“Throughout the pandemic, the median view of good housing policy—supported by landlord associations, tenant advocates, and policy wonks of all ideological stripes—has been to have the federal government fund rent relief. That way, the providers of rental housing can pay their bills, and financially pressed renters aren’t forced onto the streets or into more crowded living situations.
Despite these funds being appropriated for rent relief programs, actually getting money to people continues to be a major challenge.”
“The US started dramatically ramping up immigration enforcement in the 1990s with bipartisan support. The line of thinking was that making it more expensive and arduous to cross the border would dissuade more people from making the journey in the first place. It became the preferred strategy for policymakers because it was easy to sell to constituents, even though it wasn’t necessarily grounded in a deep understanding of the factors driving unauthorized immigration.
But a growing body of research shows that the threat of immigration enforcement isn’t an effective deterrent for migrants in the long run. Emily Ryo, a professor of law and sociology at the USC Gould School of Law, found in a paper published earlier this month that it has no significant effect on people’s decision to migrate from Mexico and Central America’s “Northern Triangle”: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
In cooperation with Vanderbilt University and the Latin American Public Opinion Project, she designed an experiment that was included in the 2018-’19 AmericasBarometer survey of nearly 11,000 voting-age adults across the four countries. She divided the respondents into three groups and provided them with different prompts offering information about how many migrants are apprehended by US officials when trying to cross the border, subject to detention for an indefinite period of time, and face a lack of judicial process when it comes to their deportation. They were then asked how likely it would be that they would choose to live and work in the US in the next three years.
The patterns in responses across the groups were strikingly similar, though they were provided with different information about US immigration enforcement policy. Most said they weren’t likely to go to the US, but in all three groups, about 21 percent said they were “a little likely to go,” 10 percent said they were “somewhat likely,” and roughly another 10 percent said “very likely.”
Knowledge about US deportation and detention policy didn’t have any significant effect on their intentions to migrate.”
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“Another study, conducted by Vanderbilt University political science professor Jonathan Hiskey and co-authors, similarly found that knowledge of heightened US deterrence efforts didn’t influence people’s decision to migrate.”
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“Another unintended effect of US immigration enforcement has been the increase in the number of undocumented immigrants living in the US from roughly 3 million in 1986 to over 11 million today. Princeton sociologist Doug Massey and his co-authors found in a 2016 paper that the rapid expansion of immigration enforcement in the years following 1986, the last time that a major immigration law was passed, actually caused more migrants to decide to settle in the US permanently.
Before then, Mexican men had moved back and forth across the border, usually looking for opportunities for temporary work and crossing in El Paso and San Diego. The US’s decision to expand immigration enforcement didn’t really alter their ability to cross the border. They weren’t much more likely to be apprehended when they attempted to cross, and even if they were discovered by US immigration officials and swiftly returned to Mexico, they could still succeed after multiple attempts.
What changed, however, was the costs and risks associated with returning to their home country and then attempting to reenter the US. Migrants had to start crossing in more dangerous regions of the border, going through the Sonoran Desert and Arizona, and came to rely more heavily on the services of paid smugglers, which became more expensive. Between 1980 and 2010, the probability that a migrant would return after their first trip to the US consequently dropped from 48 percent to zero, according to Massey’s paper.
“The combination of increasingly costly and risky trips and the near certainty of getting into the United States created a decision-making contest in which it still made economic sense to migrate but not to return home to face the high costs and risks of subsequent entry attempts,” the authors write in the paper.
In this way, immigration enforcement had the opposite of the intended effect. And the authors write that if policymakers had never increased border patrol’s funding beyond accounting for inflation, the population of undocumented immigrants living in the US likely would have “grown substantially less.””
It’s a familiar refrain to low-income renters searching for a place to live. The four-word phrase signals one of the last (mostly) legal forms of overt housing discrimination. Commonly referred to as “source-of-income discrimination,” landlords across the nation often refuse to accept tenants who attempt to pay rent with help from the federal government’s Section 8 housing voucher program.
Now, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) has put the nearly 40,000 Section 8 recipients in her state in jeopardy of getting those notices by signing a new law that ensures cities and counties can no longer protect their residents from this subtle form of discrimination.
Section 8 housing is the government’s largest low-income rental assistance program. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5.2 million people nationwide receive vouchers from the program that cover some portion of their rent. The program is chronically underfunded, so only 1 in 5 households that are eligible to receive assistance actually do”
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“There’s a lot of evidence that Section 8 vouchers reduce homelessness and alleviate poverty.
In her reporting for Vox, Stephanie Wykstra highlighted studies showing that “housing vouchers help prevent homelessness and increase long-term health and economic outcomes of children in low-income families.” And Vox’s Dylan Matthews covered a fascinating study that showed how (with help) some housing voucher recipients were able to find housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods, where children have significantly better chances at a prosperous future.”
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“There is evidence that landlords have valid (nondiscriminatory) reasons for not wanting to participate in Section 8 housing — working with the government to make sure your property fits the requirements can be onerous and frustrating. Landlords may have difficulty getting rents paid on time by the local public housing authority and often the unit inspections can be an inefficient and arduous process.”
“These arguments seem to assume that, to hit the 30 percent goal, the federal government will forbid access to public land, seize private property, and ignore the conservation benefit of working lands that are managed with biodiversity in mind.
But as far as we know, that’s not what the government is proposing, according to Collin O’Mara, the CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “This is the furthest from a land grab,” O’Mara said. “There’s nothing proposed that affects private property rights.”
On public lands, which are far more expansive in the West, the Interior Department may continue to restrict access to extractive industries, said Weiss, of the Center for Western Priorities. In late January, the Biden administration paused new oil and gas leasing on federal lands.
But those restrictions are unlikely to target working lands, said Weiss and O’Mara. On the contrary, 30 by 30 is likely to open up more federal land to recreational activities, and even make them more productive through restoration and better management, they added. Just last month, the Interior Department announced a proposal for the largest expansion of hunting and fishing opportunities in US history. (The Interior Department declined to comment for this story.)
When it comes to private lands, the government has made it clear that any conservation efforts will be voluntary for the landowner. “The government rarely uses eminent domain,” Weiss said. (A notable exception would be the Trump administration, Weiss added, which seized private property to build the US-Mexico border wall, though outcry from conservatives was absent then. “That is the biggest irony here,” he said.)”
“Steel prices are surging and American manufacturing is paying the price—literally, thanks in part to the ongoing consequences of former President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which President Joe Biden has not removed.”
“The Year: 1992
The Problem: Nude dancing is degrading to women and ruining the moral fabric of Alberta, Canada.
The Solution: Establish a one-meter buffer zone between patrons and dancers.
Sounds like total buzzkill! With puritanical intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out that dancers earn most of their money in the form of tips, and dollar bills don’t fly through the air very well. Thus, the measure designed to protect dancers from degrading treatment resulted in “the loonie toss”—a creepy ritual where naked women are pelted with Canadian one-dollar coins, which are known as loonies.
“Lou’s failure to send for his son was caused not by deadbeat-dad indifference but the vagaries of the viciously racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the only immigration law in American history to target a particular ethnicity by name. The Exclusion Act made it nearly impossible for Chinese workers to bring their wives and kids to America. Charles Chiu became eligible to emigrate to the United States only with his father’s death.
And the absence of his family had left terrible scars on Lou. In a letter to one of his American friends who had been drafted during World War II, Lou noted that the man’s kids were doing fine and added: “As you know, I always love children … It’s really too bad that I can’t have my kids with me, I’d be willing to give everything that I got and plus 20 years of my life to have them with me now.””
“the Biden administration released a report, “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful,” that outlines the ambitious goal of “conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.” The administration’s “30 by 30″ proposal is consonant with ongoing negotiations under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral treaty which the U.S. has signed but not ratified. The treaty aims to preserve sites of particular importance for biodiversity through the implementation of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures. These measures would help cover at least 30 percent of land and sea areas, with at least 10 percent under strict protection.”
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“Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) CEO Brian Yablonski observed that President Joe Biden’s earlier 30 by 30 executive order “references conserving 30 percent of our lands and waters, not protecting or preserving. The word conserve implies multiple and sustainable uses, not locking up land. This means managed and working lands should count.”
The 30 by 30 report does, at least rhetorically, endorse this view.”
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“The report further observes that the administration’s 30 percent conservation and restoration goal will be advanced by “providing incentives for voluntary conservation practices,” as this “rewards ranchers and farmers for being good stewards of working lands, waters, and wildlife habitat.””