Our picksTitle 42 Caused a Spike in Mexican Illegal Immigration | Colorado River Is Drying Up Fast | Future of War on Terror, and more

Do Not Take the War on Terror’s Big Success for Granted  (Michael E. O’Hanlon and Lily Windholz, National Interest)
What George W. Bush called the global war on terror has succeeded remarkably, if provisionally, in its single most important goal from an American national security perspective: protecting the homeland, and Americans therein, from attack.

Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success  (Nelly Lahoud, Foreign Affairs)
Al Qaeda Changed the World—but Not in the Way It Expected

Across the Arab World, Islamists’ Brief Stints in Power Have Failed  (Economist)
They have proved out of touch with those they claimed to support.

Nuclear Watchdog Says North Korea Appears to Have Restarted Reactor  (Reuters / VOA News)
North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the U.N. atomic watchdog has said in an annual report.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has had no access to North Korea since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009. The country then pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons program and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last nuclear test was in 2017.
The IAEA now monitors North Korea from afar, largely through satellite imagery.

Title 42 Caused a Spike in Mexican Illegal Immigration  (Alex Nowrasteh, CATO)
In April 2020, the Trump administration ordered immigration enforcement agencies to expel those apprehended along the border under 42 U.S.C.§ 265 to combat the pandemic. That statute allows the government, in whole or in part, to close the border to prevent the spread of communicable disease, with some theoretical legal ambiguity. Illegal immigrants apprehended under Title 42 are quickly expelled by Border Patrol, which is a big change from earlier policies to mostly punish unlawful border crossers with detention and criminal charges under immigration law, which is Title 8 of the U.S. Code.
The Biden administration has kept Title 42 in place and, relatedly, is struggling mightily with large numbers of border apprehensions of illegal immigrants. Many conservatives are blaming the Biden administration for border policies that have boosted the flow of illegal immigrants and many liberals, fearful of an escalation in border chaos, are supporting harsh enforcement measures like Title 42. The problem is that Title 42 can explain a large part of the surge of illegal immigrant apprehensions. If the Biden administration wanted to reduce the flow across the border, it would end or reduce the scope of Title 42.