SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom will ask President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency after a series of storms battered the state in the first week of the year, causing deadly flooding, downed trees and widespread power outages.
“We have all the confidence we’ll receive [the declaration] based on the conversations we’ve had with the White House,” Newsom said at a Sunday news conference.
Across the state, more than 424,000 people are without power and more than 20,000 have been evacuated from their homes, said Nancy Ward, director of the governor’s Office of Emergency Services. She emphasized that floods are more deadly than any other natural disaster and that they've killed 12 Californians since Dec. 31 — more deaths than from the last two wildfire seasons combined.
The governor had already declared his own state of emergency this month in response to the extreme weather. But a decree from the president can provide even more resources through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The news came just hours after rain and gusty winds swept across Northern California Saturday night, including Sacramento, knocking out power and sending trees toppling into houses.
State officials emphasized that more storms are on the way — with wet and windy conditions expected to worsen Monday night into Tuesday morning.
“The worst is still in front of us,” Newsom said. “Don’t test fate.”
State officials have high-water vehicles, rescue helicopters and shelters ready to deploy. They encouraged residents to prepare for severe weather and power outages, and to stay off the roads during storms, especially those that are flooded.
The governor also said he plans to ask the Legislature for an additional $200 million to shore up the state’s aging levees in his 2023 budget proposal, which he will release on Tuesday.
The Biden administration on Sunday condemned the attacks by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil on the country’s congress, supreme court and presidential palace.
“Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. We join @LulaOficial in urging an immediate end to these actions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday on Twitter, tagging President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s newly inaugurated successor.
The storming of government buildings on Sunday in Brasilia drew immediate parallels to the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol — almost exactly two years ago. Supporters of Bolsonaro have protested against Lula’s electoral win since last year.
“President Biden is following the situation closely and our support for Brazil’s democratic institutions is unwavering,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan wrote on Twitter. “Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence.”
Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drew a direct line to former President Donald Trump, who has faced criminal referrals related to his actions on and around Jan. 6.
“Domestic terrorists and fascists cannot be allowed to use Trump’s playbook to undermine democracy,” Castro tweeted.
Video of the attack in Brazil was “deeply disturbing,” having been in the Capitol on Jan. 6, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) said.
Bolsonaro has been a supporter of Trump, often with a similar strongman style. The former Brazilian president is reported to have been spending significant time in Florida, Trump’s state of residence, in recent weeks.
Speaking on CNN following the attacks, Castro called for the Biden administration or Florida authorities to extradite Bolsonaro to Brazil.
“The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil,” Castro said.
Brazilian Foreign Ministry officials did not immediately offer comment on Sunday. Protesters remained in Brazil’s National Congress and on its roof on Sunday evening, local time.
The tumult in Brazil, which has a population of about 215 million, is the latest in a series of political crises in Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years. Since Joe Biden took office, there have been an assassination of a Haitian president, unusual protests in Cuba, an attempted coup by a president facing impeachment in Peru and now the turbulence in Brazil. An anti-incumbent mood has also led to the election of some leftist leaders in the region.
Privately, and sometimes publicly, Latin American officials say the Biden administration needs to pay more attention to its own hemisphere, and not simply see it through the lens of migration.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden on Sunday toured the busiest port in El Paso, Texas, met Border Patrol agents and was expected to head to a federally funded migrant services center in his first visit to the southern border since becoming president.
Biden was greeted by the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who has sparred with the administration over immigration policies, shortly after landing in El Paso on Sunday afternoon.
“The president caused the chaos at the border, needed to be here. It just so happens he’s two years and about $20 billion too late,” Abbott said to reporters.
The governor, for his part, has also faced accusations of using migrants as pawns, for facilitating the drop-offs of thousands from the border to Northern cities.
Border Patrol officers in El Paso showed Biden methods used for detecting smuggled goods, according to reporters on-site.
The president also planned to meet with local business leaders, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Sunday. Asked specifically by reporters, Jean-Pierre did not say whether Biden would speak to migrants on the trip.
The White House unveiled a new policy last week to grant humanitarian “parole” to 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as crack down on those who don’t go through legal routes.
“What we’re trying to have is to incentivize them to come to the ports of entry instead of in between the points of entry,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said of migrants on Sunday, speaking to reporters on the way to El Paso.
Mayorkas on Sunday looked to draw a distinction between a new regulation proposed by the Department of Justice last week and a similar, Trump-era rule known as a “transit ban.”
“It’s not a ban at all,” Mayorkas said of the proposal, which — similar to the Trump-era policy — would require migrants to first be turned away from safe harbor in another country before applying for asylum in the United States.
Biden’s visit to El Paso comes amid criticism from Republicans for his administration’s immigration policies, particularly in the face of the possibly imminent end of Title 42, an enforcement mechanism used by both the Biden and Trump administrations to quickly expel millions of people.
“El Paso is a place where, of course, we’ve seen an acute challenge,” Mayorkas said. The administration has surged 100 border agents to the city, and plans to open a new soft-sided migrant processing facility there on Tuesday, he said.
Rep. Tony Gonzales said Sunday he was frustrated that the White House told him he couldn't be part of President Joe Biden's planned trip to the Southern border .
"I’m not this crazy extremist Republican. I’m jumping up and down, pushing against my party when I think it’s right," said Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents parts of El Paso, on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Gonzales, who said he asked Biden to visit the border seven months ago, said he didn't know why he wasn't invited.
The congressman's comments came shortly before Biden was expected to touch down in El Paso for his first trip to the border since becoming president. Last week, Biden unveiled a new immigration policy aimed at curbing illegal crossings, following widespread criticism from Republicans about his administration's handling of the southern border.
The members invited on the trip were Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez — all of them Democrats — along with local leaders, according to the White House.
Asked Sunday on "Face the Nation" why her Republican colleagues weren't invited, Escobar avoided the question. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On his trip, Biden needs to hear from local leaders about how immigration challenges "have grown exponentially" in the face of "an historic refugee crisis in our Western Hemisphere," Escobar said.
Escobar said she has worked with the Biden administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but that policy has hit a "brick wall" in Congress.
"Many of my colleagues felt — why are we, you know, basically working on all this immigration work when we have a 50/50 Senate and no Republicans willing to work with us?" Escobar said. "I'm hoping things change."
Mayorkas, for his part, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he had no plans to step down, following threats of impeachment from newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
A bipatisan group of senators is expected to also visit the border this week, led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), according to a Friday press release from Sinema.
"I hope they see what the president will see today, which is opportunity, but also long overdue work," Escobar said of the Senate group.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who was not among those listed on the release as visiting the border this week, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" he was "delighted" Biden is making the trip.
“He should have gone sooner, in my view," King told host Margaret Brennan.
"Nancy Pelosi ran Congress like a prison camp," Rep. Scott Perry said Sunday in saying why he thinks Congress will be better now with Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," the head of the House Freedom Caucus made the statement about the former House speaker in explaining why he had switched his vote to backing McCarthy after repeatedly rejecting him. McCarthy was elected speaker late Friday after overcoming opposition from Perry (R-Pa.) and other Republicans that had persisted over several days.
"Let me start with this," Perry told host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, "Frederick Douglass, who knew something about power, said power concedes nothing without a demand, never has and never will. This is never about Kevin McCarthy; this is about power for the American people and, with all due respect, Nancy Pelosi ran Congress like a prison camp with no accountability."
For her part, Pelosi said last week that she saw the whole battle as damaging to the institution that she led in two four-year stints.
"All who serve in the House share a responsibility to bring dignity to this body," she tweeted on Jan. 4. "Sadly, Republicans' cavalier attitude in electing a Speaker is frivolous, disrespectful and unworthy of this institution."
Perry has been under investigation in relation to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and other efforts to keep former President Donald Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election; the House select committee on Jan. 6 referred Perry for a review by the House Ethics Committee. He was one of 19 Republicans who opposed McCarthy from the outset, though all 19 (as well as two others who stopped voting for McCarthy at some point in the process) ultimately got out of the way of McCarthy's election so that the California Republican could be elected on the 15th ballot.
The Douglass quote that Perry cited is attributed to an 1857 speech the former slave made in New York state while fighting for the abolition of slavery. He added: "Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both."
