Dems Urge Biden To Loosen Sanctions On Communist Cuba, Socialist Venezuela To Mitigate Border Crisis

A group of Democrats in Congress urged President Joe Biden on Wednesday to reverse Trump-era sanctions on communist Cuba and socialist Venezuela.

A letter, spearheaded by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), argued these penalties are “push-factors” fueling a crisis at the southern border ahead of the imminent expiration of the Title 42 policy credited with blocking millions of crossings.

“Experts widely agree that broad-based U.S. sanctions — expanded to an unprecedented level by former President Donald Trump — are a critical contributing factor in the current increase in migration,” the group said.

“In light of their grave humanitarian toll on the peoples of those countries, and the significant logistical challenges that the resulting increase in migration is causing for federal, state, and local authorities, we urge you to act swiftly to lift the failed and indiscriminate economic sanctions that were imposed by the prior administration,” they added.

The Trump administration issued sanctions against Venezuela to punish the “illegitimate” regime led by President Nicolás Maduro, citing an “abuse” of natural resources, and against Cuba to reverse what former President Donald Trump called “the Obama-Biden sellout to the Castro regime.” In the final days of Trump’s administration, the federal government re-designated Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

The letter from House Democrats, which bore the signatures of more than a dozen lawmakers, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), argued the Trump-era sanctions have blasted the economies of Cuba and Venezuela, making such things as food and medicine scarcer.

They recognize that Biden has already lifted some penalties on both countries, but lament how “most of the Trump administration-imposed sanctions remain and continue to exacerbate our challenges at the border.”

Officials from the federal level down to the local level are bracing for a migrant surge as the pandemic-era Title 42, which allows authorities to quickly turn away migrants at the border on public health grounds, is set to expire by the end of Thursday.

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Border agents are already making up to 10,000 apprehensions daily this week, Customs and Border Protection sources told Fox News. The rising numbers has given Republicans more reason to accuse the Biden administration of mismanaging the border situation.

As noted by The Washington Post, the House Democrats’ push to further ease up sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba sets up a clash with Senate Foreign Affairs Chairman Robert Melendez (D-NJ), a major critic of both the governments leading both countries.

Menendez released a joint statement with other Senate Democrats on Thursday that made no mention of Cuba or Venezuela, instead making other suggestions such as imploring Biden to “expand legal pathways for migrants from Central America and help local economies thrive, as well as redesignate Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua for TPS [Temporary Protected Status], and issue TPS designation for Guatemala.”

‘Morning Joe’ Host Whines That Trump Town Hall Was Just As ‘Chilling’ As January 6th

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough unloaded on former President Donald Trump’s CNN town hall event, calling it “bad for democracy, bad for media but even worse for Donald Trump.”

Scarborough recapped his thoughts during Thursday morning’s broadcast of “Morning Joe,” saying that the Wednesday evening town hall was “as chilling as anything I’ve seen on television since January 6th.”

"This isn't Putin's Russia. This is Trump's slice of America. And what I saw last night, at least, was as chilling as anything I've seen on television since January 6th."

@JoeNBC on former President Trump's Wednesday CNN town hall https://t.co/75xmsri5Qf

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) May 11, 2023

Throughout the course of the event, moderated by “CNN This Morning” host and former White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, a combative Trump pushed back on prevailing narratives and complained about the 2020 presidential election – and Scarborough compared Trump’s “slice of America” to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

“The most shocking part was an audience who cheered on a president who tried to overturn American democracy, an audience that mocked and ridiculed the woman who a jury of her peers, Donald Trump’s peers, found had been sexually assaulted,” Scarborough said.

He went on to complain about Trump’s claim that he could put an abrupt end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, arguing that Trump had “basically” said he would surrender Ukraine to Putin without a fight.

“You can go piece by piece by piece to talk about how breathtakingly dangerous what we saw was last night. This virus of lies that’s been loosened on the American people,” Scarborough continued.

“But what we saw tonight was it was a propagandist, and it was a propaganda spewing lies repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over again, and an audience, an American audience lapping it up. This isn’t Putin’s Russia. This is Trump’s slice of America. And what I saw last night, at least, was as chilling as anything I’ve seen on television since January 6th,” he concluded.

But despite the danger he believed was obvious, Scarborough complained that Trump’s campaign would still lap it up and claim a victory “because they’re stupid.”

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“There is, this morning, a lightning bolt going through the American electorate and it’s reminding everybody the stakes of a second Donald Trump presidency,” he said.

"There is, this morning, a lightning bolt going through the American electorate and it's reminding everybody the stakes of a second Donald Trump presidency. Last night was bad for democracy, bad for media but even worse for Donald Trump." —@joenbc pic.twitter.com/PhETF21vmj

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) May 11, 2023

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