Travelers rush to take advantage of China reopening

BEIJING — After years of separation from his wife in mainland China, Hong Kong resident Cheung Seng-bun made sure to be among the first in line following the reopening Sunday of border crossing points.

The ability of residents of the semi-autonomous southern Chinese city to cross over is one of the most visible signs of China’s easing of border restrictions imposed almost three years ago, with travelers arriving from abroad no longer required to undergo expensive and time-consuming quarantines.

That comes even as the virus continues to spread in China amid what critics say is a lack of transparency from Beijing.

“I’m hurrying to get back to her,” Cheung, lugging a heavy suitcase, told The Associated Press as he prepared to cross at Lok Ma Chau station, which was steadily filling with eager travelers.

Those crossing between Hong Kong and mainland China, however, are still required to show a negative Covid-19 test taken within the last 48 hours — a measure China has protested when imposed by other countries.

Hong Kong has been hit hard by the virus, and its land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years. Despite the risk of new infections, the reopening that will allow tens of thousands of people who have made prior online bookings to cross each day is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Hong Kong’s tourism and retail sectors.

On a visit to the station Sunday morning, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee said the sides would continue to expand the number of crossing points from the current seven to the full 14.

“The goal is to get back as quickly as possible to the pre-epidemic normal life,” Lee told reporters. “We want to get cooperation between the two sides back on track.”

Communist Party newspaper Global Times quoted Tan Luming, a port official in Shenzhen on the border with Hong Kong, saying about 200 passengers were expected to take the ferry to Hong Kong, while another 700 were due to travel in the other direction, on the first day of reopening. Tan said a steady increase in passenger numbers is expected over coming days.

“I stayed up all night and got up at 4 a.m. as I’m so excited to return to the mainland to see my 80-year-old mother,” a Hong Kong woman identified only by her surname, Cheung, said on arrival at Shenzhen, where she was presented with “roses and health kits,” the paper said.

Hong Kong media reports said around 300,000 travel bookings from the city to mainland China have already been made, with a daily quota of 60,000.

Limited ferry service also was restored from China’s Fujian province to the Taiwanese-controlled island of Kinmen just off the Chinese coast.

The border crossing with Russia at Suifenhe in the far northern province of Heilongjiang also resumed normal operations, just in time for the opening of the ice festival in the capital of Harbin, a major tourism draw.

And at Ruili, on the border with Myanmar, normal operations were resumed after 1,012 days of full or partial closure in response to repeated outbreaks blamed partly on visitors from China’s neighbor.

So far, only a fraction of the previous number of international flights are arriving at major Chinese airports.

Beijing’s main Capital International Airport was expecting eight flights from overseas on Sunday. Shanghai, China’s largest city, received its first international flight under the new policy at 6:30 a.m. with only a trickle of others to follow.

Since March 2020, all international passenger flights bound for Beijing have been diverted to designated first points of entry into China. Passengers were required to quarantine up to three weeks.

“I’ve been under isolated quarantine for six times in different cities (in mainland China),” said Ivan Tang, a Hong Kong business traveler. “They were not easy experiences.”

Ming Guanghe, a Chinese living in Singapore, said it had been difficult both to book a ticket and find somewhere to take a PCR test. Quarantine measures and uncertainty about outbreaks had kept him away from home, Ming said.

Shanghai announced it would again start issuing regular passports to Chinese for foreign travel and family visits, as well as renewing and extending visas for foreigners. Those restrictions have had a particularly devastating effect on foreign businesspeople and students in the key Asian financial center.

China is now facing a surge in cases and hospitalizations in major cities and is bracing for a further spread into less developed areas with the start of its most important holiday, the Lunar New Year, in coming days.

Authorities say they expect domestic rail and air journeys will double over the same period last year, bringing overall numbers close to those of the 2019 holiday period before the pandemic hit.

Meanwhile, more foreign governments are imposing testing requirements on travelers from China — most recently Germany, Sweden and Portugal. On Saturday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged citizens to avoid “unnecessary” travel to China, noting the rise in coronavirus cases and China’s “overburdened” health system.

The German regulation also allows for spot checks on arrival. Germany, like other European nations, will test wastewater from aircrafts for possible new virus variants. The measures come into force at midnight Monday and are due to last until April 7.

Apparently concerned about its reputation, China says the testing requirements aren’t science-based and has threatened unspecified countermeasures.

Chinese health authorities publish a daily count of new infections, severe cases and fatalities, but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and use a very narrow definition of Covid-19-related deaths.

The National Health Commission on Sunday reported 7,072 new confirmed cases of local transmission and two new deaths — even as individual provinces were reporting as many as 1 million cases per day.

Authorities say that since the government ended compulsory testing and permitted people with mild symptoms to test themselves and convalesce at home, it can no longer provide a full picture of the outbreak. China’s vulnerabilities are increased by the population’s general lack of exposure to the virus and a relatively low vaccination rate among the elderly.

Government spokespeople insist the situation is under control and reject accusations from the World Health Organization and others that they’re not being transparent about the outbreak that could lead to the emergence of new variants.

The Health Commission on Saturday rolled out regulations for strengthened monitoring of viral mutations, including testing of urban wastewater. The rules called for increased data gathering from hospitals and local government health departments and stepped-up checks on “pneumonia of unknown causes.”

Criticism has largely focused on heavy-handed enforcement of regulations, including open-ended travel restrictions that saw people confined to their homes for weeks, sometimes sealed inside without adequate food or medical care.

Anger was also vented over the requirement that anyone who potentially tested positive or had been in contact with such a person be confined for observation in a field hospital, where overcrowding, poor food and hygiene were commonly cited.

The social and economic costs eventually prompted rare street protests in Beijing and other cities, possibly influencing the Communist Party’s decision to swiftly ease the strictest measures.

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German police arrest Iranian man suspected of planning chemical terror attack

The man is suspected of procuring cyanide and ricin for an assault inspired by Islamic extremism, German police said.

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What History Tells Us About Kevin McCarthy’s Chances

This week’s meltdown in the House of Representatives, which has failed six times in two days to elect a new speaker, is rare, but it isn’t unprecedented. In the 19th century, contested elections for speaker often lasted days, and on one occasion, months, owing to extreme political volatility and party realignment in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Civil War.

But it’s been 100 years since a speaker’s election has gone to more than one ballot. In 1923, it took four days and nine ballots and considerable backroom horse trading before incumbent House Speaker Frederick Gillett, a Republican from Massachusetts, secured enough votes to retain leadership of the House.

The parallels between then and now are striking. As is the case today, Republicans in 1923 enjoyed narrow control of the House — 225 members, a majority of just seven. The caucus was also deeply divided, as it is today. And Gillett, though a two-term speaker and the nominal leader of his caucus, was a weak figurehead, incapable of containing internal discord and reeling in a restive progressive wing. It ultimately took a strong leader in Rep. Nicholas Longworth of Ohio to hammer out an agreement with progressive insurgents. (Unfortunately for the rebels, Longworth subsequently betrayed their trust and swung power to conservative Republicans in the decade that followed.)

Then as now, the speaker’s contest was as much about internal House politics — procedural power and legislative prerogative — as it was about ideology. It took a strong and dexterous leader to get done what a mere figurehead couldn’t accomplish on his own.

The real question, as we head into another round of balloting, is: Who in the new Republican caucus will emerge as a modern-day Nick Longworth and show the rebels an offramp, while restoring some semblance of order within the Republican caucus?

The roots of the problem stretched back to 1903, when GOP Rep. Joe Cannon of Illinois ascended to the speakership. Though Canon struck a big-tent posture — “I believe in consultin’ the boys, findin’ out what most of ‘em want, and then goin’ ahead and doin’ it,” he said — in reality, “Uncle Joe” ruled the House with an iron fist. “His delivery was slashing, sledge-hammery, full of fire and fury,” a reporter for the New York Times informed readers. Under Cannon’s leadership, a small number of conservative Republican committee chairs — as well as the Rules Committee, hand-picked by the speaker and armed with the authority to set terms of debate — dictated everything from process to legislation. When one constituent wrote to his congressman, asking for a copy of the House rules, the member simply mailed back a photograph of Speaker Cannon.

A stalwart conservative who deeply opposed his party’s rising progressive wing, Cannon, the former chairman of the Appropriations Committee, once famously quipped, “You may think my business is to make appropriations, but it is not. It is to prevent their being made.” From his powerful perch in the Capitol, he stymied President Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive domestic agenda, effectively killing bills to institute inheritance and income taxes, workers’ compensation, and an eight-hour workday. He once went so far as to lock the doors of the House chamber to block delivery of a presidential message.

Republicans lost control of the House in 1910 and would not gain it back until 1918. When they did, progressive members of the caucus — and even some conservatives who remembered Cannon’s dictatorial hold on Congress — were eager to ensure that the next speaker would democratize the House and allow individual members greater input over what went into a bill and what bills went to the floor for a vote. The contest for speaker came down to Gillett, whom the progressives deemed an acceptable compromise, and caucus leader James Mann of Illinois, a close ally of Cannon. When it emerged that powerful meatpacking companies had showered Mann with financial “goodies” in return for his continued opposition to health and safety legislation, the caucus swung its support behind Gillett, who in 1919 became speaker.

But Gillett was just a figurehead. Cannon’s “old guard” held enough power to create a “Committee of Committees” that empowered committee chairmen to choose the majority leader and majority whip and to appoint members of standing committees. The new super-committee immediately appointed Mann as majority leader, and for the next four years, the conservatives ruled the House, with Gillett as speaker in name only.

That was the situation in early 1923. The prior November, Republicans lost 77 seats, whittling their once-mighty majority down to seven. Progressives now held enough seats to demand meaningful reforms, and they did. Though Gillett was technically one of their own, reform-minded members of the caucus refused to reorganize the House until they wrested meaningful concessions from Mann and his rearguard colleagues.

Enter Nick Longworth.

Longworth occupied an unusual position. Though ideologically aligned with the party’s conservative wing, in 1906, as a junior congressman, he married Alice Roosevelt — TR’s daughter — in a White House ceremony. Through association with his famous father-in-law, as well as his marriage to Alice, who was then an outspoken progressive, Longworth enjoyed the confidence of most factions within the GOP House caucus. (Few people knew that his opposition to progressive policies caused a major rift between Nick and Alice; so did her longstanding affair with progressive Senator William Borah.) Though a conservative, Longworth joined progressives in 1918 in championing a procedural democratization of House rules and was dismayed when Mann and his allies thwarted these attempts.

Both sides trusted Longworth, a convivial and consultative figure, and he was elected majority leader in 1922. It fell to him to hammer out a compromise. Ultimately, he persuaded a sufficient number of renegades that if they lined up behind Gillett, the House would maintain its current rules for 30 days, while a committee studied the progressives’ procedural demands. While there was no guarantee that the House would adopt them, Longworth assured the progressives a series of up-or-down votes on the floor.

“We are pleased to see that Mr. Longworth now concedes the necessity for such a revision,” the breakaway faction declared in a statement. The next day, they threw their votes to Gillett, who won a third term as speaker. One newspaper observed that “Mr. Longworth has distinguished himself by conducting a superb strategic retreat.”

And a strategic retreat it was. Though Longworth disapproved of the progressives’ proposals, he was true to his word and permitted the House to vote on them. The progressives won key procedural reforms, including a discharge petition process by which a supermajority of members could bypass conservative committee chairmen and move legislation directly to the floor.

Nevertheless, when Longworth himself became speaker in 1925, he punished members who had broken with their party and supported a third-party progressive candidate for president the year before — stripping them of committee assignments and consigning even senior congressmen to the back benches. He used his authority to kill liberal legislation and generally sided with the old guard.

Longworth’s genius was that he was no Joe Cannon. He assiduously cultivated friendships with individual members and even developed a warm relationship with the Democratic minority. He was effective because he excelled at relationships.

The differences between 1923 and 2023 are clear. Then, the renegade members were progressives who supported an expanded role for the federal government in promoting the health, safety and welfare of American citizens. Today, the renegades are ultra-conservatives who aspire to burn the government down to the ground.

But the fight over procedure — over who gets to run the House, and how — is much the same. As in 1923, today’s rebels want to weaken both the speakership and the party’s governing structure and transfer power to individual members.

The question is: Is there a latter-day version of Nick Longworth — an establishment Republican with sufficient good will and political dexterity to negotiate a superb strategic retreat? Can that person dangle a shiny keychain in front of the renegades, but then reclaim power and prerogative for the establishment? Maybe that figure is Steve Scalise, or Elise Stefanik. Perhaps even Jim Jordan.

We’ll soon know the answer.

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NYC, Chicago mayors urge Colorado governor to stop sending asylum seekers to their cities

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded Saturday that Colorado Gov. Jared Polis stop busing asylum seekers to their cities, saying they are "over capacity."

"We respectfully demand that you cease and desist sending migrants to New York City and Chicago," Adams and Lightfoot wrote in a letter to Polis. "Since December of 2022, Chicago and New York City have received hundreds of individuals from Colorado."

Since Aug. 31, Chicago has seen 3,854 asylum seekers arrive from Texas and other states including Colorado, according to the letter. New York City has seen 36,400 asylum seekers arrive as of Jan. 4, the letter states.

The two mayors wrote that they wanted to work with Polis in pressing the federal government for a national solution.

"You must stop busing migrants to Chicago and New York City," the mayors wrote. "In the case of family reunification, let us work together to ensure that people are reconnected with their loved ones, however sending migrants to our cities whose systems are over capacity, where they may struggle to find shelter and other services is wrong and further victimizes these most vulnerable individuals."

The letter comes days after Adams laced into the federal government and Polisover the number of asylum seekers arriving in the city.

Polis told POLITICO in an earlier interview that around 70 percent of migrants arriving in Denver have final destinations elsewhere in the country, including New York, and that his office was working with Denver officials to help them on their way.

The influx of asylum seekers crossing the southern border intensified toward the end of the year as a Trump-era policy known as Title 42 was expected to expire. The Supreme Court, however, blocked that expiration in a ruling last week.

"It is apparent that the influx of asylum seekers has provoked consternation amongst states. Although we share the concerns of accommodating the flood of asylum seekers, overburdening other cities is not the solution," the mayors said.

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The Shakespearean Tragedy of Kevin McCarthy, Prince of Washington

To be or not to be Speaker of the House. To be it today, or tomorrow night, or next week, or not at all.

That was doubtless the question gnawing at Kevin McCarthy’s mind this week as the Republican Party he worked so hard to woo denied him the speaker’s chair he believed he’d earned again and again and again. For eight terms, he’d waited, dutifully crafting a script that would allow him to seize power over the lower chamber, only for a rebellious band of Republicans to conveniently forget the lines he’d asked them to memorize. The performance turned chaotic, humiliating, positively Elizabethan.

And that was just Act One.

So often in the universe of official Washington’s backroom deals and slippery allegiances, fair is foul, and foul is fair. But the intraparty drama that unfolded here this week was near without precedent in modern history: A speaker election had not stretched on for this many ballots since 1859, when the nation careened into a civil war. To make sense of the nonsensical, Washington’s chattering class — not to mention the thousands of Americans who turned to C-SPAN to follow the tragedy on the Hill — found themselves falling back on William Shakespeare’s timeless works.

“If I were McCarthy,” tweeted Robin Young, the co-host of NPR’s “Here and Now,” “I’d check my tea for hemlock,” a reference to the poisonous herb used to make the witch’s brew that sets in motion Macbeth’s tragic downfall. Added Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: “Macbeth must kill and keep killing to slake his ambition. McCarthy must concede and concede even more to slake his own.”

Like the Scottish protagonist, McCarthy’s preferred method of consolidating power was to keep the characters in his caucus happy. He did that by bowing to the pressures of its most boisterous members, even if their demands weren’t exactly in the best interest of the party — or the country.

Other Shakespearean parallels abound. Although Young and Marcus opted for Macbeth, it was also hard not to think of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s recounting of the most famous betrayal of all time.

We watched as the same 20 legislators (later down to six and then just one) stabbed a stoic McCarthy on the House floor, consumed by the belief that a protracted, four-day vote was the only possible way to prevent the 57-year-old GOP leader from becoming a tyrant.

We wondered whether a trusted right-hand man like Steve Scalise would suddenly provide a made-for-theater “et tu, Brute?” moment, announcing his own bid for the speakership. (Jim Jordan of Ohio did sing McCarthy’s praises as he nominated him for speaker on the second ballot, only to become a contender for the gavel when Matt Gaetz nominated him in short order.)

Then there was the comic relief — much like the tension breaker in Julius Caesar — of Democrats bringing out the popcorn machine as the hours and days yawned on. As they lugged popcorn bags through the halls of Congress, they reminded the audience of that play’s punny cobbler, that “mender of bad soles.”

It may be an exercise in futility to attempt to find a one-to-one comparison between real life and the page. No one Shakespearean play can best capture the bedlam of this week. There is a bit of the Bard in all of it.

Shakespeare’s works may be most instructive because of his tragic heroes, figures possessed by naked ambition who, by the final act, have fallen from grace in more ways than one. Is McCarthy King Lear, who trusted the empty words of those who quickly turned their backs on him, eventually leading to his untimely and lonely demise? Is he instead Hamlet, staring into the eyes of a skull at arm’s length, trying to avenge the ghost of Donald Trump? Or do we return to Macbeth, the ambitious and charismatic court insider who couldn’t see the daggers in men’s smiles?

Amid all these theatrics, it’s easy to forget that offstage, the House’s failure to elect a leader has real-life consequences. On it depends the swearing in of all 435 members of the House (without whom there is indeed no House of Representatives), the sharing of intelligence information between the White House and the speaker (who’d become president if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were incapacitated) and the steady flow of casework that Hill staffers manage for everyday constituents. No bills passed by the local D.C. Council can become law. “The rest of the world is looking” to see if we can “get our act together,” Biden told reporters, calling the saga “embarrassing.”

But if Shakespeare’s hard-to-decipher iambic pentameter has endured for more than 400 years, it’s also because his words reckon with the one constant that has bedeviled humanity at every turn of history: power.

And it was power that McCarthy wanted and power that a tenth of the House GOP caucus wanted to wrest from him. The 20 mutineers, who included some members of the Tea Party movement along with obstreperous newcomers, put forth very little discussion of policy issues, homing in on securing procedural maneuvers instead. Among the reported concessions: the rabble-rousers could trigger a no-confidence vote to dethrone McCarthy with the say-so of only one Republican; debt-ceiling hikes would have to be paired with austerity measures; and arch-conservatives would be guaranteed three seats on the powerful House Rules Committee. The compromises mean that McCarthy will begin his term having drunk from a poisoned chalice.

As Henry IV knew, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown — or in this case, the hand that holds the gavel.

Going into Jan. 3, when Congress was supposed to have resumed the business of governing, lengthy profiles of Kevin McCarthy in the national press variously described him as “outgoing and personable,” “affable” and broadcasting a “sunny disposition.” Equally well-liked was Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most-reprised protagonists, before he decided to murder King Duncan. These profiles also made the additional point that the 57-year-old former Young Gun would stop at nothing to fulfill his black and deep desires. “Stars,” Macbeth once said as he cowered in shame over his own zealous designs, “hide your fires.” At least that guy was self-aware.

Since McCarthy’s arrival in the House in 2007, his Republican colleagues watched with a certain measure of astonishment as he shape-shifted. He used to be the adult in the room — someone who was willing to bow out of a race for speaker back in 2015 when it became clear that he had no path forward. He’d memorize the names of his colleagues’ children, ever the deft salesman. And he was a deal-maker who enjoyed a healthy flirt with the other side just enough to earn him the praise of some California Democrats.

Then came Trump, and McCarthy opted to travel a less bipartisan road on the way to the speaker’s gavel, courting the more boisterous, reactionary elements within his party instead. Soon enough, Trump was calling him “my Kevin” and presenting him with only the best Starburst candy Air Force One had to offer. After Trump voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, McCarthy privately wanted him to resign, reportedly telling other Republican leaders, “I’ve had it with this guy.” On Jan. 28, though, he visited Mar-a-Lago to make amends. And he continued that dance last February, too, when he endorsed Harriet Hageman, Liz Cheney’s primary opponent in Wyoming, in a display of fealty to the former president.

The morning of Jan. 3, as the caucus sat in a closed-door meeting that preceded the first ballot, McCarthy grew more and more convinced that he was the rightful heir to the speakership, thundering, “I’ve earned this goddamn job!” But as he led his foot soldiers into battle, akin to many a Shakespearean commander, his once-loyal subjects broke rank. The House Freedom Caucus insurgents knew that as long as they could thrive in the anarchy of a House without rules, they could thwart McCarthy’s prospects.

“I don’t care if we go to plurality and elect Hakeem Jeffries,” Gaetz declared in the meeting, according to McCarthy. They then marched upstairs to the House floor, where another act was about to begin.

One wonders: Isn’t this all a bit reductive, to compare some suits voting from the comfort of their seats to literal soldiers waging war on a monarch? Some seasoned theater critics certainly think so, urging Washington’s commentators to turn the page on the Shakespeare references and quit stretching the metaphors. (In 2017, when Shakespeare in the Park depicted Trump as Caesar the same week that Scalise was shot at a Virginia baseball field, conservative commentators and Donald Trump Jr. groused that the liberal arts had gone too far.)

But reader, lend me your ears. We turn to the whole of Shakespeare’s works so we can understand the themes that rhyme with each other, the blocks on which rulers stumble, and the tides in the affairs of men. (And women.) The Bardologists agree. Aaron Posner, a theater professor at American University, says that the plays occupy such a treasured place in our collective imagination because they hold broader lessons on power: “what will you do to get it, what will you do to hold it, and [how] the only bad thing is the losing of it.”

There’s a bit of Romeo’s fawning balcony monologue in Elise Stefanik’s first nomination speech. “Seasoned legislator, an experienced leader, a friend to so many of us, a proud conservative with a tireless work ethic, Kevin McCarthy has earned the speakership of the People’s House,” she said, echoing his words.

There’s a bit of Julius Caesar in this saga, too, but not in the way you might expect, says Samantha Wyer Bello, the creative director of the D.C.-based Shakespeare Theatre Company. As we spoke, she broke out the script and read from a scene in which Caesar had just left the Senate and Casca and Brutus were each calculating whether the other was safe to conspire with.

It may have been Matt Gaetz, pulling his colleague aside on the House floor, who said, “You pull’d me by the cloak; would you speak with me?”

It may have been Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, standing improbably next to him, who replied, “tell us what hath chanced to-day, that Caesar looks so sad.” (Ocasio-Cortez later revealed that she was reassuring Gaetz that Dem leaders weren’t plotting a side deal to buoy McCarthy.)

Or are we really talking about Othello? Lauren Boebert’s behavior showed a dash of Iago, the thorn in Othello’s side. “I rise to cast my vote for a member not of the Freedom Caucus, but for Kevin,” she taunted during one of the votes on Thursday. Two members to her left shot incredulous looks.

“… Kevin Hern of Oklahoma,” she finished, as the House exploded into sound and fury and points of order.

Friday became Saturday, past the stroke of midnight, and all the House seemed a stage. Its players found their places, as Gaetz went along with a personal plea from McCarthy, in the well, to please, please stick to the script. At 12:37 a.m., after 15 intermissions and 1,482 minutes of acting and at least one moment of physical restraint to prevent possible fisticuffs, McCarthy became the 55th speaker of the House.

But if one outcome is certain in Shakespeare’s tragedies, it’s that the tragic hero always meets his demise. Indeed, some insiders worry that McCarthy will be a “weaker speaker,” having relinquished so much procedural power — and his political principles — for a title.

At the Shakespeare Theatre, Wyer Bello suggests one possible comparison in Richard III, whereupon the king, finding himself in the battlefield surrounded by a throng of enemies, bemoans his impending doom.

“My House, my House, my kingdom for the House!”

Nothing may be enough to undo the fact that, in cajoling so many of his opponents — and so many losses — McCarthy may have indeed gulped from that tainted chalice, each gavel, on a Friday evening, a death knell.

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DeSantis activates National Guard as hundreds of Cuban migrants arrive in Florida

TALLAHSSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday activated the Florida National Guard to respond to an influx of hundreds of mostly Cuban migrants arriving by boat to southern Florida, increasing long-running tensions between the GOP governor and Biden administration over immigration.

The decision comes at a moment complicated by broader, border-focused immigration fights that DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential candidate, has long-used to attack the Biden administration. But the governor’s hardline immigration message in this case is complicated because the migrants landing in and near the Florida Keys are mostly Cubans, who are a politically powerful bloc of voters in South Florida that have overwhelmingly supported him.

“As the negative impacts of Biden’s lawless immigration policies continue unabated, the burden of the Biden administration’s failure falls on local law enforcement who lack the resources to deal with the crisis,” DeSantis said in a Friday afternoon statement. “When Biden continues to ignore his legal responsibilities, we will step into support our communities.”

Hundreds of Cuban migrants fleeing the island nation have come ashore in the Florida Key over the past few days, a continuation of the uptick in those making the perilous 100-mile voyage. Since Oct. 1, authorities have stopped 4,153 Cuban migrants at sea, a huge uptick from the 838 who were intercepted in fiscal year 2021, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Keys have been inundated with more than 500 Cuban immigrants over the past two days, something DeSantis says has been “particularly burdensome” on local officials. A spokeswoman for Monroe County, which includes the Florida Keys, did not return a request seeking comment.

Haitians fleeing economic instability and violence have also arrived by boat to Southern Florida in recent days, including more than 100 landing in Key Largo on Tuesday.

The spike in migrants in Florida closely resembles the surge in asylum seekers at the southern border in Texas, where thousands of central and south Americans have attempted to cross into America in recent weeks. Many have tried to enter the U.S. ahead of the sunsetting of Title 42, a Trump administration-era policy that allows the U.S. to expel migrants to stop the spread of Covid-19. The Supreme Court recently blocked the policy from expiring.

On Thursday, Biden announced a new policy allowing 30,000 immigrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the country. It was part of a border strategy that incorporates an expanded use of Title 42 expulsions.

Neither White House officials or those with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol returned requests seeking comment.

DeSantis has long used immigration policy as his go-to criticism of the Biden administration, even though the state he leads is hundreds of miles from the southern border. In mid-September, the DeSantis administration funded flights sending mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard, a Massachusetts enclave associated with generally wealthy liberal-leaning residents.

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has also bussed thousands of migrants to blue strongholds like NYC, Chicago and Washington, D.C., including to Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence at the Naval Observatory.

DeSantis’ administration, records show, went out of its way to hide that planning process, including his public safety czar Larry Keefe using an email address to plan the flight that made it seem like emails were coming from “Clarice Starling,” the protagonist from “Silence of the Lambs.”

The politics change, however, when the immigrants are Cuban. DeSantis won the 2022 midterm Hispanic vote by 15-points, a huge portion of whom are Cubans, a historically conservative-leaning slice of the electorate. In addition, the annual Cuba Poll run by Florida International University had Republicans, including DeSantis, with near record support from Cuban voters.

“It seems the train of the Republican Party is still picking up passengers on Calle Ocho,” said Guillermo Grenier, a professor of sociology and lead pollster on the annual effort. Calle Ocho refers to a historic Cuban section of Little Havana in Miami. “They remain loyal to the Republican Party and the Trump version of it.”

Members of the Florida Legislature who represent South Florida say the state has been monitoring the situation.

“At this time, the Florida Division of Emergency Management in law-enforcement agencies continue to monitor the situation in the keys,” said Florida Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez (R-Miami). “State law enforcement agencies are sending additional resources to help local resources. Most additional resources will be in place by early next week.”

But state Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa), the Democratic leader in the House, on Friday criticized DeSantis for criticizing Biden, saying that much of the blame for the current immigration dilemma is GOP congressional hardliners.

“While this influx of migrants into South Florida certainly needs to be addressed, DeSantis is making the issue about President Biden in a blatant attempt to raise his own national profile,” Driskell said in a statement.

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Newsom opens second term with Jan. 6 rebuke of conservatives seeking to 'take the nation backward'

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom opened his second term Friday by contrasting his progressive vision with that of conservative foes, delivering his speech on Jan. 6 as an explicit rebuke to election deniers who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential contest.

“They’re promoting grievance and victimhood, in an attempt to erase so much of the progress you and I have witnessed in our lifetime,” Newsom said. “They make it harder to vote and easier to buy illegal guns. They silence speech, fire teachers, kidnap migrants, subjugate women, attack the Special Olympics, and even demonize Mickey Mouse.”

The Democratic governor scheduled his inauguration to coincide with the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — marking the event with a march across a bridge over the Sacramento River. He was joined by his family and other Democrats, including Sen. Alex Padilla. His speech drew a wide array of prominent California elected officials, including newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

In a wide-ranging denunciation of "red state politicians" and their media enablers, Newsom assailed some prominent Republican rivals without explicitly naming them.

He compared a controversial Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that bars teaching LGBTQ topics — the so-called Don't Say Gay law — with a failed 1978 California ballot initiative that sought to prohibit gay teachers. Unlike other states, Newsom said, California safeguards freedoms like "the freedom for teachers to teach, freedom from litmus tests about their political party or the person they love."

It's hardly the first time Newsom has condemned national Republican figures, often using them as foils to tout his record. After crushing a 2021 recall attempt and decisively winning reelection in 2022, the governor enters his second term with an enlarged national profile as a presidential contender should President Joe Biden not run for reelection.

Much of Newsom’s first term was defined by sparring with a hostile Trump administration. But even with a Democrat in the White House, he used his speech to forcefully push back on Republicans.

Newsom will need to contend with the economic storm clouds massing on the horizon. A projected deficit would reverse years of booming surpluses that enabled ambitious policies, such as extending health care to undocumented immigrants.

POLITICO's Lara Korte contributed to this report.

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