President Joe Biden celebrated a quiet Christmas Sunday with his family at the White House and spoke with service members stationed around the world.

“They’re away from their families to protect us,” Biden said in a tweet. “And they have the thanks of a grateful, indebted president.”

The White House said Biden and first lady Jill Biden called members of the Army stationed at Panama City, Panama; the Navy aboard the USS The Sullivans in the Arabian Sea; the Marine Corps at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego; the Air Force at Okinawa, Japan; the Space Force in Europe; and the Coast Guard aboard the cutter Bertholf in Alameda, California.

This is Biden’s second Christmas as president. On Saturday, Biden and his family joined a Mass on Christmas Eve at the White House and continued their holiday tradition of an Italian dinner.

The president and first lady on Friday also carried on another tradition with their second holiday visit to Children’s National Hospital. Biden was the first sitting president to join his wife when they visited hospitalized children and their families before Christmas last year, according to the White House.

Surrounded by Christmas trees and holiday decorations, the first lady read “The Snowy Day” with the president’s help holding up the book.

Biden last week encouraged national unity in a recorded address, calling out the nation’s political divisions and saying he hoped “this holiday season will drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another.”

“So, this Christmas, let’s spread a little kindness,” he said.
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Kathy Whitworth, whose 88 LPGA Tour victories are the most ever by a player on a pro tour, passed away suddenly on Saturday while celebrating Christmas Eve with family and friends, her longtime partner Bettye Odle said. She was 83.

“It is with a heart full of love that we let everyone know of the passing of the winningest golf professional ever, Kathy Whitworth,” Odle said in a statement on Sunday.

“Kathy left this world the way she lived her life, loving, laughing and creating memories.”

The cause of death and location were not disclosed.

Raised in Jal, New Mexico, Whitworth first began playing golf at the age of 15 with her grandfather’s clubs and after winning titles as an amateur and attending Odessa College in Texas, turned pro at 19 and joined the LPGA Tour.

“I was really fortunate in that I knew what I wanted to do,” Whitworth said in a remembrance published on the LPGA Tour’s website.

“Golf just grabbed me by the throat. I can’t tell you how much I loved it. I used to think everyone knew what they wanted to do when they were 15 years old.”

Her mother and father supported her amid a sluggish start to her pro career and she won the first of her 88 LPGA Tour titles at the Kelly Girls Open in 1962.

“I’m glad when I look back on it that I didn’t succeed right away,” Whitworth said.

“When it happened, I was ready.”

She went on to claim six major championships, was named LPGA Tour’s Player of the Year seven times and became the first LPGA player to pass $1 million in career earnings. She claimed her final title at the United Virginia Bank Classic in 1985.

“Winning never got old,” Whitworth said.

Her career included a rivalry with fellow late World Golf Hall of Famer Mickey Wright, who is second behind Whitworth in LPGA Tour wins with 82. Tiger Woods and Sam Snead are tied for the most wins on the PGA Tour with 82.

Her contemporaries said Whitworth’s fiercely competitive nature is what set her apart.

“She just had to win,” Betsy Rawls, another one of Whitworth’s rivals, said on the LPGA website.

“A lot like Mickey Wright and Louise Suggs. There’s just something that drives them. Kathy was a very intelligent person. It was unacceptable for her to make a mistake.

“She hated herself when she made a mistake. She was wonderful to play with — sweet as she could be, nice to everybody — but oh, man, she berated herself something awful. And that’s what drove her.”

LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan praised Whitworth’s impact both on and off the course.

“She inspired me as a young girl and now as the commissioner and I know she did the same for so many others,” Samaan said on the LPGA website.

“We all mourn with Bettye, her family and the entire golf world.”
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Three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in record-setting cold on Christmas Eve.

Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus drop offs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months.

Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children.

Some were wearing T-shirts despite temperatures hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 degrees Celsius). It was the coldest Christmas Eve on record for Washington, according to The Washington Post.

Laborde said employees had blankets ready for the people who arrived on Christmas Eve and moved them quickly onto waiting buses for a ride to an area church. A local restaurant chain donated dinner and breakfast.

Most of the arrivals were headed to other destinations and expected to remain in Washington only briefly.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday morning. His office said last week that Texas has given bus rides to more than 15,000 people since April to Washington, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, are strong critics of President Joe Biden on his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of people are trying to cross daily, many to seek asylum. Officials on both sides of the border are seeking emergency help in setting up shelters and services for migrants, some of whom are sleeping on the streets.

Republicans argue Biden and Harris, designated the administration’s point person on the root causes of migration, have relaxed restrictions that induced many people to leave their countries of origin. Biden has ended some policies but kept others enacted by former President Donald Trump, whose administration also grappled with spikes in border crossings and at one point separated immigrant families and children as a deterrence initiative.
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Millions of people hunkered down in a deep freeze overnight and early morning to ride out the frigid storm that has killed at least 18 people across the United States, trapping some residents inside homes with heaping snow drifts and knocking out power to several hundred thousand homes and businesses.

The scope of the storm has been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

Some 1,346 domestic and international flights were canceled as of early Sunday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.

The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, paralyzing emergency response efforts — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded — and shutting down the airport through Monday, according to officials. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 43 inches (109 centimeters) at 7 a.m. Sunday.

Freezing conditions and day-old power outages had Buffalonians scrambling Saturday to get out of their homes to anywhere that had heat. But with city streets under a thick blanket of white, that wasn’t an option for people like Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after almost 29 hours without electricity.

“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”

Mark Poloncarz, executive of Erie County, home to Buffalo, said ambulances were taking more than three hours to make a single hospital trip and the blizzard may be “the worst storm in our community’s history.”

Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, he said, and another died in Buffalo.

“We can’t just pick up everybody and take you to a warming center. We don’t have the capability of doing that,” Poloncarz said. “Many, many neighborhoods, especially in the city of Buffalo, are still impassable.”

Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running in the vehicle buffeted by wind and nearly buried in snow.

By 4 a.m. Saturday, with their fuel nearly gone, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, stepping into his footprints as they trudged through drifts.

“If I stay in this car I’m going to die here with my kids,” he recalled thinking, but believing they had to try. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”

The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle, and a major electricity grid operator warned 65 million people across the eastern U.S. of possible rolling blackouts.

But heat and lights were steadily being restored across the U.S. According to poweroutage.us, less than 300,000 customers were without power at 8 a.m. EDT Sunday – down from a peak of 1.7 million. In North Carolina, less than 6,600 customers had no power – down from a peak of 485,000 or more. Utility officials said rolling blackouts would continue for the next few days.

Across the six New England states, about 121,300 customers remained without power Sunday, with Maine still the hardest hit. Some utilities said electricity may not be restored for days.

Storm-related deaths were reported in recent days all over the country: four dead in an Ohio Turnpike pileup involving some 50 vehicles; four motorists killed in separate crashes in Missouri and Kansas; an Ohio utility worker electrocuted; a Vermont woman struck by a falling branch; an apparently homeless man found amid Colorado’s subzero temperatures; a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice.

In Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border were facing unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions preventing many from seeking asylum.

Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, weathered a 34-hour traffic jam in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator after getting stuck trying to drive from Alabama to their Ohio home for Christmas.

“We should have stayed,” Terry Henderson said after they got moving again Saturday.

Poloncarz of Erie County tweeted late Saturday that 34.6 inches (about 88 centimeters) of snow had accumulated at the Buffalo Airport and drifts were well over 6 feet (1.8 meters) in some areas. Blizzard conditions were expected to ease early Sunday, he added, but continuing lake effect snow was forecast.

Vivian Robinson of Spirit of Truth Urban Ministry in Buffalo said she and her husband have been sheltering and cooking for 60 to 70 people, including stranded travelers and locals without power or heat, who were spending Saturday night at the church.

Many arrived with ice and snow plastered to their clothes, crying, their skin reddened by the single-digit temperatures. On Saturday night, they prepared to spend Christmas together.

“It’s emotional just to see the hurt… that they thought they were not going to make it, and to see that we had opened up the church, and it gave them a sense of relief,” Robinson said. “Those who are here are really enjoying themselves. It’s going to be a different Christmas for everyone.”
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A fearsome winter storm continued to pummel parts of the United States with blizzard conditions Saturday evening after powerful Arctic winds left more than a million customers without power earlier in the day and caused Christmas travel nightmares.

At least 17 weather-related deaths have been confirmed across eight states as heavy snow, howling winds and dangerously frigid temperatures kept much of the nation, including the normally temperate south, in a frozen grip for a third straight day.

In hard-hit New York state, Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard to Erie County and its main city, Buffalo, where authorities said emergency services were not functioning.

Late Saturday, the National Weather Service warned that blizzard conditions in the Great Lakes region caused by lake-effect snow would continue into Christmas Day, and that there would be “only slow moderation of temperatures into Monday.”

One couple in Buffalo, which sits across the border from Canada, told AFP that with the roads completely impassible, they would not be making a 10-minute drive to see their family for Christmas.

“It’s tough because the conditions are just so bad… a lot of fire departments aren’t even sending out trucks for calls,” said 40-year-old Rebecca Bortolin.

Her fiance, Ali Lawson, is having back pain but plans to tough it out at home because driving to the hospital is too dangerous.

“We can currently see across the street, but last night we couldn’t see past our porch,” Lawson said.

The “bomb cyclone” winter storm, one of the fiercest in decades, had already forced the cancellation of more than 3,300 U.S. flights Saturday and the delay of nearly 7,500 more, a day after nearly 6,000 were scrapped, according to tracking website Flightaware.com.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted Saturday that “the most extreme disruptions are behind us as airline and airport operations gradually recover” — words that travelers stranded at airports including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and New York were holding on to.

New York City resident Zack Cuyler, whose flight home to Houston on Thursday had been postponed then canceled twice this week already, was “pretty steamed” about the chaos.

The 35-year-old now hopes to reach his loved ones by Sunday. “I’m just glad I’ll get to see my family for Christmas,” he told AFP.

Road ice and whiteout conditions also led to the closure of some of the nation’s busiest transport routes, including the cross-country Interstate 70, parts of which were temporarily shut down in Colorado and Kansas.

The National Weather Service warned about lethal conditions and urged residents in affected areas to remain indoors. On Friday, it said wind chills had sent temperatures plunging to minus 48 degrees Celsius.

At one point during the day, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.

Though power had largely been restored by late Saturday, people were urged to conserve electricity and rolling blackouts were instituted in some parts of the country, including in North Carolina.

Frustration growing

In El Paso, Texas, desperate migrants who had crossed from Mexico huddled for warmth in churches, schools and a civic center, Rosa Falcon, a schoolteacher and volunteer told AFP.

But some still chose to stay outside in frigid temperatures because they feared attention from immigration authorities, she added.

In Chicago, Burke Patten of Night Ministry, a nonprofit dedicated to helping the homeless, said: “We’ve been handing out cold weather gear, including coats, hats, gloves, thermal underwear, blankets and sleeping bags, along with hand and foot warmers.”

Weather officials forecast that dangerously cold conditions would continue throughout the central and eastern United States over the weekend before temperatures returned to more normal weather next week.

Canadian authorities have also issued severe weather warnings. Hundreds of thousands were left without power in Ontario and Quebec provinces, while many flights were canceled in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

VIA Rail, Canada’s passenger service, said that all trains from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal would be suspended on Christmas due to a train derailment, while “extreme weather conditions” forced many other cancellations.

Flooding, fierce winds

In the US, transportation departments in several plains states reported near-zero visibility whiteouts, ice-covered roads and blizzard conditions, and strongly urged residents to stay home.

Drivers were being warned not to take to the roads — even as the nation reached what is usually its busiest time of year for travel.

Meteorologist Kelsey McEwen in Toronto tweeted that waves of up to 8 meters were reported in Lake Erie, while in Ohio’s Fairport Harbor, winds gusted to 120 kph, according to the NWS.

The NWS also warned against traveling in the current weather conditions.

“The life-threatening cold temperatures and in combination with dangerous wind chills will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded, individuals that work outside, livestock and domestic pets,” its advisory said.
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More than a year after the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan, tens of thousands of Afghan families totaling more than 88,500 individuals have resettled in the United States through different immigration paths.

Some have access to permanent residence while the rest have permission for short-term stays without the chance for a more permanent status unless they apply for asylum or Congress passes legislation to change their status.

For those with temporary status, their best hope to stay is the Afghan Adjustment Act, draft legislation that would give Afghan evacuees with temporary status a pathway to permanent U.S. residence. Although the measure has been introduced in both chambers, it has yet to come up for a vote.

After the evacuation of Kabul in August 2021, the Biden administration partnered with nonprofit organizations to give Afghan refugees temporary assistance with housing, food and clothing and also help them to secure employment and qualify for health care.

Special Immigrant Visa

Approved by Congress more than a decade ago, the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) is for Afghans who worked as interpreters or guides for the U.S. military or were employed by the U.S. government or on its behalf in Afghanistan during the 20-year war. The SIV program leads to permanent residence and a path to naturalization for those Afghans and their families.

The number of SIVs available to people in Afghanistan is set by statute, and Congress can increase the number. In 2021, Congress approved 8,000 SIVs for Afghan principal applicants, bringing the total to 34,500 since 2014.

Since the start of the Biden administration through Nov. 1, 2022, the State Department has issued nearly 19,000 SIVs to principal applicants and their eligible family members, a department spokesperson told VOA on background via email. About 15,000 more SIV principal applicants are awaiting visa interviews, the step before being issued an SIV. About 48,000 more have submitted all of their documents and are awaiting the next step in the approval process.

The SIV program stumbled in the six months following the Taliban takeover in August 2021. During the evacuation, the program for Afghan nationals nearly ground to a halt when the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan suspended operations.

Afghan consular services were transferred outside Afghanistan. While some Afghans traveled to Pakistan to process their immigration cases and visa applications, some were flown to Qatar where they were processed for resettlement in the U.S.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, who spoke to VOA in November on background and did not want to be named, said that of the 88,500 Afghans who resettled in the U.S., more than 77,000 were allowed into the U.S. for humanitarian reasons on a case-by-case basis. About half of them could be eligible to apply for or continue the SIV process in the United States.

Humanitarian parole

Humanitarian parole is special permission given to those hoping to enter the United States under emergency circumstances.

In the last 16 months, more than 50,000 Afghans living outside the United States applied for humanitarian parole, but fewer than 500 have been approved.

The DHS spokesperson told VOA that in a typical year, the United States receives about 2,000 requests for humanitarian parole from all nationalities. Of those requests, about 500-700 are approved annually. There are several reasons applicants are rejected, but most often it’s because they could not prove they were in an emergency situation.

The DHS official told VOA that humanitarian parole is not intended to replace the refugee resettlement channel, including the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), which is the typical pathway for individuals who have fled their country of origin to come to the United States seeking protection.

Still, the DHS official said, the U.S. government recognizes that in some limited circumstances, the need for protection is “so urgent that obtaining protection via the USRAP is not a realistic option,” because some refugees are not able to leave their countries and start the application process.

Humanitarian parole for Afghans living outside the U.S. is still available, but according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency is “currently receiving an extremely high number of requests for parole” and that “petitioners should expect to wait significantly longer than 90 days for their parole request to be processed.”

Afghan evacuees who arrived in the U.S. without a visa or any proper documentation had to file for humanitarian parole because of the urgent humanitarian reasons at the time. They were given parole under the authority delegated to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Officers use discretion to grant humanitarian parole if the person requesting protection is at a U.S. Port of Entry.

To qualify for humanitarian parole, a foreign national must show examples of the urgent humanitarian circumstances they find themselves in, and it is limited to one year, but U.S. immigration officials can extend it another year.

Anyone admitted under the humanitarian parole designation is temporarily protected from deportation and allowed to apply for authorization to work. Humanitarian Parole does not confer permanent immigration status or constitute a path to U.S. citizenship.

Family reunification

On Nov. 14, the State Department launched a website with information for Afghans in the U.S. who want to reunite with family members still in Afghanistan.

Afghans who are naturalized U.S. citizens or who hold a lawful permanent residence card, also known as green card, can file petitions with the government to bring their direct relatives to the U.S. under immigrant visas that lead to permanent status.

Afghans who received humanitarian parole can petition to bring their spouse or minor children to the U.S. as refugees. Some may even be eligible to receive help from the U.S. government to leave Afghanistan.

The number of applications under family reunification was not readily available.

Refugee program

This August, the State Department announced a priority eligibility under the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations, or American news organizations.

The program provides a straightforward path to the refugee resettlement process, but the refugees must, on their own, first reach a third country where they can contact the State Department to begin the resettlement process.

According to DHS, the State Department is managing referrals to the refugee program, but there generally is no direct contact with the U.S. government before an applicant leaves Afghanistan.

Approved applicants will then receive travel documents and resettle in the United States.

Under U.S. immigration law, refugees may apply for green cards to become permanent residents after one year in the United States. After five years of permanent residency, they can apply for U.S. citizenship.

In the first two months of fiscal 2023, which began Oct. 1, 540 Afghans were resettled through the program. In fiscal 2022, that number was 1,618. In the last two months of fiscal 2021, which coincided with the Afghanistan evacuation efforts, 378 Afghan refugees resettled in the U.S.

Asylum

Afghans in the U.S. who are unable to become permanent residents can apply for asylum. Afghan humanitarian parolees would generally apply for affirmative asylum through a process done by the USCIS.

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, in general, “affirmative asylum cases have a somewhat lower average wait time,” but the current interview backlog is still at 1.6 million cases of asylum and other immigration applications.

The wait time for a hearing on an immigrant’s asylum claim is between two to six years. 
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