My friend Morgan Smith wrote this note about the Rio Grande in July 2024. Learn more about Morgan here , here and here .
J.A.M. v. USA "The Court holds that Oscar is entitled to a much lower, but still notable award of $175,000 because he was somewhat older at the time of the incident, was detained for about half...
Path2Papers, July 17, 2024 " What are the policy changes the Biden administration is implementing regarding temporary work visas? On June 18, 2024, the Biden administration announced a policy...
DOJ, July 18, 2024 "The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Southwest Key Programs Inc. (Southwest Key), a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied children who are...
Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters, July 18, 2024 "Even with all the industries where Californians went on strike during last year’s “hot labor summer,” some of the most active sites of...
Amy Martyn, The Intercept, Dec. 10, 2019
"“THE WHOLE WALL thing, I think that’s what really beefed it up,” the Greyhound bus driver told me at the end of her shift. She was referring to the sudden increase in Border Patrol agents boarding buses and pulling passengers off for questioning in Spokane — a friendly, midsize city on the eastern edge of Washington state, and nobody’s idea of a border town.
Amid the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, the Border Patrol has stepped up raids on Greyhound buses nationwide, combatting what the agency claims is a “growing threat” of “alien smuggling and drug trafficking organizations to move people, narcotics, and contraband to interior destinations.”
The Spokane bus station would hardly seem to be a hotbed of such activity. Next door to an Air Force base and home to Gonzaga University, Spokane is predominately white and politically conservative compared to stereotypes of the Pacific Northwest. Ask about life along the border, and people may assume you are referring to the border with Idaho.
Nonetheless, three or four days a week, Border Patrol agents from the Spokane sector — a unit tasked with guarding 300 miles of “rugged and often remote” frontier between the U.S. and Canada — cruise through downtown Spokane a little after 4 p.m. They’re on their way to meet evening buses from the Spokane Intermodal Center, as the bus depot is called."