Here’s one explanation why domestic violence victims can qualify under current asylum laws. https://cliniclegal.org/resources/articles-clinic/landmark-asylum-decision-domestic-violence-victims Here are other resources for gender-based asylum claims, which often can include domestic violence. https://www.immigrantjustice.org/resources/resources-gender-based-asylum-claims There is a lot of evidence that violence against women is a key indicator in the overall level of safety in a country. If domestic violence isn’t enough for asylum, we are overlooking something that is a serious risk for half of the world’s population.

If you enjoy self-guided walking tours, what do you look for in a good one? Do you prefer tours that focus on a certain neighborhood or area, or ones that focus on a certain time in history? Do you like lots of stories, or do you prefer facts and dates, or maybe a mix? Do you want to know about places to eat along the way or any other practical information? What else? I’m asking because I’m thinking of creating some new self-guided walking tours for the next city we’re moving to. Lots of tourists go there but they often focus on one small part of the city or hire tour guides. Those are both good options, but I think there is a lot to this city that you can only see if you get out on your own and I’d like to help people do that.

Ds and I spent a school year exploring DC when he was your son’s age. Some of our favorites are the tour at the National Building Museum, the Southwest and Anacostia Neighborwood Heritage Trails, finding Boundary Stones, and various things along the African American Heritage Trails. Here’s a link to everything we did. http://amiralace.blogspot.com/p/washington-dc-things-to-do.html

I’m just waking up in my time zone and a little incredulous that this discussion turned into an argument about how much a “Christian” nation should do for others. I’m never quite sure if the US is a Christian nation though - it seems to be in December when we’re all supposed to say Merry Christmas, but not in June when legimitate asylum seekers are being separated from their children. And I don’t understand how a political system from 3000 years ago could possibly inform us about our responsibility to help people in diverse parts of the world when there was little opportunity of even knowing anything about crises outside of anyone’s region. And if Solomon, for example, were really as fabulously wealthy as the Bible says he was, I’m inclined to think he was morally wrong for not using his wealth to help more people, Israelite or not, rather than spending it on wives, concubines, and palaces. But if we’re going to talk about Christian responsibility, maybe we should compare our response to what some non Christian majority countries are doing. There actually are a number of countries who have had a flood of refugees and asylum seekers coming over their borders over the several years, something the US certainly has not seen during that time. As I’ve mentioned above, refugees are in a different legal category than asylum seekers, but since the discussion here has been centered on people arriving at a border, there are parallels. If the US were to take in similar levels of asylum seekers as countries like Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey are hosting of refugees relative to their populations, then the US would need to accept 30-50 million people. (I’ve quoted these stats on this board many time so I won’t go in detail again.) And that number doesn’t even include the huge amount of asylum seekers in those countries who aren’t officially registered refugees (which means they get no UNHCR support). These are all Muslim-majority countries. Or what about Ethiopia, one of the oldest Christian nations in the world? They currently host nearly 900,000 registered refugees, plus large numbers of asylum seekers. To match just the known number of refugees in Ethiopia relative to its population, the US would have to take in 28 million people. If we compared the numbers by GDP per capita, then we would take in 71 million people to match what Ethiopia has done. One common argument to try to reduce our responsibilty in these crises in Africa and the Middle East is to say that people should get help in nearby countries rather than coming to the US. And I agree, moving people to the US often isn’t the best option (and less than 1% of registered refugees are resettled in a third country, so the UN doesn’t use this option very often anyway). However, the US has an asylum issue right in our own neighborhood - there is no doubt that the US has exercised a lot of influence in Central America for a long time. Central American asylum seekers are our neighbors, and current policies are actively trying to keep them out of the US. Instead, countries like Lebanon and Ethiopia are setting the standard. If the US were to allow in a million refugees and asylees a year, we still wouldn’t catch up, and we’re not even allowing in a tenth of that. There are a lot of people in this world who need help, and they will find it wherever they can. If wealthy countries like the US refuse to give it or limit their assistance because of overblown fears (and there are plenty of other wealthy countries that are acting despicably too), then we will never, ever come close to dealing with this problem and we will continue to burden countries far less able to handle this with most of the responsibility. At the very least, we should be willing to do far more for our Central American neighbors in crisis, especially since we have the financial resources to do so.

I have never found anything besides a mask that worked. I hate wearing one, but after developing respiratory problems from living in a very dusty climate, it’s worth the discomfort. I do prefer the more rigid masks because they don’t touch as much of my face.

All policies about asylum benefit Central Americans more than anyone else. It’s not just DV, it’s religious persecution and ethnic violence and everything else. The US would have to shut down all asylum claims under that rationale, but you might suggest that argument to the DOJ though since that’s what they’re trying to do. And we’re not bringing them here, they are coming. That’s what asylum is, someone coming to the border and asking to stay. These aren’t refugee claims where we set a certain number of people who we allow into the US each year under certain circumstances. We have no cap on asylees and anyone can claim asylum. That doesn’t mean they’ll get it, but anyone can ask for it at the border.

I don’t, but dh does. I’m a little hard-pressed to think anyone is bragging when his most recent shirts are from Uzbekistan, Qatar, and Iraq.

Sometimes people use the term “asylum” differently than the legal definition. Under US law, a person can only claim asylum at an entry point. As for your second paragraph, I wish we would make it possible for more people to get humanitarian entry into the US. I don’t want asylum to chiefly benefit Central Americans. It’s US policy that makes it impossible for most people to get to the US to claim asylum, not my own wishes.

Current executive branch policy is trying to eliminate as many humanitarian entries as possible. Refugee admissions are way down and claiming asylum is getting much more complicated. The *only* type of humanitarian immigrant visa is for family members joining refugees/asylees who have already gained LPR status in the US. Those will naturally drop if current policies remain in place. They’re also trying to eliminate diversity visas and cut back on family-based immigrant visas, neither of which are humanitarian visas but do focus on things besides America’s financial bottom line. Do we really want the tired, the poor, and people yearning to breathe free? I think America is better because of our diversity in our immigrant visa recipients, asylees, and refugees. Current executive branch policy goes directly against what the Statue of Liberty stands for, and against what I think could actually make America great.

Again, the vast majority of DV victims in the world cannot claim asylum because they cannot get to an entry point. You can only claim asylum at the border or an entry point. No one needs to worry that we are trying to take in every DV victim. This is targeted at Central Americans, plain and simple.

This is just another way to keep people in need from availing themselves of legimitate US laws to help them. We don’t really need to worry too much about people from outside North America from flooding our borders to request asylum (which is a legitimate option that anyone can avail herself of) because it’s very hard for someone to get to a US entry point by plane without a valid nonimmigrant visa, and the US actively tries to keep anyone from getting a nonimmigrant visa who might possibly claim asylum. But it’s much harder for the US to keep asylum seekers from arriving at our land crossings, so we’ve employed a number of strategies for the last thirty or forty years to keep Central Americans from being able to get asylum. This is just the latest in that effort. The gang violence restriction is the most appalling one, but it’s hard to argue that women as a group aren’t the main targets of domestic violence. You can try to work around it like Sessions is, but the real goal is to keep Central Americans from claiming asylum by shutting down every legitimate way for them to do that. And the reason why this matters so much is because the traditional route for victims of war and violence to enter the US is supposed to be as refugees (which is an entirely different entry process), but we have made it almost completely impossible for any Central American to get refugee status in the US a matter of policy, not as a reflection of real situations in those countries. This isn’t following the law. It’s using every possible way to not allow Central Americans to use legal methods to enter the US.

Let’s do July 2nd. Thanks everyone!

We’re not going to be settled in our new place till September, so no time before then is better than another. Either date is good for me.

Any other options about the date?

Ack. This totally slipped my mind (we’re in the middle of an international move). I randomly picked Ten Women for our next book. It’s 250 pages. When shall we start the discussion for this one? June 25th? July 2nd? Something else?

For us, it’s not so much about traveling, but more about being able to take a two-year supply of shampoo when I move someplace where the shampoo selection is dicey.

Does anyone use these? They seem like a much better option for my family since we’re mobile. My biggest hesitation is soap scum. Bar soap is banned in my house because we almost always have hard water and bar soap plus hard water equals major soap scum. Do bar shampoos create soap scum in your hair and in the shower when you have hard water? (On a side note, does anyone know of a bar soap that doesn’t create soap scum?) Is it possible to wash your hair without tangling it? I have very long hair and am careful to not tangle it when I wash it, but I’m not sure that would be possible with bar shampoo. What about conditioner? I’m pretty low maintenance but I do use conditioner to make my hair easier to brush. Is there such a thing as a conditioning bar shampoo? ETA: Can you buy these at places like Target in the US?

I’m not any help because I make them the way I first had them in Jerusalem 20 years ago. I just cook them, then let everyone fill them with their choice of filling since everyone has different ideas about them. I don’t fry them so there are no explosions and I skip the syrup. This recipe is close to what I do. https://amiraspantry.com/qatayef-asafiri-ashta/

One favorite childhood memory is getting Bible sandwiches from the local health food store and then driving a few minutes to a creek to eat them. That was the Bible sandwich spot until my mom found either syringes or condoms. The store called them Bible sandwiches and they were whole wheat flatbread filled with sprouts, sunflower seeds, mayo with Spike, mozzarella, cabbage, tomatoes, and avocado. The Spike is essential. There are too many adult food memories, some delicious and some just memorable. Some of the best memories come later, when I cook something that reminds me of another country. Plov in Bishkek, torta ahogadas in Guadalajara, shivit oshi in Khiva, pancit in Riyadh, koshari in Cairo, hummus in Gaza, börek in Istanbul, spätzle in Mannheim. It’s hard for us to have consistent food traditions because I don’t always have access to the ingredients I need, so we have trends in certain places. But I do always try to make tamales for Dia de Muertos and Christmas, laghman for Nooruz, empanadas for Holy Week, Welsh cakes for Samhain, tortas ahogadas on Guadalajara Day, and qatayef during Ramadan. I like to cook lots of things, but my favorite is to figure out how to cook in a new place with the ingredients I have available.

Mexico City does have a lot of air pollution, although it’s more like a typical big city now and nothing like when it was one of the most polluted cities in the world. They have done a lot to improve the air quality. Guadalajara also has typical air pollution for a city of its size, but it’s certainly not smoky. If you’re in a small place 90 minutes from Guadalajara, it’s almost impossible that the air pollution would be bad, except in very localized areas since that’s possible anywhere in the world. If you can find out the name of the town, it’s possible that I have been there or in the area and can tell you more specifically, but I can also tell you that I never saw a place outside the cities in Mexico that had bad air quality in general. Some individual homes can have problems, or certain times of year depending on whether fields are burned. Lots of sugar cane is grown in some areas around Guadalajara and it’s typical to burn the fields. But overall, I wouldn’t worry at all. Medical faciities will depend on the size of the town you’re in, or if there is a larger place nearby. In the worst case, Guadalajara is only 90 minutes away and it sounds like the conditions you are worried about would be able to handle a 90-minute wait to get to the hospital. There would almost certainly be something much closer too that could handle an emergency. I spent several nights in a hospital while I was in Guadalajara for different reasons and had a better opinion of that hospital than any I’d dealt with in the US. The old stories about tourists in Mexico getting sick are mostly outdated now. Infrastructure has improved and a significant amount of the produce is grown for export so instead you’re buying locally what you’d be buying later at the grocery store in the US. If you are concerned, you can easily avoid riskier foods and I’m assuming you’d drink bottled water anyway. We ate plenty of good meals in tiny places around Guadalajara and never had a problem. Birria is a Jalisco specialty and is delicious. Tortas ahogadas are also from Guadalajara and shouldn’t be missed, although you’d be much less likely to find them in more rural areas. Carne ensu jugo is also really popular and easy to find. Tamales are always delicious. The fruit is amazing. We’d get cut up fruit from street stands, or buy it in the markets, or from roadside stands between cities. One of the best smoothies I ever had was with starfruit and pineapple from a roadside stand going out toward the coast. The coconuts are wonderful. I’d buy fresh green coconuts all year and just eat them. So delicious. And the mangoes are better than any other place I’ve ever lived. And the berries south of Guadalajara are quite possibly the best in the entire world. Plus there is tons of other fruit. The only prep I ever did was to wash our fruit in clean water. If you spend any time in Guadalajara, try the chicharron tacos at the stand on Vidrio and Argentina. They’re amazing. Or the tacos de carnitas de atun at Boca de Cielo with passion fruit limonada. There are lots of places to get tortas ahogadas. Truly, Mexico is an easy place to be.

I wouldn’t worry. We lived in Guadalajara for two years a few years ago and did lots of traveling in the region. We ate street food and in the fondas and never had any problems. Just go to places that have lots of people at them if you’re worried. Air quality shouldn’t be a problem, unless you happen to be staying with a family that uses wood or charcoal for cooking, but that’s not likely. I knew a number of expats with asthma and allergies in Mexico and they had no problems at all.

Both. I’ve never had a cavity but I get lots of tartar that can only be controlled with obsessive brushing and flossing. My mouth feels icky when I wake up so I brush then, plus after every meal.

Something I’ve wondered more generally is why amazon picked the books it did for these free downloads. Do you think part-time American college students would work that intensely for a dictionary?

We’re doing an international move. The stuff left a couple of weeks ago and we’ll fly to the US to visit family and get some work things taken care of in a few days. We’ll fly to our new home at the end of the summer. Our stuff probably will take another three months after that to get through customs so we’ll spend six months of this year living out of suitcases. It would take about 24 hours to drive everything from our current house to our new house if one didn’t have to worry about borders and customs (and possible terrorist attacks along one stretch of road). I am so ready to move. My current country has been by far the hardest place I’ve ever lived (and this is our 24th move, so I’ve lived a lot of places). I’m leaving with many, many regrets but no way to have avoided them.

I liked it too, in part because it was light and interesting. That’s exactly what I needed right now.