeoff this month, dooming its mission. Then contact with the spaceship was lost over a remote area of the South Pacific after it likely burned up in the Earth's atmosphere on its return.    NASA has also postponed plans for crewed lunar missions under its Artemis program.    Two previous Japanese lunar missions, one public and one private, have failed.    In 2022, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the United States' Artemis 1 mission.    In April, Japanese startup ispace tried in vain to become the first private company to land on the moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a "hard landing.”

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Three U.S. soliders were killed during a drone attack by an Iran-backed group near the Jordan border. U.S. President Joe Biden says the U.S. will respond. Ukraine says it has uncovered massive military corruption. And using AI to give people who lost their voice a way to speak again.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti — Haiti's government said Sunday it remains hopeful for a "swift and positive outcome," after a Kenyan court ruled against Nairobi's plan to deploy police officers to support the troubled island nation's security forces. The ruling on Friday has thrown into doubt the future of a U.N.-backed multinational force long sought by Haiti's government, which has pleaded for international help to confront its spiraling security crisis. Kenya's government had previously said it was ready to provide up to 1,000 personnel, an offer welcomed by the United States and other nations that had ruled out putting their own forces on the ground. The government of Haiti said in a statement Sunday that it was "following developments in Kenya and expects a swift and positive outcome." It added that it would "like to thank the many countries that have come forward to offer various types of aid to restore order and security as soon as possible." The Kenyan government has vowed to challenge the high court ruling. Kenyan President William Ruto has described his country's undertaking as a "mission for humanity," in step with its long record of contributing to peacekeeping missions abroad. The Western hemisphere's poorest nation, Haiti has been in turmoil for years, with armed gangs taking over parts of the country and unleashing brutal violence, leaving the economy and public health system in tatters. The 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise plunged the country further into chaos. No elections have taken place since 2016 and the presidency remains vacant. The multinational mission — initially approved for one year — had envisioned Kenyan police on the offensive with their Haitian counterparts, who are outnumbered and outgunned by gang members. The U.N. Security Council approved the mission in early October. In the statement, Haiti urged its citizens "to remain calm, to support our security forces and not to allow themselves to be intimidated by disinformation campaigns and threats of violence."

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

CHICAGO — Former President Donald Trump should be removed from Illinois' primary ballot, but the decision should be left to the courts, a retired judge recommended Sunday to the state's election board, arguing that it was clear Trump engaged in insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Illinois State Board of Elections is expected to consider the recommendation Tuesday. Attorneys for Trump and citizens seeking to keep the Republican former president off the ballot presented their arguments Friday before the hearing officer, Clark Erickson. The retired longtime Kankakee County judge is a Republican. The Illinois effort to keep Trump off the March ballot is similar to those filed in several other states. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in a historic Colorado Supreme Court ruling to remove Trump from that state’s ballot. The case presents the high court with its first look at a provision of the 14th Amendment barring some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office. Erickson’s 21-page recommendation concluded that a “preponderance of the evidence” presented proves that Trump engaged in insurrection. But he said the election board can't engage in the “significant and sophisticated constitutional analysis” required to remove Trump’s name before the March 19 primary. “All in all, attempting to resolve a constitutional issue within the expedited schedule of an election board hearing is somewhat akin to scheduling a two-minute round between heavyweight boxers in a telephone booth,” he wrote. Still, Erickson noted that even if the board disagrees with his reasoning, Trump's name should be removed from the Illinois primary ballot. The election board is split evenly between four Democrats and four Republicans. Free Speech for People, which is leading the Illinois ballot effort, praised the recommendation from the Republican retired judge as “significant” but argued that Illinois law allows the board to make the ballot decision. “We expect that the board and ultimately Illinois courts will uphold Judge Erickson’s thoughtful analysis of why Trump is disqualified from office, but — with the greatest respect — correct him on why Illinois law authorizes that ruling,” Ron Fein, legal director for the group, wrote in a Sunday statement. Trump's campaign did not immediately return a message left Sunday. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Washington — House Republicans on Sunday released two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as they vowed to swiftly push forward with election-year efforts to oust him over what they call his failure to manage the U.S.-Mexico border. The rare step against a Cabinet member drew outrage from Democrats and the agency as a politically motivated stunt lacking the constitutional basis to remove Mayorkas from office. Republicans contend Mayorkas is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that amount to a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” on immigration and a “breach of the public trust.” Impeachment, they say, is “Congress's only viable option." “Alejandro N. Mayorkas willfully and systemically refused to comply with the immigration laws, failed to control the border to the detriment of national security, compromised public safety, and violated the rule of law and separation of powers in the Constitution, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States," the impeachment resolution says. Only once in American history has a Cabinet secretary been impeached: William Belknap, President Ulysses Grant's war secretary, in 1876, over kickbacks in government contracts. Going after an official for a policy dispute, in this instance over the claim that Mayorkas is not upholding immigration laws, is unprecedented. Ever since taking control of the House in 2023, Republicans have pushed to impeach Mayorkas. Sunday’s announcement comes as their other impeachment drive — to impeach Democratic President Joe Biden in relation to his son Hunter's business dealings — has struggled to advance. But Republicans have moved with rapid speed against Mayorkas after a series of hearings in recent weeks. It all comes at a time when border security and immigration are key issues in the 2024 campaign and as Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, is promising to launch the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history if he returns to the White House. The Republican-controlled House Homeland Security Committee is set to vote Tuesday on the articles of impeachment, aiming to send them to the full House for consideration. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has said the House will move forward as soon as possible with a vote after that. Passage requires only a House majority. The Senate would hold a trial, and a two-thirds vote is required for conviction, an exceedingly unlikely outcome in the Democratic-run Senate. The Republican push also comes at a curious time for Mayorkas. Even as the House is taking steps to try to remove him from office, Mayorkas has been engaged in arduous negotiations with senators seeking to reach a bipartisan deal on border policy. He has won praise from senators for his engagement in the process. Democrats have lambasted the impeachment proceedings, calling them a waste of time when lawmakers should be working together to solve the problems. They also say Republicans are part of the problems at the border, with Republicans attacking Mayorkas even as they have failed to give his department the tools it needs to manage the situation. “They don’t want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it. That’s why they have undermined efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions and ignored the facts, legal scholars and experts, and even the Constitution itself in their quest to baselessly impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” the department said in a statement Sunday. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House committee, said the Republican resolution did not have “a shred of evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors — the Constitutional standard for impeachment.”  The two articles mark the culmination of a roughly yearlong examination by Republicans of the secretary's handling of the border and what they describe as a crisis of the administration's own making. Republicans contend that the administration and Mayorkas specifically either got rid of policies in place under Trump that had controlled migration or enacted policies of their own that encouraged migrants from around the world to come to the U.S. illegally via the southern border. They also accused Mayorkas of lying to Congress, pointing to comments about the border being secure or about vetting of Afghans airlifted to the U.S. They cite growing numbers of migrants who have at times overwhelmed the capacity of Customs and Border Protection authorities to care for and process them. Arrests for illegal crossings topped 2 million in each of the U.S. government’s past two budget years. In December, arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high since figures have been released. The backlog of people in immigration court has grown by 1 million over the past budget year. In the articles, Republicans argue that Mayorkas is deliberately violating immigration laws passed by Congress, such as those requiring detention of migrants, and that through his policies, a crisis has arisen at the border. They accuse him of releasing migrants without effective ways to make sure they show up for court or are removed from the country. They cited an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo written by Mayorkas that sets priorities for whom the agency should target for enforcement proceedings as proof that he is letting people stay in the country who don't have the right to do so. They also attacked the administration’s use of the humanitarian parole authority, which allows the DHS secretary to admit certain migrants into the country. Republicans said the Biden administration has essentially created a mass parole program that bypasses Congress. They cited cities such as New York that have struggled with high numbers of migrants, taxing housing and education systems, as proof of the financial costs immigration is taking. Democrats, as well as Mayorkas, have argued that it’s not the administration’s policies that are causing people to attempt to migrate to America but that the movement is part of a global mass migration of people fleeing wars, economic instability and political repression.

Tampa, Florida — Revelers clad in pirate finery packed Tampa's waterfront this weekend as a flotilla of boats arrived for the city's annual Gasparilla Pirate Fest. Led by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, the invading pirates docked to make a final demand for the key to the city. Once ashore, the festivities celebrating their annual invasion included a Saturday afternoon parade through downtown and live music and bead throwing that lasted well into the night. A fixture nearly every year since 1904, the Gasparilla Pirate Fest is named for the mythical pirate Jose Gaspar. There's not much evidence he actually existed, but according to legend he plundered ships and captured hostages in the Gulf of Mexico from the 1780s until around 1821. The colorful account of his supposed life first surfaced in the early 1900s in an advertising brochure for the Gasparilla Inn, which was located south of Tampa in Boca Grande at the end of a rail line and in need of an exciting promotion to lure in guests. Called the “Last of the Buccaneers,” Gaspar's memory lives on in the name of Tampa Bay’s NFL team.

Beirut, Lebanon — A local leader and seven other members of a jihadi militia in southern Syria affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group were killed Sunday in Daraa province, a war monitor said. The cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that was followed by years of war, Daraa province remains unstable despite the return of government forces in 2018 following a reconciliation agreement with rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said "a senior leader" was among the eight killed "in violent clashes between local factions" and the IS-affiliated group. Syria's official news agency SANA reported that "eight terrorists from Daesh were eliminated in the town of Nawa," using the Arabic acronym for IS. The report said the deaths included "the so-called leader of Hauran," which spans over parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. The Observatory, which relies on a vast network of sources in Syria, said the leader was in charge of "strengthening the links between the cells" of the jihadi group in the south of the country. Former rebels in Daraa province who accepted the 2018 deal sponsored by Russia, Damascus' main ally, were able to keep their light weapons. Attacks, some claimed by IS, regularly occur there, as well as armed clashes and assassinations of government supporters, former opposition figures and civilians working for the government. In late 2022 IS confirmed the death of its former leader, killed in Daraa during clashes with local fighters.