From Newsgroup: rec.sport.tennis

As is no doubt well known, the Trump administration introduced a much
more stringent border policy, especially to the south. It has resulted
in fewer "encounters", as indicated:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-mexico-border-illegal-crossings-june-trump-2093712

But more importantly, here on the west coast the common citizen can feel
it on the ground: I've encountered restaurants that were closed
temporarily for lack of kitchen help, and minor construction (remodels,
etc.) is also noticeably impacted. Just in my neighborhood, many leaf
blowers sit idle.

I'd surmise from this that because of the highly publicized cases where
ICE has, with minimal or non-existent legal process, shipped detainees
to the El Salvador penile colony, and threatened shipment to Uganda and
the like, the common unlawful border crosser now sees potential--and
severe and rapid--consequences, and they therefore stay put south of the border.

So I'd conclude that the common knowledge among unlawful border crossers
is that there is the possibility--perhaps even a strong
possibility--that if caught, a highly undesireable fate awaits them. And
thus they are deterred, just as B. F. Skinner has suggested would happen.

Now similarly, the US has had a fairly porous border for drug shipments
from the south, and there was a known risk among the traffickers, which
they were apparently willing to take. But it's not likely that the
former known risk included being firebombed to oblivion from the air by official US forces. This raises the risk, and again, if Skinner is to be believed, should tend to reduce the behavior in question--daylight sea
transit of drugs to the US.

It's been so long that there has been a swift, certain, and severe
consequence for violations of stated law or policy that this comes as a wake-up call for an entire generation, methinks.

We live in exciting times, don't we?
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"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

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