Mississippi activists ask to join water lawsuit and criticize Black judge's comments on race

MICHAEL GOLDBERG and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Wed, September 27, 2023 




 Jackson residents and supporters hold signs as they march with members of the Poor People's Campaign of Mississippi to the Governor's Mansion in Jackson, Miss., to protest the ongoing water issues, poverty and other social ills, in the city, Oct. 10, 2022. Leaders of the Poor People's Campaign and other activists said Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, that Jackson residents need more input on how to improve the city's water system. 

(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Activists in Mississippi’s majority-Black capital city are trying to join a federal lawsuit against the city for violating standards for clean drinking water, even as they say the Black judge presiding over the case is stirring racial division.

The activists from the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign and People’s Advocacy Institute filed court papers Wednesday asking to intervene in the federal government’s lawsuit against Jackson. During a news conference Wednesday, activists said they spoke for residents in the 80% Black city who want more say over reforms to the water system.

“We feel like our lives are on the chopping block here in the city of Jackson," said Danyelle Holmes, an organizer with the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign. "We could no longer sit by idly as government agencies allow residents to be told that it's OK to drink unclean water.”

The federal government has taken legal steps to scrutinize Jackson’s water quality for over a decade. But in November, the Justice Department accelerated its involvement after breakdowns in Jackson caused many in the city of about 150,000 residents to go days and weeks without safe running water. Last August and September, people waited in lines for water to drink, bathe, flush toilets and cook.

U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate appointed Ted Henifin, who had decades of experience running water systems in other states, to help fix Jackson's long-troubled water system. Henifin began working on several projects to improve the water infrastructure, such as repairing broken water lines and a plan to improve the city's ability to collect water bills.

Henifin said in June that he was not aware of any health risk in drinking Jackson water. In a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Henifin said his team “is committed to public education that focuses on the people of Jackson and helping them understand what is happening with their water and the engineering science, not through the interpretive lens of activists, special interests or agendas.”

“We have been completely open and transparent with our water quality testing data and are in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Henifin said.

He also pointed to water quality reports and the Mississippi Department of Health water testing data that are available online.

At a multi-day federal court hearing in July, activists said they had received mixed messages about whether Jackson's water was safe to drink. Some residents reported discolored water flowing from their pipes even after public health orders were lifted. Activists also said they were being kept in the dark about the status of reforms.

After Congress awarded Jackson $600 million for water repairs, some city leaders and activists also said they wanted Henifin to look for minority-owned firms when awarding contracts for infrastructure projects.

Henifin, who is white, said he had been transparent about the quality of Jackson's water and his work as the interim manager. He also mentioned plans to launch a minority contracting program that would employ Black-owned firms whenever possible, WLBT-TV reported.

In a July 21 ruling, Wingate, who is Black, said many of the concerns raised by the Black activists were without merit.

“They have no experience in water management, and no logical rationale why an African American would be better suited to fix a lingering problem which has gone unsolved for decades by past African American leadership,” Wingate wrote.

During Wednesday's news conference, activists lambasted the judge for his comments.

“When the judge made his statement that we just want someone Black to fix our water, that is very disingenuous. That's a disgrace," Holmes said. "You have a judge who is pitting Black against white, poor against the wealthy, and it's totally unfair. Whether you're Black, white or brown, we're all consuming the same water unless you're wealthy and have purchased a filtration system, which many of the residents who are predominantly Black cannot afford.”

Brooke Floyd, co-director of the Jackson People’s Assembly, said even those without expertise in water management should be able to voice concerns.

“I think it's just unconscionable that it was even brought up," Floyd said. "The race stuff was ridiculous, and it's also ridiculous to say that because we are upset our water is not safe to drink, that we should just go sit down and be quiet and take what is given to us.”

If they are allowed to join the federal lawsuit, Jackson community groups would have an “institutionalized role in settlement negotiations,” the activists said. They are asking for the installation of water filters in homes, more open meetings convened by the Environmental Protection Agency and a range of other demands.

Henifin had hoped to complete his work as Jackson's interim water manager in one year or less. Rukia Lumumba, executive director of the People’s Advocacy Institute and sister of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, said she wants the city to work cordially with Henifin while he is still in Jackson.

“As it relates to long-term, we want to see someone in Jackson that lives here,” Rukia Lumumba said. “We want to see the city have the resources to fully operate the water system itself where we don’t have to have another third-party operator.”

___

Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

The Supreme Court Will Decide if Texas Is Allowed to Kill the Internet

Timothy Zick

SLATE
Fri, September 29, 2023

Giving Texas what it wants may spell the beginning of the end of the internet as we currently know it. 

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus.

This is part of Opening Arguments, Slate’s coverage of the start of the latest Supreme Court term. We’re working to change the way the media covers the Supreme Court. Support our work when you join Slate Plus.

When social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube moderate content, are they engaged in protected speech? Or are they engaged in an invidious form of censorship? The answer, which lies at the heart of a pair of cases the Supreme Court agreed to hear on Friday, could fundamentally alter the nature and operation of social media platforms and the internet itself.

Reacting to complaints from the political right that large social media platforms including Facebook and YouTube actively censor conservative views, Texas and Florida enacted laws prohibiting the platforms from removing, deleting, or deplatforming speech or speakers based on viewpoint. The laws differ in some respects, but both create a legal cause of action against social media platforms that engage in any of the laws’ defined methods of “censorship.” They also require that platforms provide an explanation for any posts “censored” and publicly disclose their guidelines for removing speech or speakers from the platforms.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit enjoined the Florida law, concluding it violated the First Amendment rights of the platforms to determine what content to display and which users to ban or temporarily exclude. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit came to the opposite conclusion regarding the Texas law, repeatedly characterizing social media content moderation as “censorship” and finding the platforms have no First Amendment “right to muzzle speech.”


When it comes to newer media, courts and lawyers often struggle to fit contemporary problems into preexisting First Amendment decisions and doctrines. The briefs and arguments in the cases will lean heavily on analogies from prior Supreme Court precedents. For example, the platforms will argue they are like newspapers, which the court has held have an established First Amendment right to engage in editorial judgment when deciding what content to publish. The states will counter that unlike newspapers, the platforms review almost none of what they allow users to post, either before or after publication. The states will argue the platforms are more like large public malls, which the court has held can be required by law to host some expressive activity. The platforms will respond they are like parade organizers, which the court has held have a First Amendment right to determine who marches in their inherently expressive events. Judge Andrew Oldham concluded in his 5th Circuit opinion that the platforms are more like “common carriers,” including electricity providers and trucking companies, which are prohibited from denying service based on the user’s viewpoints.

If you think none of these examples fits perfectly, you are in good company. As Judge Leslie Southwick wrote in a separate opinion in the 5th Circuit case: “We are in a new arena, a very extensive one, for speakers and for those who would moderate their speech. None of the precedents fit seamlessly.”

So much is at stake in these cases—for the platforms, their users, and the public. Platforms require members of their communities to accept terms of service that include, among other restrictions, content moderation rules. By moderating obscenity, hate speech, public health misinformation, and other content, platforms enforce specific site-based community standards and define online communities. They post disclaimers to certain posts and publish their own content. The platforms also respond to threats—to individual users, the online community, and the public.

The Texas and Florida laws would substantially undermine these prerogatives. If the 5th Circuit is correct, platforms that allow user posts or videos that are anti–white supremacy, anti-misogyny, and anti–domestic terrorism would be legally compelled to provide space for pro–white supremacy, pro-misogyny, and pro–domestic terrorism speech. Efforts to combat disinformation and misinformation, whether about elections, public health, or other subjects, would also in many cases lead to legal jeopardy for the platforms—or mire them in onerous lawsuits filed by disgruntled users who insist on the right to a platform for their speech. Governments could also chill the platforms’ right to host content they actively support—out of fear they will have to allow its antithesis.

Judge Southwick is correct that there is no perfect analogy. But as he concluded, the platforms do engage in editorial functions when they curate and collate content. As the 11th Circuit observed, the platforms aren’t just “dumb pipes.” They exercise editorial judgment over what content users see when they visit the site. The fact that they do not edit in the same manner as newspapers, which among other things have only so many columns to fill, should not be considered dispositive. The fundamental point is that they edit, or moderate, content.

Critically, a Supreme Court decision upholding these social media laws would be contrary to several significant First Amendment trends—all initiated and embraced by conservative justices. First, the court has recognized and protected corporate expression in the election and other regulatory environments. Consider, for example, Citizens United, which protected corporate electioneering. If Mark Zuckerberg has the right to donate unlimited amounts of his own money to a super PAC backing a candidate he supports, then the platforms he owns the majority stake in should be able to decide what appears on them. Second, the court has been keen to protect the rights of speakers to exclude or refuse service to those with whom they disagree or do not want to associate. In fact, just last term, the court held that a website designer could not be compelled to design a custom wedding website for gay customers, notwithstanding laws that forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation. The court has also upheld the rights of parade organizers, the Boy Scouts, and other speakers to exclude speakers and speech with which they disagreed. Third, the court has characterized the internet as a “vast public library” and social media platforms as “the new public square.” Its decisions have warned lawmakers and regulators to tread very lightly, lest they chill expression and interfere with the development of a robust cyber-marketplace of ideas.

Giving governments the power to compel large social media platforms to host all manner of speakers and speech offends well-established First Amendment principles. It may also spell the beginning of the end of the internet as we currently know it. Right now, platforms can take down vile and harmful content when it offends their terms of service. But if the Texas and Florida laws stand, the platforms would become a virtual free-for-all. White supremacists, terrorists, and other harmful speakers would gain a legal right to communicate on the platforms. These and other speakers could effectively shut down the platforms by forcing them to defend countless lawsuits under the state laws.

It can be hard to muster sympathy for social media platforms and their principals, who have made inconsistent statements about their relationship to user content and have not always moderated responsibly. But the alternative offered by Texas and Florida—robbing the platforms of their editorial power—threatens mischief all out of proportion to the supposed evil those states have identified. The First Amendment does not allow government to ban private speakers from deciding what messages to disseminate or to level the playing field against what Florida Governor DeSantis has referred to as “Silicon Valley elites.”

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will accept this reality, as well as enforce its own precedents.


Supreme Court to decide if Florida, Texas laws limiting social media platforms violate Constitution

Mark Sherman,WFTV.com News Staff
Fri, September 29, 2023


The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok, X and other social media platforms violate the Constitution.

The justices will review laws enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas. While the details vary, both laws aim to prevent social media companies from censoring users based on their viewpoints.

The court’s announcement, three days before the start of its new term, comes as the justices continue to grapple with how laws written at the dawn of the digital age, or earlier, apply to the online world.

The justices had already agreed to decide whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021.

Read: Florida government spent $30K on TikTok ads while calling app ‘security risk’

Separately, the high court also could consider a lower-court order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social media companies about controversial online posts.

The new case follows conflicting rulings by two appeals courts, one of which upheld the Texas law, while the other struck down Florida’s statute. By a 5-4 vote, the justices kept the Texas law on hold while litigation over it continues.

Read: DeSantis signs bill banning TikTok in Florida schools

But the alignment was unusual. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted to grant the emergency request from two technology industry groups that challenged the law in federal court.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to remain in effect. In dissent, Alito wrote, “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news.”

Read: UCF students react to campus TikTok ban

Proponents of the laws, including Republican elected officials in several states that have similar measures, have sought to portray social media companies as generally liberal in outlook and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint, especially from the political right.

The tech sector warned that the laws would prevent platforms from removing extremism and hate speech.

“Online services have a well-established First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit,” Chris Marchese, the litigation director for the industry group NetChoice, said in a statement. “The internet is a vital platform for free expression, and it must remain free from government censorship. We are confident the Court will agree.”

Read: University of Florida recommends students, faculty stop using TikTok

Without offering any explanation, the justices had put off consideration of the case even though both sides agreed the high court should step in.

The justices had other social media issues before them last year, including a plea the court did not embrace to soften legal protections tech companies have for posts by their users.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

The Supreme Court will decide if state laws limiting social media platforms violate the Constitution

MARK SHERMAN
Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 

The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, Sept. 25, 2023. The new term of the high court begins next Monday, Oct. 2. The Supreme Court, which begins its new term on Monday, is awash in ritual. So it’s no surprise that the lawyers have a few regular, if occasionally eccentric, observances of their own.

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok, X and other social media platforms violate the Constitution.

The justices will review laws enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas. While the details vary, both laws aim to prevent the social media companies from censoring users based on their viewpoints.

The court's announcement, three days before the start of its new term, comes as the justices continue to grapple with how laws written at the dawn of the digital age, or earlier, apply to the online world.

The justices had already agreed to decide whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021.

Separately, the high court also could consider a lower-court order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social media companies about controversial online posts.

In all, the justices added 12 cases Friday that will be argued during the winter. They include:

— A dispute over the FBI's no-fly list. The appeal came from the Biden administration in a case involving an Oregon man who once was on the list, but had been removed years ago. A federal appeals court said he could continue his lawsuit because the FBI never disavowed his initial inclusion.

— A copyright case that involves a hit for the hip-hop artist Flo Rida in which he made use of someone else's song from the 1980s. Music publishing companies that were sued for copyright infringement over the 2008 song “In the Ayer” are challenging a lower court ruling against them.

— A plea by landowners in southeast Texas who want the state to compensate them for effectively taking their property. Their lawsuit claims that a successful project to renovate Interstate 10 and ensure it remains passable in bad weather results in serious flooding on their properties in heavy rainfall.

The new social media cases follow conflicting rulings by two appeals courts, one of which upheld the Texas law, while the other struck down Florida's statute. By a 5-4 vote, the justices kept the Texas law on hold while litigation over it continues.

But the alignment was unusual. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted to grant the emergency request from two technology industry groups that challenged the law in federal court.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to remain in effect. In dissent, Alito wrote, “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news.”

Proponents of the laws, including Republican elected officials in several states that have similar measures, have sought to portray social media companies as generally liberal in outlook and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint, especially from the political right.

The tech sector warned that the laws would prevent platforms from removing extremism and hate speech.

“Online services have a well-established First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit," Chris Marchese, the litigation director for the industry group NetChoice, said in a statement. "The internet is a vital platform for free expression, and it must remain free from government censorship. We are confident the Court will agree.”

Without offering any explanation, the justices had put off consideration of the case even though both sides agreed the high court should step in.

The justices had other social media issues before them last year, including a plea the court did not embrace to soften legal protections tech companies have for posts by their users.

Supreme Court will decide if Texas and Florida can regulate social media to protect

PROMOTE  'conservative speech'

David G. Savage
Fri, September 29, 2023

The Supreme Court said Friday it will rule on how the 1st Amendment applies to social media and decide whether Texas and Florida can impose heavy fines on Facebook, YouTube and other popular sites for allegedly discriminating against conservatives.

The justices said they would review the new and never-enforced laws from the two largest Republican-controlled states and decide whose rights to free speech are at stake.

Texas lawmakers said the social media sites were conspiring to censor conservative voices and views, sometimes at the behest of the Biden White House.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said "conservative speech" was under threat. "It's now the law that conservative viewpoints in Texas cannot be banned on social media," he said upon signing the bill in 2021.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state's law would hold accountable the "Big Tech censors" who "discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology."

The law, adopted before billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter and changed its name to "X," applies to social media sites with more than $100 million in annual revenue or more than 100 million users.

It authorizes suits for damages for "unfair censorship" and large fines if a social media site "deplatforms" a candidate for office, as happened for a time to former President Trump after he continued to spread false claims about the 2020 election.

Both state laws ran into 1st Amendment challenges from the tech industry, and the Supreme Court put them on hold last year in a 5-4 order.

"Throughout our nation’s history, the 1st Amendment’s freedoms of speech and press have protected private entities’ rights to choose whether and how to publish and disseminate speech generated by others," lawyers for the social media sites said in the Texas appeal.

At issue is the basic legal status of social media sites. Are they private companies with full free-speech rights to shape their content, similar to a newspaper or TV network?

Or are they are "common carriers," like telephone companies, with a duty to be equally open to all views and subject to government regulation?

Until now, the 1st Amendment and federal law have been understood to protect free speech online by forbidding regulation by the government or through lawsuits against social media platforms.

But Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested the "dominant digital platforms" sites should be seen as common carriers subject to regulation.

"There is a fair argument that some digital platforms are sufficiently akin to common carriers or places of accommodation to be regulated," he wrote when the court dismissed a case called Biden vs. Knight. Google and Facebook have an enormous reach, he said. "Much like with a communications utility, this concentration gives some digital platforms enormous control over speech."

Netchoice, a coalition of big internet firms that includes Amazon, Google and Meta, sued to block both laws along with the Computer & Communications Industry Assn.

The two federal appeals courts in the South, speaking through Trump appointees, divided on the free-speech issue.

U.S. Appellate Judge Kevin Newsom, speaking for the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta, blocked most of Florida's law from taking effect on the grounds it was unconstitutional.

The 1st Amendment "constrains government actors and protects private actors," he said. Social media sites are private companies, and "put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can't tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it."

Shortly after Florida adopted its law, Texas passed a measure that says a social media platform with more than 50 million users in the United States “may not censor ... or otherwise discriminate against expression” of users based on their viewpoint.

The targets of the law appear to include YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as well as Facebook and X, formerly Twitter. Violators could be subject to daily fines as well as suits brought by Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton.

U.S. Appellate Judge Andrew Oldham, speaking for the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans, upheld the Texas law on the grounds the state sought to protect the free speech rights of Texans.

A former counsel to Abbott and a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Oldham said it is a "rather odd inversion of the 1st Amendment" to say the social media platforms have a "right to muzzle speech...We reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling 1st Amendment right to censor what people say."

Both state measures also require social media sites to disclose how they decide on removing information or users. That part of the Florida law was not blocked by the lower courts.

Last year, the Supreme Court appeared closely split on the issue. The justices put the Texas law on hold while the appeals continued.

Social media sites insist they are merely exercising "editorial judgment" to remove objectionable material.

They argued it was both unconstitutional and practically impossible for the website to give individualized explanations for every item that is removed.

During six months in 2018, "Facebook, Google, and Twitter took action on over 5 billion accounts or submissions—including 3 billion cases of spam, 57 million cases of pornography, 17 million cases of content regarding child safety, and 12 million cases of extremism, hate speech, and terrorist speech," they told the court.

On Friday, the justices said they had agreed to review both laws. They will hear arguments early next year. The Florida case is Moody vs. NetChoice while the Texas case is NetChoice vs. Paxton.

Trump and 16 Republican-led states filed friend-of-court briefs urging the justices to uphold the Florida law.

The concern over social media is not limited to conservative states.

Last year, the California Legislature adopted measures to protect children and teens online and to require social media sites to disclose their "content moderation practices" involving hate speech, racism, extremism, disinformation and harassment.

“California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said when he signed the bill. “Californians deserve to know how these platforms are impacting our public discourse, and this action brings much-needed transparency and accountability to the policies that shape the social media content we consume every day.”


This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Supreme Court takes on social media: First Amendment fight over 'censorship' is on the docket

John Fritze, USA TODAY
Updated Fri, September 29, 2023

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide challenges to laws in Texas and Florida that would limit the ability of platforms like Facebook, YouTube and X to moderate content – entering into a deeply partisan fray that could change the way millions of Americans interact with social media during an election year.

The state laws at issue in the cases, both of which have been temporarily blocked by federal courts, severely limit the ability of social media companies to kick users off their platforms or remove individual posts − even if those posts spread a foreign government's misinformation or provide false medical advice. Trade groups representing the nation's social media companies say the state laws would "transform speech on the internet as we know it today."

“These cases could completely reshape the digital public sphere," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute. "It's difficult to think of any other recent First Amendment cases in which the stakes were so high.”

But Republican lawmakers in Texas and Florida − including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination − argue that social media companies have been too quick to throttle conservative viewpoints and too opaque in explaining how they decide what to remove. That argument reached a fever pitch in 2021, when Twitter and other major platforms suspended former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trade groups representing the companies say the lawswould radically transform social media, making it impossible to cull foreign propaganda, harassment and misinformation. The First Amendment, they say, bars the government from compelling private entities – from newspapers to social networks – from publishing or not publishing content it favors.

“It is high time that the Supreme Court resolves whether governments can force websites to publish dangerous content," said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association. "Telling private websites they must give equal treatment to extremist hate isn’t just unwise, it is unconstitutional, and we look forward to demonstrating that to the court.”

Ethics: Not just Clarence Thomas: Lower courts facing scrutiny over ethics, disclosures, too

But the dominant social networks have come under increasing scrutiny from some on the right and the left in recent years. Justice Clarence Thomas in 2021 compared Twitter, now known as X, and other large social media companies to communication utilities that could be regulated, asserting the concentration in the industry gives digital platforms "enormous control over speech." That interpretation, if it gains traction, could open the companies up to far greater government regulation.

Social media companies have generally denied their content moderation benefits liberals or conservatives. Elon Musk, who owns X, promoted a series of tweets last year that demonstrated how executives at the company struggled with handling posts about a report on Hunter Biden's laptop before the 2020 presidential election. Musk promoted the material in an effort to bolster claims of the political left's grip over Big Tech.

Musk's predecessor, Jack Dorsey, had acknowledged the controversy two years earlier and said the way the company handled the story was "wrong."

The cases put social media front and center on the high court's docket and will be among the closest watched this term. The court is already wrestling several other social media cases, including two that deal with whether elected officials may block voters from their social media accounts. A similar case involving Trump made its way up to the Supreme Court but was dismissed after he left office in 2021.

Decisions in the cases are expected next year.

At the the moment, neither the Florida nor the Texas law are in effect.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit blocked enforcement of most of Florida's law last year. But the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit backed the similar Texas law. That created a split in how appeals courts are interpreting the laws.

In May, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court blocked Texas from enforcing its law. The decision, on the court's emergency docket, was not accompanied by an opinion.

Impact: How the Supreme Court could alter the way Americans interact on the internet

Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent joined by Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch in that emergency case, wrote that it is "not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies."

Contributing: Jessica Guynn

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court to decide if states can regulate Facebook, X


Supreme Court agrees to take social media content moderation First Amendment case

Doug Cunningham
Fri, September 29, 2023 

The U.S. Supreme Court Friday agreed to hear a social media First Amendment case involving Texas and Florida laws that ban social media companies from banning speech they deem objectionable. Photo by Eric Lee/UPI

Sept. 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday chose to take a case on whether Florida and Texas laws that ban social media companies from removing content violates the First Amendment protections of the companies to be free of government compelling speech.

It sets the stage for a potentially landmark social media First Amendment ruling on what limits, if any, companies have in moderating the kind of speech allowed on their platforms.

Tech groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association challenged the Texas and Florida laws as unconstitutional because they say the laws compel private speech.

"Online services have a well-established First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit," NetChoice Litigation Director Chris Marchese said in a statement. "The Internet is a vital platform for free expression, and it must remain free from government censorship. We are confident the court will agree."

The case arises from laws in Texas and Florida designed to stop social media companies from barring former President Donald Trump as some of them did after the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump mob's violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Left to right, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts. Photo by Eric Lee/UPI

"It is high time that the Supreme Court resolves whether governments can force websites to publish dangerous content. Telling private websites they must give equal treatment to extremist hate isn't just unwise, it is unconstitutional, and we look forward to demonstrating that to the court," CCIA President Matt Schruers said in a statement.

He added that for 200 years courts have upheld First Amendment protections against government attempts to compel private speech.

At issue is the power of government to tell private companies what they can and can't do when it comes to political speech on platforms that are privately owned.

The First Amendment prohibits government from banning free speech but private companies have been largely free to govern the type of speech they allow on their platforms.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said social media companies infringe on right-wing First Amendment rights by barring certain content for breaking company content moderation rules.

In May, the Supreme Court declined to rule on a law that protects Internet companies form lawsuits based on content posted by social media platform users.

The case in question then involved allegations that YouTube was liable for suggesting videos that promoted militant Islam.

U.S. Supreme Court to consider parts of Florida law restricting social media platforms

Jim Saunders
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Dreamstime/TNS


The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it will take up a First Amendment fight about a 2021 Florida law that placed restrictions on major social-media companies.

The Supreme Court said it will hear cases involving the Florida law and a similar measure in Texas. Both sides in the Florida case, along with the U.S. solicitor general, had urged justices to take up the issues.

The industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association challenged the constitutionality of the Florida law, which placed restrictions on large social-media companies such as Facebook and Twitter, now known as X. Gov. Ron DeSantis made a priority of the issue after Twitter and Facebook blocked former President Donald Trump from their platforms after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction against the measure, describing it as “riddled with imprecision and ambiguity.” The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld much of the preliminary injunction, though it said parts of the law could take effect.

READ MORE: Federal judge blocks Florida’s new social media law targeting ‘big tech’ companies

“We are pleased the Supreme Court agreed to hear our landmark cases,” Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s litigation director, said in a statement Friday. “Online services have a well-established First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit. The internet is a vital platform for free expression, and it must remain free from government censorship. We are confident the court will agree.”

But in a filing last year at the Supreme Court, Florida’s attorneys said the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision “dealt a mortal blow to the power of governments, state and federal, to protect their citizens’ access to information in the modern public square.”

“Under the Eleventh Circuit’s reasoning, social-media behemoths have a First Amendment right to cut any person out of the modern town square, for any reason, even when they do not follow their own rules or otherwise act in bad faith,” the filing said. “That ruling strips states of their historic power to protect their citizens’ access to information, implicating questions of nationwide importance.”

The Supreme Court’s order said justices would review two parts of the Florida law that the 11th Circuit blocked. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and other Department of Justice attorneys in August urged the court to consider those issues and to uphold the injunction.

One of those parts would place restrictions on content-moderation by the social-media companies. The law, for example, would prevent platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and require companies to publish — and apply consistently — standards about issues.

In contrast to the 11th Circuit, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported similar restrictions in the Texas law.

“When a social-media platform selects, edits, and arranges third-party speech for presentation to the public, it engages in activity protected by the First Amendment,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in a brief. “That activity, and the platforms’ business practices more generally, are not immune from regulation. But here, the states have not articulated interests that justify the burdens imposed by the content-moderation restrictions under any potentially applicable form of First Amendment scrutiny.”

The Justice Department also urged the Supreme Court to take up another part of the Florida law that the brief said “requires a platform to provide an individualized explanation to a user if it removes or alters her posts.” Like with the contrast on the content-moderation issue, the 5th Circuit upheld a similar requirement in the Texas law.

In saying it will focus on the two issues, the Supreme Court does not appear likely to go as far as the tech-industry groups wanted, which was to block the entire Florida law. It was not clear Friday when the Supreme Court will hold arguments.

Supreme Court to hear cases on Florida, Texas social media laws

Ella Lee
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Supreme Court to hear cases on Florida, Texas social media laws


The Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear two cases stemming from controversial laws in Texas and Florida regulating social media platforms’ content moderation decisions.

The laws aim to prohibit social media companies from banning users based on political views, even if users violate platform policies, essentially limiting companies from being able to enforce their policies.

The high court will consider whether the laws’ content moderation restrictions and their “individualized-explanation requirements” are compliant with the First Amendment.

Any outcome at the Supreme Court could have resounding implications for online speech after two lower courts, the 5th Circuit and 11th Circuit appeals courts, had conflicting opinions on blocking and upholding the two states’ similar laws.

The laws were challenged in court by two tech industry groups, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetChoice. They said the social media laws violate private companies’ First Amendment right to decide what speech to host.

The tech groups cheered the court’s decision to hear the cases.

“This order is encouraging. It is high time that the Supreme Court resolves whether governments can force websites to publish dangerous content. Telling private websites they must give equal treatment to extremist hate isn’t just unwise, it is unconstitutional, and we look forward to demonstrating that to the Court,” CCIA President Matt Schruers said in a statement.

“Online services have a well-established First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit,” NetChoice litigation director Chris Marchese said in a statement. “The internet is a vital platform for free expression, and it must remain free from government censorship. We are confident the Court will agree.”

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to uphold a block on major provisions in Florida’s law, siding with the tech industry groups. The panel agreed that no matter the extent of technological advancement, the “basic principles of freedom of speech and the press” remain, including for private corporations.

But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached the opposite conclusion in the Texas case. Judge Andrew Stephen Oldham, an appointee of former President Trump, wrote in the panel’s opinion that the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee corporations the “unenumerated right to muzzle speech.”

In Florida’s petition to the Supreme Court to hear its case, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) said the 11th Circuit’s decision to block the state’s law “squarely conflicts” with the 5th Circuit’s ruling for Texas, which upheld the state’s similar law. The trade associations also appealed to the Supreme Court.

At least four of the nine justices had to agree to take up the cases, a decision that came with little surprise after several justices previously indicated interest.

Last May, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to take emergency action, pausing enforcement of the Texas law until the 5th Circuit could more fully consider the case. Justice Samuel Alito — writing for himself, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch — said in a dissenting opinion that the case posed “novel legal questions” of “great importance that will plainly merit this Court’s review.” Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s liberals, did not join Alito’s opinion but indicated she agreed with the three conservative justices’ votes.

The justices’ request for the Biden administration to weigh in on the case also teased their interest in taking it up.

In August, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the Supreme Court to overturn the 5th Circuit’s decision to uphold the Texas law, suggesting the conflicting opinions warrant a Supreme Court review.

“Considering the two laws together would give the Court the fullest opportunity to address the relevant issues,” she wrote.

Zach Schonfeld contributed.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Senate confirms Mississippi US Attorney, putting him in charge of welfare scandal prosecution

MICHAEL GOLDBERG
Fri, September 29, 2023

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed a U.S. attorney in Mississippi who will oversee the largest public corruption case in the state’s history.

President Joe Biden nominated Todd Gee for the post overseeing the Southern District of Mississippi in September 2022. His nomination stalled until April, when both of Mississippi’s Republican U.S. Senators, Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, had indicated they would support his nomination. Gee was confirmed Friday in an 82-8 vote, with all votes against him coming from other Republicans.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Mississippi has overseen prosecutions related to a sprawling corruption scandal in which $77 million of federal welfare funds intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S. were instead diverted to the rich and powerful. The former head of Mississippi's Department of Human Services and former nonprofit leaders have pleaded guilty to state and federal charges for misspending money through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

The scandal has ensnared high-profile figures, including retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who is one of more than three dozen defendants in a lawsuit that the current Human Services director filed to try to recover some of the welfare money.

In a statement posted on social media Friday, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, whose office investigated the scandal, said federal prosecutors decide whom to charge, and his relationship with them would not change.

“The appointment of Mr. Gee changes nothing in our posture," he wrote. "We will continue to work with federal prosecutors to bring the case to a conclusion.”

Since 2018, Gee has served as deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section of the United States Department of Justice, according to a White House news release. He was also an assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2015.

Darren LaMarca had been serving as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi since his predecessor, Mike Hurst, resigned after President Joe Biden's election in 2020. Hurst was appointed by former President Donald Trump. It’s common for federal prosecutors to resign when the administration changes.

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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

AP PHOTOS: As Alpine glaciers slowly disappear, new landscapes are appearing in their place

MATTHIAS SCHRADER
Fri, September 29, 2023
















APTOPIX Climate Alps Glaciers Photo Gallery

The Tiefenbachferner Glacier, part of glacier ski resort Soelden, with Wildspitze mountain is visible near Innsbruck, Austria, Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

In pockets of Europe's Alpine mountains, glaciers are abundant enough that ski resorts operate above the snow and ice.

Ski lifts, resorts, cabins and huts dot the landscape — and have done so for decades. But glaciers are also one of the most obvious and early victims of human-caused climate change, and as they shrink year by year, the future of the mountain ecosystems and the people who enjoy them will look starkly different.

Glaciers — centuries of compacted snow and ice — are disappearing at an alarming rate. Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume since 2021, and some glaciers are predicted to disappear entirely in the next few years.

At the Freigerferner glacier in Austria, melting means the glacier has split into two and hollowed out as warm air streamed through the glacier base, exacerbating the thaw.

Gaisskarferner, another glacier that forms part of a ski resort, is only connected to the rest of the snow and ice by sections of glacier that were saved over the summer with protective sheets to shield them from the sun.

But the losses go beyond a shorter ski season and glacier mass.

Andrea Fischer, a glaciologist with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, said the rate of glacier loss can tell the world more about the state of the climate globally, and how urgent curbing human-caused warming is.

“The loss of glaciers is not the most dangerous thing about climate change," said Fischer. “The most dangerous thing about climate change is the effect on ecosystems, on natural hazards, and those processes are much harder to see. The glaciers just teach us how to see climate change.”

From a vantage point above the mountains in a light aircraft, the changing landscape is obvious. The glaciers are noticeably smaller and fewer, and bare rock lies in their place.

Much of the thawing is already locked in, so that even immediate and drastic cuts to planet-warming emissions can’t save the glaciers from disappearing or shrinking in the short term.

While the extent of glacier melt can create awareness and concern for the climate, “being only concerned does not change anything,” Fischer said.

She urged instead that concern should be channeled into "a positive attitude toward designing a new future," where warming can successfully be curbed to stop the most detrimental effects of climate change.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The epic European trek that is being transformed by climate change

Jasper Rees
Fri, September 29, 2023 

A party of skiers pitch their tents on the Mer de Glace glacier in 1965 – Switzerland’s glaciers have lost 10 per cent of their volume in the summers of 2022-23 - Paul Popper/Popperfoto


The Col du Grand Ferret rises to just over 2,500 metres. It requires a couple of hot, sweaty hours to lug a rucksack up from the valley floor but the reward, as you stand on the shoulder between two countries, is to have your breath taken away. To our left, falling away into a deep long valley, is Italy. To our right, in a jostling recession of crags, is Switzerland. And straight ahead, sliding down from the summit of Mont Dolent, is a magnificent glacier.

The Glacier de Pré de Bar is a wide prairie of corrugated ice tapering to a narrow point. With only slightly longer arms, I felt as if I could reach out and touch it. But every year those imaginary arms would have to stretch a little further. Since 1990, the glacier has been losing an average of 18 metres a year. To stand here is to look at a snapshot of a changing landscape.

Jasper Rees embarking on the Tour du Mont Blanc

It was announced that Switzerland’s glaciers had lost 10 per cent of their volume just in the summers of 2022-23 – the same volume as was lost between 1960 and 1990. Throughout the Alps, glaciers are retreating at pace: the chance to view them at all may soon be gone forever.

My partner Emily and I were there this summer to trek for 10 days and 170km around the route that circles the Mont Blanc range. The Tour du Mont Blanc is epic, and it is knackering. Every day we would gain around 1,000 metres before descending an equivalent amount to that night’s accommodation. On the most gruelling section there were three cols, each loftier than the last until we reached the TMB’s highest point at Col des Fours (2,665 metres). By the end we had climbed 10,000m. Everest is 8,849m. Hiking poles, about which we’d previously been snobby, are a sine qua non.

Hannibal is thought to have used one of these passes to invade Italy on elephants. But the full circuit was first completed in 1767 by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, a Swiss geologist who circumnavigated the range in search of a route up the Alps’ highest peak. There’s a statue of him in Chamonix.

In common with most hikers on the route, of all ages and from all continents, going it alone or in guided groups, we took the anticlockwise option. Thus the massif was always on our left: the big mother mountain herself, smoothly aproned in virgin-white snow, and her neighbours, snaggle-toothed Aiguilles and Jorasses as pointy as witches’ hats.

The TMB has everything: roaring rivers and thunderous waterfalls; stubbly boulder fields and dazzling wild-flower pastures; sky-wide panoramas and dense enclosing forest; clear skies and cleansing storms; intense heat then, at the Col des Montets (1,461 metres) between Switzerland and France, finger-numbing cold.

Above all – literally – there are those glaciers. I lost count of quite how many cling to the sides of the massif. They have intriguing names – Bionnassay, Frébouze, Triolet – and offer up endless variety. Some glisten white, others are muddily pockmarked. The Miage, a huge flat motorway flowing down the Italian side above Courmayeur, is entirely buried in rocky moraine. One evening, having walked down into Switzerland, we sat in our hotel’s beer garden and gazed for an hour at the dramatic Glacier du Dolent. And then on the penultimate day came the climax: the Glacier d’Argentière, a hoveringly high cliff of blue ice that resembled the flank of a calved berg.

I call it the climax, but it really shouldn’t have been. The frustration is that the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France, is nowadays barely visible from the route. For all its grandeur, by the time it rounds the foot of Montenvers into an opening above Chamonix, it has more or less dwindled to nothing.

'A huge flat motorway': the Miage glacier - Jean-Didier RISLER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty

This wasn’t always the case. In 1700 the Mer de Glace flowed so low it threatened to block the valley. In 1855 it was three kilometres further downstream further than it is today. Then-and-now photographs reveal how much it has shrunk over the past century. Tourists who take the train up to inspect it are confronted with markers that measure how fast it is creeping back up the mountain.

But the length, I am told by Chamonix-based glaciologist Ludovic Ravanel, is not the main problem. “The length is related to many factors,” he says. “The thickness is much more relevant. Last year at Montenvers the loss in thickness was 16.50 metres. The current thickness is only 30 metres. In the western Alps the loss was 6.2 percent of the total volume of the glaciers.”

The theory with glaciers is that in winter the volume recuperates after the summer melt. But the summers are getting longer and hotter and the winters warmer and wetter. “It takes a lot of time in the autumn to get cold again,” says Pica Harry, a mountain guide who grew up in Chamonix. “I’ve seen the glaciers melting every year and it’s worse and worse the past ten years. I feel the mountains getting dry and a bit more rotten. People will come to see the dying glaciers maybe more in a climate change interest than really for the beauty of the mountains.”

The receding Mer de Glace - EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty

While last year was critical, this August a weather balloon 50 miles north of Chamonix measured the zero-degree line – the altitude at which the temperature falls below freezing – at 5,300 metres. That’s 500 metres higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, and a record since monitoring started in 1954.

The consequence of global warming in the Mont Blanc massif, says Ravanel, is to defreeze permafrost that for millennia has acted as cement to hold rocks in place. “Last year the piece of ice which I had dated to 6,250 years old totally disappeared. We are losing paleoclimatic archives in the Alps. We are losing very very old ice.”

Melting ice causes increasing rockfalls, some of them massive, and the debris now scars the flatter slopes of the glaciers. How bad can it get? “I have colleagues in Switzerland who have modelled the evolution of the glaciers,” says Ravanel. “At the end of the century we should have lost between 95 and 99 percent of the surface of the glaciers in the Alps. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports the situation is worse and worse, so it could be before the end of the century.”

They’re still there, and still spectacular, and you can see them in all their majesty on one of the world’s great walks. But hurry.

Jasper Rees in action

How to do the Tour de Mont Blanc

The Tour du Mont Blanc is most popularly done in high summer when there is more chance of sun, warmth and ski lifts to take you to and from Chamonix and Courmayeur. It is best booked well in advance, and through a company which knows the accommodation options. Guided treks are available, but we booked a self-guided trip through Mont Blanc Treks, which is owned and run by local guides, at a cost of £1,795 each. Also recommended as a helpful independent guide is Mags Nixon.

Most of the accommodation is in three-star half-board hotels, but for the more communally-minded there are cheaper refuges. (There is no hotel anywhere near the France-Italy border section, so on that night a refuge is the only option.) Some companies arrange baggage transfer but most hikers carry all they need in rucksacks. Even in summer, that should include warm clothing as the temperature can plummet. The Tour of Mont Blanc (Cicerone) has maps and routes in both directions, with variants in case of bad weather.

While the paths are clearly signed, and it’s very difficult to get lost, it essentially to have a base level of fitness. But it’s hazard-free hiking, not climbing. Those who wish to flirt embrace a more uncomfortable gradient can opt for the high variant route over the reportedly tricky Fenêtre d’Arpette in Switzerland.

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Climate Alps Glaciers Photo Gallery

Number of migrants crossing Panama's Darien Gap surpasses 400,000 to record high

Thu, September 28, 2023 

UNICEF reports record number of children crossing Panama's Darien Gap


By Elida Moreno

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - The number of people crossing the perilous Darien Gap linking Panama and Colombia has hit a record high of 400,000 in the year to September, official data showed, as migration to the United States intensified despite efforts to curb the flow.

More than half of those migrants were children and babies, Panama's security ministry said in a statement, adding that September alone saw the number of crossings increase by a fifth compared to the previous month.

The year-to-date figure of 402,300 migrants is almost double the number for the whole of 2022.

The United Nations had estimated in April that the number of migrants for the entire year would be 400,000.

Most of the migrants traversing the dangerous stretch of jungle are Venezuelans, with others from Ecuador, Haiti and other countries, Panama's security ministry has said.

Panama announced earlier this month measures to stop the increase in migration, including deporting more people with criminal records and a decrease in the number of days some tourists are allowed to stay in the country.

These measures follow a two-month program launched in April by the United States, Panama and Colombia to tackle undocumented immigration.

Costa Rica, another transit country for the migrants, declared a state of emergency earlier this week, and its President Rodrigo Chaves said he would visit the Darien Gap in early October in an effort to contain a migrant crisis.

The United States in May rolled out a new policy to deter illegal crossings, including deporting migrants and banning re-entry for five years, as the Biden administration grappled with migration at record highs.

The tougher measures drove the border-crossing rate down some 70% initially, but the number of migrants arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico has surged recently, suggesting the early deterrent effect is wearing off.

Some African and Cuban migrants and asylum seekers heading to the United States told Reuters they were flying into Nicaragua to bypass the perils of the Darien Gap.

(Reporting by Elida Moreno; Writing by Valentine Hilaire; editing by Miral Fahmy)

'New normal': High number of migrants crossing border not likely to slow

Terry Collins, USA TODAY
Sat, September 30, 2023

With migrants in need of housing, safety and economic opportunity continuing to enter the United States, the overall number of migrant encounters with U.S. authorities this year has already surpassed last year's total.

And that number is expected to keep climbing.

How many migrants crossed the border in 2023?

More than 2.8 million migrants have had encounters with authorities so far this fiscal year, compared to more than 2.7 million migrants in 2022, according to the latest Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics. The current migrant figure includes August, but not September, the last month of this fiscal year, which has yet to be announced.

About 2.2 million people were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border through August, compared to 2.38 million border encounters for all of last year.

"They've already exceeded last year's totals by now. There's no doubt. The encounters probably beat 2022 sometime during the middle of this month," said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for Washington on Latin America (WOLA), a nonprofit advocacy organization. Isacson, who researches border security, said it's possible the overall migrant encounter number this year could reach 3 million or more. "It looks like it's on pace," he said.

The latest numbers come as some Americans are getting frustrated with migrants arriving in their neighborhoods with limited shelter and assistance options. Many said they want the federal government and local officials to do more to provide help to those in need and find a better solution for migrants hoping to enter the U.S.

Where are the migrants coming from? Venezuela, Nicaragua and more

Isacson said the migrant arrivals, mostly asylum seekers, at the U.S.-Mexico border have now risen to about 8,000 migrants daily. It's a level last seen in April, before the termination of Title 42, a COVID-19 pandemic policy that allowed the U.S. to cite fears of spreading the virus as a reason to expel migrants.

"I think that's going to be the new normal, this current high level seems to be the baseline and it's changing quickly. It could go up to 10,000 migrants," said Isacson about the daily arrivals, adding that migrants from Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador are trying to enter the country. "Parts of the world, especially Latin America, haven't recovered from the pandemic and their economies have worsened and some governments have been dictatorial as of late."

Isacson added that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during a press conference last week that U.S. authorities encountered more than 142,000 migrants at the border during the first half of September, according to CBP figures. That's slightly more than half of the August total of 232,000.

Because of various upheavals in their homelands, many migrant arrivals today have "fewer social ties than in the past" to the U.S. as they "now need more of a safety net," said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst with the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute.
Why are so many migrants arriving in the US?

Many migrants are seeking to improve their lives, find jobs, and places to seek refuge, be it in shelters, hotels, community centers, airports, bus stops, and even sidewalks, experts said.

"The flow is continuous," said Laura Cruz-Acosta, a city spokeswoman in El Paso, Texas, a border town accustomed to welcoming migrants. The city receives more than 1,800 migrants a day but is now feeling somewhat strained as its shelters are over capacity, she said.

Mayor Oscar Leeser said at a news conference on Sept. 23 that the city had reached "a breaking point." The city's data dashboard showed Thursday that 7,600 migrants were in CPB custody, and more than 1,300 were being released into the city daily.
Why are Abbott, DeSantis sending migrants to NYC?

The migrants have sparked both local and federal debates among government officials.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has blamed a lack of federal aid and Republican Govs. Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida, who's also a GOP presidential candidate, for sending asylum-seekers to Northern states in recent months and causing a crisis.

During a speech in New York City Wednesday, Abbott said he sent 15,800 migrants to New York City, about 10% of the nearly 120,000 who have arrived there in the past year.

"What you're dealing with in New York, what you are seeing and witnessing in this state is a tiny fraction of what's happening every single day in the state of Texas," Abbott said. "This is unsustainable, and those are the words of your mayor. Those are the words of the mayors of Chicago and Los Angeles. Those are the words of the governor of Texas. What’s going on is unsustainable. It’s a crisis that’s chaotic and must stop."

Abbott's criticism didn't stop there. He also took aim at President Joe Biden.

"Joe Biden can flip that switch any day and stop New York from having to deal with the consequences of an open border," Abbott said. "They must prevail upon their president for more than just money. They need a change in policy."

In response, Adams' office said in a statement, "If he genuinely wanted to be part of the solution to this humanitarian crisis, Gov. Abbott would urge his Republican colleagues in Congress to collaborate with President Biden on desperately needed and long overdue immigration reform."

White House says Congress must pass immigration reform

A White House spokesperson said in a statement that Biden has called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

"Without Congressional action, this Administration has been working to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system and we’ve led the largest expansion of lawful pathways for immigration in decades," the statement said. "The federal government is working to provide information and services to ensure that those who are eligible submit their work permit applications immediately."

Most of those big U.S. cities weren't prepared for the arrival of migrants en masse ranging from single adults to large families with small children, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst with the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute.

"It's not like migrants haven't been going to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.," Putzel-Kavanaugh said. "They are arriving in larger numbers and those larger numbers are exacerbating the situation."
How many migrants arrive at the US-Mexico border each month?

In August, there were 232,972 migrant encounters, either arrests or detainments, at the southern border (the most since December 2002), a spike from the 183,494 encountered in July and the 144,570 encountered in June, according to Customs and Border Protection. Last month's figure is also an increase from 204,087 encounters in August 2022.

Within the last five- to 10 years, the Border Patrol has been dealing with "different flows of migrants, changes in their nationalities and demographics, and the tools Border Patrol have at their disposal aren't fit for that," said Putzel-Kavanaugh, of the Migration Policy Institute.

Customs and Border Protection officials said migrants without any legal basis to stay will be processed for removal and face consequences that include a minimum five-year bar on re-entry, loss of eligibility to access lawful pathways, and prosecution for repeat offenders.

"We remain vigilant and expect to see fluctuations, knowing that smugglers continue to use misinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals. CBP is executing our operational plans and working to decompress areas along the southwest border," a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said in a statement to USA TODAY. "We are safely and efficiently vetting and processing migrants to place them in immigration enforcement proceedings consistent with our laws and operational planning efforts."
Illegal border crossings worth the risk for some

For many migrants who travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles, many with their families, to get to the U.S., they may think it's worth the risk, said Victor Manjarrez, a former Border Patrol chief in the El Paso sector and the director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso.

He said many migrants come to the U.S. to work. He pointed to a decision this month from the Department of Homeland Security that it would grant Temporary Protected Status to an estimated 472,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. as of July 31 to help ease a path to work authorization. The TPS is in addition to nearly 243,000 Venezuelans who already qualified for the temporary status.

Manjarrez said many migrants tend to believe what smugglers and others who are misinformed tell them, rather than government officials.

Isacson, the defense director of WOLA, said while there may be a lot of policies migrants have to contend with, many of them might assume it can't be as bad as what they've endured to get to the U.S.

"When you compare risking your life going through a jungle, a desert, or the Rio Grande to escape living in a dangerous slum in Caracas (Venezuela)," Isacson said. "Compared to that kind of life, they probably think there's no level of misery that these policies can impose that is worse than what they are fleeing from."