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Trump’s return to Twitter is baffling in many respects; China escalates trade tensions.
Trump’s strange, confusing Twitter immigration saga
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- President Donald Trump broke a long Twitter silence with a string of tweets on a range of subjects late this weekend and early Monday. [Donald Trump via Twitter]
- Most notable was his renewed focus on immigration and the debate around the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has mostly faded from the congressional agenda after Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on a solution for the young unauthorized immigrants known as DREAMers. [Politico / Elana Schor and Burgess Everett]
- The president spent Easter Sunday tweeting about large “caravans” of migrants, likely referring to a Sunday Fox story about border patrol agents reacting to a group of Central American immigrants traveling through Mexico, reportedly trying to reach the US border. [NPR / Joel Rose, Carrie Kahn, and Kelsey Snell]
- Trump is at least right about the caravan; there are about 1,000 Central American migrants who are traveling out in the open in a large group to deter Mexican authorities from arresting them. Many are fleeing gang violence in countries like Honduras. [BuzzFeed / Adolfo Flores]
- But this is strategic; the group is marching together to try to raise awareness of their plight, and some will likely try to seek asylum in Mexico as well as the United States. Trump, however, characterized the group as a bunch of dangerous criminals. [ABC News / Ben Gittleson]
- As Vox’s Dara Lind wrote, Trump (again) seems to be confused about basic immigration policy. The president claimed the group could use DACA to come into the country, but these migrants wouldn’t qualify for that program. [Vox / Dara Lind]
- As usual, Trump had people to blame ... and they weren’t Republicans. He instead blamed Democrats for not getting anything done on DACA, saying “the Democrats didn’t care or act” on the issue. It’s worth pointing out that Democrats aren’t in the majority in the House or the Senate, and therefore don’t control what legislation gets to the floor for a vote. [NPR / Joel Rose, Carrie Kahn, and Kelsey Snell]
- Immigrant rights groups would very much like Congress to pass an immigration bill (albeit a lot different from the one Trump is envisioning), but the chances of that happening this year look increasingly slim. [CNBC / Jacob Pramuk]
Tariffs on tariffs on tariffs
- China isn’t taking the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on $60 billion worth of its goods lying down. [NYT / Chris Buckley]
- Late Sunday, the Chinese government announced that it would retaliate by imposing its own tariffs (some as high as 25 percent) on imports of 128 American-made products, including pork and seamless steel pipes. [NPR / Scott Neuman]
- An editorial in a newspaper published by the ruling Communist Party proclaimed that “China would never submit if the US launched a trade war,” effectively escalating the trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies. [AP via NBC / Nati Harnik]
- Now Trump has to decide whether to follow through with his expansive trade restrictions and risk harming US companies that rely on Asian markets for buyers. [Washington Post / Damian Paletta]
Miscellaneous
- Each year since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took over, the Senate has voted on fewer non-budget amendments: 140 in 2015, 57 in 2016, 19 in 2017, and six so far this year. [Politico / Burgess Everett]
- US diplomats often face an uphill battle against the State Department to secure certain forms of health care for their families. [Foreign Policy / Robbie Gramer]
- The lesser-known history of how California led the way in sterilizing Latino men and women. [Smithsonian / Nicole L. Novak and Natalie Lira]
- A new use for artificial intelligence? Preventing shark attacks. [Atlantic / Jeremy Hsu]
Verbatim
“Tomorrow we will have to go through security check points and be given clear backpacks, my school is starting to feel like a prison.” [Parkland survivor Sarah Chadwick talks about the changes to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School / Twitter]
Watch this: How a teen solved a Rubik’s Cube in 5.25 seconds
Rubik’s Cube world record holder Collin Burns tells us how he did it. [YouTube / Joss Fong, Joe Posner, and Christophe Haubursin]
Read more
Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s hardest year, and what comes next
States are starting to recognize a third gender. Here’s what that means for nonbinary youth.
Chinese space station Tiangong-1 has returned to Earth, crashing into the South Pacific
A human head transplant: reckless, ghastly, and something we need to think about.
