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From her beacon-hand

Not to be outdone, the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris traveled to the U.S.’s southern border, where she pitched her own tough-on-immigration policy, promising “to reduce illegal border crossings.” Trump’s efforts, she said, would pale in comparison.

While Trump has long been opposed to immigration, Harris hasn’t. During Barack Obama’s presidency, she criticized his deportation scheme and wanted to make illegal border crossings a civil, not criminal, violation. Perhaps the most important context for Harris having recently shifted her views on immigration is that so, too, has the American public. In May 2020, according to Gallup polls, 28 percent of Americans wanted less immigration; by June 2024, that number had shot up to 55 percent.

In the meantime, the number of illegal crossings of the southern border has fluctuated wildly: In April 2020, there were some 16,000 illegal crossings; in December 2023, a record of nearly 250,000; and in August 2024, 58,000.

Now in the White House again, Trump has launched a series of measures to curb immigration. He’s tried to end birthright citizenship by executive order. He’s removed deportation protections for half a million Haitians, which means they’ll lose their work permits and could be deported late this coming summer. He’s expanded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s powers to arrest migrants in “sensitive” locations, like churches and schools. And he’s instructed border patrol agents to turn away people without giving them the opportunity to file asylum claims.

In February, the White House published a video with the title “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight,” referring to “autonomous sensory meridian response,” a tingling sensation people have when hearing soft noises—in this case, the rattling of chains on migrants being forcibly flown out of America. Apparently, the White House believes there’s a real constituency for it in this kind of thing.

If Gallup is right, in any event, most Americans appear to now oppose immigration. Why?

Mara Ostfeld is an associate research professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Ostfeld says that part of the reason for the recent drop in levels of support for immigration is that they were previously so high. During the Covid-19 pandemic, immigrants featured prominently in essential jobs, convincing many Americans that immigration might be a good thing. But since then, hardening anti-immigrant political rhetoric, coupled with a sudden surge in migrants from the southern border arriving by bus or plane to cities across America, have swung public opinion. With immigration, Ostfeld says, it’s not just a matter of scale but of speed: When they have time to get to know immigrants in their communities, Americans tend to see them more favorably. But when they see news reports of large groups of anonymous migrants coming into their cities and towns, they tend to see it as a threat—that needs a response …

• “We saw American attitudes toward immigrants become much more positive around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the main reasons for this is that there were a lot of immigrants among essential workers during the pandemic—as nurses for example. Of course, there were notable exceptions, such as the upsurge in anti-Asian xenophobia. But for the most part, when Americans think about immigrants in their country, they’re thinking about Latino immigrants—and Latino immigrants were over-represented in a lot of essential-worker positions. There’s plenty of evidence that Americans are more likely to have favorable views of immigrants when they perceive those immigrants as filling important roles in society.”
• “Typically, media coverage shapes public opinion more than public opinion shapes media coverage. Of course, there has to be something there for the media to write about. I’m not suggesting media outlets pull these immigration reports out of nowhere. But they don’t necessarily represent what’s happening reliably, either—often portraying local events, for instance, as if they were representative of the country as a whole. And it’s important to understand, media coverage of immigration doesn’t just affect what people think of it but also how important they think it is. People’s views of immigration may not change a lot, but the significance they assign to it might still change. And here, Trump, as a politician, had a powerful effect through the recent election cycle: Even if he wasn’t changing Americans’ views of immigration, he encouraged them to think of immigration more as a problem.”
• “This might sound surprising, but there’s not a lot of evidence that Americans who oppose immigration are motivated by seeing immigrants as an economic threat. We’ve tested that hypothesis over and over again, but we just can’t find that much evidence that people in the U.S. oppose immigration because of economic fears, like the fear that immigrants might take “American jobs.” Sure, there are those who do oppose immigration because they think it’s bad for the economy—but that’s not what’s moving public opinion about immigration on the national level. Hostility toward immigration is actually far more related to people’s social and cultural concerns.”

The site overlaps several shipping lanes in the Taiwan Strait that connect East Asia to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. For some reason, Beijing didn’t offer the usual advance notification for shipping and air traffic in the area.

Just a few days earlier, Chinese naval vessels had undertaken two days of live-fire drills in the waters between Australia and New Zealand. Those drills forced commercial flights between the countries to divert around the exercises. New Zealand’s defense minister, Judith Collins, says Beijing had never sent a force armed with such “extremely capable” weapons to conduct a drill like that: “It’s certainly a change.”

Those exercises came a week after a Chinese fighter jet fired flares in front of an Australian surveillance plane over the South China Sea. Australia lodged a complaint with Beijing over it.

What is China doing?

In this week’s member’s dispatch, we connect the dots to our conversation with Isaac B. Kardon on China’s preparations for a potential invasion of Taiwan and even bigger ambitions in the region …

—Michael Bluhm

• The conflict between the American and Ukrainian leaderships continues, with some U.S. administration officials suggesting that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should step down. The reasoning behind the suggestion isn’t clear. Ukrainian officials dismissed it. There is little support for the administration among Democrats—and little dissent among Republicans. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma is an exception: “I’m not interested in calling on the resignation of other world leaders. Frankly, I think that would spiral Ukraine into chaos right now, trying to find who is the negotiator” for a peace deal.
• Pope Francis, 88, experienced “two episodes of acute respiratory failure” on Monday but remained alert throughout treatment. Vatican sources described a “complicated afternoon” but noted the acute crisis has subsided. The pope’s blood tests remain unchanged with a “reserved” prognosis. This marks his fourth and longest hospitalization since ascending to the papacy in 2013. Having part of one lung removed in his youth, Francis has canceled all scheduled appearances, including the Ash Wednesday service. Supporters worldwide continue gathering at St. Peter’s Square for prayer vigils.
• Nova, a baby white rhino born January 2, made her public debut at Belgium’s Pairi Daiza zoo on Wednesday. After spending weeks gaining strength in a secure area, the calf jumped and played alongside her mother, Ellie, who’s raised three previous offspring. Nova’s arrival marks a significant addition to the white-rhinoceros population, an endangered species native to Southern Africa.

• Struggle to find new, off-the-beaten-path websites that are actually delightful or useful? Internet is Beautiful is a great resource—curating hidden gems, new products, and valuable tools that AI and search dominated by sponsored results don’t send your way. Sign up here.

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