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IMMIGRATIONMelissa Sanchez
“If we suddenly kicked out all of the people here, the undocumented, our dairy farms would collapse,” one lawmaker said. “We have to come up with a solution.”
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CONSPIRACY THEORIES
People who think more analytically, rather than intuitively, are less likely to believe in the “great replacement” conspiracy. This association remained when individual differences in political ideology and education were statistically controlled in the analyses. People who think analytically also have higher ‘faith’ in science, disbelief in paranormal phenomena, and lower religiosity.
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BORDER SECURITYUriel J. Garcia and William Melhado
Texas authorities believe the person drowned upstream and floated into the buoys near Eagle Pass. Mexico criticized Texas’ placement of the buoys along the river.
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BORDER SECURITYJean Lantz Reisz
The Rio Grande is the site of a legal battle between the U.S. federal government and the state of Texas regarding the right to enact blockades in the river. The U.S. Justice Department announced on July 24, 2023, that it filed a civil lawsuit against Texas for illegally placing a floating buoy barrier in a section of the Rio Grande that runs about 1,000 feet, or 304 meters, long.
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BORDER SECURITY
The Justice Department on Monday filed a civil complaint against the State of Texas because the state has built a floating barrier, consisting of buoys strung together, in the Rio Grande River without the federal authorization that is legally required under the Rivers and Harbors Act.
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IMMIGRATIONKrysten Crawford
Opponents of immigration often argue that immigrants drive up crime rates. Research by Stanford’s Ran Abramitzky and co-authors uncovers the most extensive evidence to date that immigrants are less likely to be imprisoned than U.S.-born individuals.
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MIGRATIONUriel J. García
The Office of the Inspector General is investigating the claims, which include pushing small children and women with nursing babies back into the river and turning away a 4-year-old girl who later passed out on the riverbank from the heat.
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MIGRATIONElla Joyner
The word “pushback” has entered the EU’s lexicon along with hundreds of thousands of people who have sought asylum in the bloc since 2015. Campaigners say “pushbacks” are now so systematic, they are de facto policy.
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ASYLUM
EU+ countries received around 996,000 asylum applications in 2022, a 53 percent increase over 2021. Around 70 percent of applications in 2022 were lodged in five receiving countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Austria, and Italy. As in previous years, the top countries of origin were Syria and Afghanistan, followed by Turkey, Venezuela and Colombia.
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IMMIGRATIONUriel J. Garcia
Texas and Louisiana sued after the Biden administration told immigration agents to focus on deporting undocumented immigrants who are convicted of felonies or pose a risk to public safety. The Supreme Court said states didn’t have any standing to sue.
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IMMIGRATIONAline Barros
In the United States, there are notable distinctions between refugees or asylum-seekers. While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are significant differences under U.S. immigration law when pursuing these statuses. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has established specific priorities for processing individuals and groups with special humanitarian concerns who seek entry into the United States.
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IMMIGRATIONLisa Hänel and Andrea Grunau
From healthcare to IT, carpenters to technicians, Germany’s “help wanted” sign is blinking red. Germany has two million jobs to fill, and it needs 400,000 foreign workers to make up the shortfall every year. When the baby boomers retire en masse, the problem will only get worse. Now Germany is reforming its immigration laws to help close the gap, and bring in, and keep, foreign talent.
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GUNSMasood Farivar
A new law that imposes harsher penalties on gun trafficking is giving U.S. prosecutors a powerful tool to combat the illicit flow of weapons from the United States to drug cartels in Mexico. The cartels use the weapons to protect their drug smuggling operations, fueling an overdose epidemic that is claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Americans.
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WORKER VISASClaire Klobucista and Diana Roy
Temporary foreign workers have long supported the U.S. economy, providing American industries, such as agriculture and technology, with a critical labor force, and the United States accepts hundreds of thousands of foreign workers each year. Persistent U.S. labor shortages, accusations of abuse, an influx of undocumented immigrants, and pushback from domestic labor groups have reenergized the debate over the scale of these programs. President Biden has expanded the capacity of some programs, including by streamlining the application process, but more ambitious efforts have stalled in Congress.
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PROFESSIONALS’ MIGRATION
As a driving force of economic, demographic, social, and political change, migration is a top priority for policymakers, but studies were often hampered by incomplete statistics and outdated data. A new study assessing migration interest found that fewer professionals from countries in Northern, Southern, and Western Europe want to move east. But Eastern Europe’s appeal might change in the coming years.
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BORDER SECURITYZach Despart and Patrick Svitek
The governor revealed plans for a floating river barrier at a Capitol signing ceremony for six new laws related to border security. The first 1,000-foot section will be set up near Eagle Pass.
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DOMESTIC TERRORISM
Two members of the self-styled 2nd American Militia who conspired to go “to war with border patrol” have been indicted two weeks ago by a federal grand jury on charges related to a conspiracy to murder Border Patrol officers and kill illegal immigrants crossing the border. The plot was thwarted by a shootout with FBI agents who arrested them.
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BORDER SECURITYLydia Renee Cleveland, Alexandra P Leader, Erika Frydenlund
There were widespread predictions that there would be a surge of migration across the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2023, when Title 42 COVID-related restrictions were lifted. There was no surge, but even without it, migration across the U.S-Mexico border continues to trend upward and remains at record-breaking levels.
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ARGUMENT: NEW BORDER RULES
The Biden administration announced on May 16 a new border rule that creates new pathways for lawful entry and limits access to asylum for unauthorized entrants. Shalini Bhargava Ray writes that the rule takes important steps to create alternatives to unauthorized entry for those seeking refuge, but serious questions remain about the viability and practical accessibility of those pathways.
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BORDER SECURITYJolie McCullough and James Barragán
The House has already passed the bill, but the two chambers will need to iron out the differences in their versions before it is sent to Gov. Greg Abbott. It’s the most sweeping of a Republican package of bills that aims to stiffen the state’s response to a record number of crossings at Texas’ southern border.
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More headlines
The long view
Proof That Immigrants Fuel the U.S. Economy Is Found in the Billions They Send Back Home
Studies indicate that remittances — or money immigrants send back home — constitute 17.5% of immigrants’ income. Given that, we estimate that the immigrants who remitted in 2022 had take-home wages of over $466 billion. Assuming their take-home wages are around 21% of the economic value of what they produce for the businesses they work for – like workers in similar entry-level jobs in restaurants and construction – then immigrants added a total of $2.2 trillion to the U.S. economy yearly. That is about 8% of the U.S. GDP.
U.S. Border Surveillance Towers Have Always Been Broken
A new bombshell scoop from NBC News revealed an internal U.S. Border Patrol memo claiming that 30 percent of camera towers that compose the agency’s “Remote Video Surveillance System” (RVSS) program are broken. Except, this isn’t a bombshell.