I’m sure no reader of this here blog will be surprised to learn this:
In other words, in fiscal year 2021, it appears that migrants are continuing to enter the United States in the same numbers as in fiscal year 2019 — plus the pent-up demand from people who would have come in fiscal year 2020, but for the pandemic. That’s visible in the first figure, earlier, in which the blue trend line for the five months of data available for fiscal year 2021 (October, November, December, January and February) neatly reflects the trend line for fiscal year 2019 — plus the difference between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2019.
This suggests that Title 42 expulsions [what Trump did last year] delayed prospective migrants rather than deterred them — and they’re arriving now.
That would be consistent with nearly three decades of research in political science. Much of this research has been done since President Bill Clinton’s administration ran Operation Gatekeeper, which tried to keep out migrants by increasing funding and staff for border enforcement. Scholars consistently find that border security policies do not necessarily deter migration; rather, they delay migrants’ decisions to travel, and change the routes they take.
Now that Trump proved the political potential of xenophobic bigotry, and Republicans are desperate to talk about anything but Biden’s enormously popular pandemic rescue bill, conservatives are whipping up a classic misdirection circus. All too many mainstream media sources are happy to play along, as they have done for decades (perhaps because they feel guilty for basically having no choice but to be pro-Biden during the presidential campaign).
Of course these facts mean nothing to journalists who don’t have the time or motivation to look at facts — the same people who are paid the most and have the biggest megaphones.
rikyrah
This is an OT for AL.
Did you see this about the AZ Vaccine?
rikyrah
About the topic at hand
The MSM is mad about the success of 46.
So, they are all in for a topic that they won’t give any context about ?
Johnnybuck
Ratings
JMG
Most cable news talking heads and lead network reporters and commentators make in excess of $400K a year. I don’t think it’s an accident that the border “crisis” became a big news deal almost instanteously after it was leaked Biden does indeed plan to raise taxes on those making more than 400K.
Cheryl Rofer
There does seem to be a problem with unaccompanied children. Obviously they can’t just be left out to find their own way. I would like to know more about their housing conditions. So far the Biden administration has not allowed reporters into the facilities, which makes some sense in terms of the children’s privacy, but it allows for a variety of speculations.
I have also seen reports that CBP workers are mostly Trumpies and providing leaks to make Biden look bad.
Seems like both of these issues could be addressed by competent reporters…
bbleh
Of course these facts mean nothing to journalists…
Au contraire, they are very meaningful, especially the word “circus.”
It really is important to remember that the vast bulk of media “news” is not news; it’s news-formatted entertainment.
Kent
Another aspect of the framing of this issue is especially bad and that is the term “crisis”
In point of fact, we have had a humanitarian crisis at the border for years now. Trump policies have largely kept that crisis restricted to the Mexican side of the border. But it has nonetheless been a festering crisis. The only real thing that has changed in the past 6 months or so is that a small portion of that crisis is leaking across the border in the form of unaccompanied minors.
For some reason the press seems uninterested in the crisis on the other side of the border. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Are there any MSM outlets that haven’t bought into the Republican framing? NYT, WaPo, CNN, NPR, MSNBC have all had articles or segments or punditry panels on “Biden’s border crisis.” Makes me want to throw something at the TV and hurl my phone across the room.
?
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Yeah. A guy I grew up with is utterly convinced that this uptick at the border is all Biden’s fault somehow. I don’t get it.
Martin
Yeah, this is not a crisis. It’s going to take the Biden admin a bit of time to transition from internment camps to processing facilities – not just the physical infrastructure, but de-trumpifying the agencies to allow it to work properly. I’d have been shocked if there wasn’t a massive backlog.
From what I understand it’s taking 7-10 days to process an unaccompanied minor, and their goal is 72 hours, so they’ve got some work to do, but it should be doable.
The next ‘crisis’ will be the inability to give them asylum hearings because we’ve gutted the immigration legal infrastructure.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
but, but… her paid speeches
Martin
@Cheryl Rofer: They have allowed advocacy groups in, though, and they seem cautiously pleased with what they’re seeing. There seems to be a substantial uptick in foster families hosting minors, and the plan for HHS to rent hotel rooms is a smart one. The hotels certainly need the revenue.
Major Major Major Major
Wasn’t 2019 anomalously pretty high though? Not saying this is a crisis of course but 2019 is just not the baseline year here. The question isn’t whether this is like 2019, the question is why 2019 and 2021 aren’t like other years, and what we should do about it.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/15/migrant-apprehensions-at-u-s-mexico-border-are-surging-again/
Chief Oshkosh
@Johnnybuck: Maybe it’s just ratings, but I think that the reality is that Big Media still has the capability of creating almost any story at will that gives them ratings. They CHOOSE to highlight the border issue for reasons in addition to ratings.
Xenophobia is a twofer, maybe a threefer. It’s easy because racial hatred (or, maybe on a good day, racial “uneasiness”) is baked in to a large swath of the viewership. Second, I think many in Big Media, and certainly The Bosses, are simply comfortable with it. I’m not talking just Fox here. I think all of the well-heeled at ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/etc. are A-OK with slightly accidentally on-purpose demonizing those who are in desperate straits and are desperately seeking a better life.
Finally, and I’m sure there are worse sinners, but goddammned Martha Radditz pisses me off about this topic. She’s old and has seen a lot and she fucking knows better. She has no excuse for doing this shit. But there she is, spewing fucked up shit with the worst of them.
Chetan Murthy
This was educational: https://theweek.com/articles/973376/there-no-immigration-crisis
Search for “Bush administration” and you’ll see a chart of “# people apprehended each month” going back to 2000. Gosh, seems that the recent surge (and, heck, the surge during 2019 under TFG) (a) aren’t as big as the surges under Bush, and (b) there were a -ton- of surges under Bush, not just one or two.
Yeah, this is the GrOPers, finding a hot-button issue on which to pin their electoral fortunes. “Partial-birth abortions!” “Say “radical Islamic terrorism”!” et cetera.
Gbbalto
There are also the two big hurricanes that trashed Honduras and parts of neighboring countries…
Betty Cracker
Margaret Sullivan wrote a good column about the upcoming Biden press conference and how the media should cover the border issue. She calls the Thursday presser as much a test for the press as it is for the president:
I’ll be shocked if it’s anything but Bothsidesville again. So hard not to swerve into that familiar groove.
Ruckus
@bbleh:
Never seen it said that way before, or better. Bravo!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I hope Psaki has prepared Biden for the “some people are saying…” questions.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Betty Cracker: Well, as Juliana Hatfield once wrote in a song, “I say it’s me or drugs / You choose drugs”. Bothsides is a drug, and I believe we all know the choice that they will make.
gvg
I personally think the immigration crisis is caused by US voters and have thought that for years. Basically it is a natural (but wrong) human reaction to worry or fear outsiders and blame them for problems. At many points in our history, the US has been….less prejudiced than most of the rest of the world, when is rather faint praise actually. Those countries that appear to be all hunky dory, usually have a very unmixed population and also usually are experiencing prosperity and security.
We’d like to think our own side of liberals are better than that and in the majority, but I have seen plenty of examples of die hard liberals that still say things like we need to protect American jobs or only buy American or other things that show they don’t really want a lot of immigration.
So politicians have mostly acted by slowing immigration by underfunding and undermanning Immigration services. That way they don’t out right anger either side, there are no fingerprints and they don’t risk allowing the one in a million immigrant that goes and murders someone.
It’s a lot like how the rich want the IRS to not have the money to audit them. Only it’s not just the rich, plenty of ordinary democrats are also OK with plausible deniable stop immigration.
Kids in cages was going to far for many people though, but I wouldn’t assume there is a large base who really wants more immigration.
Tax the rich to the point that the middle class can get ahead again though and a lot of people will relax and not be so dickish.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Chetan Murthy: That article is the one I linked and had the second quote. I wasn’t clear about where it came from, my bad, but I thought it was a good piece.
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
Well, the more people you let in, the more money that has to be spent to get them in some form of living, rather than just existing. And more money for immigrants means less money for them, to purchase all the crap that shows they are wealthy, least to some degree.
Sure Lurkalot
As Betty said in an earlier thread, it appears many in the press actually prefer to be publicly humiliated by a braying ignoramus and physically threatened by his goons. Having a Twitter president normalized “look, squirrel” and they fell for it practically every damn time not because any of the BS was newsworthy or in the least bit true, but because it was easy and apparently, they are as lazy as TFG ever was.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Jen Psaki has been saying at her daily briefings that they are working on giving access soon.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: I think much of that is that every time you suppress entries, you really only serve to delay them. So the drop in 17/18 came back in 19. The drop in 20 came back in 21. And of course you’d expect a surge at the tail end of covid as well as a surge after Trump is out of office.
One of the lessons we’ve tried to ingrain the culture at work is that whenever you erect friction to your customers – forms to fill out, lines to stand in, etc. you create a new economy of determination – are they more determined to get through/go around your barriers or are you more determined to build ever steeper barriers?
In our case we both lack scale (students outnumber administrators by a massive degree – 500 to 1) and also moral authority. Students are not doing things wrong – they are not an adversary – so public opinion is universally against the administration.
ICE has scale, but only a small minority of the public is okay with the cruelty – and the cruelty is the only tool the US really has in that economy of determination – particularly when people are fleeing for their lives. The GOP don’t understand that. They think the migrants won’t come back, when in fact they have no other options. At least in their mind, if not in actuality, it’s come to the border or die. We are not willing to be cruel enough to overcome that.
rikyrah
There are a handful of people in the media who could go a good story about this.
98% of the people you see talking about it, aren’t it.
IF you don’t spend the first 5 minutes of any segment about the border detailing how Stephen Miller and his merry band of racists completely dismantled the established protocols for how to seek asylum over the past 4 years, you are full of bullshyt.
IF you don’t explain that 46 is putting up people in hotels because he refuses to pay for private prisons – you are full of bullshyt.
IF you don’t explain that it was the previous policy to seek and find relatives and reunite them with these children coming along – you are full of bullshyt.
IF you don’t explain that with the previous policy of the Obama administration of releasing folks and having them come back for their court date was over 90% , you are full of bullshyt.
The MSM is so mad that they can’t both sides the utter success of 46. I have written that they are mad about 46, because they spent the better part of 4 years trying to normalize Dolt45. And during 2020 when we were screaming about the utter inadequacy of the COVID Response, they pretended that a National Response didn’t really matter, and that we were just whining and being political. Phuck all them muthaphuckas
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Part of what is taking longer is that not only are they NOT sending unaccompanied kids out alone to attempt to make the trek home, but they are also making sure that families are vetted. It will forever be to our shame that under the Trump administration children were trafficked and were not all put in safe homes.
trollhattan
No surge?
[checks out window]
Three taco trucks, people! If Tres Tacos Tuesday isn’t a surge then I do not know what a surge is.
p.s., Thanks, Joe
Martin
@WaterGirl: I wouldn’t let them in either. It’s incredibly disruptive to be assessed in the middle of a transition. Give the administration a reasonable window of time to complete the transition – let them be informative on that – push back against an unreasonable timetable – and then demand to go in. If they miss their timetable, hold them accountable for that. if they miss their goals, hold them accountable for that.
But it’s not beneficial to anyone to report on a mix of Trump implementations that you’re still dismantling and Biden implementations that you’re trying to tip up when we know the media lacks the capacity and responsibility to differentiate between them.
The crisis is not that there are a few thousand unaccompanied minors at the border (mind you, not even enough to replace the number of people dying of covid daily), the crisis was that the US was stealing children from parents, and the press largely failed to recognize that – and continue to.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Today’s New York Post has “Biden’s Cages” as the front page story. Typical of Murdoch’s lying bastards., to ignore the past 4 years and blame the man who’s been on the job for a few weeks.
OT: is TFG “the former guy” or “that effing guy”? I see it as both.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I totally agree with you, Martin. I wouldn’t let them in, either. They were LEFT WITH A TOTALLY DISMANTLED SYSTEM, and as Jen Psaki explains every time, they are creating a process.
Most of the press has lost the plot.
WaterGirl
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): Did you see that CNN showed footage of would-be-immigrants who were crossing into the country? Even after they were warned that it was fake footage, which it was!
They should lose their license for that, if there was any sort of licensing.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
I agree with this, which is why 46 needs to CLEAN HOUSE
trollhattan
Meanwhile. They’re really lovely people, all of them.
Cordie Williams better be careful or he might give a bad name to chiropractors.
Roger Moore
I think there’s another very important bias to consider: bias in favor of there being news. If there are two interpretations of an event, one of which makes it a story and one of which doesn’t, the news media will favor the interpretation that turns it into a story. Part of what the Republicans are good at is pushing the media’s buttons, and that includes putting a spin on things that turns boring things into stories favorable to them. The Democrats need to get better at this.
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
Good luck finding some.
Kent
Same civil service laws that prevented Trump from mass firings of EPA or FDA scientists (or any other Federal employees who he felt crossed him) also prevent Biden from mass firings of CBP agents.
It is going to be a LONG haul to turn that agency around. Getting good leadership into the top is the first step.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And the Biden admin is dreadfully efficient. BORING!!!
Roger Moore
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I think it’s pretty obvious. The Previous Guy made being as horrible as possible to immigrants a core policy, and Biden reversed that. Now there’s a sudden surge at the border. The only explanation to someone who wants to believe that The Previous Guy’s policy was successful is that Biden’s lax policy is encouraging immigrants to come.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think that there is master manipulation going on here. Conservative publishers and editors instruct their reporters to slant stories in favor of Republicans.
And there are some reporters who claim to be liberal, but who want to be “fair” to the GOP.
Miss Bianca
@Kent: Speaking of those civil service laws, how *did* Reagan manage to fire all those air traffic controllers? Wouldn’t they have been covered by the same civil service laws? Or not? Were those laws passed *after* Ronnie’s stunt – which to me, in my tender youth, represented THE great “uh oh,*none* of us are safe, *all* of us are screwed” moment – or before? Not snarking or dunking on you, I really, honestly, don’t have any idea.
Subsole
@rikyrah: It also probably burns their bosses’ asses that the government is starting to look a lot more American than their boardrooms…
Roger Moore
@Martin:
What we really lack is the determination to do anything about employers who hire undocumented immigrants. The result is a bizarre situation where we try to keep people from coming here and make a show of deporting them once in a while, but generally are eager to give them relatively good paying jobs if they manage to avoid la migra. The best summary of the situation I have ever seen was a political cartoon. It showed the Statue of Liberty surrounded by a chain link fence with two signs on it: “Keep Out: Violators Will Be Prosecuted” and “Help Wanted: Inquire Within”.
Cheryl Rofer
@Martin: Thanks. I hadn’t seen that.
Subsole
@JMG: I’d tack another 10% on to their bracket, just for gen-prin. And another 5% every week this goes on.
I mean, fine. You eanna be stupid? F*ck with the folks who write the tax code.
If there were some substance to the material, then that’s one thing. But Tapper, Todd, Kim, Klein, Stein, Vogel and co are just pulling stupid, mean-kid junior-high lunchtable horseshit now.
Subsole
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
Repetition works. Even when you know better.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
They held a strike in violation of federal law.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: We’re having enchiladas tonight. Maybe we’re contributing to the problem
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I’m always amused by the number of Republican proposals that would mandate everify that never go anywhere. There are two in the senate right now! But nobody’s ever willing to actually do it. There’s no money in e-verify.
Kent
Completely different situation. The air traffic controller’s union (PATCO) declared an illegal strike (Federal employees are prohibited from striking). the DOJ got numerous courts to declare the strike illegal and order them back to work which they refused to do. Reagan threatened to fire any and all air traffic controllers who refused to return to work within 48 hours. After the great majority refused they were fired. Many did file claims of illegal firing with the civil services review board but they lost their cases because it was determined that they were fired for cause (insubordination, refusal to work, illegal strikes, etc.)
If the Border Patrol agents all went on an illegal wildcat strike like the air traffic controllers then Biden would be within his rights to fire all of them. But he can’t to it just because a lot of them are Republicans.
KrackenJack
They need to print out that graph of immigration levels by Administration and put up it behind Biden so it is impossible to show Biden at the podium without it in the background.
Tazj
@Johnnybuck: Yes, that’s a large part of it. Who didn’t need a break after the incompetence and malevolence of the former guy? So news ratings have plummeted.I was so happy to take a breather and not have to be so tuned in to the news.
The humanitarian crisis at the border is complicated and it will require a lot of patience, hard work and money to improve the conditions for people wanting to live and work here. Too many network news owners want an easy answer or to fear monger against immigrants for ratings.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
My interpretation is that the current situation is what a lot of employers want. They have plenty of immigrant workers who have no negotiating leverage and no recourse against maltreatment because they’re undocumented. Everyone knows employers can rat their employees out to immigration and face no consequences. If we actually wanted to do something about employers hiring undocumented immigrants, we’d have serious penalties for doing so and offer rewards for reporting violations. In particular, we’d offer to regularize the status of any undocumented immigrant who successfully ratted out their employer.
Subsole
@rikyrah: Yep. I don’t know what level is below “ain’t shit”, but the media is firmly ensconced there.
Right after Dolt45 got in, they had lots of onanistic review panels where media folx sat around asking what went wrong with their coverage.
I don’t recall any democratic voters on those panels. Just the people who paved the road to hell sitting around asking each other how it got so hot so fast. That’s how you know they love the GOP.
If they REALLY thought there was an issue with the product, they would have talked to the people hurt by the failure of the product. Instead, they bent every sinew keeping us as far from the help desk as they could.
They know what they did to us. Bet that.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: Does that mean that federal workers are allowed to unionize, but not to strike? If so, can we somehow push all these Border Patrol assholes into striking?
ETA: @Kent: Ah, I see you were on the same page here!
Subsole
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah, as a savvy journalist, I too long for the invigorating frisson of half a million dead Americans, race-riots, drowned cities, and foreign wars fought under false pretense.
The GOP does scandalous shit all the time. If the media jyst wanted “Live!Nude!Girls!” on the front page, they could go hard in the paint after the GOP and get enough scandal to retire off of.
No. They never even glance at the GOP. They only ever have standards for Democrats.
It ain’t the money. The media is just fucking worthless by nature.
Steve in the ATL
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: all right, yeah.
To quote Ms. Hatfield again.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Yep, exactly. It’s bad for business.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
There you go thinking again!!! You stop that right now!
Ruckus
@Subsole:
Most of the owners/publishers seem like they run conservative. Maybe not flaming jackass conservative, but on that side of the ledger.
Bill Arnold
This (mediamatters.org) is worth a look too:
The “border crisis” narrative doesn’t add up (Matt Gertz, 03/22/21)
Kent
@Miss Bianca:
Yep. Federal employees have always been prohibited from striking. Also the military. That isn’t anything new. The air traffic controllers got out way too far over their skis and got spanked for it. They thought Carter was still president apparently. Epic miscalculation on their part.
Bill Arnold
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Are there any on-the-books laws being violated by CBP? And I haven’t looked at the evidence for insubordination/leaks to damage the Biden administration that Cheryl has said she heard about, but if there is good-enough evidence for such activity, it is grounds for disciplinary measures. There is also the power of the purse that the Democrats hold (barely), as a threat.
CBP mostly do not concern themselves with the Bill of Rights, and should be suspect as habitually anti-American unless shown otherwise.
Know your rights – 100 Mile Border Zone (ACLU)
Kathleen
@WaterGirl: No, the press has the plot, which is to undermine Democrats so that the Fascists can rule again. I’m not being snarky. I truly believe the press is engaging in orchestrated perfidy.