A Data Intelligentsia survey explores the attitudes of Mexicans in Mexico on key issues pertaining to immigration, migration, and border security, and the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. The highlights: Survey respondents support robust border security; want the United States to adopt a more compassionate approach to the deportation of undocumented immigrants; and believe, by considerable margins, that Joe Biden would do a better job than Donald Trump on a range of issues.

In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, said that if Donald Trump wins a second term, the administration  would use agreements with Central American governments — the “Asylum Cooperative Agreements” — as models to get countries around the world, possibly in Africa and Asia, to field asylum claims from people seeking refuge in the United States. The two principles undergirding the projected asylum policy — the First Country of Asylum principle the Safe Third Country principle – form the basis for the Dublin Regulation which governs EU asylum policy.

A court-appointed steering committee has been working to locate the families of about 2,700 children separated by DHS’ Zero Tolerance border policy, which separated children and toddlers from their parents. The policy was overturned in court in mid-2018, but the parents of many of the children have been deported to Guatemala and Honduras, leaving the children behind. The parents of 545 children are yet to be found.

Environmental hazards affect populations worldwide and can drive migration under specific conditions, especially in middle-income and agricultural countries. According to a new study, changes in temperature levels, increased rainfall variability, and rapid-onset disasters such as tropical storms play an important role in this regard.

Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former top political adviser, was charged today (Thursday) in New York with defrauding donors in a scheme related to an initiative called “We Build the Wall,” an online crowdfunding effort which collected more than $25 million from citizens who wished to help Trump’s border wall project for the U.S.-Mexico border. “As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, said in statement Thursday.

A new study suggests that a large increase in the stock of immigrants to the United States would have little impact on the wages of native U.S. citizens. Allowing for more high-skill immigration could be detrimental to some highly skilled workers in the country, but disproportionately beneficial to low skilled workers.

Comprehensive immigration reform has long proved too heavy a lift for the U.S. Congress. But two Cornell Law School scholars say an incremental change with bipartisan support could not only improve a broken system but spark the nation’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Their proposed pilot program would target highly skilled foreign workers, using a points-based selection system modeled after successful programs in Canada and Australia.

Months after the “Lamborghini” of border walls was built along the Rio Grande, the builder agreed to an engineering inspection of his controversial structure. Experts say the wall is showing signs of erosion that threatens its stability.

Defense Strategies Institute will hold its 8th Border Security & Intelligence Summit on 29-30 July 2020 in Alexandria, Virginia. This year’s summit will focus on the policies and technologies aiming to help secure the U.S. homeland by bolstering the protection and security of the nation’s borders. The theme of this year’s summit is “Enhancing Homeland Security Through Intelligence Sharing and Targeted Enforcement.”