Biden’s order “would shut down asylum requests to the U.S.-Mexico border once the number of daily encounters hits 2,500 between ports of entry, with the border reopening once that number declines to 1,500,” according to The Associated Press—and various other media outlets that also cited unnamed officials who cautioned that the final figures could still change.
If we look at the migrant crisis from outside the realm of grubby electoral politics, we see that the current crisis is the product of decades of U.S. imperialism and domestic political dysfunction. Decades of neoliberal economic “reform” have helped to destroy whole sectors of the Central American economies. U.S.-backed “drug wars” in Central America and Colombia have also contributed to flows of migrants fleeing paramilitaries. The U.S. and other imperialist powers have meddled in Haitian affairs for centuries. And U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela have made life unsustainable for millions in those countries.
The class bias of the system begins with who the police target: police are far less likely to arrest higher-income people for committing the same crimes as poor people, and far more likely to charge a poor person than a well-off person for the same offense. Swat teams aren’t barging into wealthy neighborhoods and arresting teenagers holding drug-addled parties while their parents are on vacation at the second home in Cabo.
Chicago represents a test case for how a “sanctuary” city can welcome an influx of migrants, when as many as 2.4 million asylum seekers have crossed the southern border in the last year. Hundreds of migrants arrive weekly on buses dispatched by the right-wing governors of Texas and Florida.
Aldean has been known to sport the Confederate flag on t-shirts as recently as 2019. He also established himself as anti-vax and anti-mask during the pandemic. He has given voice to Trump’s stolen election conspiracy theory.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is teetering toward the edge of a cliff. But the right-wing fanatics currently enjoying a 6-3 supermajority in the Court do not allow such minor considerations (like accountability) to deter them from achieving their main goal: turning back the clock in U.S. society to the 1950s era, when LGBTQ people were forced to stay in the closet; college students were wealthy, Christian, and white; racial segregation still flourished; and, of course, abortion was illegal.
So far in 2023, state lawmakers have introduced a record-breaking least 483 anti-trans bills. Put differently, only four states have not done so. These include banning parents from allowing their teens to attend drag shows, barring insurance companies from covering gender-affirming medical care (already in use for several decades), and even making it illegal for parents and medical providers to dispense gender affirming care to minors.
This year alone, state lawmakers have introduced a staggering 483 anti-trans bills, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker, which compiles information from civil rights groups and other sources. Only four states have not had an anti-trans bill introduced this session.
Threatened by the increasing left and liberal cultural offensive, which prominently includes the activities of “cancel culture” (although as we shall see by no means limited to it), the American right and extreme right have mounted a political and cultural counteroffensive of their own.
In the place of government-led public health measures, and requirements that employers provide safe workplaces, we have a reversion to the idea that protecting oneself from COVID-19 is an individual responsibility. And for making this approach to the pandemic the conventional wisdom, business has the Democrats to thank.
The June 2022 deaths of 53 people, victims of heat stroke, in the back of a tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas, show the dangers of crossing the U.S. southern border without authorization.
“Anti-abortion zealots should be forced to read this…” asserted one journalist. “They are responsible for her suffering.”
Earlier this month, a coalition of reproductive rights groups filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the legislation, which Center for Reproductive Rights president and CEO Nancy Northup said is causing “mayhem at an unimaginable scale.”
There is no denying that we face a dismal situation, in which many millions of pregnant people have been stripped of their reproductive rights, while the right wing is chomping at the bit to attack a host of other civil rights.
With Medicare for All, the U.S. also could have avoided $105.6 billion in healthcare expenses associated with Covid-19 hospitalizations over the course of the pandemic, the study says.
