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IN COLLABORATION WITH
ABCDE NATIONAL WEEKLY
Decoding the redwood As threats to California’s giant trees grow, the key to survival might be in their genome
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THE FIX
Can assault weapon bans work? BY
A MBER P HILLIPS
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he No. 1 demand from many in the Parkland, Fla., community after 17 people were gunned down in a high school there is to ban the gun used in the attack. It sounds simple enough. In 1994, Congress passed a 10-year ban on these types of guns after a spate of mass shootings in schools and restaurants in which the attacker used a semiautomatic weapon. Seven states and Washington still have some kind of ban. And it appears most would agree with a ban; a new Quinnipiac University poll found two-thirds of Americans think semiautomatic assault weapons should be banned. But, as illustrated by an intense, emotional exchange during Wednesday’s CNN town hall on guns between Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Fred Guttenberg, the father of a student who was killed, there is no easy way to ban assault weapons. That’s because there’s no easy definition of what an assault weapon is, and it may be virtually impossible to ban them. But there are fairly simple ways to heavily regulate them. Lawmakers have two ways to ban assault weapons: list specific guns they think shouldn’t be legal, or list characteristics of guns that they think make them too dangerous because they fire rounds too quickly. But guns can be modified, which is why even supporters of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban acknowledge gunmakers just tweaked illegal guns to make them legal. Here’s the statement from former congresswoman Gabby Giffords’s gun-control group, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence: “The inclusion of some purely cosmetic features created a loophole that allowed manufacturers to successfully circumvent the law
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by making minor modifications to the weapons they already produced.” The Giffords Center, founded after the congresswoman was shot in 2011, says there’s a way to tighten the loophole, though not close it. Instead of requiring guns have two certain characteristics to be classified as an assault weapon, you could require that guns have just one. That’s what New York and California
MICHAEL LAUGHLIN/POOL/REUTERS
Fred Guttenberg, father of a shooting victim, confronts Sen. Marco Rubio about gun laws.
have done. “A one-feature test captures more assault weapons and makes it harder for the gun industry to evade the law by slightly modifying banned weapons,” the Giffords Center says. To which opponents of the ban say: We can still find a way around that. As long as you classify guns by how they look, we can simply change certain parts. When writer J.D. Tucille visited a New York gun shop in 2014, the owner explained how he sells guns that get around a state ban. “It’s basically still a semiautomatic rifle,” he said, holding a modified assault rifle legal in New York. "The law was basically written by people who don’t know anything about guns.” Rubio has clearly heard that argument be-
This publication was prepared by editors at The Washington Post for printing and distribution by our partner publications across the country. All articles and columns have previously appeared in The Post or on washingtonpost.com and have been edited to fit this format. For questions or comments regarding content, please e-mail weekly@washpost.com. If you have a question about printing quality, wish to subscribe, or would like to place a hold on delivery, please contact your local newspaper’s circulation department. © 2018 The Washington Post / Year 4, No. 20
fore. Here’s what he told Guttenberg: “In New York, they have passed that ban. And you know what they’ve done to get right around it? It took them 15 seconds to do it. They simply take the plastic tip off of it. They just take the plastic grip off of the front or the back … [of ] the same gun, and it becomes legal, performs the exact same way.” Here’s where the heated part of Rubio and Guttenberg’s exchange comes in. Guttenberg asked Rubio about banning at least some guns. “It’s a place to start,” Guttenberg said. David Chipman, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and an adviser to the Giffords Center, says that’s the right way to think about assault weapons: They may not be able to be banned, but they can be heavily regulated. And more regulation could mean fewer of these deadly weapons in the hands of killers. “I think there are people trying to shoot other people all the time,” he said, “but the outcomes are different depending on the weapon used.” To which opponents say: Would-be killers will find a way. Connecticut has a ban on semiautomatic weapons, but the attacker in the 2012 massacre at a Sandy Hook, Conn., elementary school used a legal version of a semiautomatic weapon to kill 26 at the school. So the debate about banning assault weapons — as all complex debates often do — comes down to a degree of scale. Is it worth taking some deadly assault weapons off the street if you can’t take all of them off? The data is mixed. Studies have shown that assault weapon bans have meant communities have fewer assault weapons; other studies have shown that banning them hasn’t significantly reduced violence because they are used in 1 to 2 percent of attacks. n
© The Washington Post
ON THE COVER Fog settles on a forest, which includes coast redwoods, in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park in Felton, Calif., in January. Photograph by CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN, The Washington Post
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POLITICS
Online conspiracies tough to contain BY C RAIG T IMBERG, E LIZABETH D WOSKIN, A BBY O HLHEISER AND A NDREW B A T RAN
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avid Hogg, 17, went from Florida high school student to mass shooting survivor to telegenic advocate for gun-control laws in a few days. And just as quickly, online conspiracy theorists began spinning viral lies attacking the teenager’s credibility. By Wednesday — a week after a gunman wielding a semiautomatic rifle killed 17 people at Hogg’s Parkland, Fla., school — online media sites including YouTube swelled with false allegations that Hogg was secretly a “crisis actor” playing the part of a grieving student in local and national television news reports. Hogg was not the only one targeted by an online campaign that flared up on anonymous forums such as 4chan and Reddit before it reached conservative websites, Twitter, Facebook and Google’s video platform. Collectively the posts questioned the honesty and credibility of the grieving students as they spoke out against gun violence and in some cases publicly challenged President Trump, the National Rifle Association and lawmakers opposed to gun control. “It’s annoying. I hate it. But it’s part of American democracy,” Hogg said in a phone interview. “Am I an actor? No. Am I a witness? Yes.” The falsehoods about Parkland students come even after the technology giants have tried to tamp down on disinformation campaigns by hiring thousands of moderators, changing the algorithms that surface information and enacting stricter policies. The Parkland flare-up underscores how efforts to quell the spread of such online conspiracies remain incomplete on platforms that derive profits by attracting eyeballs en masse. The incident has also highlighted how nobody — even a group of teens just days removed from seeing their fellow students gunned down — is off limits in the noholds-barred world of online commentary, with its often-toxic mix
JONATHAN DRAKE/REUTERS
Grieving students who survived Florida shooting are latest target of rumor, innuendo and unrefuted accusation. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., was among the many people who “liked” a tweet criticizing Hogg. On YouTube, a video featuring one conspiracy theory reached the top of the service’s “Trending” clips list and was viewed more than 200,000 times before the company admitted that its filtering of news had not functioned as intended and it blocked
the video. A search for Hogg’s name on YouTube on Wednesday turned up eight conspiracy videos and only two legitimate news reports in a top-10 listing before YouTube intervened. The conspiracy theories about Hogg grew from a combination of facts and falsehoods, mixed together with authentic photos and videos collected online, making it more difficult for the algorithms on social media platforms to de-
David Hogg, 17, speaks at a rally last weekend in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Responding to allegations that he is a “crisis actor,” the high school student said: “Am I an actor? No. Am I a witness? Yes.”
tect false information. Mike Cernovich, a far-right social media commentator who sometimes appears on the Infowars conspiracy site, said it’s possible to concoct a video in as little as 20 minutes that splices together images and text to create an alternative narrative capable of spreading rapidly on social media. Postings skeptical of the news reports about the Parkland shooting began appearing on 4chan just
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MARK WALLHEISER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
hours after a gunman, who police said was a former student, rampaged through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. Online talk of a “false flag” attack — essentially a fake in which the real culprit is trying to frame somebody else — started soon after the Parkland survivors started speaking on television and social media about the horror of the shooting and demanding government action to prevent yet another one. Hogg became the target of some of the conspiracy stories after he mentioned in one interview that his father was a retired FBI agent, allowing the online narrative to merge with ongoing attacks against the bureau. The FBI has been under fire from conservatives over its investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign, and President Trump has blamed the Parkland shooting on the FBI’s failure to follow up on a tip about the suspect. The conservative website Gate-
way Pundit on Monday posted a picture of Hogg under the headline: “EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On AntiTrump Lines.” Posts alleging that the Parkland students were “crisis actors” began at about the same time. Such allegations are a mainstay of conspiracy reports about mass shootings, with some gun rights activists claiming that those favoring stricter gun laws hire actors to pretend to be victims of phony attacks. “You have the same three or four tropes that get floated again and again,” said Whitney Phillips, a Mercer University professor who studies the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture. “Its hard to know what is causing it. But as a person who has been studying this a lot, I brace myself for the narrative that I know is about to unfold” each time a shooting occurs. In October, YouTube said it would change its algo-
rithm to elevate authoritative news sources after hoaxes quickly dominated the site after the Las Vegas shooting. Google, which owns YouTube, said in a statement Wednesday that it had removed several videos related to Hogg for violating company policy on harassment. “We recognize the challenging issues presented by hoax videos and the pain they can cause the families who have suffered these incredibly tragic losses.” The recommendation engine on YouTube, with has 1.5 billion monthly users, features a list of links that plays automatically when a person clicks on them. Such recommendations are the way the most YouTube users find and discover content. Guillaume Chaslot, a former YouTube engineer who worked on the recommendation algorithm, says YouTube recommends conspiracy theories with abnormal frequency, in part because its algorithm favors links that encourage people to watch longer.
Protesters call for action against gun violence Wednesday at the state Capitol in Tallahassee. A week earlier, 17 people were killed at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
“Since the algorithm is optimizing for watch-time, it figures that recommending conspiracy theories is efficient.” Guillaume Chaslot, a former YouTube engineer
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“People who distrust other media tend to spend more time on YouTube,” he said. “Since the algorithm is optimizing for watch-time, it figures that recommending conspiracy theories is efficient.” A post on Facebook featuring a photo of Hogg and claiming that the Parkland students were actors also was shared more than 100,000 times before Facebook later deleted it for violating its policies. “Images that attack the victims of last week’s tragedy in Florida are abhorrent,” said Mary deBree, head of content policy for Facebook. Conspiracy theories around “crisis actors” — feigning grief and working to build support for tougher gun laws — start with a premise that the event never occurred, according to Kate Starbird, a University of Washington professor who runs a lab that tracks the spread of online rumors after disasters. Starbird said her lab has documented both domestic sites and some tied to foreign governments in Russia and Iran amplifying the narratives, including after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016. “The goal seems to be to want to undermine the collective response to tragedy,” she said. They hark back to “a high-level narrative, which is the media is lying . . . and you can’t trust anything you see.” Hogg’s mother, Rebecca Boldrick, an elementary school teacher, scoffed at the conspiracy theories growing online about her son and other Parkland students. She said her husband, a Republican, worked for the FBI as an agent at airports in Los Angeles and Florida before retiring from the bureau in October 2016. Kevin Hogg, 51, left the FBI because he had been diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease several years earlier, Boldrick said. The family has not previously revealed this fact publicly because her husband is embarrassed, she said. The wild allegations online have also taken on a more dangerous tone, she said. Boldrick said her family has received death threats online. “I’m under so much stress,” she said describing her state a week after the shooting. “I’m angry and exhausted. Angry, exhausted and extremely proud.” n ©The Washington Post
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NATION
In Idaho, faith healing under fire C ARISSA W OLF Boise, Idaho
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s Willie Hughes walked around the weathered plots and mounds of dirt at Peaceful Valley Cemetery, he remembered family that died too young and his brother Steven, who was born with spina bifida. Steven never saw a doctor or physical therapist or used a wheelchair. He crawled around on his forearms and died of pneumonia at age 3. “I remember his was the first body that I saw and touched. It was traumatic for a 4½-year-old to see his little brother in a coffin. I can’t tell you how many dead bodies I’ve seen,” said Hughes, a Boise truck driver who grew up in the Followers of Christ church. Nearly one-third of the roughly 600 gravesites in Peaceful Valley Cemetery belong to a child, advocates say. Spotty records make it difficult to identify how and why the children died before their burial at the graveyard used by the Followers of Christ, a splinter sect that practices faith healing and believes that death and illness are the will of God. But coroner and autopsy reports gathered by advocates, and former church members’ childhood memories, tell a story of children needlessly dying from a lack of medical care. Child advocates estimate that 183 Idaho children have died because of withheld medical treatment since states across the nation enacted faith-healing exemptions in the early 1970s. They say many of those victims are buried at Peaceful Valley. “We assume that a lot of deaths can be prevented,” said Bruce Wingate, founder of Protect Idaho Kids Foundation. Wingate estimates that three to four children will die this year in Idaho if lawmakers fail to lift the state’s faith-healing exemptions. “Because this happens over time, people don’t get shocked. But 183 kids is outrageous,” Wingate said. To make his point, he built 183 pint-size coffins. On Monday, dozens of children’s advocates carried the pine boxes
DAVID CAHN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Child advocates decry medical-care exemptions that they say have led to preventable deaths through the streets of Boise to the Idaho Statehouse in a rally that unfolded as part protest and part funeral procession. Marchers urged lawmakers to repeal Idaho’s faith-healing exemptions so parents could no longer deny their children medical care under the shield of religious freedom. “No child should die as a result of neglect of any kind,” said Roger Sherman, executive director of the Idaho Children’s Trust Fund. “Idaho policymakers have chosen to ignore this aspect of medical neglect. The most vulnerable members of society needed the protection of adults in society,” Sherman said amid a crowd of marchers carrying the coffins. More children die of faith-based medical neglect in Idaho than any other state, according to Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, a nonprofit organization that tracks medical neglect and lobbies to repeal religious medical-care exemptions. The organization’s retired president, Rita Swan, points
to the gravesites at Peaceful Valley as evidence. More than 200 of those sites belong to children, and many of their deaths could have been prevented, she said, citing data from gravestones, coroner reports, obituaries and statements from family members. Many of the gravesites at Peaceful Valley remain unmarked, however, concealing information about the lives and deaths of those buried there. Linda Martin, a former church member and retired Lane County barber, said Followers of Christ members eschew birth control, normally give birth at home and frequently forgo prenatal care. They often home-school children and go without birth certificates, making efforts to track faithhealing deaths difficult, she said. The culture and rituals of the church compound the problem, said Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue. He said Followers have not always alerted authorities after a death. When deputies are
Willie Hughes, whose brother had never seen a doctor despite being sick and dying at age 3, visits Peaceful Valley Cemetery in Boise, Idaho, where about a third of the 600 gravesites belong to children. Spotty records make it difficult to identify why they died.
called, they often find bodies moved, washed and redressed and dozens of church members milling about the house of the deceased, he said. “You can start to imagine how difficult it is for law enforcement,” Donahue said. The Washington Post contacted several members of the church for comment. None responded. In Idaho and more than half the other states, some kind of religious exemption allows parents to withhold medical treatment from a child. Sixteen states have no religious exemption, according to a 2016 Pew report. Efforts to repeal faith-exemption laws across the nation pitted parental rights and religious freedom against children’s welfare. After decades of lobbying state lawmakers across the country, child advocates succeeded in overturning only a handful of exemptions in states including Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon and Tennessee, Swan said. “Many of these changes don’t happen without a ghastly death,” she said. Martin said that after Oregon removed spiritual healing as a defense in 2011, some Followers of Christ members moved to Idaho. That same year, Oregon prosecutors charged and convicted one couple of first-degree criminal mistreatment after they failed to provide medical care for their son. In 2011, another couple received a six-year prison sentence for manslaughter after not getting medical care for their premature son. And last year, an Oregon couple faced charges after prosecutors alleged that the parents failed to seek care for their infant daughter who stopped breathing and died hours after birth. A 2015 Idaho governor’s task force report pointed to at least two preventable deaths because of faith healing in 2012. One child died of gastrointestinal illness, another from diabetes. The panel recommended a review of the law. But child advocates said those recommendations fell on deaf ears. n ©The Washington Post
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The path of a long-lost Declaration Copy of historical document was hidden during the Civil War, then tossed in a box for years
BY
M ICHAEL E . R UANE
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uring the Civil War, the precious document was hidden behind wallpaper in a home in Virginia to keep Union soldiers from finding it. Later, it sat in a closet in Kentucky, in a broken frame, unappreciated and stored in a cardboard box. And later still it was stuck behind a cabinet in the office of an energy executive outside Houston. It was a rare parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence, made in Washington in the 1820s for founding father James Madison, and apparently unknown to the public for more than a century. Now, the copy, one of 51 that scholars are aware of, has resurfaced via its purchase last month by billionaire philanthropist David M. Rubenstein. It is one of the exquisite facsimiles made from the original handwritten calfskin document crafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. Scholars say it bears the image of the Declaration that most people know, in part because the original is now so badly faded. “This is the closest … to the original Declaration, the way it looked when it was signed in August of 1776,” said Seth Kaller, a New York rare-document appraiser who assisted in the sale. “Without these … copies you wouldn’t even know what the original looked liked.” Two hundred of the facsimiles were ordered by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, a future president, who was concerned about the already worn condition of the 40-year-old original. Master engraver William Stone made the copies in his shop on Pennsylvania Avenue and created an extra one for himself. In 1824, the facsimiles were distributed to Congress, the White House, and various VIPs like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Madison. Each man got two copies. In time, both of Madison’s copies vanished from view, and it is only now that one has surfaced, Kaller said in a recent interview. “There was no idea that it had survived,” he said.
HANDOUT
This copy of the Declaration of Independence was made by an engraver in Washington and given to James Madison.
The fate of the second Madison copy, and more than 100 of the others, is not publicly known, he said. When the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, it sent a working manuscript, also now lost, to a local printer to set in type. The printer produced several hundred printed copies for Congress and other officials the next day, Kaller wrote in a historical pamphlet. On July 19, Congress ordered a handwritten, or “engrossed,” copy made on calfskin, to be signed by the members. The job went to Timothy Matlack, a congressional aide who was known for his penmanship. This hallowed version now resides in the National Archives, so washed out that many signatures, including Thomas Jefferson’s, are either gone or barely visible. It is largely through the foresight of John Quincy Adams that excellent copies of the original — exact except for a few interesting tweaks — survive today. Kaller wrote that by 1820, the
original had been handled, rolled, unrolled and marred by the efforts of earlier engravers to make decorative copies. “Every one of the worst things that could have happened to the original” had happened, he said. John Quincy Adams gave it to Stone, and the engraver worked on copying it for about two years. Kaller said he believes that Stone probably first traced the original with tracing paper. He then used the tracing to handengrave an image of the Declaration on a copper plate, from which the facsimiles were then made. But Stone may have made some minute textual changes, possibly to distinguish his copies from the original, Kaller wrote. The ornate “T” in the “The” of the “The unanimous Declaration …” seems to have been slightly altered. In the Stone copies, a decorative diagonal line runs through the T. The line does not appear to be in the original. In the original, there seems to be a heart-shaped flourish where the T is crossed that’s omitted in the Stone copy. And Stone added a tiny imprint
across the top of the page,“ENGRAVED by W.I. STONE, for the Dept. of State, by order of J.Q. ADAMS, Sect. of State, July 4th. 1823.” Before the newly resurfaced copy was found, it had been kept in a cracked frame, wrapped up inside a cardboard box in Michael O’Mara’s office outside Houston. It had been there for 10 years, and before that it had been in his parents’ house in Louisville when he was growing up. His family had once had it framed and put on the mantelpiece. His parents knew it had been passed down through his family from Madison. But in the 1960s it was considered “worthless,” O’Mara said. When the frame cracked, the document was taken down and stored in a bedroom closet. “So for … 35 years, it sat in a box, wrapped up, in a broken frame, in my mother’s house,” he said in a recent interview. “There was just not a lot of sentiment or value put on it. … My mother couldn’t have cared less about the family history.” The Declaration had been handed down to O’Mara’s mother, Helen, who was the great-granddaughter of Col. Robert Lewis Madison Jr., a Civil War doctor who had served in the Confederate army and treated Robert E. Lee in the last years of Lee’s life. Research indicates that the physician had gotten the document from his father, Robert Lewis Madison Sr. Madison Sr. was James Madison’s favorite nephew, and had lived for a time in the White House when his uncle was president. He had probably received the document from his uncle. Thus, the copy of the nation’s founding declaration had passed through turbulent years of the country’s evolution, including the war that almost destroyed the document’s “united States of America.” Rubenstein said he now owns five of the William Stone Declaration copies. Four have been lent out for display. This copy will be, too, he said, first to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. n ©The Washington Post
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Science takes on a tall task
T BY SCOTT WILSON in San Vicente Redwoods, Calif.
he road from Highway 1 rises along the western slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains, through vineyards and horse farms, to the steepening Empire Grade. A dirt-road turnoff dips into a dank twilight, sun filtering through stands of trees that John Steinbeck called “ambassadors from another time.” The coast redwoods, ancient and threatened, mix with towering Douglas firs and opportunistic tanoaks throughout this restoration project on a mountaintop just miles from the sea. The redwoods here are youthful, none probably more than a century and a half old. The massive stumps of their old-growth ancestors are encircled by the young, clusters known as “fairy rings.” As California’s climate changes to one of extremes and humans continue to harvest, the only coast redwoods on the planet are in peril. The challenge to preserving them is here, in forests like this one — and so, scientists believe, is the key to a solution. For the first time, scientists are mapping the coast redwood’s genome, a genetic code 12 continues on next page
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times larger than that of a human being. By the end of the year, scientists hope to have mapped the complete genome of the coast redwood and of the giant sequoia, a close cousin that also is among the tallest trees in the world, some reaching hundreds of feet high. The genetic code of a single 1,300-year-old redwood from a stand just north of here and of a same-age sequoia will serve as baselines and the first step in better understanding how to make these forests more genetically diverse as a defense against rising man-made threats. When the three-year project is complete, scientists will have the genetic fingerprints of hundreds of redwoods, a sample large enough to determine which trees have the characteristics to best withstand increased moisture or drought, heat increases or temperature drops. The results will be available as an open online resource, a shared tool for those managing the forests. “We’re trying to apply basic science to the basic decisions we’re making on the ground,” said Emily Burns, director of science for the century-old nonprofit group Save the Redwoods League, which is paying for the $2.6 million project through private donations. “What we see around us is the result of environment and genetics. Until now, we’ve been making decisions based only on environment.” Since the mid-19th-century gold rush showcased the extent of California’s natural wealth, redwood timber has been prized by home builders and furniture makers for its quality and color. The trees’ harvesting accelerated around the turn of the last century, when new rail lines quickened the pace of the international lumber trade. Old-growth redwood forests once extended from the now-arid northern edge of Southern California to the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. Just 5 percent of the redwoods that stood before 1849 are still alive, and the tree’s footprint has shrunk by one-third. About 1.6 million acres of redwoods remain — an area roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined — and about a quarter of that is protected. Erratic weather patterns have raised the risk to the trees, including changes in the frequency of fog, from which redwoods absorb the moisture at their crowns. Coastal erosion from rising sea levels brings a future threat. “We don’t know how the climate is going to change nor much about what effect those changes will have on these trees,” Burns said. The best defense against the unknown is to make stands such as this one in the lush Santa Cruz Mountains more resilient. The best way to accomplish that is to ensure that these forests are genetically diverse. Knowing a tree’s genetic makeup, and how those traits fit into a larger stand of trees, will allow Burns and Richard Campbell, the league’s forestry program manager, to trust the choices they make in protecting and restoring redwood forests.
PHOTOS BY CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
“It’s going to be like speaking a new language,” said Burns, 37, who grew up in a redwood house north of San Francisco and, for her doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley, studied the effects of climate on the coastal redwood forests. Restoration work in “second growth” redwood forests — those that have been harvested at least once before — is sometimes counterintuitive. As the forests reemerge, they do so in ways that often stifle growth, as young trees compete for root and branch space. The “fairy rings” around the old-growth stumps, while signs of vitality, also routinely need to be cut back to allow the most promising trees to thrive. Which trees should be felled and which kept is largely guesswork based, in this case, on Campbell’s experience, including his time as the director of Yale University’s research and
At top, Richard Campbell, forestry program manager for Save the Redwoods League, and Emily Burns, director of science for the league, examine redwoods in San Vicente Redwoods last month near Santa Cruz, Calif. Above, Burns holds a redwood cone, and Campbell shows a map of redwoods in the area.
demonstration forests in New England. “Thinning works,” Campbell said. “It’s about choosing the trees we want to see carry into the future. Knowing the genetics will make sure that I don’t screw that choice up.” The redwood genome project began in April 2017, when a sample was taken from an old-growth redwood in Butano State Park, about an hour’s drive north in San Mateo County. The tree’s exact location is kept secret to prevent overzealous tourism. Two labs — one at the University of California at Davis, the other at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore — began work on identifying the tree’s genetic makeup. The science is complex and time-consuming. A human has 3 billion “base pairs” of DNA on its chromosomes; a redwood has 38 billion. The lead scientist is David Neale, a professor of population biology and plant sciences at
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UC-Davis who has spent 40 years in the field developing and refining the technology being used in this project. While examining the initial redwood sample, Neale and his team have gathered genetic material from 10 other old-growth redwoods across a variety of climates and altitudes. This is the second stage of the project: expanding the genetic library available to forest managers. “It begins to give you an estimate of the kind of genetic variation that can be found in specific stands of these trees,” he said, describing how the information will be used in terms similar to how genetic material is applied in human health care. “Once the patient is determined to be at some genetic risk, you apply treatment and prescribe medicine.” The redwood’s genetic code can only be “read” in Neale’s lab 150 letters at a time (each
piece of genetic information is assigned a letter). At Steven Salzberg’s lab at Johns Hopkins, a more expensive process can read strings of up to 10,000 letters. Salzberg is a professor of biomedical engineering, computer science and biostatistics. Like Neale, he has mapped a tree’s genome before but never one the size of the redwood’s. The identification of the genome’s composition is one challenge. The sequencing and assembly — putting the various strands of letters back together in the right order — is another equally daunting one. “Imagine we took 100 copies of today’s edition of The Washington Post and shredded it so that strings of words remained intact,” Salzberg said. “The job then is to take those scraps and make a single edition of The Post.” The work is done by matching up overlapping strings of gene sequences. “The longer
At top, fog settles on a forest, which includes coast redwoods, in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park in Felton, Calif. Above left, a line of blue spray paint indicates a tree that Richard Campbell has marked to be taken down. Thinning some of the younger redwoods helps improve the health of other nearby redwoods.
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the strands, the easier to do,” he said. Salzberg has a number of questions about what he is finding, including, in his words, “Why is there no penalty for having a genome as large as the redwood’s?” The bigger the genetic code, the more can go wrong, and much of what the genome contains, Salzberg said, is unnecessary. The same is true of humans. “On a pretty routine basis, we learn about our own biology by studying the genetics of others,” he said. “I’m not saying we will in this case, but redwoods do live a fantastically long life, and it would be fascinating to discover why.” The restoration project here is gated off and patrolled, protection against off-road enthusiasts, hikers and, as Campbell put it, “the odd dope grow.” The path slopes down toward Deadman Gulch, where a trickling creek runs past old-growth stumps and new, looming redwoods, their ropy reddish bark distinguishing them from Douglas firs. The ground is spongy, thick with needles and the leathery brown tanoak leaves that Campbell fears might be keeping new trees from emerging. A heavy ground coat can suppress new growth, and it is often burned off in the natural course of a forest’s life. “The problem here has been not enough fire,” he said, aware that deadly wildfires to the north and south made last year the worst fire season in state history. Blue rings have been painted around some of the redwoods, meaning Campbell has approved them for removal. “If Richard knew that tree was genetically different in some significant way from others in this stand, he wouldn’t take it down,” Burns said, looking at one blue-ringed redwood. “Right now, we don’t know.” The air is cool, especially low in the gulch. No other tree comes close to absorbing more carbon than the redwood, making these forests invaluable in reducing greenhouse gases. “Saving them seems like a better investment than ever,” Burns said. The quiet beneath the canopy belies the life in this forest. On the 8,500-acre San Vicente Redwoods preserve, at least eight female mountain lions live with cubs. The animals have been known to make their homes in the hollowed-out stumps of the old-growth giants. The wandering salamander, a species now at risk because of a dwindling habitat, thrives on bugs living in the moss and leaves that settle into the redwoods’ high branches. Also at risk is the marbled murrelet, a sea bird that dwells high on heavy branches above the canopy, flying each day to the Pacific to hunt fish. The bird is on the protected list, and that protection extends to the redwood stands where it is found. “New redwoods are gaining a foothold here,” Burns said. “Within 100 years, we can grow really large redwoods. One aspect of this restoration is that it is possible in our lifetime.” n © The Washington Post
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BOOKS
What if there were no public schools? N ONFICTION
O THE CASE AGAINST EDUCATION Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money By Bryan Caplan Princeton. 395 pp. $29.95
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REVIEWED BY
S ARAH C ARR
ver the past two decades, a “college for all” mantra has overtaken the school reform movement, with education leaders across the country committing themselves to helping more low-income, first-generation college students make it through four-year universities. In schools across the country, teachers coat hallways with college banners, take children as young as middle school on college tours and prep even elementary-age youngsters with chants like “We get the knowledge to go to college!” Educators are motivated by studies that consistently show the economic payoff of a college degree: People with a bachelor’s degree earn 84 percent more than those with a high school diploma, according to a report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. Armed with such figures, there is indeed a compelling case to be made for expanding access to college education as a key — if not the key — component in the fight against entrenched economic inequality in the United States. Balderdash, argues Bryan Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University and a self-proclaimed libertarian. In “The Case Against Education,” he writes that “government should stop using tax dollars to fund education of any kind.” All schools — primary, secondary and university level alike — should be funded solely by fees and private charity. Pell grants, the federal subsidies that help millions of low-income students afford college, should be cut. Caplan is also the author of “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids,” in which he argues that nature matters more than nurture in child rearing — meaning parents needn’t work nearly so hard to groom their kids into model students and citizens. Caplan’s bold and provocative conclusion in “The Case Against
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Education” is based on a raft of statistics, which he presents ad nauseam throughout the book. His argument hinges on the idea that the main value of education, and particularly more-advanced degrees, comes not from helping prepare us to be better citizens, thinkers and workers but from what’s known as “educational signaling”: Education and degrees help ratify preexisting traits such as persistence, intelligence and conformity to social norms. “Conventional education mostly helps students by raising their status,” he writes. On a whole host of measures — income, job satisfaction, happiness, health — Caplan offers his own estimates for how much education matters, nearly always concluding that it’s far less beneficial than conventional wisdom, or existing research, would have us believe. For instance, when computing education’s benefits vis-a-vis health, he cites a host of reasons the effect may not be so great as
presumed. More years of education may indeed correlate to longer life expectancy, as documented in numerous studies, he writes. But perhaps that’s partly because of reverse causation: poor health impeding educational progress rather than educational progress promoting good health. In the end, he concludes with a breezy confidence that “my best guess is that the true health benefit of a year of education is somewhere between nothing and .02 steps on a four-step scale.” Caplan is more optimistic about vocational than academic education, arguing that it does more to improve high school graduation rates, raise income and reduce unemployment. Yet even improved or expanded technical training is not worth an outlay of taxpayer money. In his view, “Government should get out of the way and take stock of all the opportunities the labor market provides.” That includes reinstating child labor. For someone who chafes at Ca-
plan’s often-specious reasoning and disagrees with most of his conclusions, there is still something refreshing about the cheeky questions he raises about the role of vocational education, the value of college, and the mismatch between educational offerings and job opportunities. His intriguing line of inquiry could, in different hands, lead to a truly constructive debate — and possible reckoning. But in addition to his offering opinion under the guise of data, there are two major fallacies and dangers to Caplan’s argument, both relating to equality. First, his analysis treats education and teachers as a monolith — that is to say, pretty universally a waste of time and money. He makes significant distinctions only when it comes to subject areas, such as deriding the humanities as “Mickey Mouse” majors. With this largely macro lens, he misses an important opportunity to scrutinize the startling gaps in educational quality across states, districts, institutions, schools and teachers. He concludes that covering the cost of education for all is like covering the cost of everyone’s diamond wedding rings — a subsidy that diminishes the value of a good by making it universally accessible. As in “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids,” his argument seems to hinge on a dangerous faith in biological determinism that borders on a defense of institutionalized classism. “The Case Against Education” raises some important questions, but beyond that it offers little more than dangerous, extravagant ideology masking as creative data analysis. n Carr is the editor of the Teacher Project, an education reporting fellowship at Columbia Journalism School and the author of “Hope Against Hope,” which tells the story of New Orleans schools. This was written for The Washington Post.
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BOOKS
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Muslim sleuth sees plight of refugees
Science confronts our mortification
F ICTION
NONFICTION l REVIEWED BY ELLEN M C C ARTHY
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REVIEWED BY
M AUREEN C ORRIGAN
hat is the purpose of detective fiction? For Ausma Zehanat Khan, it’s a perfect tool for getting us to see — really see — problems that are right before our eyes: humanitarian crises and war crimes, for instance. Khan, a former immigration lawyer and editor of the now-defunct magazine Muslim Girl, has created a mystery series starring a Muslim police detective who, along with his partner, has not only confronted antiMuslim hate crimes in Canada but has also roamed farther afield to ravaged places like Sarajevo, Iraq and Syria to look at evils the world would rather forget. “A Dangerous Crossing” is the fifth novel in the series, and it tackles a timely subject: the plight of Syrian refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 5 million Syrians have been driven from their country or displaced internally since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011. Khan’s mystery opens in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos (pronounced as “Lesbos”). Audrey Clare is a case worker from Canada who is helping resettle refugees through a nongovernmental organization (NGO) she runs. Audrey is on the beach at night with other volunteers scanning the waves for overburdened boats carrying their desperate human cargo of refugees. She tells a young man named Ali that she’s returning to the headquarters of her NGO (a tent in the refugee camp) to meet an Interpol agent who wants to talk to them both. When Audrey leaves the beach, Ali gets delayed. When he finally makes his way back to the tent, he hears gunshots. He rushes inside to find the bodies of that Interpol agent and a male refugee. The murder weapon is Audrey’s gun; Audrey has vanished. Cut to Ottawa, where Inspector Esa Khattak and his partner, Sgt. Rachel Getty, are attending an official reception. At the end of the
evening, they will be asked by Audrey’s brother, Nathan Clare, to find her and solve the murders. Nathan is a wealthy Canadian philanthropist who helped bankroll her NGO. Understandably, Nathan is worried about his sister, but her disappearance and the murders also could have a political impact: They could undermine the young prime minister’s controversial efforts to fast-track refugee resettlement in Canada. The fact that Nathan Clare is Khattak’s oldest friend, as well as the object of Getty’s romantic longings, adds even more urgency to the case. Overwhelmed? I was, too. The personal histories of Khan’s characters are so enmeshed that tracing back their connections is like trying to untangle a hair ball. We learn, for instance, that Khattak’s physician sister, Ruksh, runs a clinic for Syrian arrivals to Canada that partners with Audrey’s NGO. Meanwhile, Khattak’s late wife’s best friend, a lawyer named Sehr Ghilzai, enters the fray because she handles refugee claims for Audrey’s NGO. Sehr also has the hots for Khattak and is jealous of his easy rapport with Getty. Khan’s mystery has set a new gold standard for backstory complications. The obscuring effect of all this cryptic personal detail is regrettable, because when Khan concentrates on the suspense plot, she spins an exciting story that enlightens as much as it entertains. “A Dangerous Crossing” urges readers to consider not only the obvious natural hazards faced by Syrian refugees but also the evils perpetrated by human predators who lurk in the shadows. Finding a solution to those evils may be well beyond the reach of Khan’s master detectives, but her complex tale helps us to, at the very least, see them more clearly. n Corrigan, the book critic for the NPR program Fresh Air, teaches literature at Georgetown University. This was written for The Washington Post.
T A DANGEROUS CROSSING By Ausma Zehanat Khan Minotaur. 352 pp. $25.99
CRINGEWORTHY A Theory of Awkwardness By Melissa Dahl Portfolio. 304 pp. $27
hese are the greatest words of wisdom my mother ever offered me: “No one is looking at you,
Ellen.” The first time I heard them, as I stood in front of a mirror curling my bangs again and again and again in preparation for a junior high dance, I was appalled. What do you mean no one is looking at me? Why aren’t they looking at me??? “Everyone’s too busy worrying about themselves,” she said, stepping out of the bathroom. I was none too keen on that message as a seventh-grader, but it has since become one of the most comforting refrains of my life. Will it seem weird if I transfer to a new college after only one semester? Eh, no one’s looking at me. Are these pants a little too tight in the thighs? Good thing no one’s looking at me. Is my career stacking up to those of my colleagues? Oh, that’s right! No one’s looking at me. Hurrah! They are, of course, but not intensely and never for long. Everyone’s too busy worrying about themselves. I was so happy to see my mom’s insight backed up by science in Melissa Dahl’s fascinating new book, “Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness.” Dahl, a senior editor at New York Magazine, has done the good work of taking a serious look at one of our most common, least-understood human experiences: embarrassment. And the author is, thankfully, generous in sharing her own flashes of hot mortification — like the time she walked out of an office bathroom with her skirt tucked into her stockings. “To me,” Dahl writes, “awkwardness is self-consciousness tinged with uncertainty, in moments both trivial and serious.” “Cringeworthy” explores the scientific literature that helps explain embarrassment — and why we feel it so acutely — and
offers practical suggestions on how to coexist with the emotion more peacefully. (In the hopes that we won’t suffer so much from flashbacks of our own skirtin-stockings scenarios.) Dahl tracked down a scientific name for the dynamic my mom was describing. It’s the “spotlight effect,” and Dahl defines it as “our tendency to overestimate how closely others are noticing what we do or how we look.” Dahl interviews researchers who conducted experiments showing that people really do scrutinize us less than we fear. So perhaps it’s not worth it to keep rerunning the mental footage of yourself tripping on the sidewalk this morning. Everyone else has already forgotten it. “Fewer people are keeping track of your foibles than you imagine,” Dahl writes. And she makes a strong case that our aversion to awkwardness may be holding us back as a society. Stories from the #MeToo movement haven’t been fun for anyone, but they’re necessary and important to tell. What conversations about race, religion, gender and class are we avoiding out of fear of tripping into an uncomfortable space? Dahl writes with levity, grace and self-awareness. Her multiyear exploration of awkwardness has given her more compassion for herself and the rest of us bumbling nitwits. I do feel a little liberated by Dahl’s book. It’s a great reminder of the universal nature of awkwardness and a call to spend less time twisting the knives in our own hearts. If no one else is looking at me, perhaps I can shift my gaze, too. “Little humiliations can bring people together, if we let them,” Dahl writes. “The ridiculous in me honors the ridiculous in you.” n McCarthy is a feature writer in the Style section of The Washington Post.
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OPINIONS
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TOM TOLES
‘The worst deal ever’ — for Iran JACKSON DIEHL is deputy editorial page editor at The Washington Post.
Some of the most inspiring images of the new year — and therefore, in this age of Trump, some of the least noticed — have come from Iran. In sometimes grainy photos and videos posted on the Internet, Iranian women are seen standing atop utility boxes on busy streets, silent and alone, having taken off their mandatory head coverings and holding them up on sticks. At least 29 women have been arrested for these astounding displays of courage and defiance, which risk a prison sentence of up to 10 years. The women’s demonstrations began during a week of mass protests across Iran beginning in late December, driven not by the country’s educated elite but its working class. The discontent started with rising prices for eggs, but by the time the demonstrations ended, the slogans included “death to the dictator” and “leave Syria,” where the Revolutionary Guard Corps is squandering money and lives. No, it’s not likely that Iran is on the brink of a revolution that will overthrow a regime that has been the source of so many U.S. strategic problems. But this new season of unrest in the Persian heartland ought to change some calculations in Washington about how best to push back against Tehran’s aggressions across the Middle East — and what to think about the nuclear deal that
President Trump is threatening to tear up. What the ferment makes obvious is that the lifted sanctions and unfrozen assets that Iran obtained two years ago in exchange for curtailing its nuclear activities have not proved to be the boon to Tehran predicted by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, Iran’s senior leaders have grounds to conclude that they, and not Trump, are stuck with “the worst deal ever.” The hope of the regime was that the lifting of limits on its oil exports and the return of foreign investment would rescue an economy plagued by stagflation and dangerously high unemployment. They haven’t, in part because foreign investors continue to shy away from a country where corruption is
rampant and Western passport holders are liable to be jailed on trumped-up charges. There are economic statistics to back this up, but the best numbers come from a poll sponsored by the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies, taken just after the street protests subsided. In August 2015, after the nuclear deal was signed, 57 percent of Iranians said economic conditions in the country were getting better, which probably reflected the hopes for change. Now 58 percent say the situation is getting worse, and 69 percent say conditions are “somewhat bad” or “very bad.” Sixty-three percent blame the regime for this, almost double the number who say “foreign sanctions and pressures” are responsible. Iranians are still nationalists: More than 70 percent still favor developing missiles and a nuclear capacity. Only 16 percent told the pollsters that “Iran’s political system needs to undergo fundamental change.” Yet far fewer support the regime’s foreign adventures. Forty-two percent say “the government should spend less money in places like Syria and Iraq.” A plurality say Iran should negotiate with other countries rather than try to become a
regional hegemon. And though 75 percent say the nuclear deal has not improved living conditions, 55 percent still favor it. What this tells us is that one of the best ways to counter Iran’s interventions in Iraq, Yemen and Syria is to ally with the large bloc of Iranians who oppose them. In part that means helping Iranians find out what their government is up to; the news that it was planning to cut food subsidies while increasing spending on the Revolutionary Guard was one of the triggers of the protests. Only a tiny number of Iranians — 8 percent, according to the new poll — get information from foreign radio broadcasts, but more than 60 percent depend on the Internet or apps such as Telegram. The United States could do a lot more to help people get around the regime’s attempts to block these channels. Rather than pursue such strategies, Trump seems intent on voiding the nuclear deal, basically on the grounds that it was negotiated by President Barack Obama. The pact is far from perfect. For now, though, it has helped to open a rift between the regime and its public and created a potent new source of pressure on Tehran’s foreign adventures. If Trump kills it, expect some quiet celebrations in Tehran. n
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OPINIONS
BY LUCKOVICH FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Graham’s example is still vital JOE SCARBOROUGH is a former Republican congressman from Florida and hosts the MSNBC show “Morning Joe.” This was written for The Washington Post.
It is hard to overstate Billy Graham’s impact on American culture and the spread of Christianity across the globe. Graham, who died Wednesday at 99, preached the gospel of Christ to more souls than any other person since Jesus of Nazareth himself walked the Earth. Hundreds of millions listened to his sermons on the radio, or on television, or by streaming into coliseums, football stadiums and country churches. Whichever it was, they heard the Southern Baptist preacher deliver a simple message of faith, redemption and forgiveness. Despite his meteoric rise, despite the fact Time magazine considered him one of the most important people of the 20th century, and Gallup placed him on its “most admired” list 61 times, Graham remained a humble man. He considered himself more country preacher than groundbreaking theologian, always. That was one reason his message resonated with families like my own trying to cope with the vertiginous changes that shook the postwar world. Images of Vietnam, assassinations, riots and campus protests raced across evening newscasts, along with stories of sexual revolution and drug epidemics. Graham’s broadcasts were an oasis of stability in a world gone mad. Whether it was connecting with my family in the Deep South
or reaching the newly converted in sub-Saharan Africa, Graham took his crusades wherever people had ears to hear. More than a few Cold War hawks complained when that mission carried him to the Soviet Union seeking spiritual detente with communist leaders. But Graham ignored his critics. He believed the unbelievers of Moscow needed the gospel just as much as any Baptist in Miami or Meridian. Likewise, Graham’s ministry reached beyond the masses to some of the most prominent leaders of his time. Queen Elizabeth surprised courtwatchers when she became enamored with Graham’s preaching. His 1954-1955 “crusades” drew an audience of millions across Britain — and earned him an audience with the
BY CLAYTOONZ.COM
queen that started a friendship that lasted throughout their lives. Elizabeth bestowed an honorary knighthood upon him in 2001. Better known was Graham’s closeness with American presidents. He became friends with Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and many who followed. Jimmy Carter met him in the 1950s while working with Graham’s organization to promote integration in Georgia. Johnson spent hours with Graham fretting about his personal salvation. George W. Bush credited the evangelical giant for his own conversion. Graham counseled these flawed men regardless of the policies they pursued or the parties they led. Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Jon Meacham explained to me Wednesday how a few minutes in Graham’s company revealed why the powerful sought his guidance. “He had a remarkably reassuring pastoral presence,” Meacham said. “Two minutes after meeting him, I realized why presidents in the maelstrom of power would want him around.” Still, there was a cost in this for Graham. Like many close to Nixon, his reputation was damaged after Watergate. When the Nixon tapes were released,
Graham was shocked by the president’s crude language and obvious guilt. Many Americans were stunned to hear Graham express anti-Semitic sentiments. Though he apologized, the episode remains the darkest blot on his legacy. But Graham was also a positive voice for civil rights, promoting integration and personally removing racial barriers erected by event organizers. He used his influence to encourage Eisenhower to send troops to Little Rock so black students could peacefully enter segregated schools. Later, Graham would be attacked by fundamentalists for the respect he showed other faiths. In its obituary, Politico noted author Bruce Bawer’s observation that “fundamentalists despise Graham as a sellout for affirming the value of the Catholic and Jewish faith.” That reaction is emblematic of a lack of grace in today’s evangelical church. Graham’s death leaves a void in a movement already shaken by the moral decline of its most prominent leaders. One can only hope that the great preacher’s passing will cause some in that community of faith to reexamine their priorities. Taking a closer look at Graham’s example would be a good start. n
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FIVE MYTHS
‘Chain migration’ BY
D AVID B IER
President Trump has said an end to “chain migration” is one of the musthave elements of any immigration deal. The demand may have upset an agreement this month, as the Senate overwhelmingly voted down his plan. If we are to debate the right policy on chain migra tion, we should first understand what the debate is about. And right now, various myths are muddling the contentious conversation. MYTH NO. 1 ‘Chain migration’ is an offensive term for ‘family reunification.’ It was academics John and Leatrice MacDonald who popularized the term in the early 1960s to describe immigrants who follow earlier immigrants, just as links follow one another in a chain. Some liberal groups insist that “family reunification” is the only proper term. But the chain metaphor is more descriptive, referring to a specific type of family reunification. Trump confuses the issue further by using “chain” to refer to all family-sponsored immigrants except spouses and minor children. Yet many U.S. citizens with foreign-born spouses are themselves immigrants who received citizenship through naturalization, and all foreignborn spouses and minor children of permanent residents are chain migrants. On the flip side, he labels all parents, siblings and adult children of citizens as “chain migrants,” even though many of the citizens were born here. MYTH NO. 2 Chain migration is a liberal policy. The flow of immigrants from Europe had dropped from nearly two-thirds of all legal immigration to just one-third between 1946 and 1965, and it was conservatives who pushed for the family-sponsored system created by a 1965 law, believing it would reverse that trend. This prediction turned out to be incorrect. The pre-1965 trend
continued unabated, and by 1985, just 1 legal immigrant in 10 arrived from Europe. As Europeans became wealthier, fewer wanted to relocate, while other nationalities continued to find ways into the familysponsored system — first through marriage and later through other relations. Nonetheless, the conservatives’ theory has merit: Chain migration does act as a conservative force, maintaining the status quo longer than would selecting immigrants solely on market or humanitarian factors. Without “chains,” European immigration may have died out even faster than it did.
in a given category. In combination, these restrictions can result in significant wait times for certain nationalities. Mexican and Filipino siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens, for example, typically wait more than two decades to immigrate to America.
MYTH NO. 3 One immigrant can bring many distant relatives in a few years. In reality, America’s immigration laws strictly limit the types and numbers of familysponsored immigrants. The laws allow U.S. citizens and legal residents to sponsor only immigrants who are their immediate relatives — spouses, children, siblings and parents — and the spouses and minor children of those immigrants. Even these categories are strictly controlled. Only parents, spouses and young children of U.S. citizens can enter without a numerical limit. The law places caps on adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens, as well as spouses and all children of legal residents. The law also prevents any single country from using more than 7 percent of the quota
MYTH NO. 4 Chain immigrants are security and terrorist threats. From 1975 through 2017, the likelihood of a U.S. resident or citizen being murdered by any person who entered the United States as a legal permanent resident — i.e., not someone who entered on a temporary visa — was just 1 in 1.2 billion per year. Regular murderers were 80,000 times more likely to kill Americans than legal immigrant terrorists. Legal immigrants to the United States — more than 70 percent of whom are sponsored by a U.S. family member — are also far less likely to commit crimes generally. Based on Census Bureau data, U.S.-born adults are three times more likely to be incarcerated than legal immigrants of the same age group. By lowering the crime rate, law-abiding residents make
DAVID MAUNG/BLOOMBERG NEWS
New American citizens celebrate after taking an oath of allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in San Diego last year. More than 70 percent of legal U.S. immigrants are sponsored by a family member.
America safer. MYTH NO. 5 Chain immigrants lack skills to succeed. Nearly half of adults in the family-sponsored and diversity visa categories had a college degree, compared with less than a third of U.S. natives. America would lose nearly a quartermillion college graduates every year without the familysponsored and diversity programs. Even among the 11 percent who have little formal education, there is no evidence that they aren’t successful. By virtually every measure, the least-skilled immigrants prosper in America. Immigrant men without high school degrees are almost as likely as U.S.-born men with college degrees to look for a job and keep one. Family-sponsored immigrants are the most upwardly mobile American workers. Whether high-skilled or not, chain or not, immigrants succeed in and contribute to this country. n Bier is an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute. This was written for The Washington Post.