The Daily Valet. - 3/6/23, Monday
✔️ Should You Stay or Go?
Monday, March 6th Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
Good morning from Tokyo. Thanks to everyone who sent in recommendations. We're excited to be back.
Today’s Big Story
The Immigrant Paradox
SOme are going home, others are going to canada while a new group remain in limbo
For a country of immigrants, it hasn't been easy for those coming to America. Was it ever? In any case, there's now a wave of immigrants who have been leaving the United States and returning to their countries of origin in recent years—often after spending most of their lives toiling as undocumented workers. According to the New York Times, some never intended to remain in the U.S. but the cost and danger of crossing the border kept them here once they had arrived and built lives.Their departures are one of many factors that have helped keep the total number of undocumented immigrants in the country relatively stable, despite a flood of migrant apprehensions at the southern border that reached two million last year. “It's a myth that everyone comes here and nobody ever leaves,” said Robert Warren, of the Center for Migration Studies, who wrote a recent report on the trend.There has long been an ebb and flow in undocumented immigration. People leave home in response to “push factors,” such as financial duress, drought and escalating violence, as well as in response to “pull factors”—chiefly jobs and safe haven. Not just here but in Canada. In fact, a surge in illegal crossings from the U.S. has led to calls to shut down an area along the Canadian border.Of course, there are those—more than 200,000 Afghans, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians—who've arrived through a more formal humanitarian parole processes. Axios reports that the process appeared to lead to a decline in illegal border crossings, a sign of the policy helping bring a more orderly process to border migration.But while our country's patchwork immigration policies are allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to stay in the U.S. (for now), the rules could leave them in legal jeopardy in the near future. That's because the protection comes for many with an ominous two-year expiration date. The looming uncertainty faced by these people isn't all that different from DACA recipients—undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children whose protection under former President Obama's program is now in question.
Meanwhile:
Business-immigration group alarmed over DeSantis proposal to repeal in-state Florida tuition for Dreamers.
Historic Treaty to Protect the Seas
The agreement was reached after decade of talks
Nearly 200 countries have just agreed to a legally-binding “high seas treaty” to protect marine life in international waters. The area—which covers around half of the planet's surface—has long been essentially lawless.The agreement was signed late Saturday evening after two weeks of negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York, but it has been two decades in the making. According to the BBC, these new protected areas will put limits on how much fishing can take place, the routes of shipping lanes and exploration activities like deep sea mining—when minerals are taken from a sea bed 200 meters or more below the surface.Now that long-awaited treaty text has been finalized, Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, told NPR, “This is a once in a generation opportunity to protect the oceans—a major win for biodiversity.”
FYI:
Less than 10% of the world’s oceans have been mapped. We know more about outer space than about our deep ocean regions.
After a brutal few decades in which low-wage jobs proliferated and the American middle class hollowed out, the working poor have started earning more—a lot more.”
- The Atlantic on the new middle-class jobs
Is Your Airbnb Watching You?
The old privacy versus security debate continues
Look, there are plenty of reasons why someone renting out a home would have a security camera. Sadly, there are also plenty of creepy reasons for them to have the same kind of equipment present. Finding a balance, where guests can have privacy but hosts can have security, is an emerging challenge for all involved.According to Insider, some renters are venting on social media about hosts telling them to get out of the pool at a certain hour or harassing them for accidentally blocking cameras with beach equipment on their family vacation. Can you really relax if you feel like you—at this very moment—are being watched or listened to?Other hosts say they're necessary to run the rentals and sometimes even helpful for guests. Of course, as InsideHook points out: one person's acceptable level of surveillance might be a bridge too far for someone else. And it's worth noting that both Airbnb and Vrbo have guidelines regarding security cameras—and Vrbo goes as far as pointing out that devices can be deactivated if a guest isn't comfortable with them being there.
FYI:
I hate to sound like a traitor to my generation, but I'm not a big lover of Airbnb. Here's my completely personal, semi-rational and not-at-all ethical aversion to Airbnb.
Ready for the New Scout EV?
The new branD has a new factory, but they're not cranking out cars just yet
Back in May, it was announced that VW was resurrecting the beloved Scout—a one-time competitor to Ford Broncos and Jeeps that was last sold more than four decades ago—as a modern electric SUV. Now we have a little more information on when we might see the cars rolling off the assembly line.Volkswagen just announced that they'll be building the vehicles for the Scout Motors brand in South Carolina. According to Car & Driver, the EV plant will be VW's second vehicle production facility in the U.S., but it won't make anything but Scout models.Apparently, the factory is capable of producing 200,000 EVs a year, but isn't expected to begin producing an electric pickup truck and SUVs with the Scout name until sometime in 2026. So, it sounds like we've got a little while to wait.
FYI:
Hi-Consumption has a nice, detailed history of the International Harvester Scout.
In Other News
The Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act over the years.
Have you heard about ...
Your March Reading List
From cautionary tales about doing anything for money to a True account of saving our wilderness
A new month means a new reading list. Have you been reading as much in 2023 as you'd hoped to be? I'm currently finishing up one book, so I'm ready to find a new one. Thankfully, this month brings some good fiction and non-fiction options.
By: Margaret AtwoodOut: March 7
Margaret Atwood, best known for her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale is back with a new collection of short stories—her first since Stone Mattress in 2014. After a reflection on the illusion of safety, a tale of friendship in France, and an elegy for a beloved cat, Atwood offers four moving pieces about a married couple through the years.
By: Rafael FrumkinOut: March 7
Rafael Frumkin’s second novel centers on the fallout of a too-good-to-be-true health technology company that promises its consumers a lifetime of bliss via magnetic accessories. The engrossing book raises the questions: what’s the difference between the American dream and a Ponzi scheme? And is love just another form of fraud?
By: Dean KingOut: March 21
This book follows the journey of two men to the Yosemite Valley on a trip that would convince them both to turn it into a national park. Environmentalist John Muir, who famously believed nature was cleaner than humanity, brings Robert Underwood Johnson, his city-loving editor at the Century Magazine, to see his beloved wilderness. And the result changed the American landscape.
By: Joe Mungo ReedOut: March 22
An art auction house employee helps a Russian oligarch sell his prized collection. But at the same time he ends up ensnaring himself in a dangerous romance and an even more treacherous political plot in Reed’s well-reviewed book that Kirkus calls “richly textured, compulsively readable, and brilliant throughout.”
Shopping
What We’re Buying
Cushy slides
How do you make something cool even cooler? Get some help from a really stylish collaborator. For Lusso Cloud—known for their cushy house shoes with a cult following—that meant teaming up with menswear savant and friend of Valet., Josh Peskowitz. The end result? A fresh take on the best-selling Pelli slide dressed in faso dan fani ($165), a traditional textile handwoven by women in Burkina Faso. What's more, the fabric is sourced through a partnership with the Ethical Fashion Initiative.
Want more?
The five stylish items you should buy this week.
Morning Motto
Let’s just ease into the week, yeah?
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