Good morning. The Israeli military’s ground operation into southern Lebanon has begun with “limited” raids against Hezbollah – more on that below, along with the heated debate over the U.S. border.
Crisis in the Middle East
- News: Israel sends troops into southern Lebanon, The Globe’s Mark MacKinnon and Eric Reguly report from the ground
- Analysis: Netanyahu gets a political boost in Israel after the strikes in Lebanon and Yemen
- Opinion: After Hezbollah’s miscalculations, it has lost much of its power
- Photos: See the latest images from the conflict
A border patrol vehicle along the U.S.-Mexico border.Ivan Pierre Aguirre/The Globe and Mail
U.S. election
Border lines
At the U.S. vice-presidential debate this evening, two Midwestern politicians will meet in a New York City TV studio and cast their eyes toward the southern border. Sure, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance will trade barbs on who’s truly weird and whose party protects women and who can champion the working class – but expect immigration to come up early and often. The issue has a tight grip on this election campaign, though Americans are divided on its urgency: According to the Pew Research Centre, 82 per cent of Donald Trump supporters say immigration is vital to their vote, while 39 per cent of Kamala Harris supporters say the same.
Trump’s antipathy to immigration has been abundantly clear since he descended a golden escalator and launched his 2016 presidential bid with talk about Mexican “rapists.” In his first term, he imposed a travel ban on people from Muslim countries, separated families who crossed the southern border, and built up parts of the wall. Trump now promises “the largest deportation effort in American history” if re-elected, starting with Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio.
Harris’s position has been a little more fluid. In her 2020 presidential campaign, she supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings; now, she’s pledged to continue Joe Biden’s crackdown on asylum seekers, issued in June. She’s also embraced a bipartisan bill, currently stalled in Congress, that would expand a president’s powers to restrict crossings, with a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants.
But it’s worth lingering on that June executive order, because for all the heated rhetoric about America’s porous border, these strict new measures have had a major impact on how many people enter the U.S. from Mexico and what sort of journey they face. The Globe’s international correspondent Nathan VanderKlippe recently travelled to New Mexico, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, on the Rio Grande, to better understand the reality along the border. “No longer are migrants streaming across rivers and deserts onto U.S. soil,” he writes in his new report. Still, “those trying to enter the U.S. now have reason to seek more dangerous pathways in order to evade expulsion.”
Before June, anyone who crossed into America had the right to seek a safe haven. Migrants could simply surrender on U.S soil and remain in the country, often for years, until they entered the asylum process. But after Biden relaxed many of Trump’s stringent immigration rules upon taking office, the number of illegal border crossings soared, hitting a record 250,000 monthly arrests last December. Biden’s executive order shuts down the border to asylum seekers once a daily threshold of 2,500 crossings is reached – and the administration announced yesterday that it’ll only lift those restrictions after daily numbers dip below 1,500 for nearly a month.
On this stretch of the border, authorities arrest roughly 400 migrants a day.Ivan Pierre Aguirre/The Globe and Mail
The policy had an immediate impact: In July, just 56,000 arrests were made along the border. In El Paso, Tex., where VanderKlippe spoke with police officers, political leaders and asylum advocates, crossings have fallen even more precipitously. Last year, on average, the El Paso sector of the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 2,200 migrants a day. In recent weeks, it’s been more like 400. “So few people are now arriving illegally that migrant shelters in El Paso are closing,” VanderKlippe writes.
But those who do attempt to enter the U.S. face a border that has visibly grown more difficult to cross, with nine-metre steel walls and rows of concertina wire strung between metal poles. The scorching heat of the Chihuahuan Desert, where temperatures routinely top 50 degrees in the summer, has made the final leg of a migrant’s journey increasingly perilous. More migrants have died in the last year trying to reach the border than ever before. Earlier this summer, one firefighter crew in Sunland Park, N.M., retrieved four bodies from the desert in as many hours.
Biden’s executive order didn’t just crack down on the number of illegal border crossings, it also dramatically curbed who can make an asylum claim. Migrants entering the U.S. without authorization are now only granted a hearing under exceptional circumstances – if they’re an unaccompanied child, for example, or the victim of a severe form of trafficking. “The parameters to apply successfully for asylum are very narrow,” one former Border Patrol agent in El Paso told VanderKlippe. Many people crossing illegally are deported.
In El Paso, VanderKlippe spoke with an El Salvadoran woman named Norberta, who’d just set foot in the U.S. with her six- and seven-year-old daughters after fleeing domestic abuse. They were repeatedly threatened during their month-long journey; at one point, Norberta paid the cartel US$15,000 to smooth the way. But victims of gender-based violence aren’t exempt from Biden’s sweeping order, and the former border agent called her situation “a difficult case.” It’s likely she and her daughters will be sent back.
The Shot
‘We need to do the healing’
Yesterday's national ceremony in Ottawa to mark Truth and Reconciliation Day.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
People across the country wore orange shirts yesterday to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, honouring survivors and victims of Canada’s residential school system. Read more about the ceremonies here and see more photos here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: As a new poll shows the Liberals and NDP in a dead heat in popularity – 22 per cent each – the Liberals have turned to Mark Carney to raise funds.
Abroad: Dock workers on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts are on strike for the first time in nearly 50 years, stopping half the country’s ocean shipping.
Fuelling up: Couche-Tard, On the Run and other Canadian convenience stores really want to convince you that they’re food destinations now.
Running shoes: With their extra-thick foam and midsole carbon plates, new sneakers are smashing road-running records, even if researchers aren’t exactly sure why.
Running...hoofs? Joshua the goat won hearts – and a medal – after he crashed a Newfoundland half-marathon and managed at one point to lead the race.