Bonjour! Here’s your PolicySphere morning briefing! If you were forwarded this, here’s more about who we are and what we’re doing and, of course, don’t forget to sign up and tell your friends.
NEW: EPPC, the venerable Washington think tank, recently published its 2023 report. EPPC has recently undergone some changes under its new president Ryan T. Anderson and we were glad to interview him about his year and his experiences running a DC think tank.
#Immigration – Stunning scoop from the Post‘s Jennie Taer: the Biden Administration has been granting mass amnesty to 350,000 migrants through the backdoor. It’s very simple: the US government “closes” asylum cases if the applicant doesn’t “have a criminal record” or is “otherwise deemed a threat to the country.” What this means in practice: “This means that while the migrants are not granted or denied asylum — their cases are ‘terminated without a decision on the merits of their asylum claim’ — they are removed from the legal system and no longer required to check in with authorities. The move allows them to legally, indefinitely roam about the US without fear of deportation[.]”
Of note: this is even worse than it sounds, since, as we learned from our interview with the best immigration expert we know, Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, the lack of a criminal record doesn’t mean anything since many of the foreigners come from countries that don’t share their criminal databases with the US and/or are so underdeveloped that these databases are useless or even nonexistent. This kind of backdoor amnesty therefore poses very real threats to public security, as the seemingly-daily reports of atrocities committed by illegal aliens, many of them released by the Administration, make clear.
It also makes a mockery of the separation of powers since it is up to Congress to decide who can legally be in the US or not, not the Executive Branch.
Finally, we hate to sound conspiratorial, but it is striking that this is happening during an election year, amidst reports of driver licenses being granted to people with bogus SSNs and voter registration forms being sent to aliens. The immigration situation is truly alarming. Read the whole story at the New York Post.
#Immigration – Speaking of, as we have previously pointed out, immigration via the Southern border has become international, no longer involving just Central and Latin American migrants. The border is wide open, and anybody is welcomed. Fox’s Bill Melugin, one of the best border reporters out there: “Per CBP sources, 3,593 Chinese nationals were apprehended after crossing the southern border illegally during the month of May, 98% of which (3,517) were in the San Diego sector. 770+ Jordanians, 670+ Turkish, and 500+ Mauritanians also were recorded crossing illegally in San Diego sector in May.” More.
#TaxPolicy – Timely report from the Tax Foundation: breathless media coverage of the IRS’s tax gap report has given many people the impression that if Americans just stopped dodging taxes, that might be enough to close the deficit. PolicySphere subscribers know better, of course. For everyone else, the Tax Foundation’s writeup has the details.
#AdministrativeState – At RealClearPolitics, Dan Greenberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a good writeup on the upcoming Supreme Court challenges to the Chevron doctrine.
#AI – Bill Barr has a new WSJ op-ed on Big Tech’s attempts to create an AI monopoly.
#EconomicPolicy – The Australian Financial Review has a fascinating profile of the man who was one of the most successful economic policymakers of the first Trump Administration and is tipped as a potential Treasury Secretary in the next one: Robert Lighthizer.
#Education – Governments keep pushing preschool, subsidizing it and in some cases making it mandatory, in part because they tout its supposed educational benefits. However, as Cato points out, the science on this is largely unsettled–in fact, putting it that way is an understatement.
#Energy – Subsidies to wind energy and installed capacity keep increasing, and yet the actual production of power is down for 2023. CEI has more.
#VeteransAffairs – Important report from IWF’s Rebecca Burgess on the perennial troubles at the VA, and these in spite of the department’s increased funding.
#PublicHealth – Brownstone Institute’s peerless coverage of public health issues continues. The opening quote to this report sums it up so well that we don’t feel a need to paraphrase it: “In a shot across the bow against Scientific American’s continued descent into unscientific twaddle, a BMJ investigation documented over a dozen social media posts by editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth promoting transgender care for children, despite scientific evidence showing such treatment has had ‘devastating consequences’ for minors.” More.
Chart of the Day
From invaluable American religion researcher Ryan Burge: “the share of Americans who: Believe in God without a doubt AND Attend religious services nearly every week or more AND Report that they are affiliated with a religious tradition (aka not nones). It was never that high (~30%). Today, it’s 19%.”
Meme of the Day
