Flood prevention at SoCal dam, undocumented immigrants and the economy, NFL tickets in LA get pricey

The undocumented population is actually going down across the nation. "We have seen a declining number of the undocumented and [one of the] reasons for this is that some people are actually returning, going home, especially a lot of Mexicans. We've seen a surge of people living in the United States in an unauthorized status going back home," said Hollifield. According to the Pew Research Center, the total undocumented population peaked at over 12 million back in 2007 and has since gone down by about a million.



The undocumented workforce reveals a gap in immigration policy. "The simple fact is that we have a tremendous juncture in terms of what we need for our economy and for what the law provides for in terms of the number of people that can come and work here legally," said Hollifield. "We need a lot of unskilled labor and that niche has been filled, not surprisingly, by unskilled immigrants, especially those coming from Mexico and Central America."



The right number of visas needed to fill that gap is still under debate. "There have been attempts to propose reforms that would allow us to adjust the number of visas based on the level of demand in different sectors of our labor market. One term that is often talked about is by having so-called 'market triggers' so that you can see when there's a surge in demand in a particular sector, whether it's construction, healthcare or any service industry, that you could allow the numbers to adjust so that you could allow more people to come in," said Hollifield. But, he added, the numbers behind that, and even the concept itself, is hotly contested.



A significant share of the undocumented population arrived legally to the U.S., but overstayed their visas. "Most of those coming from outside the Western Hemisphere are coming here on visas, perhaps tourist visas, and they are simply overstaying the visas. So you're going to see a much high concentration of non-Latino people in the unauthorized, or undocumented population, who are coming from Africa or Asia, in particular," said Holifield. A Department of Homeland Security report found that out of the 45 million people who have come by air and sea with legal visas, 482,781 individuals, or 1.07 percent, had overstayed in 2015. The country with the highest number? Canada.



Immigrants tend to lead to an overall gain for the economy, but in certain circumstances, they can affect wages for some workers. "They are increasing economic growth, economic activity, they become consumers so the multiplier effects alone of immigration often dwarf whatever effects they may have on depressing wages. But, in certain sectors, in certain areas, you will find those wage effects – especially where unskilled immigrants are competing with other unskilled immigrants," said Hollifield. One 2015 Harvard study, looking at the wages after Cuban migration in the early 1980s, found a drop of relative wages for some of the least educated workers in Miami.

There might be limited situations where we think it's legitimate to look into a person's phone with real basis to think they've engaged in illegal activity and evidence on it. Transporting child pornography images, for example.



But, for most of us, our phones and our laptops contain an incredible volume of private and sensitive information from years worth of emails to family photos, intimate discussions with a spouse or a partner, medical records, proprietary business information, government research, as in this case.

We believe that people are not legally compelled to turn it over.



Now, everyone needs to make a practical decision about what they want to do because there can be some ramifications.



We've heard numerous reports of border agents holding people in a secondary screening room for hours after they've refused to turn over a password. And we've seen reports over the years and recently of border agents seizing the phone or the laptop and shipping it off to a government facility where it might sit for weeks or months waiting for a forensic examiner to try to break into it.  

Yes, but in California, there are some protections that have been announced by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal court that covers California and neighboring states.



In a case a few years ago, that court said when government agents want to conduct a forensic search of a phone or a laptop – meaning they download all the data off that phone and search through it with electronic search tools – they have to have reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.



They can't just do it based on a hunch or someone's national origin or religion. 

U.S. citizens are going to be let into the country. You may be delayed, you may be inconvenienced, you may be intimidated at the border, but you're going to get home.



Visa holders and other non-citizens have to consider whether there's a risk that if they don't comply with the request for their password, they may be turned away at the border.



For people in all of these situations – citizens or not – the best protection may be to limit what devices and how much data you're carrying with you.



If you don't have your normal phone, you just have a special travel-only phone without a lot of your personal data, that might be the safest way to avoid a government agent looking through it without good reason.

If you are a U.S. citizen and the officers’ questions become intrusive, you have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any questions.



You should be aware that refusing to cooperate with officers may result in delay and/or further inspection.



If you are a lawful permanent resident, your right to talk to a lawyer depends on the circumstances.



If the officers’ questions become intrusive, you may ask to speak to a lawyer but, in some situations, officers have the authority to refuse to allow you to speak to a lawyer before you answer their questions.



If you are a non-citizen visa holder selected for further questioning, you may ask to talk to a lawyer but you generally do not have the right to consult a lawyer before answering the officers’ questions.



Importantly, for anyone attempting to enter the United States, if a customs officer or border agent informs you that you are under arrest, or if it becomes clear that he or she suspects you have committed a crime, you have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any questions. 

We do not know what Customs and Border Protection’s policy is on length of detention. We would strongly argue that indefinite detention is unlawful.

Kids will be getting environmental education not just in their science curriculum but also in their history curriculum, and social science, and English and math as well. They'll be getting it many different ways, all the way through the pipeline.



It's kind of built-in naturally with what they would be learning anyway in the classroom. For example, 4th graders in California all learn about the missions and the Gold Rush. So now, when they learn about the missions, they're also going to learn about bringing agriculture to California and what impact that's had. And how the Spanish didn't just bring missions, they brought invasive plants and the impact of that. And when they look at the Gold Rush, they're going to look at the impact of gold extraction. What happens when you put a bunch of silt in a river for example. And also what happens when you get these very rapidly growing new cities all of the sudden. In 12th grade, they'll be looking at economic issues, environmental justice, and public health and so forth.