A major minor problem

There's a legitimate crisis at the southern border. As of yesterday morning, U.S. Border Patrol was holding more than 4,200 unaccompanied migrant children in short-term Customs and Border Protection facilities—including jail-like stations unfit to house minors. Nearly 3,000 of those children have been held longer than the 72 hours allowed by law. CBP is legally obligated to transfer unaccompanied minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees shelters licensed to house children, within three days of taking them into custody.

• — A rapidly growing problem. The number of unaccompanied children in CBP custody as of yesterday represents a 31% increase from a week earlier, when the agency was holding more than 3,200 minors. The number of children held longer than three days more than doubled in the same period.
   
• — Inhumane conditions reported. With thousands of children held in short-term detention facilities, conditions have deteriorated. Children interviewed by lawyers conducting oversight reported sleeping on the floor, being hungry, only showering once a week, and not being able to call family.
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• — FEMA is on the way. Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas announced on Saturday that Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are being deployed to the border to help process migrant minors, which is complicated by the "protocols and restrictions required to protect the public health and the health of the children" amid the COVID-19 pandemic. —CBS News

Nabbed: 2 arrested in Capitol officer's death

Officials have arrested and charged two men with assaulting Capitol Police Ofc. Brian Sicknick with bear spray during the Jan. 6 insurrection. The cause of Sicknick's death has been a subject of speculation since the riot, and a final cause of death has not yet been determined, pending toxicology results. Investigators initially believed he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, but they now theorize that a chemical irritant may have contributed to his death. Prosecutors are still evaluating what specific charges will be brought in the case. —Associated Press

MORE: Sen. Ron Johnson: If Capitol mob had been BLM, Antifa, 'I might have been a little concerned' —Axios

Roth: Countering the anti-democracy movement

"So how should we respond when the enemies of democracy are themselves elected through our, albeit troubled, democratic system? The For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are crucial first steps. Together, they'd make it much harder for states to restrict voting and would curb the gerrymandering that encourages this kind of extremism by creating so many uncompetitive districts. But we also need to start thinking about structural reforms, targeted specifically to state legislatures, that could incentivize more responsible governing." —Zachary Roth on Common Dreams

Zachary Roth directs editorial and social strategy at the Brennan Center for Justice.

MORE: Voter suppression or election security? Alabama lawmakers squabble over election reforms —Advance Local

Fauci's request to the former guy

Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has made no secret of his disagreements with Donald Trump, but now he's imploring the ex-president to urge his supporters to get vaccinated. Though COVID-19 case numbers have declined steeply in the U.S. since January, Dr. Fauci pointed to surges across the European Union, warning that Europe's case trends tend to be a few weeks ahead of the U.S.'s. In a Fox News interview yesterday, Dr. Fauci urged Trump to help combat vaccine skepticism. "We've got to dissociate political persuasion from commonsense, no-brainer public health things," he said. —The Hill

MORE: 'Over-supplied' U.S. faces pressure to send Covid vaccine doses to less wealthy countries —The Guardian

Atkins: How Facebook is killing journalism and democracy

"[T]he debate over whether to treat social media companies as platforms or publishers continues to rage. There are good arguments on both sides, but as long as they are able to take the advantages of both while accepting the responsibilities of neither, it's clear that we will get as users and consumers neither the platforms nor the content we need. ... The end result of doing nothing will be a world full of authoritarian despots using hateful disinformation to maintain power while driving legitimate journalism into extinction." —David Atkins in Washington Monthly

David Atkins is president of The Pollux Group, a qualitative research firm.

Focus on cybersecurity

The recent hacks perpetrated by Russia and China against a broad array of government and industrial targets in the U.S.—and the failure of intelligence agencies to detect them—are driving the Biden Administration and Congress to consider a new approach in protecting the nation from growing cyberthreats.

• — The hacks are coming from inside the house. Both hacks exploited the same vulnerability—they were launched from inside the U.S., on servers run by domestic providers—putting them out of reach of the early warning system run by the National Security Agency.
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• — In the end, private computer security firms detected the hacks. So the administration is seeking to build partnerships with the private sector, to tap into knowledge of emerging hacking threats gathered by technology companies and cybersecurity firms.
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• — "You could stop attacks dead in their tracks." The goal is to set up a real-time threat-sharing arrangement, whereby private companies would send threat data to a central repository, where the government could pair it with intelligence from federal agencies to provide a far earlier warning than is possible today. —The New York Times

Biden, Modi, Morrison & Suga: Committed to a free, open Indo-Pacific region

"We are striving to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is accessible and dynamic, governed by international law and bedrock principles such as freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes, and that all countries are able to make their own political choices, free from coercion. In recent years, that vision has increasingly been tested. Those trials have only strengthened our resolve to reckon with the most urgent of global challenges together." —Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison & Yoshihide Suga in The Washington Post

Joe Biden is President of the United States. Narendra Modi is Prime Minister of India. Scott Morrison is Prime Minister of Australia. Yoshihide Suga is Prime Minister of Japan.

MORE: At least 39 reported killed in Myanmar as Chinese factories burn —Reuters

After watching President Biden's address on March 11, my wife and I are feeling some hope for our three daughters and their future. The striking contrast between the current president and his predecessor hit us full force during the speech. Not only did we notice the obvious contrasts (competence vs. incompetence, etc.), but we felt a sense of benevolence replacing malevolence. Let us all hope it continues. —Tim P., New Mexico

If we end up forming a new party, I want a rhinoceros as the animal. I’m tired of "RINO" being a pejorative... —Will C., Mississippi

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