| Democrats will introduce Biden's immigration bill today; the UK plans to deliberately infect healthy people with Covid-19 for a new trial. Tonight's Sentences was written by Gabby Birenbaum. | | | | | | | Biden's immigration bill faces an uphill battle | | | | | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images | | - House Democrats introduced the White House's immigration plan, which would create an eight-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and a three-year process for farmworkers, DREAMers, and Temporary Protected Status holders. [Vox / Nicole Narea]
- The new citizenship laws, if passed, would apply to those who were in the country before 2021, in order to avoid a border surge, and are contingent on criminal and national security background checks, taxes, and application fees. [Guardian / Lauren Gambino]
- The bill also addresses backlogs throughout the immigration system by recategorizing who counts toward annual thresholds, authorizing greater funding for counsel in asylum cases, increasing diversity visas, and attempting to address root causes by investing in Central America and anti-narcotics forces. [CNN / Priscilla Alvarez and Lauren Fox]
- Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) will introduce the bill in each chamber. The bill faces tough odds in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to become the first major immigration bill to make it through the chamber in 25 years. [The Hill / Rebecca Beitsch]
- Biden officials have said the president is open to negotiating with Republicans, but the bill likely contains a bunch of nonstarters for the GOP, like ending construction on the border wall and making the legal status checking program E-Verify non-mandatory — not to mention offering approximately 11 million people a path to citizenship. [Washington Post / Maria Sacchetti]
- Even if the final bill is different from Biden's proposal, Sanchez said Democrats have a sense of urgency around getting at least some portions of the policy passed. [USA Today / Rebecca Morin]
- Some members of the Democratic caucus, including House members from border districts in Texas and senators from purple states, will be wary of the perception that Democrats are going too far on immigration. Republicans are already exploiting that line of argument. [Politico / Sabrina Rodriguez and Marc Caputo]
- Biden and immigration activists alike are ready to pursue what they call a "smaller trains" strategy even as they attempt to negotiate the larger bill. Such targeted approaches would create pathways to citizenship for individual groups, like DREAMers or farmworkers, through piecemeal legislation. [NYT / Michael D. Shear]
| | | UK trial will test vaccine strength | | - Over the next few weeks, scientists will deliberately infect a group of healthy volunteers, ages 18 to 30, with the coronavirus in order to learn more about its immunology. [NYT / Benjamin Mueller]
- After being infected, the up to 90 volunteers will be kept in a controlled environment in order to create a challenge trial. They will be infected with the dominant strain of Covid-19 that has been in the United Kingdom since March, rather than a new variant. [CNN / Sharon Braithwaite]
- To learn about the timeline of which people the coronavirus affects, and how, participants will consistently receive blood and heart rate tests, smell tests, and cognitive tests. [Washington Post / Karla Adam]
- The study also hopes to measure vaccine effectiveness by eventually vaccinating the participants and then exposing them to new variants. [BBC News]
- Ethics questions have arisen over the study, with some questioning the morality of intentionally giving people a virus with unknown long-term effects. But scientists say the research benefits outweigh the potential risks, and volunteers are being compensated for their time. [Science News / Jonathan Lambert]
| | | | | | | A controversy has erupted over photos of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) boarding a flight to Mexico while Texans struggle with blackouts and a deadly winter storm and the country is still battling the pandemic. | | | | | | | "With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with their friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon." | | | | | | | | | | |
Vox's Sean Illing talks about the little-known history of psychedelics and spirituality in the Western world with Brian Muraresku, author of The Immortality Key. What role did psychedelic drugs play in the rise and spread of Christianity — and could they save the church today? [Spotify / Sean Illing] | | | | | | | | |  | This email was sent to edwardlorilla1986.paxforex@blogger.com. Manage your email preferences, or unsubscribe to stop receiving all emails from Vox. If you value Vox's unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring contribution. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036.
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