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The number represents a more precise, and potentially much larger, figure than earlier estimates. The department is seeking to enlist about 400 lawyers to help in the review.
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Israel is set to suspend the operating licenses of Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and dozens of other humanitarian aid groups in Gaza and the West Bank over alleged ties to Hamas, preventing international aid workers from entering Gaza and carrying out critical, lifesaving operations. Citing the groups' supposed support for the "delegitimization of Israel," the move is "arbitrary and highly politicized," explains Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the impacted groups. "This is just one more step to push out principled humanitarian actors, particularly those that speak out on behalf of the people who we're there to serve, call for accountability for rights violations and violations of international law."
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Renee Hardman's convincing special-election win is an optimistic signal for Democrats looking to 2026. She becomes the first Black woman elected to the state Senate.
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Journalists Gideon Levy and Rami Khouri discuss the work of acclaimed Palestinian actor and filmmaker Mohammad Bakri, who died at the age of 72 on Christmas Eve. He appeared in more than 40 films and directed documentaries highlighting the experiences of Palestinians living under occupation. "On a personal level, I can't tell you how much I loved him," says Levy. On one hand, Levy describes him as a "brave Palestinian patriot." On the other hand, he was a victim of "Israeli machinery, which totally crushed his life and his career." Bakri was best known for his 2002 documentary Jenin, Jenin, featuring the voices of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp following a devastating Israeli military operation that killed 52 Palestinians. The film is banned in Israel. "Literature, poetry, cinema, art, cooking — any creative work that Palestinians do that reflects their humanity and their attachment to their ancient land, the Israelis and the Zionist movement want to crush this," adds Khouri.
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We speak to independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who has recently returned from documenting Israeli settler and state violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Nathaniel describes being ambushed by settlers in October, on the first day of the olive harvest, in an attack that left one middle-aged Palestinian woman with a brain hemorrhage. "It was clear that this was a planned ambush," says Nathaniel. "They were out for blood." Earlier this week, the Israeli Cabinet approved 19 more settlements in the occupied West Bank. "What's happening right now is these really violent settlers are going out into the fields. They're stealing land from Palestinians," explains Nathaniel. "[Then the government will] retroactively legalize the land that was stolen, and basically reward the violent settlers by giving them the stamp of state legitimacy."
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Award-winning Palestinian reporter Mohammed Mhawish, who left Gaza last year, joins us to discuss his new piece for New York magazine about Israel's surveillance practices. It describes how Palestinians throughout the genocide in Gaza have been watched, tracked and often killed by Israeli forces who have access to their most intimate details, including phone and text records, social relations, drone footage, biometric data and artificial intelligence tools.
This all-encompassing surveillance system is "reshaping how people speak, how they're moving, how they're even thinking," says Mhawish. "It manufactured behavior for people, so they shrink their lives to reduce risk, they rehearse what version of themselves feels safest to present, and that creates an enormous psychological burden."
Mhawish also describes the terror of when his family's house was bombed, killing two of his cousins and two neighbors in an attack he says was linked to Israeli surveillance of his reporting activities. "I was being watched and tracked," he says.
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—The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) today announced the forthcoming publication of a joint temporary final rule to make available an additional 20,000 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas for fiscal year (FY) 2022. These visas will be set aside for U.S. employers seeking to employ additional workers on or before March 31, 2022.
This supplemental cap marks the first time that DHS is making additional H-2B visas available in the first half of the fiscal year. Earlier this year, USCIS received enough petitions for returning workers to reach the additional 22,000 H-2B visas made available under the FY 2021 H-2B supplemental visa temporary final rule.
The supplemental H-2B visa allocation consists of 13,500 visas available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years. The remaining 6,500 visas, which are exempt from the returning worker requirement, are reserved for nationals of Haiti and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
"At a time of record job growth, additional H-2B visas will help to fuel our Nation's historic economic recovery," "DHS is taking action to protect American businesses and create opportunities that will expand lawful pathways to the United States for workers from the Northern Triangle countries and Haiti. In the coming months, DHS will seek to implement policies that will make the H-2B program even more responsive to the needs of our economy, while protecting the rights of both U.S. and noncitizen workers."
DHS intends to issue a separate notice of proposed rulemaking that will modernize and reform the H-2B program. The proposed rule will incorporate program efficiencies and protect against the exploitation of H-2B workers.
The H-2B program permits employers to temporarily hire noncitizens to perfo
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