Category: reason

Biden Called Trump’s Refugee Cap ‘Cruel and Shortsighted.’ He’s Keeping It in Place.


zumaamericasthirty641888

President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office with a lot of promises, but perhaps none were as audacious and expansive as what he said he’d do to overhaul former President Donald Trump’s U.S. immigration policy. Core to that: In February, his administration vowed to raise the ceiling more than 400 percent on Trump’s historically low refugee cap, upping it from 15,000 to 62,500 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2021.

“President Trump’s decision to close America’s doors to refugees fleeing persecution is cruel and shortsighted,” then-candidate Biden said in November 2019. “As president, I will restore America’s historic commitment to welcoming those whose lives are threatened by conflict and crisis.”

Today he announced that, although he would move to expedite refugee admissions, he will keep Trump’s cap as is. His decision leaves thousands of people—who had already been vetted to come to the U.S.—stuck in refugee camps across the globe as they seek protection from persecution and war.

“This phased approach considers the work needed to rebuild our resettlement program and the global challenges for refugee resettlement,” a Biden official told Axios, “including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

But it appears COVID-19 is not the primary reason for Biden’s pivot. Instead, a senior administration official said that the increase in unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border had put a strain on the refugee branch of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to The New York Times.

That justification makes some sense. But it’s not because of any inability to assist. Though the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has helped the administration with placing some unaccompanied children, that is not the system that broadly processes migrant minors who arrive at the border. Prior to the administration’s Friday announcement, sources from inside the administration said Biden had pushed back on fulfilling his promise because he is worried about the political optics at the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN reported Thursday.

“The refugee program and the unaccompanied child program are separate items in the HHS budget,” says David Bier, a research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. “This is purely about politics.”

Such reasoning sheds light on Biden’s overall approach to immigration as he has about-faced on a slew of promises since taking office. This week, his administration seized a family’s land at the border via eminent domain for the construction of a border wall after specifically campaigning on stopping those very lawsuits. “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration,” he told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro in August 2020. When asked about land confiscations, he responded quickly: “End, end, end, stop, done, over. Not gonna do it. Withdraw the lawsuits. We’re out.”

The administration symbolically rescinded Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy of family separations, which hadn’t been in practice since the summer of 2018. Tucked into that news cycle was that he instead told the government they can continue separating families with discretion. And though he promised to sunset Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy—the program that forced asylum seekers to wait for their court dates outside of the U.S.—he has instead immediately expelled many would-be asylum claimants without a court date at all.

Speaking of optics, Biden is also defending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from having to provide recompense to immigrants who say they were duped into attending a fake college set up by the agency so that the government could deport them. Though they were charged thousands of dollars in tuition, they were never reimbursed—something Vice President Kamala Harris turned her attention to while she was a candidate on the campaign trail.

“This isn’t just cruel, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said in 2019. “Officials must be held accountable for this.” Instead, it seems, the Biden-Harris administration is holding immigrants “accountable.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Q2pjFU
via IFTTT

Biden Called Trump’s Refugee Cap ‘Cruel and Shortsighted.’ He’s Keeping It in Place.


zumaamericasthirty641888

President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office with a lot of promises, but perhaps none were as audacious and expansive as what he said he’d do to overhaul former President Donald Trump’s U.S. immigration policy. Core to that: In February, his administration vowed to raise the ceiling more than 400 percent on Trump’s historically low refugee cap, upping it from 15,000 to 62,500 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2021.

“President Trump’s decision to close America’s doors to refugees fleeing persecution is cruel and shortsighted,” then-candidate Biden said in November 2019. “As president, I will restore America’s historic commitment to welcoming those whose lives are threatened by conflict and crisis.”

Today he announced that, although he would move to expedite refugee admissions, he will keep Trump’s cap as is. His decision leaves thousands of people—who had already been vetted to come to the U.S.—stuck in refugee camps across the globe as they seek protection from persecution and war.

“This phased approach considers the work needed to rebuild our resettlement program and the global challenges for refugee resettlement,” a Biden official told Axios, “including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

But it appears COVID-19 is not the primary reason for Biden’s pivot. Instead, a senior administration official said that the increase in unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border had put a strain on the refugee branch of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to The New York Times.

That justification makes some sense. But it’s not because of any inability to assist. Though the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has helped the administration with placing some unaccompanied children, that is not the system that broadly processes migrant minors who arrive at the border. Prior to the administration’s Friday announcement, sources from inside the administration said Biden had pushed back on fulfilling his promise because he is worried about the political optics at the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN reported Thursday.

“The refugee program and the unaccompanied child program are separate items in the HHS budget,” says David Bier, a research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. “This is purely about politics.”

Such reasoning sheds light on Biden’s overall approach to immigration as he has about-faced on a slew of promises since taking office. This week, his administration seized a family’s land at the border via eminent domain for the construction of a border wall after specifically campaigning on stopping those very lawsuits. “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration,” he told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro in August 2020. When asked about land confiscations, he responded quickly: “End, end, end, stop, done, over. Not gonna do it. Withdraw the lawsuits. We’re out.”

The administration symbolically rescinded Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy of family separations, which hadn’t been in practice since the summer of 2018. Tucked into that news cycle was that he instead told the government they can continue separating families with discretion. And though he promised to sunset Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy—the program that forced asylum seekers to wait for their court dates outside of the U.S.—he has instead immediately expelled many would-be asylum claimants without a court date at all.

Speaking of optics, Biden is also defending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from having to provide recompense to immigrants who say they were duped into attending a fake college set up by the agency so that the government could deport them. Though they were charged thousands of dollars in tuition, they were never reimbursed—something Vice President Kamala Harris turned her attention to while she was a candidate on the campaign trail.

“This isn’t just cruel, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said in 2019. “Officials must be held accountable for this.” Instead, it seems, the Biden-Harris administration is holding immigrants “accountable.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Q2pjFU
via IFTTT

Mom, How Come the Kids in These Old Books Are Allowed Outside Without a Parent or Cell Phone?


leo-rivas-wtxcaDIdOCM-unsplash

Harriet the Spy. Encyclopedia Brown. Meg and Charles Wallace, Ramona, Beezus, Pippi, and that kid from My Side of the Mountain. They all shared something other than spunk: freedom of movement.

It was a given in midcentury children’s literature that the protagonists would venture off on their own. They solved crimes, befriended beavers, and saved parents who had become stuck in other dimensions. But the normal stuff they did—hopping on their bikes, walking into town, playing outside—has become almost as mythic as the ability to fly or cast spells.

I was just reading an essay by a mom who said it actually felt sad and unnerving to read the 1964 book A Pocketful of Cricket to her son, knowing he would not be growing up in an era affording him anything like the freedom she or the boy in the book had enjoyed.

And as sad as that is to contemplate, it is also infuriating. There is no reality-based reason kids today can’t be out and about on their own. Our culture seems to think nothing of depriving the people we ostensibly love the most—children—of the chance to be fully alive when they are young. Having adventures. Meeting crickets. Making some memories when something goes totally wrong or totally right.

We say we can’t let them have the freedom their parents and grandparents enjoyed because we are trying to keep them safe. But this relentless focus on safety only makes sense if we are talking about Rembrandt paintings, or a Ming vase. Might as well keep those safe in a temperature-controlled room. There is no upside to exposing them to anything other than hushed tones and velvet-gloved hands. Kids are precious, but they’re not precious things. They grow when they get a chance to do, to see, to try, to run, and even to fall.

A classic article in The Daily Mail several years back titled “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations” interviewed four members of the same family. The great grandad, 88, recalled walking six miles at age eight to play with friends and make forts in the woods. His son, 63, walked a mile or so to do the same thing, same age. The daughter, in her 40s, had walked half a mile to school.

And she does not let her eight-year-old son off the block.

That is not progress. That is the gradual suffocation of childhood. And yet it has become so accepted that those who resist—who want their kids to roam like Pippi, Harriet or Charles Wallace—are outliers. Just this morning I spoke with a mom in Virginia visited twice by the cops for letting her young kids play on the front lawn.

Yesterday it was another mom. She was watching her son and daughter, ages four and five, play in the backyard, but when she went inside to change the baby, the siblings wandered into the woods. When the mom called the cops to ask for help finding them, they obliged, found the kids—and referred the mom to child protective services.

When the mom asked what she had done wrong, the cop replied that letting her kids play outside alone is always considered neglect.

Paging Encyclopedia Brown: Someone has stolen childhood. Do you think we’ll ever get it back?

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3dmUowM
via IFTTT

Mom, How Come the Kids in These Old Books Are Allowed Outside Without a Parent or Cell Phone?


leo-rivas-wtxcaDIdOCM-unsplash

Harriet the Spy. Encyclopedia Brown. Meg and Charles Wallace, Ramona, Beezus, Pippi, and that kid from My Side of the Mountain. They all shared something other than spunk: freedom of movement.

It was a given in midcentury children’s literature that the protagonists would venture off on their own. They solved crimes, befriended beavers, and saved parents who had become stuck in other dimensions. But the normal stuff they did—hopping on their bikes, walking into town, playing outside—has become almost as mythic as the ability to fly or cast spells.

I was just reading an essay by a mom who said it actually felt sad and unnerving to read the 1964 book A Pocketful of Cricket to her son, knowing he would not be growing up in an era affording him anything like the freedom she or the boy in the book had enjoyed.

And as sad as that is to contemplate, it is also infuriating. There is no reality-based reason kids today can’t be out and about on their own. Our culture seems to think nothing of depriving the people we ostensibly love the most—children—of the chance to be fully alive when they are young. Having adventures. Meeting crickets. Making some memories when something goes totally wrong or totally right.

We say we can’t let them have the freedom their parents and grandparents enjoyed because we are trying to keep them safe. But this relentless focus on safety only makes sense if we are talking about Rembrandt paintings, or a Ming vase. Might as well keep those safe in a temperature-controlled room. There is no upside to exposing them to anything other than hushed tones and velvet-gloved hands. Kids are precious, but they’re not precious things. They grow when they get a chance to do, to see, to try, to run, and even to fall.

A classic article in The Daily Mail several years back titled “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations” interviewed four members of the same family. The great grandad, 88, recalled walking six miles at age eight to play with friends and make forts in the woods. His son, 63, walked a mile or so to do the same thing, same age. The daughter, in her 40s, had walked half a mile to school.

And she does not let her eight-year-old son off the block.

That is not progress. That is the gradual suffocation of childhood. And yet it has become so accepted that those who resist—who want their kids to roam like Pippi, Harriet or Charles Wallace—are outliers. Just this morning I spoke with a mom in Virginia visited twice by the cops for letting her young kids play on the front lawn.

Yesterday it was another mom. She was watching her son and daughter, ages four and five, play in the backyard, but when she went inside to change the baby, the siblings wandered into the woods. When the mom called the cops to ask for help finding them, they obliged, found the kids—and referred the mom to child protective services.

When the mom asked what she had done wrong, the cop replied that letting her kids play outside alone is always considered neglect.

Paging Encyclopedia Brown: Someone has stolen childhood. Do you think we’ll ever get it back?

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3dmUowM
via IFTTT

“Caught up in a Storm of False Accusations, Professors Found Themselves Fighting to Clear Their Names”

A fascinating, and frightening, story from the Chronicle of Higher Education (Sarah Brown & Megan Zahneis) (free registration required); an excerpt:

An email sent to nearly a dozen people at the University of Georgia, where [Cassia] Roth is an assistant professor, alleged that she had plagiarized parts of her master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, stealing the work of the sender, another young female scholar.

Then the accuser went further: Roth, she wrote, had stolen the sender’s syllabi, and was posting her photo on pornographic websites.

“She is an imposter, a serial plagiarizer,” the sender wrote of Roth, “and she needs to be held accountable for her actions.”

Roth recognized the name of the sender. It was a former graduate-school classmate of hers, someone she’d considered a friend when they studied history together at the University of California at Los Angeles….

The Chronicle is not naming the woman at the request of Roth and others she targeted, who are concerned about her well-being. This article will call her by an initial, R.

From late February to May last year, R., then an assistant professor of history at Union College in New York, leveled serious accusations against at least 16 people, including 13 former Ph.D. students at UCLA. The vast majority of the victims were women, and most of them are now faculty members at institutions across the country. The frenzied email-harassment campaign included allegations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct that, according to the targets, are completely false. (The victims who spoke with The Chronicle have been exonerated by their employers.)

The harassment campaign prompted weeks-long investigations and upended the scholars’ lives for much of the spring semester, at a time when the pandemic was also causing professional and personal upheaval. What’s more, almost none of the targeted scholars had tenure.

Even though their institutions cleared them months ago, Roth says, she and others fear they could now be associated—forever—with the false claims. The accusations they faced are the sort that can derail careers and permanently damage credibility.

“It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.” The flip side is that, for every topic, someone will lie about it; the only variable is who.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3uYSwQW
via IFTTT

“Caught up in a Storm of False Accusations, Professors Found Themselves Fighting to Clear Their Names”

A fascinating, and frightening, story from the Chronicle of Higher Education (Sarah Brown & Megan Zahneis) (free registration required); an excerpt:

An email sent to nearly a dozen people at the University of Georgia, where [Cassia] Roth is an assistant professor, alleged that she had plagiarized parts of her master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, stealing the work of the sender, another young female scholar.

Then the accuser went further: Roth, she wrote, had stolen the sender’s syllabi, and was posting her photo on pornographic websites.

“She is an imposter, a serial plagiarizer,” the sender wrote of Roth, “and she needs to be held accountable for her actions.”

Roth recognized the name of the sender. It was a former graduate-school classmate of hers, someone she’d considered a friend when they studied history together at the University of California at Los Angeles….

The Chronicle is not naming the woman at the request of Roth and others she targeted, who are concerned about her well-being. This article will call her by an initial, R.

From late February to May last year, R., then an assistant professor of history at Union College in New York, leveled serious accusations against at least 16 people, including 13 former Ph.D. students at UCLA. The vast majority of the victims were women, and most of them are now faculty members at institutions across the country. The frenzied email-harassment campaign included allegations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct that, according to the targets, are completely false. (The victims who spoke with The Chronicle have been exonerated by their employers.)

The harassment campaign prompted weeks-long investigations and upended the scholars’ lives for much of the spring semester, at a time when the pandemic was also causing professional and personal upheaval. What’s more, almost none of the targeted scholars had tenure.

Even though their institutions cleared them months ago, Roth says, she and others fear they could now be associated—forever—with the false claims. The accusations they faced are the sort that can derail careers and permanently damage credibility.

“It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.” The flip side is that, for every topic, someone will lie about it; the only variable is who.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3uYSwQW
via IFTTT

China Censors the Oscars To Block a Hong Kong Protest Film


Money

In 2019, Norwegian director Anders Hammer traveled to Hong Kong to document the demonstrations that erupted after a bill was introduced allowing criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

It was the beginning of the end for Hong Kong’s political independence.

Hammer’s documentary short, Do Not Split, takes viewers into the streets as protesters go head to head with the police in a desperate fight to preserve their freedoms.

Do Not Split, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, has garnered glowing reviews and an Academy Award nomination. The film is also one reason why the Oscars won’t be broadcast live in Hong Kong for the first time in more than half a century. 

“The Communist Party’s propaganda department issued the order to all media outlets” not to broadcast the Oscars in real time, according to anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg. Along with Do Not Split, censors object to the nomination of Beijing-born director Chloe Zhao, who is up for best director for her film Nomadland, and was once hailed as “the pride of China.” But then it came out that in a 2013 interview with Filmmaker magazine, Zhao recalled the China of her youth as “a place where there are lies everywhere.”

“Beijing is known to react,” explains Hammer. “They will take action in many different ways if they feel that something is going against their plan.”

Ironically, Beijing’s actions are having the opposite of their intended effect.

“We have had so many more media requests after this became a news story,” says Hammer. “In that sense, I think that Beijing is helping the aim of this movie, which is to bring attention to the critical situation in Hong Kong.”

Produced by Meredith Bragg.

Photo Credits: Li Gang / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Winson Wong/SCMP/Newscom; John Angelillo/UPI/Newscom; WENN / WENN English Top Features/Newscom; Hahn Lionel/ZUMA Press/Newscom; ABA/Newscom;  Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom; WENN / WENN English Top Features/Newscom; Winson Wong/SCMP/Newscom; Rafael Ben-Ari/Rafael Ben Ari/Newscom; Chinee Nouvelle/SIPA/Newscom; Matthias Balk/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2OT3Eza
via IFTTT

China Censors the Oscars To Block a Hong Kong Protest Film


Money

In 2019, Norwegian director Anders Hammer traveled to Hong Kong to document the demonstrations that erupted after a bill was introduced allowing criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

It was the beginning of the end for Hong Kong’s political independence.

Hammer’s documentary short, Do Not Split, takes viewers into the streets as protesters go head to head with the police in a desperate fight to preserve their freedoms.

Do Not Split, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, has garnered glowing reviews and an Academy Award nomination. The film is also one reason why the Oscars won’t be broadcast live in Hong Kong for the first time in more than half a century. 

“The Communist Party’s propaganda department issued the order to all media outlets” not to broadcast the Oscars in real time, according to anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg. Along with Do Not Split, censors object to the nomination of Beijing-born director Chloe Zhao, who is up for best director for her film Nomadland, and was once hailed as “the pride of China.” But then it came out that in a 2013 interview with Filmmaker magazine, Zhao recalled the China of her youth as “a place where there are lies everywhere.”

“Beijing is known to react,” explains Hammer. “They will take action in many different ways if they feel that something is going against their plan.”

Ironically, Beijing’s actions are having the opposite of their intended effect.

“We have had so many more media requests after this became a news story,” says Hammer. “In that sense, I think that Beijing is helping the aim of this movie, which is to bring attention to the critical situation in Hong Kong.”

Produced by Meredith Bragg.

Photo Credits: Li Gang / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Winson Wong/SCMP/Newscom; John Angelillo/UPI/Newscom; WENN / WENN English Top Features/Newscom; Hahn Lionel/ZUMA Press/Newscom; ABA/Newscom;  Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom; WENN / WENN English Top Features/Newscom; Winson Wong/SCMP/Newscom; Rafael Ben-Ari/Rafael Ben Ari/Newscom; Chinee Nouvelle/SIPA/Newscom; Matthias Balk/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2OT3Eza
via IFTTT

“Facebook Prevents Sharing New York Post Story on Black Lives Matter Founder Patrisse Cullors’ Real Estate”

Newsweek (Daniel Villarreal) reports:

The article mentioned that Cullors had purchased “four high-end homes for $3.2 million” in the United States. It also said that she was seeking real estate in the Bahamas. It contrasted the purchases with Cullors’ self-identification as a Marxist as well as criticisms from others about the alleged lack of financial transparency from the national BLM organization.

When Newsweek reporters attempted to post a link to the Post’s story, the action couldn’t be completed. The following message also appeared: “Your post couldn’t be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards. If you think this doesn’t go against our Community Standards let us know.”

A Facebook spokesperson told Newsweek, “This content was removed for violating our privacy and personal information policy.” The policy forbids articles that share details that could identify a person’s financial and residential information, thus violating their privacy rights.

The N.Y. Post article strikes me as pretty similar to other articles that the media writes about prominent people; it doesn’t, for instance, mention a specific address, though it includes photos. The article also reports that all its information was drawn from public records.

Of course, Facebook isn’t bound by the First Amendment, and is legally free to block whatever posts it wants on its site. Still, I think it’s helpful to understand just how broadly Big Tech companies have started restricting such speech, and how much of an influence they will potentially be able to wield in future debates (and future elections).

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/32mDCYo
via IFTTT

“Facebook Prevents Sharing New York Post Story on Black Lives Matter Founder Patrisse Cullors’ Real Estate”

Newsweek (Daniel Villarreal) reports:

The article mentioned that Cullors had purchased “four high-end homes for $3.2 million” in the United States. It also said that she was seeking real estate in the Bahamas. It contrasted the purchases with Cullors’ self-identification as a Marxist as well as criticisms from others about the alleged lack of financial transparency from the national BLM organization.

When Newsweek reporters attempted to post a link to the Post’s story, the action couldn’t be completed. The following message also appeared: “Your post couldn’t be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards. If you think this doesn’t go against our Community Standards let us know.”

A Facebook spokesperson told Newsweek, “This content was removed for violating our privacy and personal information policy.” The policy forbids articles that share details that could identify a person’s financial and residential information, thus violating their privacy rights.

The N.Y. Post article strikes me as pretty similar to other articles that the media writes about prominent people; it doesn’t, for instance, mention a specific address, though it includes photos. The article also reports that all its information was drawn from public records.

Of course, Facebook isn’t bound by the First Amendment, and is legally free to block whatever posts it wants on its site. Still, I think it’s helpful to understand just how broadly Big Tech companies have started restricting such speech, and how much of an influence they will potentially be able to wield in future debates (and future elections).

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/32mDCYo
via IFTTT