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Immigration Detention: They do what now?

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First rule about immigration policy: yes, it is that bad, and yes, it’s legal.

Second rule about immigration policy: that applies everywhere.

If you have never experienced our immigration system or spent time studying this area, you probably have a lot of assumptions about immigration that don’t hold up. For example:

  • Which country signed an agreement with another country on another continent to house third country nationals seeking asylum?
  • Where do immigrants routinely go missing with little attention from the government?
  • What’s the difference between asylum seekers and refugees?
  • Is immigration court just like regular court in the United States?

Got your answers in?

First rule about immigration policy: yes, it is that bad, and yes, it’s legal.

Second rule about immigration policy: that applies everywhere.

If you have never experienced our immigration system or spent time studying this area, you probably have a lot of assumptions about immigration that don’t hold up. For example:

  • Which country signed an agreement with another country on another continent to house third country nationals seeking asylum?
  • Where do immigrants routinely go missing with little attention from the government?
  • What’s the difference between asylum seekers and refugees?
  • Is immigration court just like regular court in the United States?

Got your answers in?

Impeachment- Round 3

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Well, it’s been a while and a lot more stuff has happened. Before we get to the new, let’s look at some history: Watergate grand jury letter (link) Watergate report release (story here, docs here)… 

Impeachment- Round 2

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So some more stuff happened this weekend. Here we go: Why did the White House start hiding transcripts of calls? (WSJ) Apparently the head of the DOJ asked for foreign governments to help investigate …… 

Impeachment- now with wayyyy too many links

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It’s basically a full time job to keep up with what’s going on with the impeachment that isn’t an impeachment yet. I’ve spent a good two hours updating my website and collecting links, and there’s… 

The Executive Order on Immigration: Why I’m Against it

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I’ve had some thoughts about the executive order that I would like to get out, especially considering version 2.0 is rumored to appear soon. As of now, there is still a stay on the original act, and it’s looking increasingly likely the courts will block it. However, I wanted to state why I opposed the ban as bad policy in the hopes that it may convince someone, somewhere, not to support similar actions. 

Twitter and the Campaign

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As part of a project I’m working on dealing with how immigration is framed, I had downloaded all tweets from the accounts of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders from November 1, 2015 until November 9, 2016. This time period covered both the Republican and Democratic primaries, their conventions, and the general elections.

Clinton was the most prolific tweeter, tweeting 7,148 times, followed by Cruz at 6,528. Sanders followed with 5,812 tweets, and Trump, who is most closely associated with the medium, tweeted the least at 4,827 tweets. Ted Cruz was the biggest retweeter, and both his and Sander’s tweets decreased after they dropped out of the race.

What were they tweeting about? 

What exactly is Populism?

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It seems everyone is talking about populism these days. On one hand, there’s now a plethora of experts who want to opine on the populist moment and it’s connection with the far-right. On the other, a whole bunch of other people wondering why political science hasn’t been studying the issue.

But here’s the thing. There’s been plenty of work done on the rise of populist movements in comparative politics (see the links below) and populist movements can rise from the left as well as the right. In fact, in the US, populist movements often have had a leftist tinge (hello Governor Huey P.) and thinking of it as only a far-right phenomena completely ignores Latin America. 

America the Purple

As you may have noticed, I often use this blog as a placeholder to keep track of information that may come in useful in teaching. Along with the questions I highlighted in my last post,…