The president is using his executive power not to address a legitimate crisis, but to satisfy a political goal. By Matt Ford, The New Republic — President Donald Trump has announced that he will sign the compromise spending bill struck between Democrats and Republicans this week, which will avert another government shutdown and provide $1.375 billion for new barriers along the southern border. Unhappy with that amount—he had requested $5.7 billion from…
The flap of a butterfly’s wings really can cause a hurricane. By James Watkins, OZY — The very first immigrant from Thailand to Iceland arrived in 1979. Not a huge amount is…
The region’s inequality and violence, in which the US has long played a role, is driving people to leave their homes By Julian Borger, The Guradian — Jakelin Caal Maquín,…
The violent theft of land and capital is at the core of the U.S. experiment: the U.S. military got its start in the wars against Native Americans. By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,…
By Jackie McVicar, America Magazine — Though thousands of Hondurans left in recent weeks to form the main party of the so-called migrant caravan now making its way to the United States through Mexico, on a typical day hundreds of people leave Honduras, caravan or not. And as those hundreds depart, scores of others are returned after deportation from the United States. Many deportees will try their luck again. “We are living in calamity,…
By Carla Pineda, Law at the Margins — Editor’s note: This article is part of “We the Immigrants,” a Community Based News Room (CBNR) series that examines how immigrant communities across the United States are responding to immigration policies. The five-part series is supported by a Solutions Journalism Network Renewing Democracy grant. The truth became clear to Sadat Ibrahim early. At the age of 18, he knew his life would be difficult as…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Hutchinson Report — “Maybe he will put this Willie Horton on the ticket”. Lee Atwater, George Bush Sr’s 1988 presidential campaign manager wasn’t being totally facetious…
The justices again appear poised to pursue a purely theoretical liberty at the expense of the lives of people of color. By Adam Serwer, The Atlantic — When the Louisiana State Militia finally arrived at the Colfax courthouse on April 15, 1873, all it could do was bury the bodies. Two days earlier, a large force of white supremacists had taken control of the courthouse from the mostly black faction…
A growing group of leftists wants to get rid of the entire prison industrial complex in America. By Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna, Politico — It’s no secret that the criminal justice system…
For Haitian refugees, Trump is not a new abomination, or even a reincarnation of former Haitian exclusion, but rather a continuation of persecution against Haitians fleeing instability that U.S. empire…
How demographic change is fracturing our politics. By Ezra Klein, Vox — In 2008, Barack Obama held up change as a beacon, attaching to it another word, a word that channeled everything his young and diverse coalition saw in his rise and their newfound political power: hope. An America that would elect a black man president was an America in which a future was being written that would read thrillingly different…
Vantage Point Vignettes Comments and Commentary by Dr. Ron Daniels — Much of the immigration reform debate is understandably focused on the separation of children from their parents, the plight…