Title 42 Failed. It Should Not Be Extended in Any Form
David J. BierWith thesunsetting of the public health emergency this week, Border Patrol will lose its ability to expel some immigrants at the border under Title 42. Under Title 42, Border Patrol could quickly remove someone from the United States, sending them back to Mexico or, in some cases, their home country without allowing them the ability to request asylum in the United States. President Biden ’s plan to replace Title 42 involves more legal immigration andan asylum ban for those who cross illegally paired with deportations to Mexico for eight nationalities.Title 42 has failed on its own terms. Crossings have incre...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 10, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Title 42 Failed. It Should Not Be Extended in Any Form.
David J. BierWith thesunsetting of the public health emergency this week, Border Patrol will lose its ability to expel some immigrants at the border under Title 42. Under Title 42, Border Patrol could quickly remove someone from the United States, sending them back to Mexico or, in some cases, their home country without allowing them the ability to request asylum in the United States. President Biden ’s plan to replace Title 42 involves more legal immigration andan asylum ban for those who cross illegally paired with deportations to Mexico for eight nationalities.Title 42 has failed on its own terms. Crossings have incre...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 10, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Immigrating to the U.S. Is The Main Way To Escape Poverty in Dozens of Countries
David J. BierImmigrating to the United States is the main way to escape poverty in many countries. For about 3 dozen countries, most of their not‐in‐poverty population lives in the United States. Indeed, under the developed world poverty standard of $30 per day, immigration is just about the only way to escape poverty for several nationalities. Since poverty is practically assured in their home c ountries, it should not surprise lawmakers that millions of people would risk everything to immigrate to the United States.In 2019, only about 16 percent of people in the United Stateslived below the $30‐per‐...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 21, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Countries with the Highest Shares of Their Populations Living in the U.S.
David J. BierThe United States is home to immigrants from every country in the world, but people are much more likely to leave some countries than others. The probability of a person from a given country immigrating to the United States can be broadly measured by dividing the number of immigrants in the United States by the country’s population plus the country’s population.Figure 1 shows the origin countries for people with the highest likelihood of immigrating to the United States. The immigration data come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey as of July 1, 2021 and the country population da...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 29, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Title 42 ’s End Won’t Affect Most Border Crossers
David J. BierThe U.S. Border Patrolcould soon lose its novel authority to expel border crossers back into Mexico under Title 42 of the U.S. code, a 19th century public health law never previously used to remove people from the United States. Since March 2020, the agency has used Title 42 to ignore the normal process to which crossers are entitled under Title 8 of the U.S. immigration code and force them back into Mexico often within a few minutes of their arrests. The government is also flying some migrants directly back to their home countries under the rule.Figure 1 shows the number of border arrests by processing type: ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 20, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Paul Krugman and the “Ersatz” Theory of Private Currencies
George SelginAlthough I ' ve devoted many essays here to exploding myths about historical private currencies, there ' s one I ' ve yet to directly challenge. That ' s the belief that such currencies only thrive in the absence of official alternatives. Otherwise, the argument goes, people would drop private currencies like so many hot rocks. Since this opinion assumes that private currencies are inevitably inferior to official ones, I hereby christen it the " ersatz " theory of private currency. Note that " currency " means circulating or (in today ' s digital context)peer-to-peer exchange media: nobody denies that other so...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 9, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Congress Should Require TPS for Immigrants from Nations With Armed Conflicts
David J. BierSince 1990, the executive branch has had the authority from Congress to provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to people already in the United States who are from countries in which an “ongoing armed conflict within the state" exists. A bipartisan group in Congress wrote a letter to the Biden administration requesting that it designate Ukraine for TPS, and then they also proposed legislation torequire it to use its authority.Finally, the administrationhas relented (with the full details still to be filled in). But Congress should still recognize the procedural problem with giving total discretion to th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 4, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
House 2022 National Defense Authorization Act Amendments on Arms Sales and Security Assistance
Jordan CohenThe House is set to vote on theNational Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2022. Prior to the structured Rule for the act, there were a total of fifty amendments that, if passed, would directly impact weapons sales legislation. Overall, these bills are divided into five broad themes: congressional power, increased monitoring and reporting surrounding human rights violators, weapons sales to the Middle East, weapons sales to counter Russia, and weapons sales to counter China.Readers should examine the2020 Arms Sales Risk Index for our latest data on risks associated with the weapons sales proc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 21, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Jordan Cohen Source Type: blogs
The Bitcoin Law: Counterfeit Free Choice in Currency
George Selgin“Why should we not let people use freely what money they want to use? [They] ought to have the right to decide whether they want to buy or sell for francs, pounds, dollars, D-marks, or ounces of gold. I have no objection to governments issuing money, but I believe their claim to amonopoly, or their power tolimitthe kinds of money in which contracts may be concluded within their territory …to be wholly harmful.”—F.A. Hayek,Choice in Currency: A Way to Stop Inflation, p. 17.So, it has happened: a country —an honest to God,bona fide, country, complete with its own flag, coat of arms, seat at the U.N., a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 17, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Central American Illegal Migration Tracks US Job Openings, Mexican Illegal Migration Tracks Visas
David J. BierThe U.S. Border Patrol could arrest as many immigrants from Central America ’s Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras this year than any year in its history. Several causes have combined to create this historic migration, but one that has received little attention so far is the state of the U.S. economy. Contrary to the perception that the labor market is doing poorly, U.S. employers actuallyhad more unfilled positions in February of 2021 (seasonally adjusted) than in February of 2020 before the pandemic.U.S. employers need workers, and Central Americans are helping fill those positions. I...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 3, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Dollarization for Lebanon
ConclusionThe US dollar is not a perfect currency. But it needn ' t be perfect to provide a vast improvement over Lebanon ' s chaotic status quo. Annual inflation of 2 percent is far better than 50 percent. A free currency market is far better than one with price controls and discriminatory rationing. Full dollarization offers the best hope for turning the lights back on in Lebanon._________________[1] This essay contains the gist of my remarks made via Zoom to an audience in Lebanon on Saturday, 18 June 2020. My thanks to Forrest Partovi and Jalal Hasbini respectively for arranging the event and for leading the discussion...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 30, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Lawrence H. White Source Type: blogs
Details of 155 Immigration Detainers for U.S. Citizens
David J. BierImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) routinely requests that local law enforcement detain U.S. citizens to allow it to pick them up. ICE ’s recordslist 3,158 U.S. citizens as targets of ICE detainers from October 2002 to September 2019. Another 1.6 percent of actual ICEarrests through Secure Communities —the targeting system that ICE uses to issue detainers—were U.S. citizens from October 2008 to April 2011—or 3,627 citizens. Immigration courts—again with incomplete records—show 2,549 removal proceedings terminated in the favor of U.S. citizens from 2002 to June 9, 2017.These totals undercount...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 4, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Hong Kong Protests and the Political Effects of an “Exit” Option
Alex NowrastehSparked by a Chinese extradition bill that would have made it possible for people in Hong Kong to be tried in the mainland ’s justice system, protesters in Hong Kong have demonstrated against Beijing for100 days as of this week. Since starting, the protests have grown to include a broader critique of the Chinese communist government ’s policies in Hong Kong. In anticipation of a potential government crackdown, no doubt influenced by fear of a repeat of themassacre at Tiananmen Square 30 years ago, the option for protesters and their families to leave seems increasingly important.One of the potential downs...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 17, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
90% of Border Crossers Aren ’t Referred for Asylum Interviews
The government is implementinga new proposal that would ban asylum for immigrants coming to the United States through Mexico. It pins the uptick in border crossers on the asylum process, but the government ’s statistics reveal that 90 percent of crossers in 2019 were not referred for an asylum interview at the border, and the highest share ever referred was just 19 percent in 2018.In fact, the rate of referral was just 7 percent in March 2019. This strongly indicates that the asylum ban will not have its intended effects. Figure 1 compares the rate at which undocumented immigrants at the southwest border were referred fo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 17, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Democratic Debate Ignores Illegal Immigration's Cause: No Visas
Democratic candidates for president gathered last night to debate, and moderatorsasked, what would you do to address the number of people crossing illegally? The discussion devolved into the question of whether crossing should remaina crime (punishable by prison time) or just a civil infraction (punishable by deportation). No one stated the obvious: that Congress should make itlegal, not to trek through Mexico and swim the Rio Grande, but to board private U.S.-bound airplanes and come to the United States to work.According to the Department of Homeland Security, the average Central American is paying north of $8,000 to ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 27, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
