LyrArc Article Gist
DW.com on what international students from India or China pay at EU universities-  44000 euros in UK vs 4000 euros or less in Germany and France. For Chinese or Indian students Germany and France offer education for bachelor and masters degress that is attractively priced even at the higher prices being now set by the government. In the past Chinese students in France were able to get Masters degrees at very little cost. Germany is looking at the higher prices as a way to increase the salaries of teaching staff and professors whose salaries lag far behind the salaries in the US and other countries. For China and India no aid program is as vital for their economies and industrial development as the access the EU provides to its universities and educational system at a fraction of the real cost. Today German universities are attracting large numbers of Indian students from middle class families where the parents life goals are to get their children into European universities. American universities cost significantly more today as American bachelors and masters degree can cost upwards of 50,000 euros a year. Even local students in the US pay between $30,000 and $100,000 a year making bachelors and masters degrees no longer affordable for much of the American middle class and leaves working class parents children totally out of the universities system. One immigrant is from Cuba- Marco Rubio of Florida, now Foreign Minister of the US. He describes in his book - "Decades of Decadence How America's Spoiled Elites Blew Up Inheritance of Liberty, Security and Prosperity"- an average factory job in Florida in the seventies enabled his parents to send him to college, which he says is no longer possible for immigrants to the US today, and no longer possible for working class parents in general. For this reason Germany and France have to be commended for their generous policies towards Chinese and Indian students. Increases in the university prices in Germany and France to 4000 euros a year for international students makes a lot of sense when British universities charge about 44000 euros a year. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The $1.777 billion Anti Weaponization Fund (money for IRS activities against DJT in a settlement fund) was a bad idea says the WSJ and Todd Blanche AG was right to say, "its dead period." With the major challenges facing the president and the country -the least needed distraction. Some of these are happening daily, the challenges to meet oil needs disrupted by actions of nations in the Middle East, the challenges in setting up fairness, transparency, and level playing field in world trade proposed by Lighthizer and Jamieson shown on these Lyrarc pages to bring back American jobs and higher incomes, the infrastructure challenges still only beginning to be addressed in 2026,  rebuilding the American Navy, bringing prosperity to rural America, taking down, the drug cartels and cutting down the loss of lives to fentanyl to a tiny fraction of what was tolerated, restoring reading comprehension and literacy to America K-12 with a knowledge of American history the way Lincoln, the founders and millions of immigrants from Europe experienced it form 1860 to 1960. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Democrats continue to believe they lost in 2024 because they did not attack DJT enough. This fails to cite issues such as cost of living- surge in the third year of the Biden administration with 20% increase in prices and Biden failing to take notice and address this quickly. A wave of illegal immigration- the failure of Mayorkas, himself a Cuban immigrant in 1960, put in charge of Homeland Security and ICE, and Harris who was an attorney helping indigents in inner city San Francisco, to grasp the fears of border states and southern states. The failure to understand that the border was open and inviting waves of illegal immigrants, some with questionable backgrounds. This issue created a sense of unease in the fabric of society and American people. Other issues simply showed how Harris could not relate to the conservative people and average people in the country in the cultural aspect such as transgender, rural America. Biden pulling out suddenly, loss of rural vote- failure of Democrats since Obama to pay attention to rural voters, Harris not appealing to the white male vote in the US, are other factors that hurt Democrats. DJT gained with the shooting incident in Pennsylvania in which he survived, and the perception raised during a garbage truck and DJT photo that the Democrats derided, seen by the public as looking down on working class people. Democrats never really grasped how the political system had gone in reverse- the Republicans had put cultural aspect first and conservative now meant working class voters and white voters in rural areas/small towns, big cities, ( the Archie Bunker type of an earlier era who was now a Democrat, not the college educated and Ivy league Harvard type that had taken over the Democratic party). This continues to this day with some paradox as the business class and the billionaire class sit alongside the working class person in the Republican party DJT created. DJT did this in 2016 by pulling together workers hurt by Bush and Obama's policies favoring the educated classes and affluent, ignoring rural areas and farmers, and committing US to wars in the Middle East that squandered the Nations' resources and human lives. This was aggravated in the Biden/Harris/Mayorkas years by letting in migrants across the border by the millions that created a great deal of unease in the working classes. In this way labor unions or their rank and file left the Democratic party- a problem that plagues Democrats to this day, that Biden tried but failed to fix. The border issues had become complex by the latter part of the Biden administration because of the complete collapse of Venezuelan economy and the drug cartels in Mexico smuggling people and drugs across the border, for which the Biden administration or Harris had no answer.  It was the failure of administrations to continue the Monroe Doctrine in the form given by FDR as "Good Neigbor Policy," and JFK as the Alliance for Progress, allowing drug cartels and foreign European powers to intervene in the western hemisphere, desorying good governance in Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba and other nations in Latin America. By the second year of the DJT administration Venezuela, and the border were brought under control, and the situation in Mexico put in a new direction. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Cecilia Wang of Taiwanese parents with student visas in the 1970's calls it an 128 year American tradition, but is it really the case that it was one individual case for Chinese immigrant Wang Kim in 1998 case before the US Supreme Court where it made sense for the Court to let Wang Kim stay, just as it makes sense for someone in the country for over 10 years to stay in Britain. Birthright citizenship is something else entirely and history shows that forget birthright citizenship for Asians- for most of the 19th century and over half of the twentieth century till the 1960's American public and Congress opposed any form of immigration from Asia. It was only under John F. Kennedy who was Irish, had served in the Pacific in Asia, that the idea of giving Asians citizenship was given credibility and acceptance with the American public and in the US Congress.  Without JFK and LBJ this opening for Asian immigrants coming legally in large numbers for education would never have happened, not under Nixon-Ford-Reagan-Bush. And the modernization of Asia, of Japan, China, now India could not have happened without knowledge of new technologies in American universities gathered by these visitors who were also allowed to work and stay legally. For this reason common sense is a more valuable way to approach this. Misuse and misrepresentation would only create the feeling that Asian Americans- who have integrated into the fabric of America and whose sons and daughters have benefitted the most from the gracious invitation of JFK and LBJ- who are mostly highly educated and can draw on the best economic opportunities the Nation has to offer, want to see their own interests only, and not the Nation as a whole as it struggles to bring a improvement in the lives of the have-nots in today's society, the less educated, the low income workers often immigrants from Latin American countries, those struggling to make ends meet in this economy. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The owner of Manchester United in an interview with Sky News points out that UK had a population of 58 million in 2000 up now to 67 million in 2025, an increase of 9 million mostly from immigrants, with the burden of benefits putting a large strain on resources, and creating social divisions that detract from addressing serious economic problems and issues. 

LyrArc Article Gist
A sign of the changing policies in Europe as it reflects on too loose immigration policies that leave locals left out to bring in foreigners, France's Macron plans to establish a system of quotas for immigrant workers. A singular complaint in France's rural areas and in East Germany is that the locals feel left out as the governments focus on accomodating immigrants. Europe's post war immigrant policy was designed for Europeans and integration along the ideals of post-war Europe so policies will revert to these original principles. In doing this there is also the strategy of blocking further losses to right wing parties of parties that have called themselves centre right or centre left but inadvertently drifted away from original principles guiding postwar European reconstruction and shifted towards a tech elitist view of the world.

LyrArc Article Gist
A call for immigrant friendly policies in the Republican party in this WSJ editorial. It shows immigrants are not looking for a handout and immigration today is net zero from Mexico.

LyrArc Article Gist
Immigration rulings on questioning by ICE- Kavanuagh ruling and Sotomayor dissent plus later apology. Kavanaugh supported ICE questioning for illegal immigrants in the Supreme Court decision. Sotomayor dissented and said Kavanugh would not understand as his parents never worked by the hour. Kavanugh wrote the Opinion of the Court saying that the questioning was temporary short and if legal the immigrant was free to go about his work.

LyrArc Article Gist
Immigration is an important issue, it also is middle of the pack voting issue, says this report in the Washingon Post. Chicago Council poll shows that what matters a great deal is- economy in general (58 percent), inflation (53 percent), abortion and immigration both at 43 percent,  crime 39 percent, Ukraine 19 percent, Gaza 17 percent. This is also true for Independents at 41 percent, protecting democracy 51 percent, inflation 48 percent. A majority of Americans say about undocumented immigrants that they should be allowed to stay and 6 out of 10 say immigrants from other cultures have "a positive effect" and interestingly 7 out of 10 of all Americans say "immigrants mostly take jobs that nobody wants."

LyrArc Article Gist
Anti Immigration sentiment is not new - it has just changed racial stereotypes from arguing against southern and eastern Europeans and barring Asians for "quality" in 1890-1970 to today's heated debates about Latin American nationalities.  Pew Research ( and the adjoining MPI) show highly relevant US Immigration history. Pew Research shows the foreign born share of the American population is at 13.8 percent. It reached 14.8% percent by 1890,  brought down in the interwar period by 1970 to 5 percent. It has gone back up- the wave of immigration blocked from successive Acts keeping out Chinese (1882), Japanese (1924) and all Asians(1924) has changed to include Asian migration under policies of John F. Kennedy. Pew Research shows in 2022  10.6 million immigrants living in the US were born in Mexico, making up 23% of all immigrants. This is 3.2% of the US population of 335 million in 2024 according to the Census Bureau. The promise of president Harris to sign the legislation negotiated with Republicans in Congress (Senator Lankford) in March to close the Border would remove this distraction from cost of living, housing, and climate challenges. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hispanics expected to make 20% of the US electorateby 2020 up from 9% today. In California efforts to deny social services to illegal immigrants alienated Korean and Chinese voters who are mostly small business owners. Thus it creates an anti immigrant bias. Another point made here most of the Latino illegal immigrants here are related to legal immigrants so these are mothers brothers, sisters and relatives so this issue and poor treatment of these immigrants sparks protest in the minds of legal immigrants as well. As the USA demographics change how will this issue develop and play out. By 2042 the Census Bureau projections stated that the ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the US population thanks to higher birth rates and the media has focused on this and the Republican platform has according to this editorial called for walling off Mexico.

LyrArc Article Gist
A change in strategy by the Obama administration towards action against illegal immigration, by avoiding a confrontational approach. Instead anti illegal immigration efforts will now focus on the large employers of illegal immigrants such as American Apparel . Immigration and CUstoms eEnforcement or ICE has sent audit notices of hiring records to American Apparel where abot athirsd of the 5600 workers in Los Angeles are thought to be illegal immigrants. Deportation proceedings will go on as before, but the breakup of immigrant families and the trauma faced by immigrant workers that advocates of improved enforcement have spoken up against, will be avoided. About 652 companies like American Apparel will be sent notices.

LyrArc Article Gist
Declining U.S. birthrate with 63.2 births per 1000 women of childbearing age in 2011, according to the Pew Research Center. The rate declines by 23% for Mexican immigrants to the U.S. from 2007-2010 as a result of the severe economic effects of the financial crisis of 2008 on Hispanic immigrants.

LyrArc Article Gist
One Big Beautiful Act will generate $64 billion from fees and Medicaid savings. It will reduce incentives for migrants to enter the US by imposing fees on migrants entering the country for economic reasons yet using asylum laws meant only selectively for humanitarian purposes. In past American history in the 1930-1954 migrants entered the country only for agricultural activities, for the first time in 2000-2024 asylum laws intended strictly for a limited number of thousands for humanitarian reasons were being used by millions of migrants from Asia and Latin America. 

The new fees in the One Big Beautiful Act are $5000 for entering the country illegally and another $5000 for not attending a legal proceeding. The social safety net will apply only to American citizens.

LyrArc Article Gist
Polish and other Eastern European immigrants to Ireland return home from the Ireland aand the UK as the economies of the 2 countries and unemployment deteriorate and improved job prospects draw the immigrants back home. In fact share of immigrants in ireland reached a high of 155 as Ireland averaged economic growth rates of 5% for many years. Nearly half a million received the irish version ofa social security number. Polish immigrants were the highest almost two thirds followed by Lithuanians and Slovakians. Hourly wages for Eastern European immigrants are 45% less than for Irish people with the same education and experience. Now Ireland's growth has dropped to 1.2% for the last quarter. The reversal is also of the similiar magnitude. A citigroup econ9omist in Warsaw estimates that half of Polish immigrants to Western Europe will return home in the next 2 years. In the UK half of an estimated one million Eastern European immigrants have already left says London Institute for Public Policy Research in an April report. As the immigrants return the currency dynamics also help the pound has lost 40% of its value against the zloty, Poland's currency, and this makes the UK less atttractive to immigrants. Overall the EU immigration opening has helped both sides, as it has helped stabilize the Polish economy and the UK has gained from the immigrants services as it moderated wage inflation and increased domestic demand and met the demands of the economy as it was growing. Now there is a fear that too rapid an exit of immigrants would hurt demand in these economies and also overwhelm labor markets in Poland. Another noteworthy feature of this immigration wave was the low cost of airlinne tickets which has helped travel across europe and also helped European integration. One immigrant a polish mechanic says that he felt more like a commuter than a migrant, as it conly cost $150 a round trip. How are things in Poland today as they return. Very very different. EU entry has really helped Poland through foreign investment and aid from Brussels to assist the country in its catching up progress. Average monthly wages have gone up 30% with construction wages up 50%. and inflation a low of 4.4%. The difference is striking in the medieval city of Krakow in the southeast that has emerged as an information technology and outsourcing hub. where a steady stream of returning workers is helping companies hire workers to meet the new growth. German commercial truck maker MAN has finished recruting 250 mechanics for a new plant in Krakow with 40% of applications from returnig workers. And those who are returning bring fluent English skills and expertise gathered during their stay overseas, and new attitudes to work. This happened to Ireland as Irish workers returned home in the early years of its boom, they hared skills and attitudes learned abroad, according to an economist at Dublin's Economic and Social Research Institute who sees the same thing happening in Poland....

LyrArc Article Gist
A report on the Status of German Unity from the German cabinet, says the eastern part of Germany, formerly the German Democratic Republic, suffers from a declining population and could have benefitted from the addition of young people as immigrants. As it stands the area with the lowest number of refugees or immigrants is where most of the xenophobia anti-immigrant sentiment exists.  It says the eastern part of the country including cities like Dresden need to develop a more receptive culture to attract young people for economic progress.

LyrArc Article Gist
About 7 million people or 10.3% of people living in France in 2021 were immigrants, says national statistics agency INSEE. Compare that with 6.5% in 1968. About one third have acquired French citizenship. What this has done to French society is to shift sentiment away from protecting workers and families struggling with a cost of living crisis by splitting the vote of traditional parties supporting working class families. Shifting some of it to the far right anti-immigration parties that have emerged since 2010. This has added to the fracturing of society that happened from neglect of manufacturing communities across France as more manufacturing was concentrated overseas in  China. Neglect of rural areas and smaller towns, the emergence of tech hubs disconnected from the larger community across France has added to this. This is true of other European countries and a similar situation happened in the US. Denmark's prime minister is very candid about this, saying immigration of this type hurts the working class families in Denmark. Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats is the first to have clearly stated this problem and is providing a new way of protecting Danish workers and families from these social and technological changes in society from which they have no protection. President Biden in the US has also grasped clearly the dimensions and magnitude of the problems facing workers and families in the US. The problem is not limited to worker loss of income security, it affects the whole society and the public as a whole in other ways. Opportunistic politicians using anti-immigration appeals without a true commitment to democratic principles and ideas have tendencies that threaten democracy itself. This is the real danger of concentrating manufacturing in one country such as happened with China. And of neglecting rural areas and small towns. For this reason Frederiksen in Denmark, Biden in the US, and other leaders in Europe are looking for ways to send aid and industry promoting assistance to poor countries but restricting illegal immigration. This requires handling cultural issues which have further hit society with care- "with malice towards none, with charity for all," so that the focus can be kept on the real issues affecting workers and families of the cost of living crisis and a better life, better education, health care and public services for all, to improve the quality of living. It requires a new state of mindfulness from leaders in North America and Europe, as well as from allied countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Ms. Vallaud Belkacem is Education minister in the Socialist government of president Hollande in France. She grew up as a poor Moroccan immigrant in a poor neighborhood of Abbeville, in northern France. Her husband is Boris Vallaud, deputy chief of staff for president Hollande.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration's tough enforcement policy on illegal immigration. Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security secretary says she is expanding enforcement in the right way, so that immigration reform efforts can get support from voters, and give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.

LyrArc Article Gist
The WSJ shows the difficult and hard life of immigrants working at Brazilian company JBS meatpacking plants in the US in this report.

LyrArc Article Gist
Where do you place a winner of the Democratic primary in Maine, Graham Plattner, an oyster farmer who dropped out of college at George Washington University, served briefly in the Middle East wars of Bush and Obama, and had PTSD. Is he working class, middle working class or is he from a downwardly mobile professional class considering he has parents who are well educated and father a prominent lawyer in Maine? Plattner easily defeated a 3 term governor of Maine with his average working class demeanor and language. He is for universal health care, (Medicare for All) universal child care, affordable housing, affordable college. Politics in the US has been moving away from the simple divisions before 1950 created by the Industrial Revolution- the workers in factories and the owners of capital allied with the professional middle class. The few owners of capital mostly college educated allied with people from the non college educated workers in factories who are conservative in their values and beliefs and on the other side the college educated professional middle class now downwardly mobile because of the many recessions and high unemployment from frequent financial crises, with college costing $80,000 a year putting them in deep debt. There is today in the WSJ a story of a professional worker who at $194,000 a year salary is not able to payoff $15000 debt which owners of capital have set at 26% interest and is in downward spiral. Some of this comes from large college and other debt. There is says WSJ Analysis $1.25 trillion in credit card debt alone with highest delinquency rates in decades in 2026. Cost of living has only made things worse and some of this happened as Biden poured money into the economy to help people hurt by the pandemic, yet with some short run consequences with demand strong businesses including hotels, restaurants and grocery stores, auto dealers, jacking up their prices by over 20% in 1 year and Biden failing to respond, getting overwhelmed by open borders migrants under Mayorkas and Harris (also hit by a sudden Venezuelan migrant influx). This is the America one has today- a confusing mix. This in reality means Democrats may take issue with Democrats, Republicans take issue with Republicans, and Democrats join with Republicans on issue by issue basis. It might actually be rational than irrational. On cultural issues if the country has gone over its head and moved too fast on some issues that are not for the general public good, people of different backgrounds can come together to get the best path. On economic issues things are never so straightforward, there are unpredictable consequences and the rules of economics are really not so straightforward either.  Providing relief can mean the government shouldering the burden as during the pandemic which it should, yet with caution as businesses can use the excess demand to raise prices and one is back to square one with everybody worse off as happened with Biden. Migrant flows and fears of insecurity in public spaces can lead to a severe public "discomfort that can waylay the best intentions of a Harris or Biden, leading to public "backlash." In fact the title of a recent book is "Whiplash." Current books include Floridan Marco Rubio's "Decade's of Decadence- How our Spoiled Elites Blew America's Inheritance of Liberty, Security and Prosperity." Rubio means it. Its authentic because as Rubio says repeatedly, his parents could make a living in the 1960's working in a factory with decent wages, low cost of living and low cost of college, the arithmetic between salaries and what you needed for decent home in suburbs and sending children to good public schools, then to college, all adding up. The result is that Rubio could go to college and serve in the Florida legislature. Rubio says in 2026, after the elites under Bush and Obama and faulty economic theory shipped all of our factories to China, that the story of his parents and his education would simply be impossible. This is what he told people in India on his first visit last week. His parents were Cuban immigrants, yet he identifies with Spain and with western civilization, a devout Roman Catholic. Rubio is a Republican, and is in large contrast with Alejandro Mayorkas, also from Cuba, and Biden's Head of Homeland Security. This is the mix of people and representatives in Congress,  business people, small business owners, professionals, that we have today in 2026 in the US. Plattner and Rubio, one a Democrat and one a Republican- both have something in common. Plattner also has general disdain for "the corporate interests, the billionaires, the Washington DC elites, and the establishment politicians."  The winds are blowing in the direction of getting things right- remembering that Eisenhower continued the work of the Kennedy and LBJ administrations (Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System for instance, and LBJ gave America Social Security and Medicare). Before that Franklin Roosevelt a Democrat built on the work of his uncle Republican Theodore Roosevelt (TR gave America the idea of good governance and built the US Navy, FDR fought the Depression and stabilized a faltering economy after mistakes made by Republican Herbert Hoover could have happened even if Hoover was a Democrat. FDR was himself from a wealthy New York family and when he first met fellow New Yorker Frances Perkins before his struggle with polio, a haughty New York gentleman. That was before Frances Perkins as FDR's Labor Secretary joined forces with Roosevelt to give New York a modernized administration governance structure by 1940 that was applied to all 51 states after 1950. It allied labor with capital with fairness for all, and was the first such modern structure of this size the world had ever seen, which was the fundamental strength of the United States of America. It was imitated in Asia, first in the Shanghai region then China, and first in the Ahmedabad region and now India. The US is faced with the challenge of recreating and rebuilding this today, as first China, then India remind America of its roots which they have followed in their own style and culture.  First good governance, then good institutional structures, alligning labor and capital with fairness for all, strong affordable + accessible educational and healthcare systems, and investments of capital and labor for infrastructure + industrial development. ...