The Cost of Illegal Immigration | Misdiagnosing Extremism | Pentagon Playing Catch Up on Nuclear Protection, and more

The reason is that a very large share of illegal immigrants have modest levels of education, which results in modest incomes and tax payments, even when they are paid on the books. Their generally low incomes also allow many of them to qualify for means-tested welfare programs, which they often receive on behalf of native-born children. In other words, illegal immigrants are a net fiscal drain on public budgets for the same reasons that legal immigrants and native-born Americans with low levels of education are: They receive more in benefits from the system than they pay into it.
These realities do not neatly satisfy either side of the contemporary immigration divide, so they are routinely ignored or even denied. Any serious and informed immigration-policy debate will have to confront them.

Misdiagnosing Extremism (Lisa Nelson, National Affairs)
The Biden administration has identified domestic violent extremism as an increasingly significant threat to national security. What constitutes extremism, however, is far from clear, and its relationship to the rights protected by the First Amendment raises troubling questions. The administration has tried to sidestep these questions by relying on the private sector to do what government can’t — which only underscores the problem.

Border Arrests Plunge 29% in June to the Lowest of Biden’s Presidency  (AP / VOA News)
Arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico plunged 29% in June, the lowest month of Joe Biden’s presidency, according to figures released Monday that provide another window on the impact of a new rule to temporarily suspend asylum.
Arrests totaled 83,536 in June, down from 117,901 in May to mark the lowest tally since January 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said.
A seven-day average of daily arrests fell more than half by the end of June from Biden’s announcement on June 4 that asylum processing would be halted when daily arrests reach 2,500, which they did immediately, said Troy Miller, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner.
“Recent border security measures have made a meaningful impact on our ability to impose consequences for those crossing unlawfully,” Miller said.
Arrests had already fallen by more than half from a record high of 250,000 in December, largely a result of increased enforcement by Mexican authorities, according to U.S. officials.
Sharp declines registered across nationalities, including Mexicans, who have been most affected by the suspension of asylum, and Chinese people, who generally fly to Ecuador and travel to the U.S. border over land.

Donald Trump’s Violent Rhetoric: A Catalogue  (Cathy Young, The Bulwark)
Following the July 13 Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump, his supporters—and many anti-anti-Trump commentators—have been wringing their hands about the supposed rhetorical extremism of Democrats and other Trump foes. It’s all a bit rich, though, given that violent, fearmongering, and dehumanizing rhetoric has been Trump’s stock in trade over the past decade. This is, after all, the man who started his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015 by claiming that the vast majority of immigrants from Mexico, including legal ones, are “bringing drugs [and] crime” or “are rapists”—and who recently accused Joe Biden of “running a Gestapo administration.”
At a moment when so many people on the right are smearing any impolite Trump critic as complicit in the assassination attempt, revisiting Trump’s long history of flirtation with verbal violence is in order—if only to keep the record straight.
So, bearing in mind that nothing Trump has said or done excuses or mitigates the horrific acts of his would-be assassin, here’s a list of instances of Trump normalizing, endorsing, promoting, or winking at political and other violence.

Iran Is Stoking Anti-Israel Protests in the U.S. Such Efforts Are Hardly New.  (Cliff Smith, Dispatch)
Last week, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines released a statement highlighting Iran’s role in stoking anti-Israel protests in the United States: “We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.” While stressing that individuals are expressing their true opinions on the horrifying loss of life in Gaza, she warned that “Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.” Haines’ statement put the world on notice that campus protests are not entirely organic. 
The usual suspects, such as the Hamas-linked Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), complained that Haines’ statement lacks specificity. “Our government must not deliberately or accidentally resurrect (Joe McCarthy’s or J. Edgar Hoover’s) legacy by weaponizing its power to smear or silence the American people,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s national deputy director. “To address these concerns, we encourage you to share much more clarifying detail about the Iranian operation.”
Such criticism misses the mark. Haines’ warning that Iran is encouraging and even funding campus protests is new information, but that Iranian influence operations exist in the U.S. is old news. Indeed, it would be far more surprising if Iran were not involved in egging on recent protests.
The clearest example of this kind of influence is that several high-ranking former Iranian government officials have held, and in some cases continue to hold, positions at major U.S. universities. Indeed, two years ago, The Dispatch reported on Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former high-level Iranian diplomat, nuclear negotiator, and regime propagandist who nonetheless serves as a “Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist,” at Princeton University, where he’s been since 2009. But this flew under the radar until last year. In 2023, Mousavian became the focal point of two congressional investigations, one, by the House and Senate Armed Service Committees which focused on a speech he gave to STRATCOM, and by the House Education and Workforce Committee, which focused on the wider issue of his closeness to the Iranian regime.
More recently, documents reviewed by investigative reporter Jay Solomon showed that, while at Princeton, Mousavian worked closely with former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to promote Iran’s messaging and engagement with the West.
Mousavian is not alone. Until recently, another former high-ranking Iranian diplomat, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, was a professor at Oberlin College in Ohio, following a stint at Columbia University. Amnesty International has alleged that Mahallati was deeply involved in the cover-up of a regime-sponsored massacre in 1988 during his time as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations. More recently, Mahallati openly bragged about his usefulness to the Iranian regime in a letter he undoubtedly thought would not get noticed in the U.S. But it was noticed, prompting a congressional investigation. During this same period, Oberlin was facing a Department of Education civil rights investigation for antisemitism based, in part, on the allegation that Mahallati had openly taught students support for Hamas and terrorism. 
While Mahallati remains, technically, employed by Oberlin, he is on indefinite suspension. That suspension, however, was only after that Oberlin learned he’d run a sex-for-grades operation while at Columbia. If that isn’t weird enough, consider this: The Iranian Mission to the United Nations attempted to shield Mahallati from this lawsuit by secretly appointing him to another diplomatic position and thus granting him diplomatic immunity, showing that the regime continued to consider Mahallati an asset.
Iran’s influence is not limited to a few professors who once held positions in the Iranian regime. Iran also allegedly controls the Alavi Foundation, which is clearly influential on U.S. universities.
Nobody can feel good about the deaths of innocents occurring in Gaza, and undoubtedly many Americans believe they are doing the right thing in protesting Israel’s actions. But ultimately the finger should be pointed at Iran and its proxies, including Hamas. Iran’s influence operations have every incentive to tear America apart politically and to downplay its own involvement in the October 7 massacre. America and its allies should rid itself of this pernicious network.