US House rejects immigration bill backed by Trump
Washington, June 28 : The US House of Representatives on Wednesday defeated Republican-drafted immigration bill despite President Donald Trump's last-minute plea and amid chaos over reunion of separated families who illegally cross the US border.
The vote failed with 121 votes in favour and 301 against. The opposition was from all Democrats and dozens of Republicans, Xinhua reported.
Hours before the vote, Trump made the last-minute push for the legislation on Twitter.
"House Republicans should pass the strong but fair immigration bill, known as goodlatte II, in their afternoon vote today, even though the Dems won't let it pass in the Senate," Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday.
"Passage will show that we want strong borders and security while the Dems want open borders = crime. Win!" he added.
However, the second bill, a so-called "moderate" or "comprise" one, won much less Republican votes than the "hardline" bill which failed last week in the House with 193 in favour and 231 against.
Following the failure of the "hardline" bill, House Republican leaders twice delayed the second voting, in hope that Republicans, given more time, would modify the bill again so as to secure 218 votes to pass the legislation.
The failed "hardline" bill would have provided funding for a border wall, ended the diversity visa lottery programme, limited family-based visas, created an agriculture guest worker program requiring employers to use the E-Verify program and allowed for the federal government to cut funding for sanctuary cities. Every Democrat and 41 Republicans voted against it.
Under the "moderate" or "compromise" bill, the Donald Trump government would have stopped the forced migrant family separation, got 25 billion dollars to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, and allowed up to 1.8 million Dreamers, the recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, to apply for US citizenship.
Both bills were backed by the White House, whose "zero tolerance" policy against illegal immigration has come under fire home and abroad over the forced separation of children from their parents entering the US illegally.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
