#net immigration figures

[canmom]

So a little over a month ago I was reached out to by @peterkats, a gay refugee currently living in a camp with a small group of other gay and trans refugees.

Peter has, to put it mildly, had a fucking time of it. In his home country, Uganda, his partner was murdered for being trans. He stayed for some time in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with a group of gay and trans people (pictured above), but violence from police forced them to move, and they're currently in a refugee camp run by the UNHCR. (I've been asked not to explicitly name the country but you can probably figure it out.)

Unfortunately this has not in any way been a reprieve. They've managed to flee right into an impending famine, and if that's not enough, they're still facing violence from police and other refugees, and general indifference from the UNHCR medical staff - who are also facing supply shortages. But it's not completely hopeless. When Peter contacted me, he needed money for food - I sent him some via an intermediary and he was able to get quite a bit (the exchange rate seems to be favourable). With help, things can be quite different.

We've stayed in touch since then, talking about our respective lives, the lgbtq situation in different countries, even videogames and music. He's a really sweet guy, despite it all still trying to find a place he can live free. For real, I would not survive any of this shit.

Recently a couple of people in Peter's group have caught malaria. They are currently sleeping on bare mats without mosquito nets. There seems to be some confusion about the exchange rates but as far as I have been able to gather, about €150 (~20,000ssp) gets a mattress and €10(~1000ssp) a malaria net. The UNHCR have not been able to provide any medication except paracetamol, and it's raining which promotes mosquito activity, so this is kind of an emergency.

I would very much prefer if the new friend I've made doesn't die of starvation or malaria. Unfortunately, I do not have the money to support Peter and his group alone. I've sent him money for one mattress (via PayPal for expediency, it won't show up on GFM), and I would be immensely grateful if you would be able to contribute a bit to getting them another (which would be just about enough to keep six people safe from mosquitoes if sleeping three to a mattress).

Beyond that, these guys are prohibited from working so they would definitely benefit from food money. And if anyone has an idea for a long term plan to get them somewhere safer where they're less likely to get bashed, I am sure Peter would appreciate hearing about it. We talked a bit about the UK asylum process but getting everyone here would be very difficult (passports, flights etc.).

But still like, I can only do so much on my own, and I want to give these guys a fighting chance. So if you could pass this around and donate if you can spare a bit? I'd be insanely grateful.

[ohyeslawd]

Google Project 25

What is Project 2025?

The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a well-funded (eight-figure) effort of the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 organizations to enable a future anti-democratic presidential administration to take swift, far-right action that would cut wages for working people, dismantle social safety net programs, reverse decades of progress for civil rights, redefine the way our society operates, and undermine our economy.

A central pillar of Project 2025 is the “Mandate for Leadership,” a 900+ page policy playbook authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists that provides a radical vision for our nation and a roadmap to implement it.

Project 2025 Snapshot

Proposals from Project 2025, discussed in detail throughout this guide, that they claim could be implemented through executive branch action alone — so without new legislation — include:

Cut overtime protections for 4.3 million workers

Stop efforts to lower prescription drug prices

Limit access to food assistance, which an average of more than 40 million people in 21.6 million households rely on monthly

Eliminate the Head Start early education program, which serves over 1 million children annually

Cut American Rescue Plan (ARP) programs that have created or saved 220,000 jobs

Restrict access to medication abortion

Push more of the 33 million people enrolled in Medicare towards Medicare Advantage and other worse, private options

Expose the 368,000 children in foster care to risk of increased discrimination

Deny students in 25 states and Washington, D.C. access to student loans because their state provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants

Roll back civil rights protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related (DEI) programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and workplaces

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Knefel at MMFA:

At least four organizations involved in Project 2025, a sprawling effort to provide policy and staff to a future Trump administration, have spent years arguing against birthright citizenship — a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy that is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.  Project 2025 is organized by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation — which has opposed birthright citizenship for decades — and has more than 100 right-wing groups on its advisory board. Of those, high-ranking figures at both the MAGA-aligned think tank The Claremont Institute and the Center for Immigration Studies, which was founded by the nativist John Tanton, also oppose birthright citizenship. So does former Trump adviser Stephen Miller; he recently delisted his organization America First Legal from Project 2025’s board, but his fingerprints are all over it. 

Although ending birthright citizenship is an extreme and unpopular proposal, these are not fringe groups. Heritage has been at the center of the conservative policy ecosystem for decades. In a 2018 fundraising email recently unearthed by Media Matters, Heritage bragged, “President Trump has already embraced 64% of our recommendations.” Miller is expected to exert even more control under another Trump administration than during Trump’s first term. Claremont is home to at least two former Trump advisers who oppose birthright citizenship — attempted coup participant John Eastman and Michael Anton, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post on the topic. Claremont also serves as a clearinghouse for right-wing media figures who move through their influential fellowship programs. CIS and other nodes of the Tanton network were instrumental in making policy and staffing the Department of Homeland Security under Trump.

As the American Immigration Council explains, the guarantee of citizenship for people born on U.S. soil has been a bedrock of Constitutional law for more than 150 years. And as AIC argued more than a decade ago, ending birthright citizenship wouldn’t slow unauthorized immigration. The conservative argument fails on its own merits but succeeds in advancing Project 2025’s broader anti-immigrant agenda. 

The Heritage Foundation

As lead organizers of Project 2025, Heritage deserves pride of place in analyzing the right’s long campaign against birthright citizenship, not least because the think tank has been hammering the argument for nearly two decades. In 2006, Heritage published a report by then-senior research fellow John Eastman — the same John Eastman who, as mentioned earlier, would later go on to try to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election while at Claremont — arguing against birthright citizenship. 

[...]

Center for Immigration Studies

If Heritage and Claremont are the higher-profile opponents of birthright citizenship, the Center for Immigration Studies — which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group — is the workhorse that keeps the issue percolating in the conservative policy world. In 2010, CIS’ Jon Feere wrote a white paper called: “Birthright Citizenship in the United States: A Global Comparison.” Although Feere discusses the 14th Amendment and Howard’s quote, he foregrounds decidedly more nativist concerns: “chain migration,” “birth tourism,” and the supposed “burden” unauthorized immigrants place on the social safety net (a common but false trope).  Since 2010, CIS has published at least 70 posts under the tag “Birthright Citizenship” on its website. One key entry, a companion piece of sorts to Feere’s initial offering, came in November 2018 in response to Trump’s Axios interview. In “Birthright Citizenship: An Overview,” CIS’ Andrew Arthur argues that birthright citizenship “remains an open question,” and that “the costs of births for the children of illegal aliens is staggering.” (Numerous studies have shown undocumented immigrants to be net contributors to the economy.) [...]

America First Legal

Stephen Miller is known as a leading advocate of some of Trump’s most xenophobic policies, including the administration’s “Muslim ban” and its family separation policy. It should come as no surprise then that in August 2019 Miller — then a White House senior adviser — told Fox News that the Trump administration was “looking at all legal options” to end birthright citizenship. 

Four months later, Rolling Stone revealed a series of emails between Miller and Jon Feere, who at the time was serving as a senior adviser in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Feere — no longer at CIS, though he would return in 2021 — was Miller’s man at ICE, and although the heavily redacted emails don’t appear to reference birthright citizenship, Feere was so closely associated with eliminating it that Rolling Stone highlighted his published work on the subject near the top of its report.  After Trump’s defeat in 2020, Miller founded America First Legal, a conservative advocacy group that bills itself as the right's answer to the American Civil Liberties Union. Although it doesn’t appear that AFL has taken up birthright citizenship, the same can’t be said for Miller. On at least four occasions, Miller has posted content disparaging of birthright citizenship on X (formerly Twitter).

[...] The issue, it seems, is not going away. In this recent history, Eastman, Feere, and Anton have all played outsized roles — not to mention Miller, who remains Trump’s immigration-whisperer. All four are central to Project 2025, which in turn is intended to serve as a specific and detailed roadmap for what another Trump term would look like. The threat these figures pose to a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy is plain, their shoddy scholarship notwithstanding.

Project 2025 partner organizations, such as America First Legal and The Heritage Foundation, call for the end of birthright citizenship. Such calls are rooted in nativism.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Chronicle Herald :: Michael de Adder :: @deAdder

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 28, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 29, 2024

Just a week ago, it seems, a new America began. I’ve struggled ever since to figure out what the apparent sudden revolution in our politics means.

I keep coming back to the Ernest Hemingway quote about how bankruptcy happens. He said it happens in two stages, first gradually and then suddenly.

That’s how scholars say fascism happens, too—first slowly and then all at once—and that’s what has been keeping us up at night.

But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe democracy happens the same way, too: slowly, and then all at once. 

At this country’s most important revolutionary moments, it has seemed as if the country turned on a dime. 

In 1763, just after the end of the French and Indian War, American colonists loved that they were part of the British empire. And yet, by 1776, just a little more than a decade later, they had declared independence from that empire and set down the principles that everyone has a right to be treated equally before the law and to have a say in their government.

The change was just as quick in the 1850s. In 1853 it sure looked as if the elite southern enslavers had taken over the country. They controlled the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. They explicitly rejected the Declaration of Independence and declared that they had the right to rule over the country’s majority. They planned to take over the United States and then to take over the world, creating a global economy based on human enslavement. 

And yet, just seven years later, voters put Abraham Lincoln in the White House with a promise to stand against the Slave Power and to protect a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” He ushered in “a new birth of freedom” in what historians call the second American revolution. 

The same pattern was true in the 1920s, when it seemed as if business interests and government were so deeply entwined that it was only a question of time until the United States went down the same dark path to fascism that so many other nations did in that era. In 1927, after the execution of immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, poet John Dos Passos wrote: “they have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspaper editors the old judges the small men with reputations….” 

And yet, just five years later, voters elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised Americans a New Deal and ushered in a country that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights.

Every time we expand democracy, it seems we get complacent, thinking it’s a done deal. We forget that democracy is a process and that it’s never finished.

And when we get complacent, people who want power use our system to take over the government. They get control of the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court, and they begin to undermine the principle that we should be treated equally before the law and to chip away at the idea that we have a right to a say in our government. And it starts to seem like we have lost our democracy. 

But all the while, there are people who keep the faith. Lawmakers, of course, but also teachers and journalists and the musicians who push back against the fear by reminding us of love and family and community. And in those communities, people begin to organize—the marginalized people who are the first to feel the bite of reaction, and grassroots groups. They keep the embers of democracy alive.

And then something fans them into flame. 

In the 1760s it was the Stamp Act, which said that men in Great Britain had the right to rule over men in the American colonies. In the 1850s it was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave the elite enslavers the power to rule the United States. And in 1929 it was the Great Crash, which proved that the businessmen had no idea what they were doing and had no plan for getting the country out of the Great Depression.

The last several decades have felt like we were fighting a holding action, trying to protect democracy first from an oligarchy and then from a dictator. Many Americans saw their rights being stripped away…even as they were quietly becoming stronger. 

That strength showed in the Women’s March of January 2017, and it continued to grow—quietly under Donald Trump and more openly under the protections of the Biden administration. People began to organize in school boards and state legislatures and Congress. They also began to organize over TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and newsletters and Zoom calls. 

And then something set them ablaze. The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision stripped away from the American people a constitutional right they had enjoyed for almost fifty years, and made it clear that a small minority intended to destroy democracy and replace it with a dictatorship based in Christian nationalism. 

When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.

He passed it to us. 

It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope.

It is up to us whether it will be fascism or democracy that, in the end, moves swiftly, and up to us whether we will choose to follow in the footsteps of those Americans who came before us in our noblest moments, and launch a brand new era in American history.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[master-of-47-dudes]

So I showed the early stuff off a bit a few months back, but I've finally completed the first draft of Act 1 of my Lancer adventure path, Kindness of Strangers! The deets can be found on the pilot net discord, but:

LRBT-III, otherwise known as Blanche to the locals. This sun-baked dustbowl of a planet has the high honor of being one of the few habitable terrestrial bodies that anyone has discovered in the Long Rim- and probably the only one that's actually any use to anyone. Luckily- or not so luckily, if you ask some people- it was Union that found it first. Well, about 70 years ago when they stumbled across this star system they got it in their heads that the Long Rim's days were numbered. There’s untold millions living out there scattered along the emptiest shipping lane in the known galaxy who'd need a way out once no one needed to pass them by, and by Christ the Buddha Union was gonna be there for them waiting with open arms.

All of that is background, though. You? You’re a bunch of mercenaries who got their hands on a couple of GMSes, decided to make your manna selling violence for pay. Worlds like Blanche don't take to colonies very well, so even two generations in there's still plenty of frontier out there being settled and railroad tracks being laid. The people out there struggle day by day to survive, and people like you are there to protect them from those who got sick of the hard life. Not everyone out there has the guts to stand up for the little guy- that's why you're called Lancers.

A setting and a campaign all in one, Kindness Of Strangers and its (eventual) follow-up Dancing With the Devil are a series of Wild West-themed 2-mission adventures intended to take players from 0-12 as they find themselves embroiled in the midst of a corporate conspiracy to overthrow the Union-backed government of the isolated colony of Blanche and a ploy to seize control over a nearly completed Blinkstation. All the while, a strange religious movement worshipping an eons-dead alien civilization grows ever more influential in the background...

This campaign tackles themes of colonialism, nationalism, corruption, and conflict between indigenous peoples, settlers, and immigrants, all in a world where well-meaning intentions have gone sour and the ghosts of the past have come back to haunt it. It comes with:

- A setting guide for LRBT-III and its weird-as-hell star system!

- A 0-12 campaign split up into two books, Kindness of Strangers and Dancing With the Devil, that are made up of three 2-mission adventures each. And then a final mission to tie things up.

- 4 Alt-Frames: the IPS-N Nemo, the SSC Painted Lady, the Horus Roper, and the HA Grant (still working on these)

- New Reserves! (still working on these)

- New Exotic Gear (still working on these)

- New NPCs! (still working on these)

Things to look forward to:

- Rallying a town to fight off a horde of bandits!

- An epic duel at sunset!

- Accidentally walking into a partial metavault and escaping with the only scars being mental ones!

- A weird amount of references to the works of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, like a probably legally dubious amount!

- Exploding plants!

- Exploding wildlife!

- The **CHRISTHEBUDDHASAURUS**

- Helping striking miners fight off Pinkertons!

- Investigating the bombing of a water filtration plant!

- AND MORE

...so this is really my first time doing this kind of thing so I don't entirely know what all to put here BUT I've put together first drafts of both the Field Guide to LRBT and Kindness of Strangers Act 1: A Streetcar Named Desire. They're not in any state where I can charge for them- I'd call them "playtest and editing ready" rn- but I figure I can share them here so people can give notes. If people think it's cool I could possibly do a kickstarter or something to get the money needed for art and help with editing and lcps and such.

Field Guide to LRBT:

Kindness of Strangers Act 1: A Streetcar Named Desire:

[mariacallous]

Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released estimates suggesting that net immigration—inflows minus outflows—was 3.3 million in 2023. That is much higher than the 1 million or so they projected pre-pandemic for 2023, which was a more typical figure for the 2010s. There is also some uncertainty about the 3.3 million number, which is higher than the most recent Census estimate of 1.1 million net migrants for the year ending July 2023. (See here for a more detailed explanation of why the CBO number seems reasonable.) Here we discuss the new immigrants: how they are arriving to the United States, what we know about them, and the economic implications of larger inflows.

[justsome-di]

The Fairest of All Stars: Chapter 2

Andy didn’t mean to become a pirate captain, but after killing the captain of her ship, she finds herself thrust into the role. Years after the incident, she is fierce and feared and recovering from a tropical fever that wiped out half her crew.

Just as they’re about to dock, they find an injured siren left behind by her choir. Andy, drawn to her, pulls her onto the ship and decides to keep her there until she recovers. But with the Navy hunting for both pirates and sirens, Andy has just made her ship an even bigger target for an iniquitous captain looking for revenge.

Warning for suicidal thoughts and violence. Will contain mature scenes.

Also available for free on Patreon (paid members are five installments ahead and will get exclusive bonus stories) and on AO3. If you enjoy reading Stars please consider leaving a comment on AO3, Patreon, or reblogging these chapters! Follow for more updates!

Everybody held out their hands while Tobi dripped hot wax from a candle into their waiting palms. It stung and burned for only a few seconds before the wax cooled and solidified into warm, soft lumps. They rolled the wax between their fingers before sticking it into their ears. It muffled the sounds around them just enough. The gut-wrenching screams didn’t knock anyone to the ground. Everyone could finally function.

Andy stood at the railing of the ship and listened. The screams still made her feel vaguely ill. But they were pulling her in like she was a fish on a hook. Nearby, there was a short islet made completely of dark rocks It was jagged and almost invisible in the night. Andy was certain that that was where the screaming was coming from. The rocks were dragging her—the ship—forward.

And on the rocks, through her spyglass and past the fog, Andy could see a dark figure thrashing around on the very edge.

It could have been a dolphin, washed up and drying out. Separated from its pod, it would have no one to help nudge it back into the water. Its only choice to cry out for help from anywhere.

But, then again, Andy knew what a dolphin’s cry sounded like.

Andy tapped Pinkey on the back as she came across him. He was tall and strong, perfect to bring along in case they needed muscle. He followed her and Tobi into a ready rowboat.

It was much colder on the boat than on the ship. The iciness of the ocean wafted up and wrapped itself around Andy. She pulled her jacket tight around her. Her bones still ached, and a chill still had a grip on her. The only thing keeping her upright was her pride. She couldn’t fall over the side of a rowboat in front of her crew.

She pulled out her spyglass again to look at the dark figure as they drew closer. She saw thin limbs and long hair. There was a spastic thrash of the body before it laid still. Realizing that she was looking at a woman, Andy gasped in a breath of air.

What was a woman doing in the middle of the ocean? Andy considered the possibilities. She was a victim of other pirates, dropped off at sea when she put up too much of a fight. Or she was a stowaway on a ship that threw her overboard when she was discovered. Maybe it was just a freak accident. Maybe she was a passenger of an overcrowded immigrant ship. Or a member of nobility who went overboard without her family noticing.

Tobi rowed closer, slowly, in ignorance. Andy brought her spyglass down and stared ahead.

When they reached the rocks, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pinkey recoil. His lantern swung with his jolt.

The woman was wrapped in fishing net. Loose around her neck and then tight across her chest and pinning one arm to her side. She twisted her shoulders around, making pitiful little grunts as she tried freeing herself with her draining energy.

Andy didn’t notice any legs at first. It was as if the woman’s bottom half had been chopped off and by some miracle, she was still hanging on to the last thread of life. But when Andy took a step out of the boat, she realized that it wasn’t that the bottom half of the body didn’t exist, it was that the bottom half was a long, scaly, gray tail that easily blended in with the dark rocks it laid on.

The tail weakly tried moving around, but it was tightly wrapped up in the fishing night. Every time it twitched by an inch, fresh blood poured from ripped scales and flesh wounds.

The thing look at Andy with wide, frightened eyes. She tried crawling away, tried pushing herself back on her single, free elbow. Before she could get far, her face contorted in pain and she fell back onto the rocks. Her chest heaved. Her head was thrown back.

Andy pulled out the wax in her ears and motioned for the men to do the same. For some reason, she felt some tension in her body release. Something deep in her gut unclenched.

There hadn’t been a scream since they made it to the islet.

“It’s a mermaid,” Pinkey said.

“No, a fucking siren,” Tobi said.

The three pirates stared. Even Tobi, who claimed to be a veteran of the sea and had seen it all, blinked slowly at the siren.

Andy held her lantern higher. The siren’s eyes reflected the light as a cat’s would have. Two shining, yellow dots stared back at Andy. And Andy didn’t move. Andy knew that she should have looked away. She knew the stories of sirens. She had been told long ago that they weren’t to be trusted and killed on sight before they had a chance to lure anyone under the water. They were nasty, cruel creatures.

The ship’s previous captain, Eli, had told them all that had come face-to-face with one. One night when it was too hot for anyone to drink, he poured rum for everyone and began the story.

He had been a stowaway on a merchant ship with a childhood friend, Samuel. They were 15 and parent-less and had nothing for them in England anymore. After living on the streets for years, being treated worse than garbage, they squirreled away on a departing ship. It was easy on an already overcrowded ship, apparently.

They were smaller than what two fifteen-year-olds should have been, forced to be tiny from eating food scraps most of their lives. Their misfortune gave them an advantage and allowed them to squeeze themselves into the smallest books and crannies where the crew wouldn’t see them. And being used to going hungry, they didn’t have to sneak much food very often from the mess hall at night.

Wherever the ship would take them, they were fine with it. All they knew was that they wanted to be gone from the country that had betrayed them. Whatever was waiting for them, they were okay. Together, they dreamed of landing in the rich cities of China or the hot jungles of South America.

They would whisper together, bodies pressed together like little children, making plans for what they were going to do. Someday, they told each other, they would get rich. Doing what, they didn’t know. But they could feel it in their bones. They were destined for something great.

But soon, Eli and Samuel hadn’t known how long they had been at sea. Their bellies were pained from being so empty, and their skin was dry from dehydration. The only thing that kept them going was the hope that they were going to end up somewhere better than the streets of England.

One night while trying to sleep past hunger pangs, Eli heard the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. It sounded like a mother’s lullaby. Deep, slow, dreamy. Without any control over himself, Eli had crawled out of his hiding spot and walked to the top deck.

Samuel walked ahead of him and when he saw the source of the singing, he bolted ahead.

All around them, the crew of the ship had their swords and guns drawn. Eli later learned that they had plugged their ears long ago, knowing they were in siren waters.

A woman sat on the edge of the ship, her arm reached out to Samuel. Eli remembered that she looked beautiful in the way that the youngest of boys thought their mothers were beautiful. A full figure and a square face. Samuel ran straight into her arms. At first, she held his face, ran her hands over his cheeks like a mother would. She cradled him to her bare chest, placed his head on her bosom.

And then she stopped singing. Her gentle embrace turned into a tight grip. Her long nails dug into his arms. In an instant, her mouth peeled back to reveal three rows of teeth with a screech that made Eli’s blood turn cold. She pulled Samuel forward and ripped his throat apart with her teeth. He had tried screaming, but his vocal cords were in shreds. All that came out was a low gurgle and spurts of blood from his mouth that dribbled down his chin.

Eli was released from her spell, and he saw the siren for what she was. A monster.

A member of the crew took a shot. The bullet missed and flew past her and the boy. The siren hissed and threw herself backward. With Samuel still in her hold, she dove into the icy waters. Eli nearly went over the edge with them but was caught by a crew member. With half of his body hanging off the ship, Eli could see a swarm of sirens greedily tearing at the body.

The crew members shoved hot wax into Eli’s ears. After taking one look at him, they saw there was no way the boy was any threat. They gave him his first meal in weeks, but Eli was too sick with grief and shock to eat.

The ship continued to sail for weeks more. Every morning, Eli would look over the edge of the ship to see if maybe his friend was there. Maybe Samuel could still be saved. Maybe he got away just in time.

In the end, Eli did end up in China. The merchant ship dumped him off after he proved to be a terrible crew member.

Instead of the gold-painted streets he had imagined with Samuel, he ended up with a new group of street urchins who reluctantly took him in under their wing without being able to say a single word to each other. They slept under broken-down buildings and ate scraps that fell from vendor’s stalls. Not a day went by that Eli didn’t think about his friend.

Andy was sure that some of the story was true. She knew Eli had to have spent time in China because he could messily speak the language. She believed that he was an orphan because so many people were. But she had always somewhat doubted the truth of his encounter with the siren.

No one’s stories of sirens ever matched up. Some like Eli reported sharp teeth running all the way down their throats. Some people said the sirens looked like the most gorgeous brothel workers they had ever seen. While they were violent and brutal in how they devoured their prey by some accounts, there were others who said they would swallow a person whole.

Time and time again, someone would say that they had watched a siren devour a whole crew or a childhood friend or an enemy. Andy always wondered how so many men managed to narrowly escape death.

And if sirens were such devious creatures, then why did their own siren, laying on those rocks, not strike?

Andy crept forward on the rocks. The yellow dots flicked behind her, and the siren tried crawling away again.

Andy looked over her shoulder. Tobi sat in the boat with his gun drawn, set on the siren.

“Don’t,” Andy snapped.

“It’s just a warning,” Tobi said.

Andy slowly knelt next to the siren. She held her hands up with her palms out, trying to signal that she wasn’t going to hurt her.

“Pinkey, get over here,” she said.

Pinkey stepped out of the boat and onto the islet with them. “Sir?”

“Got your knife?”

“Of course.”

“Cut her loose.”

Andy’s hands shook. She was soaked from the ocean spray. It made her chills worse and when she tried grabbing her knife, she could barely hold it steady. She struggled to snag a piece of net with the blade.

Pinkey pulled out his own knife. He took the net where it was loosest around the siren’s chest and began sawing. It fell away easily.

The siren whimpered and craned her head away. Andy wanted to hold her down but knew that it would only make the situation worse. If she was scared, she might attack. Or if she began thrashing around, she would hurt herself. If she made any louder noise, the three of them on those rocks would be doomed.

Pinkey continued working his way down her chest and to her waist. The net left burns across the arm and chest. When he got to her tail, he hesitated. He stared at the tail—a real siren tail right in front of him. Thick and twitching on the rocks. He gently laid one hand on it to try to keep it steady and find some slack in the net.

The siren laid herself down. Her eyes were half-closed. Her breath came in exhausted pants. Andy remembered her gun and remembered her plan of putting whatever was screaming out of its misery.

Andy held the lantern close to the siren’s face. She didn’t know what a siren was supposed to look like, but this one looked like an ill human. Her skin looked like it was supposed to be that of the shade of an almond but was gray and pale. Her chest rose up and down slowly from heavy breaths. Deep gashes and mangled flesh from the fishing net covered her body.

Pinkey grabbed a handful of net and tried pulling it free. It caught on a knot and yanked on a raw patch of her tail. The siren arched her back, and her face twisted in agony.

Andy clamped her hand over the siren’s mouth.

They met each other’s eyes and held each other’s gaze. Andy held her breath. She had to be an idiot to tempt a siren with her own flesh like that. But the siren’s eyes looked pained and exhausted, and Andy couldn’t pull herself away.

“Be fucking careful,” Andy said to Pinkey.

Pinkey sat back and examined the mess. He began pulling at what he could, untwisting what was loose. The rope squeezed at scales, yanking them out in chunks and leaving splotches of exposed, pink flesh all over. Seeing that he wasn’t getting anywhere, Pinkey picked up his knife again.

For the next hour, the knife dulling quickly, Pinkey cut away small sections of net and pulled away what he could. Blood ran freely from the siren’s tail, darkening the scales that remained and staining Pinkey’s clothes and hands. He concentrated even though the splashes of seawater flattened his coily hair and plastered it to his face. He kept working, swiping water from his eyes and pushing his hair back, and Andy felt respect for him start to spark inside her.

Ocean spray continued soaking them, freezing them all to the bone. Andy was so cold she had grown numb. She couldn’t feel her fingers as they clamped on the siren’s mouth, curving around her cheek. If the rocks she knelt on were digging into her knees, she couldn’t tell. Inside her, though, she felt herself burning with fever. Pinkey began fumbling with his knife as his own body was shaking with chills.

The siren’s eyes had closed. She looked almost dead. Her long, black hair, what Andy could make out against the dark rocks, fanned out around her where it didn’t stick to her face. It made her face look as drained as a corpse. Even her lips, now, were pale.

Pinkey gave a triumphant cry. He cut away the rest of the net around her tail and spread it on the rocks. He pulled her tail fin up to him and set his knife aside. With her delicate fins in his lap, he began gently pulling the last of the net away.

“We’re bringing her on board,” Andy said.

“Absolutely not,” Tobi said.

“If you disagree, you can mutiny later. But if she stays here, she dies.”

“And why does that matter to you?”

There wasn’t much that got under Andy’s skin, and maybe it was her own illness that was clouding her judgment. But leaving the siren out on the rocks to die overnight seemed needlessly cruel. Even for a pirate. She didn’t want to wake up the next morning and wonder if the siren had lived or not. And if she had lived, was she fighting for her last breaths? Was she fighting off animals trying to peck at her flesh? To help something a little bit and yet still leave it on the brink of death to fend for itself, to squirm and suffer until it finally passed, made Andy’s stomach churn.

“When she’s stronger, we’ll let her off the ship,” Andy said.

“And if she retaliates? She’s a monster. She won’t be loyal.”

“If she gives us trouble,” Andy said, grasping for excuses, “we keep her as insurance. If we come across any trouble, we hand her over. Let whoever gets her take her to the Navy and get rich.”

Tobi had lowered his gun. It was too wet to work. The gunpowder had to have been soaked. It would never ignite. But Tobi’s threats still lingered. He stood and loomed over Andy and the siren.

Pinkey threw the rest of the ropes to the side. “Captain,” he said. “She’s free.”

“You’re a coward,” Tobi said.

“Fuck off and help get her in the boat.”

Pinkey and Tobi lifted the siren and laid her in the rowboat. It was a tight squeeze for all four of them to fit. The siren was limp. Her tail lay along the bottom of the boat and hung over the edge. Pinkey let her rest her head on his lap. Her thin arms lay against his thighs, and Pinkey’s hand rested on her hair. She was either resigned to the fact that she was going to be brought onboard a strange ship or was hopeful that she would be getting help.

The jerking and tilting of the boat as it was heaved up in the air by the crew made Andy more dizzy, more sick. She looked at the siren. She didn’t look well, either. Pinkey held her tight. She was clearly a creature of the sea and not air.

Tobi was out of the boat first. Then, Pinkey. Together, they pulled the siren out while the crew gawked. Andy could see, now, how magnificent she was. Her tail was long and thick and if it hadn’t been covered in open sores, it would have been beautiful and shiny all over. In the light of the crew’s lanterns, Andy could see how the unharmed scales reflected the light like a hundred tiny rainbows.  

They laid her out on the deck with her head resting again in Pinkey’s lap as he barked orders to get blankets for her. Tobi, all the while, cursed and warned men to not get too close.

Her waist was thin, but her shoulders and chest were broad and had good muscle on them. Her arms, weakly trying to wrap around herself, were unsettlingly long. They seemed to stretch for a mile. Her hands, too, were large. Her palms were huge and flat. Her fingers were spindly.

Everything about her looked just a little off. Her awkward proportions, the combination of her muscle and slender frame. Even her face was a little off. Her eyes still glowed in the light when it hit them just right. Her cheekbones were unusually high. Her jaw was wide.

She was beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning.

Andy wanted to look at her for hours more. She wanted to take notes on her body and poke and prod her. When she would make Joseph tend to her wounds, later, Andy wanted to join and feel if her skin was soft or maybe rough. If she had pores like a human or if they were non-existent. She wanted to touch her hair and find out why it refused to tangle and mat despite dripping in saltwater and blood. She wanted to feel the hard muscle on her biceps and the subtle softness of her belly.

The siren was a mystery that Andy was going to solve.

Joseph offered his hand to Andy. “She’s a beauty.”

Andy took his hand and climbed out of the boat. She stumbled, and he caught her. Her gun hit the side of her leg, still in her pocket.

“She’s a monster,” Tobi announced to the men who were trying to help Pinkey wrap blankets around the siren. “Don’t let her trick any of you. She already has our captain under her spell.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Andy snapped. She pulled away from Joseph and stumbled forward. “If you want to be captain so bad, why don’t you kill me already?”

Tobi sneered at her. The crew watched with wide eyes. Andy felt as if a thousand bugs had begun crawling up her back.

In one motion, she pulled her gun from her pocket, pulled back the hammer, and pointed it directly at Tobi. She breathed heavily as she stared down her pistol’s barrel. Tobi just stared back at her with cold eyes. He didn’t even flinch.

Andy pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked. The gunpowder, soaked, didn’t ignite. Just as she expected.

“Bang,” she said, voice quiet.

She stumbled to the side. She tried to steady herself, but the ship felt so uneven. Her knees slammed down into the wood deck before she even realized she was falling. Joseph’s hands grabbed at her shirt, at her slippery arms, but she fell further forward. On her way down, the rest of her vision left her. Her head hit the deck, and she was out. 

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Slate Article: Trumps Right: We Need to Deport Prince Harry by u/Business_Werewolf_55

Slate Article: Trump’s Right: We Need to Deport Prince Harry This is my first post. I apologize that I don't know how to archive posts, yet. I will try to figure it out and edit this post later. However, I've excerpted some of the fun parts below.For those who don't know, Slate is one of the most liberal publications in the U.S. This is not about anyone's individual politics. This is an indication of what the general opinion is all across the political spectrum in the U.S. when it comes to Harry.This is a paywalled link:https://ift.tt/jgfnOLV LINK: Donald Trump 2024 news: I wholeheartedly agree that we should deport Prince Harry (archive.ph) (Thank you to Von_und_zu_ !!)​Trump’s Right: We Need to Deport Prince HarryI disagree with everything he says about immigration. Except for this.BY LUKE WINKIEMARCH 20, 2024 6:36 PM​However, on Tuesday, for the first time in his political career, Trump said something about immigration that I think we can all agree on, and it could honestly serve as a compromise platform between Republicans and Democrats: Prince Harry should be deported. We all know it. What are we waiting for?[...]It goes without saying that deporting someone for something as harmless as getting coked up at Buckingham Palace (who among us?) is monumentally stupid, cruel, and a flagrant waste of resources. However, the spirit of Trump’s larger point is completely sound. Prince Harry moved to America and immediately revealed himself to be the most annoying person in the oligarchy. He is coasting on a ridiculous endowment, itself supported by literal centuries of exploitation, despite his possessing no skills, attributes, or insights to speak of. In their absence, Harry has been forced to wield his sole remaining asset—the ability to whine, endlessly, about the various low-stakes indignities thrust upon him by his dad and brother—until he managed to worm his way into California’s celebrity enclave. Spare, his turgid memoir, sold 1.4 million copies, and it mostly contained passages about all the trauma he has from getting mildly bullied by his older brother. You could not waterboard that information out of me. What an embarrassing way to become famous.Everything about the prince reeks of pervasive mediocrity. He successfully convinced Spotify to hand him and his wife $20 million for a podcast which resulted in 12 episodes. He broke ground on a charity, raised $13 million from his rich friends, and managed to redistribute … $3 million of the net holdings, which seems a little off? (The charity also includes a for-profit media arm. Their first production? A Netflix series about—you guessed it—Harry and Meghan!) The Duke of Sussex will continue to defraud the nation’s greasy tech-industry plunderers for as long as he’s left to his own devices. Want a national rallying cry? Send his ass back to England. post link: https://ift.tt/CO0KZcr author: Business_Werewolf_55 submitted: March 21, 2024 at 11:42PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[head-post]

Small boat arrivals fell by third last year

The UK Home Office published the latest figures on illegal migration and asylum claims on Thursday. There were 38,784 illegal arrivals in the 12 months to June 2024, representing a 26% drop from the previous year.

Of these, 81%, or 31,493, made the dangerous journey across the Channel in small boats. This figure is 29% lower than the 44,460 arrivals on small boats in the year ending June 2023.

Despite the overall drop in numbers, the average number of people per boat rose to 51, up from 44 in the previous year, suggesting that smugglers are increasingly cramming more people onto each vessel.

While the government continues to grapple with the complexities of managing migration, the number of people awaiting an initial decision on their asylum claims remains a key issue.

By the end of June 2024, 118,882 people were still awaiting an initial decision, a slight increase from 118,329 at the end of March 2024.

Nevertheless, this is a significant drop of 32 per cent from the record high of 175,457 recorded in June 2023. Of those waiting, 76,268 have been on the waiting list for more than six months, although this number is down 46 per cent from last year’s record high of 139,961.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper reiterated her commitment to tackling illegal migration, announcing plans to reopen two immigration centres as part of a wider strategy to increase the number of people being removed who have no legal right to remain in the UK.

Cooper, who has been criticised by migrant rights campaigners, said the Border Security Command would step up its activities.

She emphasised that 100 officers from the National Crime Agency had been brought in to reinforce the border. According to Cooper, they are to thwart “criminal gangs operating transport operations” and prevent migrants from travelling dangerously across the sea in boats. The minister also announced sanctions against negligent employers who hire migrants illegally.

For more than 10 years, each of Britain’s governments has promised to reduce the number of migrants. Britons who supported leaving the EU believed that the country’s immigration problems were due to EU pressure on it. But Brexit didn’t help: while net immigration in the year before the referendum in 2015 was 329,000, according to Reuters, it will be 745,000 in 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Read more HERE

[misfitwashere]

July 28, 2024 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 29READ IN APP

Just a week ago, it seems, a new America began. I’ve struggled ever since to figure out what the apparent sudden revolution in our politics means.

I keep coming back to the Ernest Hemingway quote about how bankruptcy happens. He said it happens in two stages, first gradually and then suddenly.

That’s how scholars say fascism happens, too—first slowly and then all at once—and that’s what has been keeping us up at night.

But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe democracy happens the same way, too: slowly, and then all at once. 

At this country’s most important revolutionary moments, it has seemed as if the country turned on a dime. 

In 1763, just after the end of the French and Indian War, American colonists loved that they were part of the British empire. And yet, by 1776, just a little more than a decade later, they had declared independence from that empire and set down the principles that everyone has a right to be treated equally before the law and to have a say in their government.

The change was just as quick in the 1850s. In 1853 it sure looked as if the elite southern enslavers had taken over the country. They controlled the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. They explicitly rejected the Declaration of Independence and declared that they had the right to rule over the country’s majority. They planned to take over the United States and then to take over the world, creating a global economy based on human enslavement. 

And yet, just seven years later, voters put Abraham Lincoln in the White House with a promise to stand against the Slave Power and to protect a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” He ushered in “a new birth of freedom” in what historians call the second American revolution. 

The same pattern was true in the 1920s, when it seemed as if business interests and government were so deeply entwined that it was only a question of time until the United States went down the same dark path to fascism that so many other nations did in that era. In 1927, after the execution of immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, poet John Dos Passos wrote: “they have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspaper editors the old judges the small men with reputations….” 

And yet, just five years later, voters elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised Americans a New Deal and ushered in a country that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights.

Every time we expand democracy, it seems we get complacent, thinking it’s a done deal. We forget that democracy is a process and that it’s never finished.

And when we get complacent, people who want power use our system to take over the government. They get control of the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court, and they begin to undermine the principle that we should be treated equally before the law and to chip away at the idea that we have a right to a say in our government. And it starts to seem like we have lost our democracy. 

But all the while, there are people who keep the faith. Lawmakers, of course, but also teachers and journalists and the musicians who push back against the fear by reminding us of love and family and community. And in those communities, people begin to organize—the marginalized people who are the first to feel the bite of reaction, and grassroots groups. They keep the embers of democracy alive.

And then something fans them into flame. 

In the 1760s it was the Stamp Act, which said that men in Great Britain had the right to rule over men in the American colonies. In the 1850s it was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave the elite enslavers the power to rule the United States. And in 1929 it was the Great Crash, which proved that the businessmen had no idea what they were doing and had no plan for getting the country out of the Great Depression.

The last several decades have felt like we were fighting a holding action, trying to protect democracy first from an oligarchy and then from a dictator. Many Americans saw their rights being stripped away…even as they were quietly becoming stronger. 

That strength showed in the Women’s March of January 2017, and it continued to grow—quietly under Donald Trump and more openly under the protections of the Biden administration. People began to organize in school boards and state legislatures and Congress. They also began to organize over TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and newsletters and Zoom calls. 

And then something set them ablaze. The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision stripped away from the American people a constitutional right they had enjoyed for almost fifty years, and made it clear that a small minority intended to destroy democracy and replace it with a dictatorship based in Christian nationalism. 

When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.

He passed it to us. 

It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope.

It is up to us whether it will be fascism or democracy that, in the end, moves swiftly, and up to us whether we will choose to follow in the footsteps of those Americans who came before us in our noblest moments, and launch a brand new era in American history.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope.

VOTE

[slicedblackolives]

Hiii. At the tremendous risk of this sounding weird, I have to ask you why so many people, especially in northern India, see Bengalis as black magic practitioners?! Likeee??!!! I saw they did it to Rhea Chakraborty after SSR's demise and from then on, for the life of me I can't figure out the origin and cause of that. And I only came to know towards the middle of last year that it's a very strong stereotype.

Like???!!!! I'm so lost.

And I have searched a bit here and there on the net but the answers seem more subjective.

And there's also the stereotype that Bengali people are dirty. Like I've seen so many people (usually from north, but I'm not generalising) bash Kolkata under in the comments under reels and stuff because it's a dirty city.

I'm asking you because you're a rational person who backs up their opinions with facts. (Except when it comes to shipping characters).

Anti-Bengali sentiment, as I understand it, is a coalescing of multiple strands of reactionary hatreds against leftists, muslims, migrants, ethnic and linguistic chauvinism, the fascist “Bangladeshi” immigrant scapegoating, anti-elite and anti-intellectualism and just cultural hatred of any meat eating community. Like they just fall at the intersections of nearly every form of the many many fascistic tendencies within India (you will literally find Bengalis being hated by populist reactionaries for being “elite intellectuals”, by Assamese fascists for being “Bangladeshi criminals”, by the sangh in general for being “commies”, etc, etc). There really isn’t one single explanation! Some of these narratives are old, some are new, some have political bases, other ethnic, linguistic. Etc.

[eaglesnick]

Smoke, Mirrors and Reform

UKIP and the Brexit Party (now renamed Reform) both led by Nigel Farage, promised to “take back control" of UK borders. All patriotic Britons had to do was vote for Brexit, leave the EU and migration would come to an end.

How did that work out?

Before Brexit, EU and UK citizens had the freedom to live, work or study in any EU country without needing a visa. This was of equal benefit for all working people across the EU. We came out of the EU January 1st 2021. For the year 2020/21, the last year of Britain’s membership, net migration for the year was 685,000.

The following year, 2022, net migration was 745,000, an all-time high.

 In May of this year Politico carried this headline:

“3 years after Brexit, UK net migration has never been higher”. (Politico: 25/05/23)

So much for the “taking back control of our borders” promise by the Brexiteers! Rather than protecting people jobs and wages from the competition of foreign workers the Financial Times reports that most of the recent surge in immigrant numbers comes from “skilled migrants”.

“Employers in the UK have made much greater use …of the new migration system to bring in workers.” (FT: 13/03/23)

In other words, now that we have sovereign control of our borders businesses are bringing in more labour form abroad than ever before.  Here is a chilling fact brought to us by Migration Observatory:

“Foreign workers made up over a fifth of the employed population in the first quarter of 2024” (MO: June 2024)

As the number of EU nationals working in the UK has fallen so the number of non-EU foreign nationals working in the UK has risen. We have taken back control of our borders but to whose benefit? Could it possibly be the multi-millionaire and billionaire businessmen bankrolling the Reform Party?

It is interesting to note that the Reform Party “contract” promises to  “freeze non-essential immigration” but that “smart immigration can target the essential skills our economy needs”. As the above figures show, UK businesses are already practicing “ smart immigration” with  foreign workers making up over a 20% of the employed population. So much for Reforms real concern for migrant numbers!

As well as importing foreign workers with “essential skills” Reform intend to undermine the employment rights of existing workers. Reform promise to:

“Scrap thousands of laws that hold back British business and damage productivity, including employment laws…”

At one level you have to admire Nigel Farage and his wealthy backers: the Reform Party are the masters of illusion. Their biggest appeal of Reform to the British electorate is that they are anti-immigration, and by association, pro-working class. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I would argue Reform is pro-big business, pro-its wealthy backers ad their interests, and anti-working class.

This is demonstrated by the very way the party is structured - as a limited company! Reform UK Party Limited is described as an “entrepreneurial political start-up”, with Nigel Farage as the majority shareholder. Reform is a business enterprise in its own right, not a political party, a business enterprise bankrolled by wealthy business owners, multi-millionaires and billionaires who expect a return on their investment.

Lets hope the British people see through the smoke and mirrors before it is too late!

[beardedmrbean]

German politician Sahra Wagenknecht has launched a party which she says will appeal to culturally conservative and economically left-wing voters.

The BSW supports a higher minimum wage as well as an end to net-zero policies and weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

Mrs Wagenknecht is one of the best-known figures in German politics and the launch represents a significant change to the political landscape.

The 54-year-old said people were losing faith in mainstream parties.

She was born in communist East Germany, to a German mother and Iranian father, and joined the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1989, a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After German reunification, she joined the successor party to the SED, which eventually merged into the left-wing Die Linke.

Elected first to the European Parliament and then the Bundestag, the German parliament, she grew increasingly strident in her criticism of immigration, particularly after 2015, when about a million people from Syria and other countries arrived in Germany.

"She established a strong reputation and credibility for her anti-immigration positions and cultural conservatism," says Sarah Wagner, a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast.

Mrs Wagenknecht's high profile helped her develop personal support, particularly in eastern Germany.

In October, she quit Die Linke, saying: "the way things are going… our country will be unrecognisable in 10 years."

Political scientist Cas Mudde says electoral research shows that there is a "significant" electorate with left-wing conservative views. But he adds that "most of these voters care more about their right-wing cultural views than their left-wing economic views".

The pitch from the BSW - or Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht - will be tested first in the European elections in July.

However, three state elections in eastern Germany in September are likely to provide a stronger indication of how the new party will fare.

Ms Wagner told the BBC that the emergence of the BSW could tempt voters away from the AfD, jeopardising the far-right party's hopes of coming first in a state election for the first time.

"The AfD is going to be in quite a bit of trouble if this project is successful," Ms Wagner says.

The far-right party has been hitting record highs in the polls, consistently scoring above some mainstream parties.

The BSW has some €1.4m ($1.5m; £1.2m) funding available at launch, according to its treasurer.

Parties strongly associated with individuals have a poor record in German politics. In 2000, Ronald Schill, a judge, set up an insurgent party, which garnered significant support in Hamburg before collapsing a few years later.

But at least for the foreseeable future, politics in the EU's largest economy looks to be even further fractured, with voters having the choice between an unprecedented eight major parties.

[mythologeekwriter]

God this is horrifying

[Note: I am not copying the whole of these articles, please do read them, I'm just sharing the bits that I think illustrate why you should in fact read them.]

Five-point plan to cut UK immigration raises fears of more NHS staff shortages | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian

Cleverly told MPs on Monday that “migration is far too high and needs to come down … enough is enough”. He added: “Today I can announce that we will go even further than those provisions already in place, with a five-point plan to further curb immigration abuses that will deliver the biggest ever reduction in net migration. “In total, this package, plus our reduction in student dependants, will mean about 300,000 fewer people will come in future years than have come to the UK last year.” Along with raising the salary threshold and scrapping the “shortage occupation list”, Cleverly announced that social care workers would no longer be allowed to bring their dependants when they came to work in the UK. He also said people living in the UK – including British citizens – would now be allowed to sponsor family members to move to the UK only if the person living in the UK earned £38,700, up from £18,600 currently. Finally, the government is asking the Migration Advisory Committee to review the rules for those who have completed undergraduate degrees in the UK. A spokesperson for Downing Street called the package “the biggest clampdown on legal migration ever”. They added: “We believe this is a package which will enable us to significantly reduce numbers whilst achieving economic growth.” It forms one part of a two-part plan to reduce the numbers of people coming into Britain legally and illegally. This week Cleverly is likely to fly to Kigali to sign a new asylum treaty with Rwanda, with ministers ready to bring forward new legislation in an effort to finally kickstart the government’s Rwanda plan.

Families face being split up by UK plan to cut legal migration, lawyers say | Migration | The Guardian

Data suggests this could make it impossible for between 60 and 70% of workers to bring their family into the UK. The crackdown has caused concern among some senior Tory MPs. Alicia Kearns, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said on Tuesday she was worried the package as a whole risked dividing families. She told LBC: “It risks being very unconservative”. Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: “This is definitely completely different to what any other high income country does.” Under the new rules, someone will be able to bring a family member into the country if they earn £38,700 year. If the partner is already in the UK, both people’s incomes will be taken into account. If someone does not qualify under those rules, they will still be allowed to bring in family members if they have sufficient savings. Under current rules that figure is £62,500, but the government is consulting over whether to increase it.

Lawyers and applicants say, however, that it has led to distress and confusion, with many families already in the process of applying for visas now unsure of what the changes will mean for them. Kelly Robinson, an American PhD student living in Norwich with her partner, Owen Sennitt, had applied for her spousal visa last week, confident Sennitt’s job as a local journalist would be enough to qualify for it. Now she believes she may have to return to the US after eight years living in Britain. “It is a real shock,” she said. “The entire life we have built is being taken away from us overnight.” Nick Gore, a partner at Carter Thomas solicitors, said: “This is devastating for many people that just about meet the existing financial requirements. There is a huge spectrum of people who are affected – some are on minimum wage jobs, others have started their own businesses. This will split families up.”

Thanks to James Cleverly, I may never live in the same country as my kids again | Claire Armitstead | The Guardian

When I mentioned their predicament to a lawyer friend he was dismissive, saying that middle-class families always found a way round these problems. Other friends suggested we remortgage our house to raise the £62,500 capital that was the alternative route to a spousal visa. But it would have to have been in their bank account for a minimum of six months before they even reapplied; this was time their soaring stress levels meant they didn’t have. And anyway, they wanted to pay their own way. The Home Office said any change to the capital threshold would be announced in due course. At the old salary rate, they probably would eventually have worked something out, but at the new one there is no chance. Their relationship will always be based on them both working, and while their combined income would very probably exceed £38,700 a year, neither is going to make that much on their own. My eldest and his partner are now happily settled, so wouldn’t want to move back anyway. The sort of social care work she does is more highly valued in Spain. Meanwhile, my Australian daughter-in-law is in the crazy bind facing citizens of so many of the UK’s former colonies: expected to bend the knee to the monarch of a British state that doesn’t want them. Australia asks the foreign partners of its citizens only to prove their relationship is genuine.

[graff1980]

It’s a horde of hungry zombies coming for a fresh filet of flesh ripped from his face, but he's more afraid of the shadows that race against his silhouette, so he outpaces a dark figure that chases, running right into a venue where he is on the undead menu.

Meanwhile, I throw lightning under the feet of a tired runner whose more afraid of the rumbling thunder.

It is like maga maniacs that claim the way they act is justifiable, that anyone with a unique lifestyle is more of a threat than a gun pointed at their head.

Like considering racism and educating humans about historical systems of oppression is more dangerous than the fascist who is trying to rob me and you.

Like the immigrant is deviant, but the capitalist and congressman who hold the power in their hands to devastate billions of lives by making policies that ruin the families of anyone unable to bank a couple hundred grand or more a year is morally superior.

My peers tremble in fear of a higher being they claim is love, while allowing the destruction of safety nets that protect the most vulnerable among us.  So, the illusion of a threat is more powerful than real life dangers that affect their family and friends.

-2023