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Dear Progressive Reader,

On May 11 the Title 42 restrictions expired. Classified as a public health law, Title 42 was used as a way to expel migrants crossing the border. According to ([link removed]) the Associated Press, 2.8 million asylum seekers have been expelled under this provision since March 2020. Now that the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency has been declared ([link removed].) (that discussion for another newsletter), the authority of Title 42 is ended. The Biden Administration is implementing other methods of border control.

As Jeff Abbott reported ([link removed]) from south of the border last January, “the Biden Administration has announced a slate of new enforcement measures, including a new parole program that would permit thirty thousand Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to apply for asylum in the United States per month. . . . Biden said most [asylum-seekers] are arriving from [these] four countries.” One of those measures was the creation of an “App” called CBP One™ that asylum-seekers—assuming they are able to access a smartphone—must use to apply before reaching the U.S. border. The App has been shown to be full of bugs and problems, and a new version was released ([link removed]) this week. But news reports indicate ([link removed]) the
problems remain. In addition, as immigrant rights activists Campbell Erickson and Tamara Shamir wr ([link removed]) ote ([link removed]) in an op-ed last week, “CBP One forces asylum-seekers to become sitting ducks for what the FBI has described as a ‘multi-billion dollar industry’ of extortion, trafficking, and official corruption.” They continue, “There is an inevitable human cost to policies that force asylum-seekers to wait for weeks and months for an elusive immigration process.”

In addition, as our managing editor David Boddiger reported ([link removed]) last November, “By exploiting the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, which allows for warrantless searches at border crossings seeking evidence of contraband and other illegal activity, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have been demanding the electronic devices of thousands of travelers, reviewing the content, and in some cases, downloading it. For electronic devices, including phones, laptops, tablets, or hard drives that are locked with pin numbers or passwords, border officials often demand the information they need to gain access to the devices.” In a let ([link removed]) ter
([link removed]) last September, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, asked CBP to update it practices to respect Constitutional and court-mandated privacy rights. The Progressive sent a detailed list of questions to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, which he refused to answer, replying by email: “CBP [only] responds directly to Senators.” There is, however, as of this writing, no publicly available information that they have ever responded to Wyden. The Washington Post did, however, publish ([link removed]) a guide for travellers on how to protect their data from CBP collection.

This week on our website, Sam Stein chronicles ([link removed]) his experience as an activist in Palestine; David Rosen takes a deep dive ([link removed]) into the new science of Artificial Intelligence (AI); Charelene Huynh looks at ([link removed]) a recent incident of racist speech on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus; and Sarah Cords and Lisa Ling examine ([link removed]) the recent leak of Pentagon information by Jack Teixeira and how his actions are different from those of many other well-known government whistleblowers. (By the way, our Hidden History ([link removed]) calendar also reminds me that May 11 was the fiftieth
anniversary of the end of the Pentagon Papers trial, in which all charges against whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg were dismissed.) Plus Zach Roberts combs through ([link removed]) his harddrives to discuss the historical uses of the “RWDS” logo by rightwing extremists following the discovery of an RWDS patch on the mass shooter in Allen, Texas, on May 6.

Also this week, Karen Dolan of the Institute for Policy Studies pens an op-ed ([link removed]) about the recent uses of “decorum” by rightwing legislators in Republican-controlled state legislatures in Tennessee and Montana to silence dissenting speech from their elected colleagues. Award-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates the recent silencing of Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr, and we will be featuring a conversation with Zephyr in the next issue of The Progressive, which goes to press shortly and will be arriving in subscriber’s mail boxes and on newsstands the first week of June. It will be a great edition. Don’t miss it.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is still available. You can order one online ([link removed]) .

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