U.S.-Mexican migration cooperation: obstacles and opportunities

This chapter begins by briefly reviewing theoretical issues regarding opportunities for migration cooperation. Immigration is an inherently multidimensional issue and differs from trade and other aspects of the bilateral relationship because of Mexico's unique ability to influence policy outcomes. Thus, simple asymmetric bargaining models are of limited utility for examining joint migration policy-making, and it is necessary instead to consider specific migration preferences in each country as well as the context in which migration negotiations occur. The remainder of the chapter therefore reviews the history of U.S. and Mexican preferences over migration policy, changes in the broader bilateral relationship, and the evolution of bilateral conflict and cooperation on migration policy. A final section evaluates contemporary preferences and context to identify obstacles and opportunities for migration cooperation at this time.Emigration and immigration ; Mexico

U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Trade Facilitation, Enforcement, and Security

[Excerpt] This report describes and analyzes import policy and CBP’s role in the U.S. import process. (The report does not cover CBP’s role in the U.S. export control system.) The first section of the report describes the three overarching goals of U.S. import policy and the tension among them. Second, the report provides a legislative history of customs laws, followed by an overview of the U.S. import process as it operates today. Third, the import process and CBP’s role in it are discussed. The final section highlights several policy issues that Congress may consider in its oversight role or as part of customs or trade legislation, including measures seeking to provide additional trade facilitation benefits to importers and others enrolled in “trusted trader” programs, to improve enforcement of intellectual property and trade remedy laws, to strengthen cargo scanning practices, and/or to promote modernization of customs data systems, among other issues. A list of trade-related acronyms used in the report is provided in Appendix A

Border Security: Understanding Threats at U.S. Borders

[Excerpt] The United States confronts a wide array of threats at U.S. borders, ranging from terrorists who may have weapons of mass destruction, to transnational criminals smuggling drugs or counterfeit goods, to unauthorized migrants intending to live and work in the United States. Given this diversity of threats, how may Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set border security priorities and allocate scarce enforcement resources? In general, DHS’s answer to this question is organized around risk management, a process that involves risk assessment and the allocation of resources based on a cost-benefit analysis. This report focuses on the first part of this process by identifying border threats and describing a framework for understanding risks at U.S. borders. DHS employs models to classify threats as relatively high- or low-risk for certain planning and budgeting exercises and to implement certain border security programs. Members of Congress may wish to use similar models to evaluate the costs and benefits of potential border security policies and to allocate border enforcement resources. This report discusses some of the issues involved in modeling border-related threats

The Politics of Katrina in New Orleans: A View From Ground Zero

What is New Orleans like today? What will it take to return the city to some semblance of normalcy? Stunned by the events and revelations of governmental incompetence since Katrina, we review Katrina\u27s aftermath and chime in on current policy debates about the city’s future. Our love for New Orleans may compromise our objectivity, but we find scholarly inspiration in three excellent articles in the last issue of The Forum

Acute inflammatory reactions to hemostatic materials mimicking post-operative intracranial abscess

AbstractOxidized cellulose can cause acute neurologic worsening in the immediate post-operative period. MRI often shows restricted diffusion around the surgical cavity on the first post-operative MRI. When acute clinical deterioration occurs with the typical MRI findings, the material must be removed surgically

Open Access is Broken: What Can Be Done?

The idea of “Open Access” (hereafter OA) emerged in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s with a noble goal: to provide comprehensive access to the scholarly literature for everyone around the world by making the results of scholarly research freely and immediately available online to all. After more than 20 years of OA advocacy and development, where do things stand? Has the noble goal of universal access been realized, and is the scholarly literature now accessible and open to the global community of scholars? How strong is the current OA movement and where is it headed? While significant advances have been made, to be sure, the fact is that elements of OA have taken a wrong turn somewhere, resulting in a system that is broken and has not lived up to its promise. Early OA efforts focused on the need for better access to read and reuse scholarly literature. While significant advancement has been made in this area, it has created another barrier to the free and open sharing of scholarly research–access for authors to publish their research. This is especially problematic for those without the means or support to participate in the “pay to publish” model of OA that has become dominant. There is still hope to correct this imbalance, but the scholarly community must refocus and recalibrate its efforts to get back on track

How open access is crucial to the future of science

A commentary published recently in The Journal of Wildlife Management argued that open access publication has strong negative implications for the future of science. Unfortunately, that commentary was founded in serious and deep misconceptions about the distinctions between open access, commercial, and society publications, and the rigor of peer review in open access journals. To the contrary, open access responds more appropriately than traditional closed publishing venues to the needs and participation of an increasingly global scholarly research community, and peer review by a broader community may in many cases be more rigorous, responding to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of modern research. We respectfully suggest that The Wildlife Society consider a transition from closed access to open access for The Journal of Wildlife Management, as a means of optimizing and maximizing its role in communications in the field