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Can Border Patrol Go Through Your Phone? A Legal Expert Explains What Rights Travelers Have Entering the U.S.
A Northeastern legal expert explains the complexities involved with searches of phones and social media and what rights citizens and visitors have when entering the country.
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The Trade Deficit Isn’t an Emergency – It’s a Sign of America’s Strength
A trade deficit is often viewed as a problem. And yes, the U.S. trade deficit is both large and persistent. But far from a national emergency, this persistent deficit is actually a sign of America’s financial and technological dominance. Trump’s extreme tariffs, rather than reviving U.S. manufacturing, will erode the very pillars of the country’s economic dominance, at a steep cost to American firms and families.
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Why Was Russia Spared from Trump’s Tariffs?
Import tariffs, which President Donald Trump slapped on about 90 countries on 2 April, had some surprise omissions. One of them has turned out be Russia, which made many wonder why. Trump’s decision to spare Russia has not been lost on Russia’s ruling elite. Some top members of that elite could not help gloating over how some of America’s traditional allies were reeling from Trump’s tariffs, while Russia was untouched.
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Trump’s New Immigration Ban: An Arbitrary, Discriminatory Legal Immigration Rewrite
President Trump claims he wants a “merit-based” immigration system, but a system banning people based on their nationality is the opposite of merit-based. It is a national embarrassment.
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How Canadian Immigration Law Turns Judges into Border Guards
What happens to you if you get into an argument, it escalates, and you end up hitting someone with an umbrella or pulling their hair? In Canada, if you’re not a Canadian citizen, the consequences can be dramatic: you may be deported.
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Presidents Can’t Overhaul Election Law by Decree
On March 25, President Donald Trump published an executive order purporting to overhaul the nation’s election system. But under our American system, voting and voter registration are predominantly responsibilities of the states, with Congress constitutionally empowered to add some overlays through legislation of general applicability. A president cannot change those basics by putting out an executive order, nor may he commandeer the states, through funding blackmail or otherwise, into acting as instruments of his pleasure.
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American Couple Held in Mexican Maximum-Security Prison Over Timeshare Dispute
A Michigan couple has been detained in a maximum-security Mexican prison over a timeshare agreement dispute. American Express investigated the matter and sided with the couple, reversing the charges, but the Mexican authorities arrested them on charges of defrauding the hotel chain.
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Noncitizens Cannot Vote in New York City’s Local Elections, State High Court Rules
Though few localities allow noncitizens to vote, Republicans have made it a focus.
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Under Pressure from Trump, ICE Is Pushing Legal Boundaries
Confrontations with judges are grabbing attention, but more quietly a pattern of questionable arrests shows the extent to which the administration is willing to test norms and laws.
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Anti-Jewish and anti-Israel Bias Found in Leading AI Models, New ADL Report Finds
A comprehensive evaluation found that all four large language models (LLMs) — GPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Gemini (Google), and Llama (Meta) — exhibited measurable anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias, though the degree and nature of bias varied across models.
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ICE Detains Spouse of an American Citizen on Couple’s Return from Honeymoon
A 26-year-old Peruvian citizen who returned with her American husband from their honeymoon, was detained by ICE, and has been in a Louisiana correctional center since 15 February. Following her marriage in May 2024, they applied for her permanent residency. At the time of her detention, their application was under review by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
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The Paradox of Democracy’s Success: Behavioral Science Helps Explain Why We Miss Autocratic Red Flags
The era of global liberal democracy led some scholars celebrated the “the end of history,” as risks to democracy appeared ever more remote. But in the same way that a nuclear power plant may appear to be operating safely until the last safety valve is broken, democracies can appear stable right up until they flip into autocracy. The growing electoral success of extreme rightwing parties in many Western countries, from France to Finland and from the Netherlands to Germany, has turned the end of history into the possible end of democracy.
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Trump Is Using the Alien Enemies Act to Deport Immigrants – but the 18th-century Law Has Been Invoked Only During Times of War
The Alien Enemies Act empowers presidents to apprehend and remove foreign nationals from countries that are at war with the United States. U.S. presidents have issued executive proclamations and invoked this law three times: during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. All three instances followed Congress declaring war.
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Under What Circumstances Can a U.S. Green Card Be Revoked?
The recent arrest of Palestinian activist and U.S. legal permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil, who played a prominent role in last year’s Columbia University protests over the war in Gaza, has prompted questions about the limits of a green card.
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The Parallels Between Kash Patel and William J. Burns, a Scandal-Mongering 1920s FBI Director — an FBI Historian Explains
As an FBI historian, I have researched political influence on the FBI. It’s still early days, but Kash Patel’s confirmation has one clear, if century-old, comparison in FBI history. It is not J. Edgar Hoover, but Hoover’s immediate predecessor, William J. Burns, who served as director from 1921 through 1924.With bogus charges and spurious probe, Burnsused the FBI to go after lawmakers who wanted to investigate the Teapot Dome Scandal. Trump’s and Patel’s own words portend the FBI returning to the open political targeting of the Teapot Dome era. History whispers a warning.
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The long view
Nick Fuentes Is a Master of Exploiting the Current Social Media Opportunities for Extremism
That the antisemitic white nationalist Nick Fuentes and his followers have managed to get what their 20th-century predecessors could not — widespread awareness and political influence — reveals how fringe ideologies operate differently today compared to the mid-20th century, when institutional gatekeepers –political parties, law enforcement, the media –could more effectively contain extremist movements.
Fake survey Answers from AI Could Quietly Sway Election Predictions
Public opinion polls and other surveys rely on data to understand human behavior. New research reveals that artificial intelligence can now corrupt public opinion surveys at scale—passing every quality check, mimicking real humans, and manipulating results without leaving a trace.