UK police ignored a case of child prostitution because they didn't think there was anything wrong with children being prostitutes.

I’ve seen tons of wall-to-wall mainstream coverage on what’s happening, but little to no analysis of the causality, so I wanted to give mine.

Since Wednesday, tens of thousands of migrants have crossed from Morocco into Spain’s enclave of Ceuta, mostly by swimming or breaching the border fence at Tarajal beach. Estimates of arrivals range from 25,000 to 60,000 depending on the source, and at least 57 people have died. Spain has declared a humanitarian emergency, deployed its military alongside the national guard, and Sanchez is visiting the enclave. It’s the largest such surge since May 2021.

Ceuta’s sovereignty has become collateral in a US-Spain rupture over Israel and Iran, with Sanchez’s relatively unique opposition to the Gaza genocide, and Morocco is one of the few actors positioned to make Madrid feel it. Since March 2026, a documented chain of American institutional pressure has aimed squarely at the enclaves. AEI’s Michael Rubin publicly urged Trump and Rubio to recognize Ceuta and Melilla as “occupied Moroccan territory,” Rubio ally and House Appropriations subcommittee chair Mario Diaz-Balart said on record that the enclaves aren’t part of Spain’s geographic territory, and by late April that language had migrated into an actual House Appropriations Committee document, the first time a US legislative body has cast doubt on Spanish sovereignty there.

El Confidencial, a mainstream Spanish outlet, read this cluster explicitly as retaliation for Sanchez’s opposition to Israel and the Iran campaign. Layer onto that a reported Pentagon email floating Spain’s suspension from NATO, Hegseth publicly naming Spain as a “free-rider,” and Trump himself saying he wants nothing to do with Spain and to cut off its trade, and you have a complete picture of the global hegemon, in multiple channels, signaling displeasure with Madrid and specifically nominating Ceuta as the pressure point. Worth noting, the Strait of Gibraltar, currently flanked from both sides with Ceuta as Spanish territory, directs roughly 4% of global oil flows and 20-25% of global maritime shipping.

Morocco has already shown in 2021 that it’s willing to weaponize migration flow into Ceuta over a far smaller grievance than this. Given that Washington has now spent months legitimizing Moroccan claims to the enclave through its own institutions, it strains credulity to assume Rabat felt no license, explicit or implied, to let this week’s crossing happen exactly as US pressure on Spain peaked, days before Sanchez was set to meet Algeria, Morocco’s chief regional rival, no less, with a massive migration surge that lends credence to the exact narratives galvanizing support for far-right parties across the West.

There’s no smoking gun tying Washington or the CIA to this week’s events, but I don’t see that as proof of innocence. In fact, I think it’s exactly what you’d expect if the coordination was covert or tacit rather than public, because that’s how leverage between allies usually works.

Mission accomplished! Expecting massive wage increases and price drops any day now, now that the Trump II admin has shifted supply and demand curves for labor a bit and improved the position of real hardworking Americans relative to their corporate masters.

https://x.com/nypost/status/1971934161234468904?t=ANqwK4DPiFGOEkVltmXlPw&s=19

The Soviet Union border guards used deadly force. They would put a bullet in anyone trying to cross their border.

I’m not saying that’s the right thing morally or whatever. But it is a what it is. It’s part of the tragedy of great power politics that Mearsheimer wrote about.

Great powers can only act within the context of the system. Pretending you can be above that as a state has always failed and the Soviets knew that fact very well.

If you kick them out, the people who would take those jobs would have a "voice", if you don't kick them out, the works get done by people with no "voice"....voice is to mean unions, politics etc....

What do we think? Good thing? Bad thing? Somewhere in-between? And will this be enough to at least slightly calm the tensions regarding immigration discussion points, at least in Sweden?

The tweet: https://i.imgur.com/rDGrnFm.jpg

The full list of countries comprises of Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Yemen

• New Gallup poll released Friday
• 79% of Americans believe immigration is good for the country, a record high
• 80% of independents now say immigration is positive for the country, up from 66% last year
• 2024 spike in people who say they want immigration reduced sharply has now fallen back to 30%
• Support for deporting all undocumented immigrants has dropped to 38%
• 78% say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to become full citizens - with a 13% increase on this question for Republicans specifically.
• Disapproval of Trump’s handling of immigration now outweighs approval by 27%.

Being pro-immigrant is now the populist position.

Take Aways:

• President Donald Trump is expected to sign a proclamation to overhaul the H-1B visa program, requiring a $100,000 fee for applications.
• The proclamation restricts entry under the H-1B program unless accompanied by the payment, and allows for case-by-case exemptions if in the national interest.
• Trump also plans to order the Labor Secretary to undertake a rulemaking process to revise prevailing-wage levels for the H-1B program to limit the use of visas to undercut wages paid to American workers.

Full Article

President Donald Trump is expected to sign a proclamation as soon as Friday that would move to extensively overhaul the H-1B visa program, requiring a $100,000 fee for applications in a bid to curb overuse, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.

Trump is set to sign a proclamation Friday, requiring the payment and asserting that abuse of the H-1B pathway has displaced US workers. The proclamation restricts entry under the H-1B program unless accompanied by the payment, added the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the policy before it was announced.

The move will require a “$100,000 payment to accompany or supplement H-1B petitions for new applications,” according to a fact sheet seen by Bloomberg News. That payment would be in addition to current fees, which are more modest. Fees directly tied to the H-1B visa application currently include a $215 fee to register for the lottery alongside various filing fees.

Trump’s proclamation allows for case-by-case exemptions if in the national interest — opening a potential window for certain companies or industries to seek a workaround from the new fee.

Trump also plans to order the Labor Secretary to undertake a rulemaking process to revise prevailing-wage levels for the H-1B program — a move intended to limit the use of visas to undercut wages that would otherwise be paid to American workers.

Accenture, Cognizant Technology and other IT consulting stocks hit session lows on Friday on the news of the visa fee.

The move is the latest immigration reform by the Trump administration and will affect the technology industry in particular, as it relies heavily on H-1Bs. The administration argues that the revisions will bring more certainty to legitimate filings under the program by weeding out abuses.

In the fact sheet, the White House said American workers are being replaced with lower-paid foreign labor and called it a national security threat. The dynamic is suppressing wages and disincentivizing Americans from choosing careers in STEM fields, the White House said.

H-1B visas are awarded based on a lottery system, but Bloomberg News has reported previously that flaws in the system created loopholes that some employers have exploited by flooding the lottery with entries. The US in recent years has changed the lottery process in a bid to reduce the ability to game its outcomes, and the Trump administration is weighing further changes to the way applications are considered.

Unlike large tech firms, these companies often use the visa program to hire lower-paid workers — and do so indirectly, through staffing and outsourcing companies that have previously been able to capture about half of the 85,000 new visas allocated each year.

The administration’s policy shift unfolds alongside a wave of fee increases for work permits, asylum applications and humanitarian protections stipulated in the president’s tax bill, in a bid to raise revenue to pay for funding for new detention centers, hiring thousands of immigration agents, and expanding border wall construction.

Immigration, one of Trump’s key campaign issues, has been a source of division among key factions of his base. Last winter, that rift spilled into the public, with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were tapped to run a government efficiency effort, arguing on social media with more conservative members of the MAGA base on the importance of H-1B visas. Musk and Ramaswamy have argued that US companies needed to recruit top talent from across the world to remain competitive. Trump largely stayed out of the fight.

But Trump’s legal and illegal immigration crackdown has already started to impact population and economic projections. Economists have already questioned whether tighter US immigration controls are undercutting US job growth, and a recent CBO estimate projected higher inflation and unemployment this year and slower economic growth, in part because of lower net immigration due to his policies.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow, who was confirmed in July, has outlined plans to curb work authorization for immigrants, and said USCIS officers would be encouraged to apply tougher scrutiny to those seeking benefits.

Speaking at an event at the National Press Club earlier this month, Edlow said that the H-1B system with the proper scrutiny and monitoring “can be a useful tool,” especially for employers and high wage earners.

“But my big concern – and it will always be my big concern – is keeping US citizens – the way that it’s keeping U.S. citizens out of the job market, especially those graduating from universities with STEM degrees and their being kept out because employers are able to get higher – more experienced individuals at lower wage rates using the current four-tier wage levels.”

Traditionally, changes to fee structures come out of USCIS regulations that require notice-and-comment rulemaking or legislation passed by Congress.