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WASHINGTON — Thousandsof migrant children are backed upin United States detention facili-ties along the border with Mexico,part of a surge of immigrationfrom Central Americans fleeingpoverty and violence that couldoverwhelm President Biden’s at-tempt to create a more humaneapproach to those seeking entryinto the country.

The number of migrant childrenin custody along the border hastripled in the past two weeks tomore than 3,250, according to fed-eral immigration agency docu-ments obtained by The New YorkTimes, and many of them are be-ing held in jail-like facilities forlonger than the three days al-lowed by law.

The problem for the administra-tion is both the number of children

crossing the border and what to dowith them once they are in cus-tody. Under the law, the childrenare supposed to be moved to shel-ters run by the Health and HumanServices Department, but be-cause of the pandemic the sheltersuntil last week were limiting howmany children they could accom-modate.

The growing number of unac-companied children is just one ele-ment of an escalating problem atthe border. Border agents encoun-tered a migrant at the borderabout 78,000 times in January —more than double the rate at thesame time a year ago and higherthan in any January in a decade.

Immigration authorities are ex-pected to announce this week that

Children Fill Detention CentersAmid Migration Surge at Border

By ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Continued on Page A14

Federal health officials on Mon-day told millions of Americansnow vaccinated against the co-ronavirus that they could againembrace a few long-denied free-doms, like gathering in smallgroups at home without masks orsocial distancing, offering a hope-ful glimpse at the next phase of thepandemic.

The recommendations, fromthe Centers for Disease Controland Prevention, arrived almostexactly a year after the virus be-gan strangling the country andAmericans were warned againstgatherings for fear of spreadingthe new pathogen.

Now the agency has good newsfor long-separated families and in-dividuals struggling with pan-

demic isolation: Vaccinatedgrandparents can once again visitadult children and grandchildrenunder certain circumstances,even if they remain unvaccinated.Vaccinated adults may begin toplan mask-free dinners with vac-cinated friends.

As cases and deaths decline na-tionwide, some state officials arerushing to reopen businesses andschools; governors in Texas andMississippi have lifted statewidemask mandates. Federal healthofficials have repeatedly warnedagainst loosening restrictions tooquickly, fearing that the movesmay set the stage for a fourthsurge of infections and deaths.

The new recommendations areintended to nudge Americansonto a more cautious path withclear boundaries for safe behav-ior, while acknowledging thatmost of the country remains vul-nerable and many scientific ques-

THOSE VACCINATEDCAN BE MASKLESSIN SMALL GROUPS

NEW GUIDANCE BY C.D.C.

Long-Separated FamiliesGet Hopeful Glimpse

at the Next Phase

By RONI CARYN RABIN

About 31.3 million Americanshave been fully vaccinated.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A5

A family grieving a man who was shot dead by security forces in Myanmar this month. Scores have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup.THE NEW YORK TIMES

The soldiers from Myanmar’sarmy knocked on U Thein Aung’sdoor one morning last April as hewas having tea with friends, anddemanded that all of them accom-pany the platoon to another vil-lage.

When they reached a danger-ous stretch in the mountains ofRakhine State, the men were or-dered to walk 100 feet ahead. Onestepped on a land mine and wasblown to pieces. Metal fragmentsstruck Mr. Thein Aung in his armand his left eye.

“They threatened to kill us if werefused to go with them,” said Mr.Thein Aung, 65, who lost the eye.“It is very clear that they used usas human land mine detectors.”

The military and its brutal prac-tices are an omnipresent fear inMyanmar, one that has intensifiedsince the generals seized fullpower in a coup last month. As se-curity forces gun down peacefulprotesters on city streets, the vio-lence that is commonplace in thecountryside serves as a grisly re-minder of the military’s long lega-cy of atrocities.

During decades of military rule,an army dominated by the Bamarmajority operated with impunityagainst ethnic minorities, killingcivilians and torching villages.The violence continued even asthe army ceded some authority toan elected government in apower-sharing arrangement thatstarted in 2016.

The next year, the militarydrove more than 700,000 Rohing-ya Muslims out of the country, anethnic cleansing campaign that aUnited Nations panel has de-scribed as genocidal. Soldiershave battled rebel ethnic armieswith the same ruthlessness, usingmen and boys as human shieldson the battlefield and raping wom-en and girls in their homes.

The generals are now fully backin charge, and the Tatmadaw, asthe military is known, has turnedits guns on the masses, who havemounted a nationwide civil dis-obedience movement.

The crackdown widened onMonday in the face of a generalstrike, with security forces seizingcontrol of universities and hospi-tals and annulling press licensesof five media organizations. Atleast three protesters were shotdead.

More than 60 people have beenkilled since the Feb. 1 coup, an in-creasingly bloody crackdown

In Myanmar,Vicious TacticsDefine Military

By RICHARD C. PADDOCK

Continued on Page A8

British tabloids on Monday after Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, spoke to Oprah Winfrey.FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

Anyone who remembers the fu-neral of Diana, the Princess ofWales, in 1997 can’t help beinghaunted by the wrenching sight ofher two young sons, PrincesWilliam and Harry, walkingslowly behind her coffin as it madeits way to Westminster Abbey.Their hands were clasped in front;their heads were bowed. Harrylooked so small in his suit.

That image has reverberateddown the years, a ghostly remind-er of the princes’ traumatic child-hood, and it hovered again in thebackground as Prince Harry andhis wife, Meghan, spoke to OprahWinfrey on Sunday night.

While the British tabloids like tocast Meghan in the villainous roleof the Duchess of Windsor — theAmerican divorcée who luredaway their king in 1936 and livedwith him in bitter exile, causing anirreparable family rift — Harryand Meghan seem determined toposition her instead as a latter-day Diana, a woman mistreatedby her in-laws, more sinnedagainst than sinning.

A Royal Interview With Echoes of Princess DianaBy SARAH LYALL

Continued on Page A11

Son Saw His Wife Hurtby Press and In-Laws

A few days before the presiden-tial election, the leadership of theanti-Trump Lincoln Project gath-ered at the Utah home of SteveSchmidt, one of the group’s co-founders, and listened as he plot-ted out the organization’s future.

None of the dissident Republi-can consultants who created theLincoln Project a year earlier hadimagined how wildly successful itwould be, pulling in more than $87million in donations and pro-ducing scores of viral videos thatdoubled as a psy-ops campaign in-tended to drive President DonaldJ. Trump to distraction. Confidentthat a Biden administration wason the horizon, Mr. Schmidt, aswaggering former political ad-viser to John McCain and ArnoldSchwarzenegger, pitched the

other attendees on his post-Trumpvision for the project over a break-fast of bagels and muffins. And itwas ambitious.

“Five years from now, there willbe a dozen billion-dollar mediacompanies that don’t exist today,”he told the group, according to twopeople who attended. “I would liketo build one and would invite all ofyou to be part of that.”

In fact, Mr. Schmidt and thethree other men who started theLincoln Project — John Weaver,Reed Galen and Rick Wilson —had already quietly moved to set

themselves up in the new enter-prise, drafting and filing papers tocreate TLP Media in Septemberand October, records show. Its aimwas to transform the originalproject, a super PAC, into a farmore lucrative venture undertheir control.

This was not the only private fi-nancial arrangement among thefour men. Shortly after they creat-ed the group in late 2019, theyagreed to pay themselves millionsof dollars in management fees,three people with knowledge ofthe deal said.

One of the people said a con-tract was drawn up among thefour men but not signed. A spokes-woman for the Lincoln Projectwas broadly dismissive and said,“No such agreement exists andnothing like it was ever adopted.”

The behind-the-scenes moves

Side Deals and Scandal Mar the Lincoln ProjectThis article is by Danny Hakim,

Maggie Astor and Jo Becker.

Continued on Page A14

An Anti-Trump GroupWas Split by Cashand Misconduct

WASHINGTON — PresidentBiden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirusrelief bill will fulfill one of his cen-tral campaign promises: to fill theholes in the Affordable Care Actand make health insurance afford-able for more than a million mid-dle-class Americans who couldnot afford insurance under theoriginal law.

The bill, which will probably goto the House for a final vote onWednesday, includes a significant,albeit temporary, expansion ofsubsidies for health insurancepurchased under the act. Underthe changes, the signature domes-tic achievement of the Obama ad-ministration will reach middle-in-come families who have been dis-couraged from buying healthplans on the federal marketplacebecause they come with high pre-miums and little or no help fromthe government.

The changes will last for onlytwo years. But for some, they willbe considerable: The Congres-sional Budget Office estimatedthat a 64-year-old earning $58,000would see monthly payments de-cline from $1,075 under currentlaw to $412 because the federalgovernment would take up muchof the cost. The rescue plan alsoincludes rich new incentives to en-tice the few holdout states — in-cluding Texas, Georgia and Flor-ida — to finally expand Medicaidto those with too much money toqualify for the federal health pro-gram for the poor, but too little toafford private coverage.

“For people that are eligible butnot buying insurance, it’s a finan-cial issue, and so upping the subsi-dies is going to make the pricepoint come down,” said EzekielEmanuel, a health policy expertand professor at the University ofPennsylvania who advised Mr. Bi-den during his transition. The bill,he said, would “make a big dent inthe number of the uninsured.”

But because those provisionslast only two years, the relief billalmost guarantees that healthcare will be front and center in the2022 midterm elections, when Re-publicans will attack the measureas a wasteful expansion of ahealth law they have long hated.Meantime, some liberal Demo-crats may complain that thechanges prove only that a patch-work approach to health care cov-erage will never work.

“Obviously it’s an improve-ment, but I think that it is inade-quate given the health care crisisthat we’re in,” said RepresentativeRo Khanna, a progressive Demo-crat from California who favors

Relief PackageWidens ReachOf Health Law

2-Year Expansion SetsUp a Midterm Battle

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Continued on Page A15

A tiny Spanish village finds itself reju-venated by people who fled big citiesduring the lockdown. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A7-11

Saved by the PandemicProf. Sarah Hart discusses Mozart,“Moby Dick” and the beauty of cycloids,inverted, above, or otherwise. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-7

Throwing Us a CurveEddie Huang discusses his debutdrama, “Boogie,” and what it was like towork alongside Pop Smoke, who has astarring role in the movie. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

Now He’s a Filmmaker, Too

Scientists have been studying the evo-lution of language by reconstructinghearing in early humans. PAGE D1

What Neanderthals HeardThe 488 public schools in New York arescheduled to resume in-person instruc-tion on March 22. PAGE A6

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-6

City’s High Schools to ReopenThe pandemic has worsened economicdistress and other factors that encour-age such unions. PAGE A7

Child Marriage on the Rise

An ex-U.S. prosecutor and an employ-ment lawyer will lead the investigationinto harassment accusations. PAGE A17

Cuomo Inquiry Takes Shape

The Biden administration will examineTrump-era rules on sexual misconductthat afforded greater protections tostudents accused of assault. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A12-17

Revisiting Campus Due Process

Paul Krugman PAGE A18

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19

Weston McKennie has had a whirlwindjourney in the last year that has takenhim to Juventus, one of the powers inworld soccer. PAGE B8

SPORTSTUESDAY B8-10

A U.S. Star at Home in Italy

Lost jobs and lockdowns forced almosteveryone to change spending habits.We talked to people in five householdsabout pandemic budgeting. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

Lessons of Pandemic Spending

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,992 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2021

Today, partly cloudy, noticeablymilder, high 60. Tonight, clear skies,low 41. Tomorrow, mostly sunnyskies, remaining mild, high 56.Weather map appears on Page B5.

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