“An Expected 50,000 Migrants Wait at the Border For Asylum”
by Associated Press Staff, published in The Paper
December 15, 2022
U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said Customs and Border Protection officials told him Wednesday that about 50,000 migrants are believed to be waiting to cross once Title 42, under which migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing spread of COVID-19, is lifted by federal court order next week. Authorities plan to admit those seeking asylum who go through ports of entry but return to Mexico those who cross illegally between official crossings, Cuellar said.
Click on the above link to read this free-access article.
Here’s another link where you can make a donation like I did to Annunciation House, an all-volunteer El Paso charity offering relief services to migrant, refugee and economically vulnerable peoples of the border region.
“Deaths due to drinking rose sharply in 2021”
by Ted Alcorn, New Mexico in Depth
December 10, 2022
More than 2,200 New Mexicans died of alcohol-related causes in 2021, according to new estimates from the state Department of Health, capping a decade in which such fatalities nearly doubled and setting a new high-water mark in a state already beset by the worst drinking crisis in the nation.
Click on the above link to read this free-access article.
n 2021, alcohol-attributable deaths in New Mexico rose 1 to 13 percent an all-time high.
Re: Migrant influx:
Does anyone have an answer as to where these folks are going to go? Estimates of homeless (unhoused if you prefer) numbers in Los Angeles are about 40,000. In Albuquerque about 1300 (which seems low) and rent has increased almost 40% in last couple of years. Areas less costly are the so called war zone and an area close to the airport, among others, all rife with drugs, gangs, crime. Similar areas in Los Angeles are worse. I imagine these folks fleeing from horrific conditions in El Salvador, Venezuela etc. might find it preferable there for sure, but I imagine the challenges of settling in these area are nonetheless formidable. And what is the impact on those already there? The Dems give us platitudes as answers and the Republicans brutality and insensitivity. We need real, comprehensive immigration reform and I don’t believe the answer is just around the corner. Though I am beginning to believe if anyone can do it Biden can.
See this: https://econofact.org/labor-shortages-and-the-immigration-shortfall
“The shortfall of immigrants over the past two years has had immediate adverse consequences for filling jobs and also harms the long-run prospects for the U.S. economy. The drop in the number of foreign students and high-skilled immigrants is particularly concerning for the long-run effects on productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship. The drop in the number of less-skilled immigrants can be contributing to the current shortages in several industries in which they had been highly represented. “
I would say that two things can be true at once. And the assertion that we need more workers in particular fields, in part due to declines in population growth and the closing of borders during the pandemic, while true, can coexist with the reality of huge increases in homelessness, the inability of many, including veterans and seniors to afford housing, and an overwhelmed immigration system which even the governor of California has said is reaching a saturation point, and the frequent inability of our social services to deal with this influx. Acknowledging one problem does not negate the existence of another, more immediate one IMHO.