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Joe Biden began dismantling U.S. border controls just hours after taking the presidential oath of office. He halted the deportation of illegal aliens apprehended in the interior of the country, thus turning the U.S. into one large sanctuary zone. (A federal judge in Texas has temporarily enjoined Biden's no-deportation order, but that injunction will have little practical effect, since a court can hardly compel immigration agents to affirmatively act.)

Biden suspended a Trump administration initiative that required asylum seekers at the southern border to remain in Mexico or other Central American countries while their case is adjudicated. Before Donald Trump's now-canceled Migrant Protection Protocols went into effect, asylum seekers would disappear into the heartland while their case was pending, and would stay underground after their asylum claims were denied.

The president has instructed federal prosecutors that they may resume releasing illegal aliens caught at the border, rather than processing them for deportationa pre-Trump practice commonly known as "catch-and-release."

And Biden has announced the most ambitious amnesty proposal in history. The plan would legalize virtually the entire population of illegal aliens, including those who arrived as late as December 2020 and who have thus developed none of the alleged community ties that have justified amnesties in the past. Criminals with all but the most heinous rap sheets would also qualify.

Traditionally, amnesty proposals have come packaged with a quid pro quo: an offer of enforcement regarding future immigration violations. Amnesties have a powerful magnet effect; they induce further illegal border crossings, undertaken with the assumption that the next tranche of illegal aliens will also be granted legalized status and an eventual pathway to citizenship. The promised future enforcement is intended, at least nominally, to counter that magnet effect.

Biden is not even paying lip service to the quid pro quo convention. He proposes more foreign aid to Central American countries and some technological upgrades at the border, but those measures are a far cry from the necessary enforcement. The only thing certain about foreign aid is that it will find its way into the pockets of Third World officials. The chance that it will jump-start corruption-plagued economies is slight. And unless technology is backed up by the likelihood of deportation, it, too, will have an insufficient effect on efforts at illegal entry.

Foreign nationals have been congregating at the southern border for months, in anticipation of a Biden presidency. Absent an unequivocal signal that immigration law-breaking will be met by a return to an alien's host country, the number of illegal entries will only surge. Once deportation is off the table as a response to illegal status, the entire corpus of immigration law becomes a nullity. America's immigration policy becomes determined by people outside its bordersnot by its citizens.

By all means, Republicans should push for robust enforcement before any amnesty goes into effect, however unlikely such a commitment from the Biden administration may be. But they should also demand a different quid pro quo: stop demonizing the country as "systemically racist." Logically, both positions cannot be true: It cannot be the case that America subjects minorities to lethal racism, as Biden maintains, and that compassion requires admitting as many new victims as possible. After all, their lives will be disfigured, if we are to believe the racism narrative, by America's fatal and "systemic" bigotry.

But the racism theme has only increased in volume since the election. A day after being sworn in, Biden said he was in a "battle for the soul of this nation." So enduring was the unwillingness of white Americans to treat minorities equally that Biden was empowering "every branch of the White House and the federal government" to fight "systemic racism." "It's time to act," Biden announced upon signing the first of many executive orders aimed at engineering "racial equity."

Arguably, the U.S. has been "acting" on racial equity for decades. Hundreds of billions of dollars in transfer payments have been made; anti-poverty programs have rolled out of every level of government, supplemented with nonstop philanthropic efforts. There is not a mainstream institution, whether corporation, bank, law firm, Big Tech company, college or public agency, that is not now trying to hire and promote as many minority candidates as possible. Black applicants to selective colleges are often admitted with test scores and GPAs that would be disqualifying if presented by their white and Asian peers. Colleges are creating new academic programs simply in order to hire more black and minority faculty members. Corporate bonuses increasingly depend on the number of minorities a manager has promoted, regardless of the effects on company productivity.

So far is America's majority from embracing a white supremacist ethic that white Americans penitently turn their eyes away from black crime rates. They choose to ignore the fact that interracial violence is predominantly one-way: according to federal government statistics, blacks commit 88 percent of all interracial violence between whites and blacks. It is taboo in polite society to acknowledge the leading behavioral drivers of many socioeconomic disparities. And when Biden calls "racism [and] nativism" America's "harsh, ugly reality," as he did in his Inaugural Address, he will be applauded by many white Americans for his "unifying" message.

The progressive worldview, however, ignores such countervailing evidence and insists upon America's endemic racism as the only allowable explanation for socioeconomic disparities. Given that worldview, administration officials should explain the following dilemma: Why do they want to increase migration from Third World countries, which would only plunge the newcomers into this maelstrom of oppression? Biden has asserted that black children are at risk of getting shot by the police whenever they step outside. If this is the case, wouldn't non-American minority children be safer in their home countries? If the answer is, "well, things are worse elsewhere," that concession would at least constitute a baby step in the direction of some realism about the relative status of human rights across the globe.

The biggest refutation of Biden's systemic racism conceit, however, is the behavior of migrants themselves. The U.S. has been the most sought-after destination for would-be immigrants since global polling first assessed immigration preferences. One hundred and fifty-eight million people hope to immigrate to the U.S.five times the number of foreigners aiming for other top immigration destinations, such as Canada, Germany and Britain. The number of Sub-Saharan Africans and Caribbeans residing in the U.S. grew by more than 1.5 million between 2010 and 2019. They apparently thought that they were better off here than in their non-racist home countries. The number of immigrants from so-called "LatinX" countries, excluding Mexico, increased by 2.1 million from 2010 to 2019. And contrary to received wisdom about racist Republicans and Trump supporters, red states are the most popular immigrant destinations. Florida and Texas had the greatest numerical increases in their foreign-born populations from 2010 to 2019a combined total of 1.67 millionand North Dakota and South Dakota had the greatest increases measured as a percentage of a state's populationup 87 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

Mass low-skilled immigration and our elites' parroted narrative about America's endemic racism each erode social cohesion. Taken together, the effect is disastrous.

Sociologist Robert Putnam has argued that high levels of diversity in a community undermine the trust that its members extend toward one another. Wave upon wave of large-scale unassimilated immigration has turned Los Angeles into a sprawling congeries of balkanized ethnic enclaves. Mass immigration widens the wealth gap between the educated and the less educated by driving down wages for low-skilled jobs. African-Americans and native-born Hispanics lose their favored victim status for progressives in the context of immigration policy.

The Democrats' obsession with white America's alleged racism is equally corrosive. Young people are being taught to see bigotry where it does not exist, to hate America and its history, and to think of themselves as perennially oppressed. Many will enter the workplace with a chip on their shoulder, constantly finding offense.

The Biden administration is poised to amplify the racism narrative to new decibel levels. It is only a matter of time before Ibram X. Kendi, today's leading purveyor of white guilt, is installed in a new government office of "anti-racism."

This is not an auspicious moment, then, to radically increase immigration. Assimilating immigrants from wildly different cultures becomes all the more difficult when America has lost faith in its principles and is rapidly tearing down monuments to its past. Some portion of immigrants and their progeny have already adopted an oppositional mindset, denouncing the "white supremacy" of their chosen country. An entitlement mentality is visible in attitudes toward government support and language skills acquisition: Police officers in Santa Ana, California, for example, report that many residents expect to be addressed in Spanish.

The best course for the country would be to reduce immigration levels and racial victimology. The first measure would allow American workers to recover from the coronavirus lockdowns and would increase the odds of assimilating existing immigrant populations. The second measure would lift the pall cast by a divisive untruth. The Biden administration is unlikely to take even one of those courses of action. But it should at least be confronted with its own illogic in pursuing increased immigration into a country it simultaneously declares to be the nemesis of fair treatment and equal rights.

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of The Diversity Delusion.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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If 'Systemic Racism' Is Real, Why Does Biden Want To Bring Immigrants Here? | Opinion - Newsweek

In the movie Field of Dreams, the lead character hears a voice while standing in his cornfield. If you build it, he will come. So, the man builds a baseball field. The ghost of his ballplaying father appears, and so does a whole group of famous dead baseball players.

Its antithetical to former President Donald Trumps plan to build something so people wouldnt come. As youve likely heard, construction of Trumps beautiful big wall was halted by our new president as part of the evolving changes to U.S. immigration policy.

President Joe Biden has made his intentions clear. Among his proposals: Give the millions of immigrants already in the U.S. a faster route to citizenship; restore protections for those brought into the U.S. as children; open the southern border, and stop holding asylum seekers in Mexico while they await legal entry; shutter many migrant detention centers; and somehow fix the enormous immigration-court backlog. Oh, and stop deportations for at least 100 days, except for those illegal immigrants charged with felony crimes.

As with any new administration, promises and good intentions abound. What ultimately gets done is usually something different.

One thing is clear, however. The moratorium on deportations coupled with all the other Biden immigration proposals have given hope to countless outsiders desperate to flee their poverty-stricken countries and find a new life in the U.S. Massive human caravans from Honduras are already headed this way. Some predict throngs of Central American migrants will follow.

The governments of Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico have agreed to try to stop the hordes, but the sheer number of refugees has been overwhelming. Clashes with troops have turned violent, and splinter groups of migrants have pushed through. Bidens order to halt deportations energized them with new hope.

Hes gonna help all of us, one unidentified man in a caravan said on CNN. Hes giving us 100 days to get to the U.S. ... (to) get a better life for our kids and family.

No compassionate human can fail to feel for these desperate people. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see this ragtag group of women, children and men, who left everything behind and set out on foot to find a home devoid of rampant crime, poverty and hunger. They are determined to find a better existence through legal or even illegal means. How many of us faced with those conditions would have the courage to do that?

But at a time when countless refugees have waited months or years for USA entry, while the pandemic rages and vaccines are maddeningly slow to be administered, is it wise to think about opening our borders again? There is no guarantee that, after 100 days, the threat of COVID-19 will be gone. Is it wrong to think about the rule of law? Is it wrong to think about whats best for the United States of America?

The state of Texas, which has the nations longest border with Mexico, filed a lawsuit challenging the 100-day moratorium. The suit claims the action violates an agreement Texas has with Washington that obligates the feds to consult with the state before changing immigration policy. A Trump-appointed federal judge promptly issued a temporary restraining order to block the deportation freeze.

Payback politics are at play here, and Democrats who filed a spree of lawsuits against Trumps immigration policies, specifically his wall, should steel themselves as Republicans now respond in kind.

We have become a people who cannot tolerate neighbors who have differing opinions. How will we ever come to an agreement on how or if to help those struggling to become taxpaying U.S. citizens? We are certainly in for a bumpy immigration ride ahead.

Although a Biden official warned migrants that immigration changes would not be enacted overnight, discouraging them from coming now, it is obvious that news didnt reach Central America. People hear what they want to hear, and desperate refugees believe they heard an implicit invitation to travel north. Say, Stop the deportations and, like the movie, they will come.

Now the question is, President Biden, what will we do with them when they arrive on our southern border?

Diane Dimonds column is syndicated by Creators

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Dimond: There's a bumpy immigration ride ahead - The Winchester Star

Metro Health issues fourth amended health directive related to school systems

CONTACT: For members of the media, please contact:covid19media@sanantonio.gov

Laura Mayes, City of San Antonio (210) 207-1337Michelle Vigil, City of San Antonio (210) 207-8172

For questions from the general public, please contact:COVID-19@sanantonio.govCOVID-19 Hotline (210) 207-5779

SAN ANTONIO (February 2, 2021) Today, San Antonio's Local Health Authority, Dr. Junda Woo, issued a fourth amendment to the current health directive related to our local school systems. The revised health directive, either virtual or hybrid learning are options in Red Zone, but the directive stresses the importance of restricting other gatherings instead when community COVID levels are high. The directive adds links to new tools and FAQ's provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), highlights the fact that contact sports are still not recommended in the Red Zone, and removes specific pod sizes while sharing CDC templates for classroom layouts.

At risk levels in the Red Zone. Preventing transmission in K-12 settings requires reducing transmission in the community through policies such as restrictions on indoor dining. COVID testing should be offered to at least 25% of on-campus staff once a week, and class sizes should be smaller than in the Yellow Zone, with rigorous cohorting. In-person instruction prioritizes pre-kindergarten through elementary school students, special needs students, the most severely at-risk students, and students who lack access to resources. Building and room occupancy should be contingent on adequate ventilation and ability to create 6-foot distancing. Close contacts must be quarantined for 14 days.

Metro Health's weekly school risk level, which includes varying levels of virus prevention tactics and guidance within its Red, Yellow and Green Zones, can be found here.

For more information please visit http://www.covid19.sanantonio.gov

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San Antonio: Metro Health Issues Fourth Amended Health Directive Related To School Systems - Patch.com

Rep. LaKeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee) has introduced a new bill to prevent the use of no-knock search warrants by Wisconsin law enforcement. The bill was named Breonnas Law after Louisville, Kentucky EMT Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old who was killed during such a raid in March 2020.

It is most appropriate for us to begin Black History Month 2021 by introducing Breonnas Law, Myers said in a press statement. Breonna Taylors life was taken while she was in the comfort of her own home, through the use of a no-knock warrant. While Taylor was not the subject of the warrant, her life was mercilessly ended through no fault of her own. It is because of this that we call on Wisconsin legislators to end the use of no-knock warrants.

Wisconsin became the first state to authorize no-knock search warrants in 1997. Since their introduction, no-knock raids have created controversy around police transparency and use of force.

No-knock warrants are harmful to civilians and law enforcement officers alike, said Myers. Milwaukee police officer Matthew Rittner was killed in the line of duty while his tactical unit executed a no-knock warrant in February 2019. Because of a no-knock search warrant, a wife lost her husband, Milwaukee lost a police officer and a child lost its father.

These searches are being reconsidered at the federal and state levels. In Congress last session, Senate Republicans wanted to track their use, while a Democratic House bill, endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus would have banned them on a federal level in drug cases and withhold federal policing grants to states that permit them in drug cases.

In 2020, a package of Juneteenth bills on police reform was forwarded by Gov. Tony Evers, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and the the Legislative Black Caucus. It included a similar bill that prohibits no-knock search warrants issued under state law by requiring a law enforcement officer who is executing a search warrant to identify himself or herself as a law enforcement officer and announce the authority and purpose of the entry, before entering the premises.

The Legislature did not take any action on these bills, instead forming a study committee that continues to meet but has not come out with its recommendations.

Myers new bill, as described in her co-sponsorship memo accompanying it, requires that a law enforcement officer executing a search warrant must, before entering the premises, identify himself or herself as a law enforcement officer and announce the authority and purpose of the entry. Under the bill, a law enforcement officer may execute a search warrant only between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. unless a judge authorizes the execution of the search warrant at another time for good cause.

Given the increased focus on police reform and no-knock search warrants in particular the Wisconsin Legislative Council put out an Information Memorandum on the practice in Sept. 2020, reviewing its complicated relationship with the Fourth Amendment and case law. As a result, the no-knock search warrant, a product of the War on Drugs, is being reconsidered. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving citizens the right to be protected against unlawful search and seizure is replicated in the Wisconsin Constitution.

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Knock-and-announce requirements before police forcibly enter a persons home called the announcement rule in Wisconsin date back centuries to British common law, but exceptions to the rule have been carved out, including the no-knock search warrant, the memo states. Further, it notes, a 1995 case determined knock-and-announce was not a rigid, blanket rule, so no-knock searches are allowed as an exception that takes into account countervailing law enforcement interests.

The Wisconsin Professional Police Association Executive Director Jim Palmer has been quoted by multiple media outlets, as being open to reconsideration of no-knock warrants by police and by lawmakers. He told NBC-15 he doubts his group would fight for the warrants, as they are not used frequently in Wisconsin and can be dangerous for both police officers and residents.

Body camera use by law enforcement has made the public increasingly aware of no-knock search warrants, as more people are able to see footage of the technique in action.

The bills namesake, Taylor, was killed as law enforcement carried out a series of raids across the Louisville area. Police claimed they announced themselves when the raid began. Taylors boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, however, said officers did not do so, and he thought someone was breaking into their home as they slept. After a shot was fired by the boyfriend, wounding one officer, other officers fired numerous shots into the apartment, killing Taylor.

One of the detectives involved, Brett Hankison, was fired in June for wantonly and blindly firing his weapon, according to his termination letter. Taylors death brought to light the use of such raids, and place-based policing strategies that targeted areas being gentrified by the city.

As the state that created no-knock warrants, Wisconsin has the responsibility to be the state to end their use, Myers said. When you know better, you must do better, and this is a step in the right direction.

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No-knock search warrants began in Wisconsin, Rep. Myers wants to end them here - Wisconsin Examiner

When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn into office, it marked the first time in American history that Californians held two of the three highest offices in the federal government. No, President Biden is not from the Golden State, but Vice President Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi both hail from the Bay Area. And with Attorney General Xavier Becerra holding a key cabinet position, officials from California now have a sizable role in influencing the Biden agenda.

The incoming administration is rightly prioritizing economic relief and Covid-19 vaccine deployment. On other issues, they'll have to navigate narrow Democratic majorities in Congress, in which some progressive policies could be nonstarters. To avoid gridlock, these high-ranking Californians can identify policies with broad, bipartisan support, perhaps taking a page out of their home state's playbook.

In recent years, California has become a national leader on privacy rights. Oakland, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County, among other municipalities, have spearheaded strong local laws to oversee governmental use of people's private information and data.

Gaps in privacy protections remain, however, and top Californians in Washington, D.C. can help plug them at the federal level. This is especially true of the "smart city" programs sprouting up across the country. These programs enable local governments to collect troves of personal data with few safeguards in place to prevent it from being mishandled or abused. For example, my organization, Oakland Privacy, closely monitors a data-sharing protocol deployed by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) called Mobility Data Specification (MDS).

MDS is a massive data-collection system that LADOT spent millions developing. It requires mobility companies to provide the city with real-time location data for their vehicles, including each rider's origin, route and destination. Such granular data makes it easy to identify and track riders, and can reveal sensitive personal information with just a handful of data points. LADOT hasn't provided a concrete reason for requiring this individualized information over safer alternatives, like aggregated data, nor did it seek public input before adopting the system. Department leaders were even discovered using an encrypted messaging service to communicate with each other while developing MDS.

Real-time, re-identifiable data like the kind collected through MDS is particularly ripe for abuse. This could range from law enforcement accessing the data to perpetuate harmful surveillance practices against communities of color, to a city employee using it to stalk a former partner. These are grave consequences, which is why the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are suing Los Angeles to halt MDS for violating the Fourth Amendment.

But Los Angeles isn't alone in overlooking privacy rights. In Pasadena and in Long Beach, police used automatic license plate readers and shared the data with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite pledging not to. In San Diego, the city deployed "smart streetlights" to supposedly monitor traffic, but they were used by police more than two dozen times to surveil Black Lives Matter protestors. Examples like these undercut California's standing as the pacesetter in securing privacy rights and reinforce the need for a smart cities solution that incorporates strong local oversight and federal protections.

Efforts to build so-called smart cities are not limited to Californiathey're popping up nearly everywhere, from Seattle and Chicago to Columbus and New York. With their impending influence over multiple levers of power in Washington, D.C., our Bay Area leaders should spearhead legislation that reins in misguided smart city programs. High-profile members of both parties have already signaled their interest. Such opportunities do not come around often, and California officials now have the chance to make their presence known on this important issue.

Tracy Rosenberg is the Advocacy Director for Oakland Privacy, a nonprofit watchdog group that works to defend the right to privacy and enhance oversight regarding the use of surveillance.

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Close the Gaps - East Bay Express