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Patrick G. Eddington

House and Senate members can be notoriously thin‐​skinned when questioned about their policy and legislative choices. That was evident on April 14, when Sean Vitka, policy director for the left‐​leaning advocacy group Demand Progress, took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to ask House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) ranking member Jim Himes (D‑CA) a question.

Vitka asked whether Himes understood that an amendment he co‐​authored and which was included in the just‐​House passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization bill granted federal electronic spies “Stasi‐​like” powers.

The reference, of course, is to the infamous East German secret police, known as the Stasi.

Vitka said he intended to keep asking Himes about it until he got an answer, to which Himes shot back:

“You do that. But life is really too short to engage with people who need to use bombastic absurdities like ‘Stasi‐​like.’ Yes, I know exactly what is in there. Some of it is classified. And none of it is remotely ‘Stasi‐​like.’ Sell your nonsense elsewhere.”

Vitka wasn’t trolling Himes. The amendment in question is radical in its scope and implications. And it wasn’t just Vitka who was raising the alarm. Over at the ZwillGenBlog on April 9, Marc Zwillinger and his law partners Steve Lane and Jacob Sommer provided an extensive and devastating legal analysis of the privacy and constitutional rights implications of Himes’s amendment (co‐​authored by HPSCI Chairman Mike Turner (R‑OH).

Zwillinger holds a Top Secret security clearance and has argued cases before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR), one of the few private sector lawyers known to have done so. Lane is a former Justice Department attorney and legal advisor to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Sommer is a privacy law expert and has also argued cases before the FISC. When it comes to surveillance law and constitutional rights, these three are legal heavy hitters.

And what did Zwillinger, Lane, and Sommer conclude about the Himes‐​Turner amendment?

After noting that the amendment excluded public accommodations, dwellings, restaurants, and community facilities, the trio said,

The new amendment would — notwithstanding these exclusions — still permit the government to compel the assistance of a wide range of additional entities and persons in conducting surveillance under FISA 702. The breadth of the new definition is obvious from the fact that the drafters felt compelled to exclude such ordinary places such as senior centers, hotels, and coffee shops. But for these specific exceptions, the scope of the new definition would cover them—and scores of businesses that did not receive a specific exemption remain within its purview. (emphasis ZwillGenBlog)

Examples cited by the three include “owners and operators of facilities that house equipment used to store or carry data, such as data centers and buildings owned by commercial landlords” and “other persons with access to such facilities and equipment, including delivery personnel, cleaning contractors, and utility providers.”

If a building partly owned by former President Donald Trump also contained a data storage and/​or routing center, could that data storage/​routing center become a legitimate surveillance target if the Himes‐​Turner amendment becomes law? If foreign‐​to‐​US or US‐​to‐​foreign communications transit the facility, yes.

If the communications of former President Trump, his employees, and perhaps even his attorneys passed through that data storage/​routing center, could they also be swept up as “incidental” communications when the actual targets were foreigners? Yes.

This is a hypothetical scenario involving former President Trump, but the same data center scenario appears to be the exact real‐​world episode that prompted Turner and Himes to offer the amendment, according to recent New York Times reporting. Thus, if the Turner‐​Himes amendment were to become law, its digital reach and lack of any kind of FISC review could put at surveillance risk the data of literally millions of Americans—including any current political office holder or candidate, as well as their staff, constituents, or donors.

During House floor debate on their amendment, Himes and Turner went to great lengths to claim that their legislative proposal was merely a “technical correction” to existing law. It’s definitely technical, but it’s not a correction. Instead, it’s a potentially radical expansion of FISA’s reach into the communications of Americans. And Himes’s fellow Democrat, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, definitely thinks the Himes‐​Turner amendment does exactly what Zwillinger, Lane, Sommer, Vitka, and I believe it does.

“It allows the government to force any American who installs, maintains, or repairs anything that transmits or stores communications to spy on the government’s behalf,” Wyden said in a press release. “That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a wifi router, or a phone. It would be secret: the Americans receiving the government directives would be bound to silence, and there would be no court oversight,” Wyden said, vowing to do everything in his power to stop the bill.

If you thought the fight over federal government spying on Americans was drawing to a close, buckle up…there’s much more to come before April ends.

Former CIA analyst and ex‐​House senior policy advisor Patrick Eddington is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

Alex Nowrasteh

Yesterday, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs held a hearing titled “How the Border Crisis Impacts Public Safety.” My colleague David Bier testified. One of the other witnesses was Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general of Virginia, who also served in various capacities at the Department of Homeland Security. Cuccinelli submitted written testimony about the impact of illegal immigration on crime, stating, “Crime rates do not matter, only the raw number of crimes and the harm caused by those crimes.”

Cuccinelli was trying to refute Cato Institute research that finds illegal immigrants and legal immigrants have a consistently lower criminal conviction rate and incarceration rate than native‐​born Americans by channeling a common refrain I hear on Twitter and from immigration restrictionists: ‘Some immigrants commit crimes, and those crimes would not have occurred in the United States if the immigrants weren’t here.’ In an obtuse way, they have a point. But it’s a trivial point because some individuals in any large population will always commit some crimes. Even small populations of people disinclined to commit crimes contain a few individuals who occasionally do, such as female biology professors.

However, the focus on crime rates matters when discussing the relative criminality of different groups and evaluating whether immigrants bring more crime than they add people to the United States.

Cuccinelli’s statement that crime rates don’t matter, that only the number of crimes matters, says nothing substantive about the potential danger that immigrants pose to Americans. Let me give an example. Under Cuccinelli’s interpretation, a city with 100 murders is twenty times more dangerous than a city with five murders. But if the city with 100 murders has a million residents and the city with five murders has only 100 residents, then the city with fewer murders is far more dangerous to the residents. The city with one million residents and 100 murders has a homicide rate of 10 per 100,000. The city with 100 residents and five murders has a homicide rate of 5,000 per 100,000, which is 500 times as great as the larger city with 20 times the number of murders.

This is an extreme example, but an example necessary to explain why crime rates are more important to understand relative to criminality and danger than the number of crimes. Which city would you want to live in?

Now, in that example, assume that 100,000 immigrants with a homicide rate 20 percent below that of the resident population move to the city with one million residents. Because the immigrants are less likely to commit homicide than the longer‐​settled residents of the city, the homicide rate drops from 10 per 100,000 to 9.8 per 100,000, but there are eight more murders. The city got slightly safer because the increase in the population was greater than the increase in the number of murders.

That example above makes the impact of immigration on crime seem even more dangerous than it likely really is. According to crime data from 2022, 79 percent of murder victims knew their murderers where investigators knew the prior relationship. Almost half of those pre‐​existing relationships were familial or sexual, the other half were neighbors, friends, acquaintances, employer/​employee, or a different relationship. Because families tend to be either mostly immigrants or mostly native‐​born Americans, and they live in different parts of the city near other similar people and tend to have friends and acquaintances who are similar—including more likely to have the same immigration status—it’s reasonable to infer that most of those eight extra homicide victims were probably also immigrants.

That doesn’t make their crimes any less heinous, but it does tell you that the non‐​immigrants in the city probably face even less danger than described in the previous paragraph.

A real‐​world example may help explain why the focus on crime rates is more important than the number of crimes. From 1970 to 2023, the number of homicides in Detroit dropped from 495 to 252, a 49 percent decrease. Whereas somebody who shared Cuccinelli’s opinion would say that this is a significant improvement, the homicide rate rose from 33 per 100,000 in 1970 to 41 per 100,000 in 2023, a 24 percent increase. The murder rate increased even though the number of murders fell because Detroit’s population fell even more from over 1.5 million in 1970 to about 620,000 in 2023—a decrease of 59 percent. If you consider only murder, Detroit is a more dangerous city today than in 1970.

Focusing on crime rates rather than the number of crimes is essential to compare criminality between populations such as immigrants and native‐​born Americans. Otherwise, there is no basis for arguing that one or the other is more criminally inclined, which really matters when discussing public safety. Additionally, we couldn’t judge whether crime differs between geographical regions or over time without looking at crime rates because the number of crimes generally goes up with the population in a cross‐​section and over the long run (with some significant variation). It’s trivially easy to point to crimes committed by a member of any large population no matter how one defines it, but doing so doesn’t reveal much useful information.

What comparative crime rates reveal is that more intensive enforcement of immigration laws aimed at all illegal immigrants, not just those convicted of violent or property crimes, will not make Americans safer on average. The result would be higher crime rates, ceteris paribus.

An increase in the number of crimes does not mean that a society is becoming more dangerous if the population grows even more. Similarly, a decrease in the number of crimes will not signify an improvement in safety if the population falls even more. It would be a better outcome if the number of crimes falls along with the crime rate as the population increases.

Furthermore, nothing above is meant to diminish the harm, pain, and anguish felt by victims of crime no matter who the criminal is. Criminals should be punished and, if they are non‐​citizens, deported from the United States after serving time in prison. However, it’s clear that we have a long and arduous debate ahead of us over immigration and crime if people with strong opinions on one side, like Cuccinelli, think that “[c]rime rates do not matter.”

David J. Bier

Critics of the H‑1B visa for skilled foreign workers often claim that the status amounts to “indentured” servitude. Indentured servitude is a contract to work for a single employer for a predetermined period without pay. H‑1B workers are not only paid—they receive wages in the top 10 percent of wage earners in the United States. As importantly, although they face more obstacles to changing jobs, H‑1B workers are not tied to a single employer and they change jobs regularly.

In fact, H‑1B workers are leaving their initial H‑1B employers more than ever. Figure 1 shows the number of H‑1B workers changing to a new employer by fiscal year. From fiscal year 2005 to 2023, H‑1B workers changed jobs over 1 million times (1,090,890). The number of switches grew from about 24,000 in 2005 to a record 130,576 in 2022—a more than fivefold increase. In fiscal year 2023, H‑1B workers changed jobs 117,153 times, a slight decline from 2022.

On another point, H‑1B job shifting is more common than H‑1B workers starting H‑1B employment for the first time. In 2023, about 61 percent of all H‑1B workers starting with a new employer were existing H‑1B workers hired away from other employers in the United States. This means that US employers are more likely to hire an H‑1B worker already in the United States in H‑1B status as they are to hire a new H‑1B worker not already with H‑1B status.

Several causes for this increase are possible. The labor market has generally been tighter, leading to more job switching in general. In addition, more H‑1B workers are employed in the United States now for other employers to poach, and because the H‑1B cap has been so quickly met every year since 2014, there is more reason to poach. The government also made it somewhat easier to switch H‑1B jobs in 2017 by giving them a sixty‐​day grace period to find a new job after losing a job.

Finally, the jump in switching in 2021 is at least partially attributable to the record number of green card applications filed that year. After 180 days, H‑1B workers who have filed a green card application may change jobs without the employer being forced to restart the green card process, easing the job‐​switching process. However, in 2022, the number of pending employment‐​based green card applications declined from 2021, so this is only part of the story.

Of course, it is true that H‑1B workers are still not treated equally in the labor market. New H‑1B employers have to pay hefty fees to poach them, and the shortage of green cards for Indian workers can wrongly make those workers feel that they have to stick with their existing employer to complete that process. The best solution would be to make the conversion to a green card automatic rather than requiring a renewal after three years. The sixty‐​day grace period to find a new job is still not long enough to give many workers the confidence to simply quit a problematic job without a new one already lined up.

Despite these government‐​imposed obstacles, the existence of widespread H‑1B job shifting further refutes the idea that H‑1B workers are “indentured” servants. The Pew Research Center reports that 2.1 percent of college graduates changed jobs per month in 2022. The population of H‑1B workers is estimated to be about 580,000.[1] The data aren’t directly comparable, but with just over 117,000 H‑1B transfers in 2023, this implies a monthly job change rate of 1.7 percent—lower, but nothing remotely like the hyperbolic claims of “indentured servitude.”

The fact is that the government has wrongly unleveled the playing field for H‑1B workers by erecting artificial barriers to job change, but options exist to find better employment within the H‑1B system. The government should expand those options rather than try to reduce or eliminate these workers who contribute so significantly to the fields of science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine.

Note: This post is an update of a June 2023 post on the same subject using more up‐​to‐​date numbers.

[1] This was estimated pre‐​pandemic, and it’s probably lower now since far more H1B workers received green cards in 2021 and 2022 than normal.

Scott Lincicome

Today we’ve published three essays for Cato’s Defending Globalization project:

Separating Tariff Facts from Tariff Fictions, by Erica York, explains that tariffs are costly taxes, and economists consider them to be poor tools for boosting the economy, reducing the trade deficit, or achieving strategic objectives.

Climate Change and Globalization, by Charles Kenny, makes the case that globalization is an ally, not an enemy, in the fight against climate change.

The Moral Case for Globalization, by Tom G. Palmer, shows that rigorous thinking and empirical research refute, one by one, attacks on globalization in the name of morality. The world is better because of globalization.

This content joins 25 other essays and additional multimedia features on the main Defending Globalization project page.

Make sure to check it all out and stay tuned for future releases.

Travis Fisher

Montana has become an unlikely frontier in the climate movement. Last August, Montana District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of climate activists in Held v. Montana, one of dozens of lawsuits filed across the country by Our Children’s Trust on behalf of youth plaintiffs. The District Court’s opinion is significant because it granted the plaintiffs legal standing—for the first time—on the grounds that they were directly injured by climate change. It also endorsed the concept of using the Social Cost of CO2 (SCC) in environmental reviews.

If the Montana Supreme Court agrees with the District Court in Held v. Montana, it will set the stage for future climate litigation nationwide and support the use of the SCC in regulatory rulemaking. Meanwhile, legal proceedings are moving forward at the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC), which oversees economic decisions made by public utilities, and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which administers and enforces environmental regulations.

What the District Court Found

The District Court opinion in Held v. Montana rejected a recent change to the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) that removed the consideration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the DEQ’s environmental reviews. Judge Seeley declared the change unconstitutional given the language in Montana’s constitution that reads, in relevant part, “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.”

Judge Seeley also granted standing to the plaintiffs—meaning she found the plaintiffs had been injured by GHG emissions—which is likely an even more impactful victory for the plaintiffs. Each state has different rules for standing to file suits like these, so it’s unclear how many of the suits filed by Our Children’s Trust (in all 50 states) will be awarded standing.

Factual Errors in the District Court Opinion

Based on my reading of Judge Seeley’s opinion, it contains too many serious analytical flaws to form the basis for public policy. First, it is unclear how changes in state regulatory processes will meaningfully impact the global climate given that Montana’s CO2 emissions are a small portion of the US total (Montana’s total energy use ranks 43rd among US states), and the US total is, in turn, now a small portion of the global total (below 14 percent and falling). US emissions are also down in absolute terms from a high of about six billion tons per year to now about five billion. In other words, how would regulatory policy in Montana redress a global issue?

The most glaring error in the court’s opinion is the assertion that a forced transition away from fossil fuels will reduce costs. As one prominent example, the opinion drew heavily on expert testimony from Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson, who stated that transitioning to a non‐​fossil fuel‐​based energy system in Montana by 2050 would reduce energy costs by about 15 percent. For a more detailed discussion of Jacobson’s claims and criticisms of them, please see the article I wrote in response to the court opinion last year and this from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Environmentalists’ Petition to the PSC

Following Judge Seeley’s opinion, a large group of petitioners, led by Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center, asked the Public Service Commission for a rulemaking that would incorporate the judge’s ruling in state‐​level regulations. The petition recommended a new proposed rule requiring that the PSC shall:

1. Apply the higher of the social cost of greenhouse gases established by (a) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or (b) the federal Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases as of the time of the Commission’s determination (except that in no case shall the costs of greenhouse gases be lower than those at a 2‑percent near‐​term Ramsey discount rate from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s November 2023 “Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases: Estimates Incorporating Recent Scientific Advances,” adjusted for inflation); and

2. Consider any adverse climate impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on communities that are disproportionately impacted by such emissions and/​or subject to historical inequalities.

At a recent public hearing before the PSC, I argued that the Held v. Montana ruling at the District Court level does not provide a solid foundation for a new regulatory rulemaking because (1) it will be carefully reviewed by the state Supreme Court and likely reversed and (2) Judge Seeley relied upon expert testimony and findings of fact that contain serious flaws.

The SCC is arbitrary and unfit for policymaking because estimates of its magnitude can swing wildly based on small tweaks to underlying assumptions, many of which are arbitrary modeling decisions. Federal estimates of the SCC have ranged from about $50/​ton under President Obama, to less than $10/​ton under President Trump, to now $190/​ton or more under President Biden. These changes reflect differing policy judgments more than improvements in science.

The Petition calls for using the “higher of” the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) estimates or the interagency task force estimate of the SCC. Montana regulators should be careful about adopting federal estimates for at least two reasons: (1) it outsources state‐​level policymaking to Washington, DC, and (2) SCC estimates could change radically every four years based on the political party in charge.

Advocates of a high SCC should likewise be wary of relying on federal estimates. Under a potential second term for President Trump, the interagency task force could be disbanded, and the EPA’s estimate of the SCC could be changed again to rely on a 7 percent discount rate applied to the FUND model of climate costs and benefits, yielding a negative SCC. A negative SCC means fossil‐​fuel projects would be given favorable regulatory treatment relative to non‐​fossil projects. Perhaps that is why petitioners urged the PSC to require the use of a 2 percent discount rate.

Held v Montana at the DEQ

Today, the Montana DEQ is holding a working group meeting regarding the “subtask” of climate analysis under MEPA (agenda is here). As the working group agenda notes, and as I argued before the PSC, such considerations are premature. The agenda states:

Court decisions regarding climate analysis are not final and do not provide a clear roadmap for addressing climate impacts in the MEPA process; the Legislature has not provided statutory direction to DEQ on climate impacts in the MEPA process and will not meet and be able to pass legislation for roughly 8–10 months; the Legislature has not provided funding and FTE to DEQ to analyze climate impacts in the MEPA process and will not be able to do so for 8–10 months.

People outside of Montana are watching to see how the finding of climate injury plays out because it could impact other states or even federal agencies. As one example, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has consistently declined to apply the SCC to judge the “significance” of CO2 emissions associated with natural gas pipeline projects. Any rulemaking that uses the SCC in Montana could become precedent to require FERC or other federal agencies to do the same.

Jeffrey Miron and Jacob Winter

Occupational licensing — for doctors, lawyers, plumbers, barbers, and innumerable other trades — claims to improve service quality. Much evidence contradicts this claim. And even if licenses sometimes improve quality, they reduce the supply of services and therefore raise prices.

Recent research (Cato Research Brief no. 378) identifies another negative of licensing: reducing earnings in other occupations. The analysis “finds that a 10 percentage point increase in the share of licensed workers … is associated with earnings that are 1.6–2.3 percent lower for all occupations [with similar skills]. These negative effects are stronger for female, non‐​Hispanic black, and foreign‐​born Hispanic workers.”

The explanation is that licensing makes it harder for workers to change occupations. “For example, consider a worker who can choose to work as a waiter or a barber. If being a barber requires a license (and being a waiter does not), then restaurants may be able to pay waiters less without concern they will quit to become a barber.”

In addition to these negatives, research (Cato Research Brief no. 356) finds that licenses make it more difficult for consumers to find needed service providers.

What’s the solution? Elimination of licenses. Short of elimination, states should recognize licenses issued by other states. Research (Cato Research Brief no. 357) suggests this would increase “employment of licensed occupations without sacrificing service quality.”

Clark Packard and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon

Earlier this week, President Biden welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Kishida for an official visit and state dinner. As tensions in the Pacific mount, particularly with respect to China, Tokyo is an increasingly important ally for the United States. Indeed, the president and administration staffers emphasized the importance of upgrading the US‐​Japan alliance into a “global partnership” and both leaders announced measures for increased cooperation in defense, technological innovation, economic security, and diplomacy, among other areas.

Yet history has shown Washington’s international economic policies often belie its lofty rhetoric about the importance of the bilateral relationship with Japan, as domestic politics continue to triumph over sound policy. This self‐​defeating pattern hurts the United States both diplomatically and economically. Though by no means comprehensive, here’s a small sampling.

Nippon Steel

A significant “elephant in the room” during Prime Minister Kishida’s visit was the possible acquisition of US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel and the political opposition to the deal coming from multiple quarters in the US political system—and most notably from President Biden.

Indeed, the president recently stated that it was “vital” for US Steel “to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated.” As our Cato colleague Scott Lincicome recently explained, Biden’s statement belies the fact that US Steel is a shell of its former self, and both industry experts and US steel‐​consuming manufacturers believe that the acquisition would benefit US Steel, the American workforce, and the broader manufacturing sector.

It also stands in sharp contrast with the reality—as Biden himself acknowledged during the visit—that Japan is the biggest source country for foreign investment in the United States and Japanese investments have resulted in jobs for nearly one million Americans. Such investments have also often benefited the US companies being acquired and their surrounding communities.

And insofar as Biden’s opposition to the steel deal is for national security purposes, it clashes with the state of US‐​Japan defense cooperation, which has been close for decades and, as stated during the visit, is planned to increase in the coming years. Indeed, Japan hosts US military personnel and Department of Defense (DOD) civilians and their families and acquires more than 90 percent of its defense imports from the US; Japanese investors have not been of concern to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) (which is currently reviewing the Nippon‐​US Steel deal) since the 1980s; and Nippon Steel is no longer closely connected to the Japanese government. Twenty‐​three percent of the company is owned by non‐​Japanese entities.

In sum, most independent observers understand that Biden’s opposition is motivated by electoral politics—as is Donald Trump’s own opposition to the deal—and not economics or national security.

“National Security” Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum

In 2018, the Trump administration declared imported steel and aluminum from every country, including Japan, to be a “national security” threat to the United States and then imposed heavy tariffs (25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, respectively). It was obviously nonsense; imports from a country the United States is obligated to defend militarily poses zero national security risk. President Trump’s own Secretary of Defense noted that the military only required about three percent of domestic steel capacity. Not only did the tariffs hurt the United States economically, they hurt Washington’s standing in Japan. Eventually the Biden administration announced it had replaced the tariffs on imports from Japan with a tariff‐​rate quota, allowing a limited amount of steel and aluminum to enter the country without being subject to the 232 tariffs.

TPP

The Trans‐​Pacific Partnership (TPP) was envisioned as a comprehensive trade agreement that would deepen economic cooperation in the Pacific with a mind toward reorienting supply chains outside of China. There were 12 original signatories, but the United States and Japan were arguably the primary proponents of the agreement. The Japanese government faced intense domestic political opposition to the deal, but stuck its neck out because it understood the benefits of deeper economic integration with the United States and the Pacific region more generally, especially in light of China’s economic rise (and abusive trade and investment practices).

Washington, however, didn’t uphold its end of the bargain. TPP became a political hot potato during the 2016 presidential campaign with both major party candidates opposing the deal. Once in office, the Trump administration made an ill‐​advised decision to walk away from the agreement. This marked a turning point: the first time the United States failed to implement a trade agreement it negotiated and signed. At the behest of the Japanese government, the TPP was renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans‐​Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and moved forward without the United States.

Though imperfect, CPTPP was a good deal economically and strategically. Today, American consumers face higher prices for products from CPTPP bloc countries than they would if Washington had embraced the agreement. Likewise, American producers face higher trade barriers than their competitors within the bloc. On top of that, Washington retreated from a vital standard‐​setting role by walking away from the deal—a loss of soft influence in an increasingly vital part of the world.

Washington’s about‐​face on the deal cost the United States some credibility with Tokyo. Japan continues to press the United States to return to the CPTPP. But, to date, Washington has shown no appetite to accept the political risks to do the responsible thing and rejoin.

Automotive Voluntary Export Restraints

As Dr. Douglas Irwin notes in his masterful, comprehensive history of US trade policy, Clashing Over Commerce, Japanese producers’ share of the US automotive market was about 1 percent as late as 1968. After the oil shock and attendant price spikes in 1973, American consumer preferences shifted and demand increased for smaller, more fuel‐​efficient cars (a segment largely controlled by Japanese producers; the Big Three at the time—Chrysler, Ford and GM—ceded that segment of the market). As a result, Japanese imports began to grow. Calls to restrict Japanese autos in the US started to proliferate around Washington in the late 1970s.

In the early 1980s, over the objections of OMB Director David Stockman, Treasury Secretary Don Regan, and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Murray Weidenbaum, the Reagan administration pressured the Japanese to voluntarily limit its automotive exports to the United States by about 8 percent. The automotive voluntary export restraints (VERs) were agreed to by the Japanese government and its auto manufacturers because the alternative was a stiff tariff. The VERs were initially in place for three years. But then, facing reelection in 1984 and not wanting to alienate Midwestern auto workers, the Reagan administration once again pressured Japan to renew the VERs. In other words, like the Nippon deal, the automotive VERs were largely driven by short‐​term, domestic political concerns—at the expense of long‐​term geopolitical objectives and sound economics.

For Americans, it was estimated that the VERs increased the price American consumers paid for Japanese cars by about $1,000 at the time or more than $3,000 in today’s dollars—about 14 percent above what they would have paid without the VERs. Likewise, the increased prices for Japanese imports allowed domestic producers to raise their own prices.

A few years ago, our Cato colleague Scott Lincicome provided a detailed summary of the harms done by the VERs. Contrary to claims from certain protectionists, none of the results of the VERs were positive for the United States. Japan eventually dropped the VERs in 1994 after they were abolished by the Uruguay Round Agreements, which converted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade into today’s World Trade Organization.

Japan was largely compliant with Washington’s requests for VERs if for no other reason than their national security depended on the United States’ security guarantees—and they feared a heavy tariff would be even worse. But the VERs very clearly caused diplomatic frictions between Washington and Tokyo, on top of the self‐​defeating economic problems associated with the restraints.

Conclusion

In recent years, policymakers have increasingly talked about the concept of “friendshoring”—strengthening trade and investment ties with close allies—as a new paradigm to guide US international economic relations in light of intensifying competition with China and legitimate concerns over Beijing’s troublesome practices. Yet in a recent test case for its commitment to this new framework—Japanese-based Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of US Steel—Washington failed miserably. Indeed, the Biden administration’s opposition to the Nippon deal is not an outlier—it is the latest in a long line of international economic policy affronts to Japan.

If Washington is truly serious about confronting Chinese economic practices, it needs allies like Japan—and policy should reflect the seriousness of the challenge.

David J. Bier

The House of Representatives impeached Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and now some senators are pressing to hold a trial. As I’ve explained, the charges against Mayorkas are meritless. I have also listed all the ways that this administration has tried to increase immigration enforcement since January 2021. But one further complaint is that ICE has released convicted criminals or people with pending criminal charges, yet the broader context is that this has become less likely under Mayorkas.

Figure 1 shows the number of individuals released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges from fiscal year 2019 to 2024 through half the fiscal year. It shows that releases of such individuals fell from 34,415 in 2019 to 15,514 in 2023. In 2024, the current pace would be 13,623—a 60 percent reduction in those releases. (Note: ICE has not published data on releases before 2019.)

Figure 2 shows the same data on a monthly basis, revealing a significant drop in ICE removals under the Biden administration starting in mid‐​2021. The monthly ICE data on releases starts in FY 2021.

Figure 3 shows the number of criminal releases as a percentage of criminal arrests on a quarterly basis. This shows that, except for his first quarter in office, Biden has released a lower percentage of those arrested than Trump did from October 2020 to December 2020, falling from 27 percent of arrests to 17 percent in the most recently available quarter. This shows that falling releases are not just a consequence of falling arrests. In fact, in the most recent quarter, ICE arrested nearly 1,500 more people with pending criminal charges or criminal convictions than in the final quarter of the Trump administration.

Of course, ICE is just one agency, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also releases people. But the point is that people are wrong to conclude that the phenomenon of releasing people with criminal convictions or charges is unique to the Biden administration. As the Trump administration noted in 2019, DHS recognizes “the need to prioritize extremely limited detention resources (including through the release of aliens not subject to mandatory detention, or who do not appear to pose a public safety threat or flight risk).”

Nonetheless, it’s also interesting to note that the Trump ICE released a higher number of these types of immigrants in 2020 than the Biden administration has, even though the total number of releases was much lower, as Figure 4 shows. Immigrants charged with or convicted of crimes were 34 percent of releases in 2020 compared to 10 percent in 2023.

How concerned should people be about these releases? As I’ve previously noted, most immigrants with criminal convictions are convicted of nonviolent crimes like drug possession, illegal entry, or non‐​DUI traffic offenses. Just 11 percent were convicted of violent crimes. Unfortunately, we don’t know the breakdown of the crimes that people who were released committed. But we can say that nearly half of the convicted criminals entering ICE’s custody were not convicted of felonies. Moreover, serious criminals aren’t likely to be released absent a court order under this administration’s priorities for enforcement.

ICE should be prioritizing the detention and removal of criminals convicted of crimes that threaten the safety of others, but every administration, including the Biden administration, spends far more resources on people with no criminal history at all. Right now, over two‐​thirds of ICE detainees are neither charged with nor convicted of any crime—even immigration crimes—and the same is true of 70 percent of removals.

Law enforcement agency resources are finite, and they should be devoted to targeting serious criminals and threats to the public, not micromanaging our demographics or labor force. Opportunity costs are real. Every minute that ICE or CBP wastes on pursuing someone seeking to work here is a minute they are not pursuing someone who may threaten the public. To end these wasteful practices, America should rethink its immigration system to provide legal ways for people to come to and work in this country.

Colleen Hroncich

Tarla Gernert grew up surrounded by educators—her mom, grandma, and aunt were all teachers. So it seemed natural to her to follow that same path. But it was never a great fit for her. “Every time I would teach a lesson, I would know that some of the kids were really ready for it,” she explains. “Some of the kids, I knew that if I explained it to them for a day or two, they would get it. And there was always a group of kids that I felt like they’re never going to get this. And much of what I was teaching I felt was really not relevant to them.”

After a few years, she took a leave of absence from the classroom and moved into an academic advisor position at her alma mater. She enjoyed that role, but when she had children she decided to stay home with them. They moved from Virginia to Michigan to North Carolina, with a variety of schooling options, including a little bit of homeschooling, along the way.

When they moved to North Carolina, Tarla decided to see what homeschooling was like there. She reached out to the local homeschooling community, and they embraced her family. “They had art classes, and music classes, and PE classes, and all kinds of things. They had Friday classes where it was kind of a co‐​op, but you paid the teachers a little bit to teach,” she recalls. “It was just this wonderful community down there, and we just fit right in.”

They moved back to Michigan after a few years, and she didn’t find anything like what they’d had in North Carolina. She says, “I kept talking about how in North Carolina, we did this. And in North Carolina, we did that. One of my friends said, ‘I think if you start what you had in North Carolina, people will come.’” And that’s how Homeschool Connections Educational Services Inc. came to be.

Tarla didn’t want a traditional homeschool co‐​op, where parents typically teach each other’s kids on a volunteer basis. “Whenever we were part of a co‐​op, it was difficult because the level of quality wasn’t necessarily there,” she explains. “I realized you can’t really fire volunteers, so with this program, we wanted to hire and pay teachers.” She found a woman who had a masters in bilingual education to teach Spanish and a microbiologist to teach biology. A multitalented artist, author, and actress taught the children art, writing, and acting.

Homeschool Connections started in 2002 with 32 kids at a church in Rochester Hills, MI. The next year, it grew through word of mouth, with the kids telling their siblings and friends to come. Before too long, parents were coming to Tarla wanting to start a similar program at other churches, which work well because they’re usually empty during weekdays.

The program is designed to be held one day per week with each class meeting for an hour. For the younger kids, they offer very hands‐​on, activity‐​based, high‐​interest classes. They also do science experiments, which is a great help for homeschooling families. In the upper grades, Tarla says it can be a full program, including research papers, high school math, and science labs—the things that can be trickiest for homeschooling parents. The kids work at home for most of the week and then the weekly classes include discussions of what they’ve read and other group lessons and activities.

There are now in‐​person options at several churches in southeast Michigan. Depending on the location, classes are held on Monday, Tuesday, or Friday. There’s also an online distance learning option that includes pre‐​recorded lessons and a weekly virtual class session. Teachers and families can participate at more than one location to create a schedule that works for them. Classes are generally geared toward an age range, not a specific grade, which provides more flexibility in content and ability level.

“Some people come for one class. Others come for a whole day. And then there are others that might come for two or three days, depending upon what their schedule is and what they need,” says Tarla.

In addition to the more academic pursuits, there’s a strong social and community aspect to Homeschool Connections. They host coffee mornings for moms to help support them in their homeschooling journeys. They also provide opportunities for the students to get together for game nights, dances, bowling, and roller skating.

In 2017, Tarla co‐​founded High​PointHy​brid​.com which offers in‐​person support twice a week for students who attend Highpoint Virtual Academy of Michigan. There are locations throughout southeast Michigan for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

“What I’ve learned through all of this is I don’t really enjoy being the teacher,” Tarla admits. “But I love creating educational environments where people can learn.”

Patrick G. Eddington

One point I always make when talking about national security issues, and especially those involving surveillance powers, is this: when in doubt, always bet on fear.

This afternoon, the House of Representatives wrapped up an extremely tense and at times quite acrimonious debate on reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and specifically the FISA Section 702 warrantless electronic mass surveillance program. The final vote on the bill was 273–147.

An amendment to require the FBI to get a warrant to access the stored communications of Americans collected under the 702 program failed in a nail‐​biter, 212–212. Opponents of the warrant requirement got key help from an unlikely source: former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D‑CA), who made an impassioned plea to reject the warrant requirement and support the underlying bill. Her position was rather ironic, given her prior support for exactly this kind of warrant requirement in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Fierce opposition from the Biden administration also helped sink the amendment.

Another amendment allowing Members of Congress to sit in during FISA court debates and requiring quarterly 702 query reports from the FBI passed easily, as did an amendment adding fentanyl trafficking to the approved uses of Section 702 collection—a flagrant and dangerous expansion of FISA authority that will no doubt make the failed “War on Drugs” even worse.

Even more ominously, an amendment to change the definition of “electronic communications provider” also passed, meaning that a vastly greater number of businesses’ communications may also be subject to Section 702 collection and storage.

One change made to the underlying bill during negotiations was reducing the reauthorization time of Title VII from five years to two years. That’s a tactical victory for reformers that may have larger implications down the road, as the clear expansion of FISA surveillance this bill represents virtually guarantees additional abuses of the constitutional rights of Americans.

Given the Biden administration’s stated support for the bill absent the warrant requirement, it seems certain that Biden’s national security team will push the Senate to simply move the House bill as passed. Whether that will happen is something we’ll get a better sense of next week.