David Dayen Profile picture
21 Mar, 10 tweets, 2 min read
Now that the political media's decided to rediscover the border, I want to highlight @Marcia_Brown9's story from last week, because the dominant narrative is missing some critical context.
prospect.org/justice/year-o…
First of all, the border really is closed unless you're an unaccompanied minor or you had an asylum claim prior to last March. The Biden administration has maintained Title 42, a CDC public health order used to deport anyone crossing on sight.
This includes sending asylum seekers back to home countries whee they could be persecuted or killed, an illegal action.
More commonly, Mexican and Central American migrants are sent back to Mexico, where they promptly try to cross again.
There's an exception in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which isn't accepting deported families with young children, but many of those families get transported to other states in Mexico.
A substantial amount of the traffic at the border is counting Mexican and Central American asylum seekers desperately seeking refuge many multiple times. That accounts for much of the apprehension increases. As Marcia writes:
"It’s true there are high numbers of new arrivals at the border, hoping the new administration with more humane rhetoric might allow them to cross, but it’s also true that many of the apprehensions are people who are trying to cross 3, 4, 5 times and are summarily returned."
However, unaccompanied children seeking asylum are allowed to cross.
Because of the adoption of Title 42, parents are deliberately separating from their children at the border and sending them over. That's causing the surge, combined with the pandemic easing.
Title 42 is in place because Biden wanted "to create an artificial pause in migration, perhaps to allow for reconstruction of a system dismantled by Trump," Marcia writes. But exempting children has created a surge in that population.
Some of this might have been inevitable but it's being seized upon by a right wing with no answers except "violate international law more by closing the border fully."
Just to close this sorry chapter, during the Bush administration we passed a Central American Free Trade Agreement that surged US agricultural exports into the Northern Triangle & made life for rural citizens there impossible, & now we don't like the repercussions.

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More from @ddayen

23 Mar
It's water day at @TheProspect!
First, @gurleygg looks at water privatization in Chester, PA, as a city with troubled finances is goaded into selling off its public assets to for-profit interests.
prospect.org/environment/cl…
The PA legislature recently allowed municipalities in distress to sell assets like water systems at market value rather than depreciated value, a powerful spur for communities like Chester. But what will happen to rates, quality, and maintenance?
prospect.org/environment/cl…
We also have a success story: a new book about an unlikely victory in El Salavador by grassroots activists over mining interests that threatened the country's water supply. The book is The Water Defenders, it's out today, and Sasha Chavkin has a review:
prospect.org/culture/books/…
Read 4 tweets
22 Mar
Really excited to show you my latest for the print edition of @TheProspect. It's about musicians, beset on all sides by giant corporations that have robbed all but the biggest stars of the ability to make a living.
prospect.org/power/islands-…
Radio is mostly in the hands of Liberty Media. Live Nation & AEG control venues & artist management services, with Live Nation dominating ticketing. The major labels have been whittled down to 3. Bedrocks that nurtured local music scenes are largely gone.
prospect.org/power/islands-…
And none of that matters as much as streaming, responsible for 83% of music industry revenues, going mostly to Spotify & YouTube, for whom music is really a loss leader, incidental to data collection for ads & the promise of audience growth for investors prospect.org/power/islands-…
Read 10 tweets
24 Feb
1/ I want to invite you to apply for our Prospect writing fellowship, which in my completely biased opinion is the best early-career job in journalism. You can apply here:
theamericanprospect.submittable.com/submit/171496/…
2/ Our two-year fellowship gives a staff job (full benefits, union shop) to journalists just out of college or at an early point in their careers, working with our team on every type of reporting possible, from on-the-ground coverage to analysis, from short-form to long features.
3/ Our terrific writing fellows that I have had the pleasure of working with, @Marcia_Brown9 and @brittanyagibson, are wrapping up their fellowships, so we need two more to carry on the tradition. The first job would start at the end of May and the second in September.
Read 5 tweets
24 Feb
Um, Katie Porter v. Louis DeJoy alert. oversight.house.gov
Porter: You made changes to USPS but the IG said you did no analysis on whether they would save money. Now you're doing a strategic plan, have you done any analysis?
DeJoy: I disagree we did no analysis. We've done extensive research.
Porter: Will you provide those analyses to this committee?
DeJoy: We will produce "a certain amount of information." We're not embarrassed by the work we did.
Porter: Did you hire consultants?
DeJoy: The organization has embedded consultants for a long time.
Read 5 tweets
23 Feb
NEW at @theprospect: @alex_sammon on the array of corporate lawyers and Big Tech defenders populating Merrick Garland's Justice Department.
prospect.org/cabinet-watch/…
Garland said yesterday: "Fortunately or unfortunately, the best antitrust lawyers in the country have some involvement" in Big Tech. Lawyers in or likely to be in his DoJ certainly do:
-Emily Loeb (Apple)
-Susan Davies (Facebook)
-Susan Dunn (Amazon)
prospect.org/cabinet-watch/…
"Garland’s most concerning connection is Jamie Gorelick, who, despite being unlikely to get a formal role within the department, is positioning herself as a fixer with Washington’s most direct line to Garland’s office"
prospect.org/cabinet-watch/…
Read 4 tweets
18 Feb
GameStop hearing has begun here, I'll be intermittently live tweeting if anything interesting happens.
financialservices.house.gov/calendar/event…
One thing so far, Waters announces this is the first of a series of hearings, and future ones will include regulators and policy discussions.
Remarkable pronunciation of "Dough-GEE-coin" from ranking member Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
Read 28 tweets

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