Aisha woke up bruised and disoriented in a hospital bed in Kinshasa. Her husband, a driver for a prominent opposition politician in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was dead. Her five children were missing. One thing was clear: She had to leave her home.
On a cold November morning last year, Aisha set foot in an airport half a world away. Unable to understand the local language, she walked through immigration on a tourist visa, picked up her bags, and began her new life as an asylum seeker in Mexico.
As the administration of US President Donald Trump tightens immigration policies and refugees crossing the Mediterranean face a backlash in Europe, a growing number of people like Aisha are looking elsewhere for safe haven.
Mexico, traditionally an origin country for migrants or a transit stop on the treacherous Central American route to the United States, now finds itself as a destination for people fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands.
But the swelling numbers have caught Mexico by surprise – and authorities are struggling to deal with the influx.
Erika Piñeros/IRIN
With the help of a map of Africa, Aisha explains the situation in Congo and the reason why she fled. She says she witnessed her husband’s killing and was then tortured and left for dead.
‘I chose Mexico’
Aisha’s new home is an NGO-run safe house in Mexico City where dormitory rooms are filled with bunk beds and personal reminders of homes left behind – old photos, clothing, children’s toys.
“I chose Mexico because human rights are respected here,” Aisha told IRIN. “It’s a country of migrants, and it doesn’t have political ties with my country.”
Aisha is just one face of the shifting refugee trend in Mexico. According to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, or COMAR, which processes asylum applications, the country has seen a nearly 600 percent rise in asylum petitions over the last four years.
In 2013, COMAR received about 1,300 requests for asylum. That jumped to almost 8,800 last year. Groups that work closely with asylum seekers in Mexico predict there could be 18,000 applications this year.
The majority of applicants come from Central or South American nations. But many, like Aisha, are making the long journey from origin countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Aaron Rodriguez works for the Scalabrinian Mission for Migrants and Refugees. His organisation used to mainly help migrants pushing north in search of better opportunities, but the last year has seen it take in asylum seekers from four continents, including people fleeing violence in countries like Congo, and Syria, even Ukraine.
Rodriguez told IRIN that Mexico suddenly finds itself facing an unexpected problem: large numbers of migrants wanting to stay. “This new reality is taking us all by surprise,” he said.
With traditional settlement nations in Europe and the United States building up barriers, more and more people are looking to Mexico as a destination.
“When the great borders close… Mexico, every day, is recognised more as a destination country,” explained Rodriguez.
Erika Piñeros/IRIN
A young boy from Congo plays at a shelter for migrants and refugees in Mexico City. Some refugee lawyers claim Mexican authorities systematically reject asylum petitions from people from Africa.
This growing phenomenon has thrust the spotlight on Mexico’s undermanned refugee system, which migrant rights advocates like Rodriguez say is often unsympathetic and doesn’t want new asylum seekers.
A report by US-based Human Rights First warned that COMAR was “exceedingly understaffed”. As protection applications surge, an asylum process that is meant to take 45 days now stretches on for months.
Critics say its decisions can be flawed, unfair, and wildly inconsistent – the report cites the case of a Haitian man who was granted refugee status while his wife and children were denied.
“Mexico,” the report concluded, “is far from a safe third country for refugees.”
A lawyer who represents some 50 rejected applicants told IRIN there is a general consensus among refugee lawyers in Mexico that COMAR is systematically denying asylum claims made by African applicants.
“It’s a constant negative response,” said the lawyer, who asked not to be named in order not to impact the cases of current clients. “No one has had a case [from Africa] that had been accepted right away.”
Erika Piñeros/IRIN
Aisha, 38, plays music on her phone. Her asylum petition was denied by COMAR, which she claims treated her like a criminal. She says the process was emotionally draining: “if I’m asking for their protection, how could they treat me in that way?”
Aisha’s own application was rejected earlier this year. She told the Mexican authorities that she witnessed presidential guards in Congo murder her husband before they attacked her and left her for dead.
Despite the scars Aisha bears as proof of the torture she endured, COMAR argued it was her husband who was a target, not her.
“They interviewed me in the dark as if I were a criminal,” she remembered with frustration. She said the Mexican officials and interpreters didn’t understand her; they didn’t write down dates or relevant details; and she feels they laughed at her as she told her story.
Thanks to her lawyer, Aisha’s case has been annulled and will be reopened. But the process has left her drained. Her morale is low.
“They don’t realise my loss,” she said.
A COMAR representative declined IRIN’s interview request. In a written response to questions, the agency said that keeping up with the “exponential” surge in asylum requests was “a constant challenge”, but noted that asylum recognition rates have climbed, from 37 percent in 2013 to 62 percent of decisions rendered last year.
“Considerable efforts have been made in favour of extending the right for all people arriving in Mexico to request asylum,” the statement read.
Separate paths
Some new asylum seekers are choosing Mexico because it’s seen as a safer alternative to the perilous Mediterranean route to Europe, where more than 7,700 people have died over the last two years.
Victor, a 26-year-old student from Cameroon’s anglophone region, fled to Mexico after he began giving statements to international media about the growing oppression in his home. He said his family paid a smuggler to take him to Mexico, fearing the government would punish his outspokenness.
Erika Piñeros/IRIN
Victor walks through a park near the shelter where he has stayed since his arrival in Mexico City. He says he wants to stay in Mexico, learn Spanish, and study.
But his 20-year-old brother chose a riskier route. The last time they spoke online, he was in Libya, attempting to reach Europe via the Mediterranean.
“I worry about him. I know that one is not an easy way; it’s rough,” Victor said. “I pray for him every day. My mum prays for all of us.”
Victor’s asylum case is still pending after seven months. He told IRIN he’s treated differently in Mexico because of the colour of his skin but still feels fortunate to be here. “It is better than Africa,” he said.
Erika Piñeros/IRIN
Victor, 26, talks to his sister. “Every time they call me, I tell them I’m fine. But if I told them I’m not, they would be sad”.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
(TOP PHOTO: Aisha poses for a photo in one of the dresses she brought with her when she fled Congo. Erika Piñeros/IRIN)
One of the last things that Theresa May did before she left office as the UK prime minister in July 2019 was to commit the country to a net zero carbon target in 2050. Weaning the entire economy off carbon-based fuels on this sort of timescale sounds ambitious, but several advanced economies have set targets considerably sooner than this.
Sweden and New Zealand are aiming for 2045, Finland for 2035 and Norway for 2030 – the most ambitious of any government. Extinction Rebellion has called for the UK to eliminate all carbon emissions by 2025. Our recent working paper explores the justification for these various targets.
The starting point is the global carbon budget calculated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is the total amount of carbon that can be emitted into the atmosphere from now until the end of this century. The most recent estimate of a global budget that would offer a 66% chance of limiting climate warming to within 1.5C above the pre-industrial average is 420 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Working from here to a carbon budget for each country is both a technical and an ethical question. Using the UK as a detailed example, a simple proportional allocation would give the UK a budget of approximately 2.9 billion tonnes. But given the UK’s historical responsibility for carbon in the atmosphere and the undeniable need for development in the poorest countries in the world, there is a very strong argument that the UK should adopt a fair carbon budget somewhat lower than this. So, for example, if the poorer countries in the world were to have an allowable carbon budget just one-third higher than the richer countries, this would lead to a fair carbon budget for the UK of around 2.5 billion tonnes.
The question of how long this budget might last has no simple answer, because it depends how fast carbon emissions are cut over time. Remaining within any given budget depends inherently on the emissions pathway the country follows. If we cut emissions faster, we can afford a later target. If we cut too slowly, the budget will be exhausted, and we would be faced with the task of installing uncertain and costly negative emissions technologies to take carbon out of the atmosphere for the rest of the century.
The UK’s carbon footprint in 2018 was about 590m tonnes, measured on a “consumption basis”, which includes the carbon in imports but excludes that of exports. This footprint has been falling slowly (at around 1.5% a year) since 2010. But if it continued to fall this slowly, the carbon budget would be exhausted by 2023, in just four years’ time (Scenario a).
Even if we assume a straight-line reduction to zero emissions in 2050 (Scenario b), we would still generate a carbon overdraft approximately three times our allowable budget. In fact, the latest date by which we could draw a straight line from our current level of emissions to zero and still remain within the budget would be 2025 (Scenario c).
https://images.theconversation.com/files/288372/Four UK emissions pathways: (a) is based on our current rate of reduction, and (b) shows that linearly reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 means we’ll exhaust our carbon budget in four years. (c) shows that 2025 is the latest date we could linearly reduce our emissions to net zero, and (d) shows that for a 2050 target to stay within our budget, we’d need a 24% annual reduction in emissions. Tim Jackson/CUSP, Author provided
A target later than 2025 is possible only if the UK reduces emissions faster than the straight line pathway in the early years. In order to extend the target date for zero carbon to 2050, emission cuts would need to be in the region of 24% every year for the next three decades (Scenario d).
What is notable about this pathway is that, within little more than a decade, carbon emissions must already have fallen to a very low level. With a 24% annual rate of reduction, UK emissions in 2030 would only be 22m tonnes – less than 5% of the current level of emissions. Only a small programme of negative emissions technologies would be needed to achieve net zero at this point.
Clearly the challenge is still colossal. A 24% reduction in emissions amounts to a cut of 140 million tonnes in the very first year alone. The UK has never achieved anything close to this since its carbon footprint was first measured in 1990. In 2009, when the economy was in recession, the carbon footprint fell by 80m tonnes, while its best post-crisis reduction saw a fall of only 38m tonnes in 2016.
It is dangerously misleading for advanced nations to set target dates as far out as 2050. Doing so ignores the importance of staying within a fair carbon budget and gives a false impression that action can be delayed. In reality, the only way to ensure that any developed country remains within its fair budget is to aim for an early net zero target. For the UK, that means bringing forward the government’s target by at least two decades.
This might all seem daunting, but every year that progress is delayed, the challenge only gets bigger. Remaining within a fair carbon budget for the rest of this century requires deep and early decarbonisation. Anything else will risk a climate catastrophe.
Die neuesten Statistiken der OECD und des italienischen Statistikamts ISTAT verraten, dass es in der Altersgruppe von 25 bis 29 Jahren 579.000 Italienerinnen gibt, die weder einer Arbeit nachgehen, noch sich in Ausbildung befinden, sogenannte NEETS.
Wie kommt diese Zahl zustande? Die OECD hat ermittelt, dass von den 1,38 Millionen Italienerinnen dieser Altersgruppe ganze 37 Prozent keiner Art von Arbeit oder Ausbildung nachgehen, nämlich die oben genannten 579.000. Von diesen sind 509.000 unverheiratet.
Was aber tut diese halbe Million junger Italienerinnen besten Alters? Sitzen sie zuhause und lauern auf einen Prinzen, der sie freit und lebenslänglich Verantwortung für ihren Lebensunterhalt übernimmt (so nicht die Eltern ein reiches Erbe für sie hinterlassen) ?
Selbst wenn man die Rolle des Heimchens am Herd für einen immer noch zeitgemässen Lebensentwurf hält – ohne einen Prinzen und möglichen Nachwuchs wirkt das Heimchen ziemlich unglaubwürdig.
Kann sich Italien zu all seinen Problemen auch noch eine halbe Million Nichtstuerinnen leisten? In Wirklichkeit sind es mehr, denn in den Jahrfünften vor und nach der hier untersuchten Altersgruppe gibt es ebenfalls NEETS, wenn auch weniger häufig.
Jedenfalls könnte Italien helfen, einen etwaig existierenden Frauenmangel in Europa zu bekämpfen. Warum in Thailand oder Russland suchen, wenn es im benachbarten Italien so viele reizende, vielleicht sogar gut kochende, Damen gibt, die auf einen Prinzen warten, notfalls auf einen betuchten Hyperboräer aus dem frostigen Norden?
Benedikt Brenner
Written on .
Noch ahnen die Italiener nicht, was ihnen droht. Die Mittelmeerbühne, auf der bisher kleine, klapprige Rettungsschiffe grosse Auftritte liefern, ist bald um einen weiteren Akteur reicher: die Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands, die EKD.
Zwar nicht mit einem eigenen Schiff (Bedford-Strohm: “Wir sind keine Reederei”), wohl aber mit ihrem ganzen finanziellen und moralischen Gewicht hinter anderen Schiffsinitiativen will sich die mit Steuergeld-gepäppelte Staatskirche in dem mediterranen Sommertheater engagieren.
Kein Wort darüber, wo die zu Rettenden angelandet werden sollen. Wieder werden es die üblichen Häfen in Italien und Malta sein. Wieder werden es vor allem deutsche Schiffe sein, und nun auch von evangelischer Moral getriebene – besonders unbeliebt im katholischen Italien und Malta.
Gegenwärtig glänzt Italien mit einer bürgerlichen Regierung, die Europa eine Atempause verschafft, bevor nach der nächsten Wahl mit hoher Wahrscheinlicheit Matteo Salvini mit einer krypto-faschistischen Regierung antritt. Diese Atempause gilt es so zu nutzen, dass einerseits Flüchtlinge und ihre fellow travellers– die Migranten – aus Seenot gerettet werden, ohne andererseits Salvini die Argumente zu liefern, die er für den Gewinn der Wahlen benötigt.
Bevor sich erstmals ein halbstaatlicher Akteur wie die EKD an Rettungsschiffen beteiligt, sollten Vorkehrungen getroffen werden, die verhindern, dass die Geretteten wie bisher Italien oder Malta aufgezwungen werden.
Prinzipiell sehe ich zwei Möglichkeiten: Die EKD müsste zum einen dafür sorgen, dass die Geretteten in einem anderen Land (Tunesien, Algerien, Albanien, Kroatien) angelandet und von dort direkt per Flugzeug nach Deutschland gebracht werden. Das erfordert nicht nur die Mitarbeit des betroffenen Landes, sondern auch die Bereitschaft Deutschlands, diese Leute ohne Prüfung ihrer Nationalität und Herkunft aufzunehmen.
Falls dieses Verfahren nicht funktioniert gibt es die Alternative eines grossen Vergnügungsdampfers, eines leeren Kreuzfahrtschiffs, das die EKD chartern und im Mittelmeer ausserhalb der italienischen und maltesischen Hoheitsgewässer stationieren könnte. Sobald die tausend oder so Betten voll sind, sollte das Schiff nach Wilhelmshaven oder Cuxhaven dampfen, sich dort leeren und wieder ins Mittelmeer zurückkehren – eine Pause von rund 20 Tagen, während der die Rettungsaktionen zu warten hätten. Auch in diesem Fall müsste sichergestellt sein, dass Deutschland die Geretteten ohne wenn und aber aufnimmt.
Auf diese Weise würde die EKD ihrem hohen moralischen Auftrag gerecht werden. Am Geld könnte es nicht fehlen (die EKD ist reich genug) höchstens am Willen, das Geld für diesen Zweck auszugeben. Mehr als ein paar Millionen würde es nicht kosten wenn man es ordentlich machen und den Verdacht vermeiden will, die EKD wolle in letzter Stunde für kleines Geld noch auf den Publicity-trächtigen Rettungszug aufspringen.
Salvini würde bestürzt erleben, wie ihm eine wichtige Keule aus der Hand geschlagen wird – ausgerechnet von den Deutschen, noch dazu den Evangelen. Italiens Chance auf eine demokratische Zukunft würde beträchtlich steigen und die EKD könnte dazu einen entscheidenden Beitrag leisten.
Heinrich von Loesch
Update
Anlässlich der Tagung des Kirchenparlaments in Dresden kündigte Ratsvorsitzender Bedford-Strohm an, am 3. Dezember werde ein "breites gesellschaftliches Bündnis United4Rescue" gegründet und eine Spendenaktion gestartet (Südd. Zeitung, 11.11.19).
Die Synodalen waren sich nicht einig, dass diese Aktion eine gute Idee sei. Worüber offenbar nicht diskutiert wurde, ist die (nebensächliche?) Frage, wo man die Geretteten anlanden will, und was die betroffenen Länder -- wahrscheinlich wieder Italien und Malta -- dazu meinen.
Man könnte spotten, dass Salvini zu den Ersten gehören wird, die für diese Aktion spenden werden. Nicht nur das: man muss den Eindruck fürchten, der sich einstellt, wenn das Mittelmeer als deutsches Mare Nostrum vereinnahmt wird, weil vor allem deutsche Schiffe nach Schiffbrüchigen suchen.
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Here’s What He Has to Say About What’s Going on Now.
Michael German, a former federal agent, sees cause for praise and concern
Michael German, a former federal agent who spent years infiltrating white supremacist groups, said the work of the groups constituted “organized criminal activity,” and he asked, in so many words, “Where is the FBI?”
Federal authorities wound up arresting eight members of the Rise Above Movement, and five of them have since pleaded guilty to federal riot charges. This summer, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that, over the last nine months, the bureau’s domestic terrorism investigations had led to 90 arrests, many of them involving white supremacists. And in recent weeks, there have been additional arrests: a Las Vegas man said to be affiliated with Atomwaffen and a young man in Chicago affiliated with Patriot Front, another white supremacist group.
The activity concerning the threat of white racists has gone beyond arrests. There have been a variety of proposals making their way through Congress aimed at creating federal criminal statutes that might make prosecuting domestic terrorism threats more effective. The FBI Agents Association has supported new laws.
We went back to German, a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program and the author of the forthcoming book “Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy,” to inquire about the significance of the seeming burst of enforcement efforts.
There have been a handful of arrests of alleged white supremacists in recent weeks. What do you make of them? A temporary reaction to the El Paso, Texas, massacre? Evidence of a deeper commitment by the FBI? Coincidence?
First, the arrests of several white nationalists allegedly planning acts of violence since the El Paso attack demonstrate beyond question that the FBI has all the authority it needs to act proactively against white supremacist violence. Claims from the FBI Agents Association and other current and former Justice Department officials that the government needs new laws to target this violence are false. I worked successful domestic terrorism undercover operations against white supremacists in the 1990s, and no one ever suggested we didn’t have all the authority we needed.
It is hard to know if these arrests mark a new increase in attention to far-right violence because the Justice Department doesn’t keep reliable data about how many investigations and prosecutions it conducts against white supremacists. It sometimes categorizes them as domestic terrorism, other times as hate crimes or even gang crimes, obscuring the true scope of the violence they inflict on our society. And since the Justice Department defers the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes to state and local law enforcement, the FBI doesn’t even know how many people white supremacists kill each year.
The Justice Department and FBI de-prioritize the investigation and prosecution of far-right violence as a matter of policy, not a lack of authority. These recent cases are a result of increased public pressure to do something about these crimes. But the Justice Department and FBI have done nothing to amend their policies that de-prioritize the investigation of white supremacist crimes. Maintaining public pressure and focusing on changing the biases that drive these policies is essential to forcing a change in priorities at these agencies.
At least two of the arrests appear to have involved a certain infiltration of white hate groups online. Noteworthy? Overdue?
Many researchers have suggested that the internet fuels white nationalist violence and therefore suppression of these online communities is necessary. But white supremacists have been killing people in this country for more than a 100 years before the internet was created. They use the internet more to communicate today than 20 years ago, just like all the rest of us do, but that doesn’t mean there is more violence. In fact, as the recent cases suggest, internet communications make them far easier to track and infiltrate, so it is more a boost to law enforcement more than to violent militants.
But mass monitoring of social media for clues isn’t an effective strategy, as there are far more people expressing racist ideas online than committing violence. The FBI would be very busy chasing down false leads, which would only dull the response. Instead, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies should work from reasonable criminal predicates. Where there is objectively credible evidence that someone is planning to do harm they should act. The number of homicides in the U.S. has fallen significantly since the 1980s and 1990s, but so has the clearance rate. Even though there are fewer homicides now, fewer are being solved. I think it is because we are spending so much time and resources on suspicion-less surveillance and intelligence gathering rather than traditional evidence-based law enforcement tactics.
There is a variety of proposed legislation aimed at creating more specific federal domestic terrorism statutes. Worthy? Wrongheaded?
Congress shouldn’t pass broad new laws or stiffer penalties, as there are already dozens of federal statutes outlawing domestic terrorism, hate crimes and organized violent crime that carry significant sentences. There are bills that demand better data collection by the Justice Department, which would reveal where counterterrorism resources should be devoted and where they are being wasted. This is the better approach. Proper policies can’t be developed without a better understanding of the crime problem.
In the meantime, Congress should explore mechanisms to fund and implement community-led restorative justice practices that would redress the communal injuries hate crimes are designed to inflict. White supremacists try to intimidate and marginalize the communities they attack. Making sure these communities are cared for, protected and supported after an attack frustrates that goal. More policing isn’t always the right answer, and certainly not the only one.
There was recently news coverage of leaked FBI threat assessments listing the promotion of an array of political conspiracy theories as a domestic menace. What did you make of that?
The FBI intelligence assessment declaring conspiracy theorists a domestic terrorism threat should worry all of us. It had a line defining conspiracy theorists as those who do not hold the “official” or “prevailing” view on a particular topic. Given that the intelligence community has often been the promoter of false narratives, particularly about the lawfulness of its own conduct, giving them license to target people who disagree with the “official” view is chilling. It is basically a declaration that the government will treat dissent as dangerous.
There was a recent case that has to puzzle the public. A Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested with guns and a target list of politicians and others, and held on firearms charges. At least one federal magistrate thought he deserved bail because the government had failed to provide evidence of terrorist acts and the simple gun charges didn’t merit him being held without bail. A judge overturned the magistrate and kept the lieutenant held. All that can be hard to follow for an American public concerned about safeguarding its rights and its citizens. Thoughts?
It’s difficult to talk about cases that have not yet gone to trial because there is little information available outside the government’s allegations, which haven’t been proven yet. But there are some principles of our legal system that should be applied in all cases, including this one, even though we seem to have moved far from them over the years. First, people are innocent until proven guilty. That means, absent government evidence that a defendant poses a threat to the public or to abscond, that person should be released until trial, and bond should only be used to guarantee appearance. Of course, many people with allegations that seem less serious than those against the Coast Guard officer don’t receive bond, but that is a question for those judges and prosecutors, not the ones involved in this case.
Obviously the government initially failed to present evidence that justified pretrial confinement, so based on the charged conduct the judge considered bond. This result should happen more often, not less. When the government got its act together, added charges and presented evidence of a potential threat to the public, the judge ordered him held. The burden is on the government and shouldn’t be met through sensationalized press releases but through reasonable evidence presented in court.
Second, prosecutors can only charge people with crimes they committed, not crimes the government thinks they might commit in the future. Lots of people stockpile weapons in this country. And if keeping a creepy diary is against the law, plenty of people will go to jail. Where the government has evidence that laws were broken, they have the power to act, which — ironically given the hyperbolic news coverage of this incident — they did here. The officer was arrested and is being prosecuted for crimes the government alleges he committed, so there seems to be no problem.
The Justice Department seems to have tried to make this into a test case for demanding new authorities, even though prosecutors obviously had enough evidence to address the threat. Compare this case to the Larry Hopkins case in New Mexico. There the FBI received a tip in 2017 that a formerly incarcerated felon who was the “commander” of a border militia group that harassed migrants was also planning to assassinate Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Barack Obama. The FBI went to Hopkins’ trailer and recovered nine firearms he was not permitted to own due to his previous felony convictions, which included weapons charges and impersonating a police officer. The FBI did not arrest Hopkins and instead let him continue to operate with his militia group for 18 months, harassing migrants in the desert, until a video of his group pointing weapons at a group of migrants they detained went viral and sparked public outrage. Only then did the FBI take action.
Comparing the two cases, the FBI had much more significant evidence of potential dangerousness from Hopkins than from the Coast Guard officer, yet they took no action against Hopkins. I think they saw the Coast Guard officer’s case as a ready-made scandal near D.C. that they could sensationalize to pressure Congress into passing a broad new domestic terrorism law. Obviously, they already had enough authority to arrest him on the drug and weapons charge, and his possession of illegal silencers. So there was no lack of authority to arrest him in the first place. It was a manufactured scandal.
What, if anything, is different today than two summers ago in Charlottesville concerning the threat of white supremacists and the government’s response at all levels to it?
I think the violence in Charlottesville was a wake-up call for everyone. The media finally recognized that white supremacists were engaging in terrorism, too. The level of violence these far-right groups inflict has been persistent over time, but studies show that the media gave terrorist acts perpetrated by Muslims 350% more coverage than violence committed by other terrorists. The increased reporting post-Charlottesville eventually caused policymakers to take notice, which in turn compelled the FBI and Justice Department to begin to take these crimes more seriously. The media coverage drives public perception, which causes policymakers to act. It remains to be seen whether they react in a way that improves the situation and builds a more inclusive society, or makes it worse by giving law enforcement broad powers to continue targeting marginalized communities agitating for civil rights and changes in government policies.
