Prior to the 2016 presidential election, I would bet that most people shared my mental image of the modern-day neo-Nazi movement: a hodgepodge of tatted-up skinheads, gun-toting militiamen, hooded Ku Klux Klan members, and miscellaneous bloodthirsty Turner Diaries cosplayers. While those people still exist, an offshoot of the movement—which calls itself the alternative right, or […]

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I never imagined it would be this frightening. Or this difficult. Living in the shadows, unable to see my parents drive our car without fear, or to apply for jobs, all because we lack a nine-digit identification number. More frightening, the everyday worry that my parents will not be home at the end of my […]

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Mérida, Yucatán In 2013, my friend Juan’s cousin disappeared while attempting to cross from Mexico into the United States to return to his job at a restaurant in Florida. The cousin had successfully crossed the border on several previous occasions, and this particular passage, Juan tells me, was reportedly arranged by the restaurant’s proprietor via […]

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The GOP Affordable Care Act replacement draft includes reforms promoted by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan since (and before) the passage of the ACA, including funding Medicaid with block grants to states and a per capita cap on Medicaid funding. The federal government pays a fixed share of states’ Medicaid costs. Under Ryancare, federal […]

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Here’s how Donald Trump’s new immigration policy looks at ground level. On the Monday afternoon before Valentine’s Day, Juan Manuel García was taking the office mail to the post office two blocks south of the Capitol in Austin, Texas, when he saw an unmarked black Dodge crew-cab pickup make a quick U-turn. An “anglo” man […]

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