2018
August
28
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 28, 2018
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You’re probably going to hear a lot about Mollie Tibbetts in the run-up to the midterm elections. She was the missing Iowa college student who was found last week, murdered. Police have charged an unauthorized immigrant from Mexico.

Her death has reignited the debate over crime and immigration. But should it? Despite what you may have heard, immigrants who come to the United States illegally don’t increase the crime rate in the country.

A recent study of crimes in Texas by the libertarian Cato Institute shows that in 2015, there were 50 percent fewer criminal convictions of unauthorized immigrants than of native-born Americans. As a proportion of the population, there were fewer murderers or rapists among immigrants.

You might say, well, that’s just Texas. If you looked at other states you’d find unauthorized immigrants mean higher crime rates.

Actually, no.

A study published in March in the journal Criminology found that states with more unauthorized immigrants (1990-2014) tended to have a lower crime rate. In fact, as that population rose, violent crime went down.

Those facts may be of little comfort to the Tibbetts family.

But perhaps it’s why Ms. Tibbetts's dad resisted the temptation to see all immigrants as murderers. Instead, Rob Tibbetts said in his eulogy on Sunday, "The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans,” the Des Moines Register reported. Then he added with a smile, "As far as I'm concerned, they're Iowans with better food."

Now to our five selected stories, including paths to progress for workers in America, refugees from Nicaragua, and job hunters in Ohio.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Evan Vucci/AP
President Trump talked with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto from the White House by telephone as the two announced a tentative deal on trade Monday.

Say what you may about President Trump’s negotiating style, the new US-Mexico trade deal suggests a larger shift from consumers to factory workers as a priority.

How much legal jeopardy might President Trump be in after Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations? Why the answer isn’t very clear.

When is it acceptable to sacrifice the few for the survival of the many? A year after tropical storm Harvey, some residents are challenging the decision to flood their communities to save downtown Houston.

Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters
People in San José, Costa Rica, rally in support of Nicaraguan protesters, who are opposing Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, on Aug. 11, at La Democracia Square. Some 200 Nicaraguans ask for asylum in Costa Rica every day, according to the United Nations.

Activists fleeing their countries to escape violence often face a dilemma: choosing between their own safety and helping those back home. We look at some Nicaraguans who are doing both.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor
Jay Hymes (r.), who took Flying High’s welding class and is now an instructor for the nonprofit, works with a student trying to load a wire. He loves that people are depending on him now.

This next story takes us through an inspiring program in Ohio that's helping opioid addicts get clean and get a job. A quote from a former addict stuck with me: “What a lot of people don’t understand is when you get addicted, you’re searching for something.”


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Policemen walk towards the home of former Argentine President and senator Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner for a raid ordered by a judge in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 23.

Many countries can only wish for such progress. Since 2015, when Argentina elected a new reform-minded president, it has made a swift and upward advance in the Corruption Perceptions Index, a world ranking compiled by the group Transparency International. Not bad for a country whose history of kleptocracy was made famous in the 1990s by a Broadway musical and world-hit movie, “Evita.”

But don’t smile for Argentina quite yet. The country still remains below average in the global ranking. And the limited reforms started by President Mauricio Macri have only begun to stem the systemic corruption that has long burdened one of South America’s wealthiest nations.

A big breakthrough came in early August. The respected La Nacion newspaper published revelations from “notebooks” kept for years by a chauffeur for a senior official tracking illegal payments from businesspeople to top government leaders. The most powerful recipients, according to the documents, were the former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK), and her deceased predecessor and husband, Néstor Kirchner. One prosecutor claims a total of $160 million in cash was delivered between 2005 and 2015.

Authorities have arrested a number of business leaders and officials. Several of those have agreed to testify about the illegal payments in exchange for leniency. Serious corruption has long been rumored and occasionally revealed. Prosecuting such crimes has been slow because of a weak judicial system and a tolerance of a certain level of corruption.

The way in which the latest court cases unfold will help set the rules for future practices. They can help Argentina move away from crony capitalism. But just as important, the public mood is shifting, argues Laura Alonso, the head of Argentina’s national anti-corruption office. The people are “ready and hungry for a different and effective recipe for individual and national progress,” she wrote recently in the Americas Quarterly. On the other hand, CFK still retains around 30 percent support in the polls and is expected to run for president next year despite the corruption allegations, which she says are politically motivated.

With presidential and national elections set for October 2019, the Argentines have an opportunity to elect individuals committed to clean government and best-practice economic policies. So far, President Macri is taking the high road on the corruption cases, supporting thorough investigations that pursue the guilty in a transparent and equitable manner. He will be tested as elections approach, and he may feel the need to offset public unhappiness with Argentina’s struggling economy, as well as with the way he treats corruption that touches businesspeople with whom he has ties. From a political perspective, Macri stands to benefit if the investigations continue to reveal past corruption but do not put CFK into the role of a martyr before the elections.

Progress in turning the new corruption revelations into successful prosecutions and cleaner government will benefit not only Argentina. Other countries fighting the scourge of corruption might learn from its example.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

“I was in need of the harbor – the calm just beyond the breakwater, a refuge.” These words are the opening lines of today’s poem, which deals with finding God’s guidance and comfort during those moments in life when we most deeply need them.


A message of love

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Workers remove prayer notes from cracks at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on Aug. 28, ahead of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year that will be celebrated Sept. 9-11. More than a million notes annually are placed in the wall. They are collected twice during the year and buried in a religious repository on the nearby Mount of Olives.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about why the first Afghan woman to climb her nation’s highest peak reached so much more than a mountaineering milestone.

More issues

2018
August
28
Tuesday

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