Why it matters: The Ninth Circuit is located along the West Coast and includes the U.S.-Mexico border states of California and Arizona. That means that this decision will effectively block — at least for now — most Central Americans who cross into the U.S., legally or illegally, in New Mexico or Texas from asylum.
The big picture: The Trump administration has been limiting how many migrants can come through legal ports of entry on any given day. There are around 19,000 migrants at he U.S.-Mexico border who are waiting — sometimes weeks or months — to legally enter the U.S. through a port of entry and make an initial claim of asylum, the AP reported earlier this month.
Many of those waiting — and who have followed the administration's directives by attempting to legally enter the U.S. at a point of entry — will now be disqualified from asylum, as Propublica's Dara Lind reported when the third-country rule was first announced in July.
Tens of thousands more are being forced to wait in Mexico for their immigration court hearings due to the administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy.
By the numbers: 80% of the hundreds of thousands migrant family members and 76% of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors arrested for illegally crossing the southwest border this year were arrested in Texas, according to DHS data.
More than half of families and almost a third of unaccompanied minors who were turned away or applied for asylum at legal ports of entry did so in Texas.
Worth noting: Many but not all of these migrants who cross into the U.S. illegally apply for asylum.
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Google searches about the El Paso shooting surged more than any other recent mass shooting — but the horror, outrage and interest toward the murder of innocent lives never seems to last long enough to provoke much change.
Why it matters: Mass shootings have become more common, but fading public interest relieves pressure on lawmakers to address the underlying issues.
By the numbers: Google trends measures search interest on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero being the lowest amount of search interest possible and 100 being the most.
Search interest ranked higher than 5 out of 100 only lasted for two or three weeks for most shootings. Sandy Hook was an exception, with 10 non-consecutive weeks of Google interest higher than 5.
Key takeaways: The bigger shooting events are loosely correlated with more search interest.
Search interest in the term "gun control" spiked close to shootings targeting schools with kids involved.
"I believe people think more action will be taken for gun control when children are the victims because their death strikes an even deeper emotional chord among the population," said Holly Schroth, a senior lecturer at the Haas School of Business who specializes in social psychology.
The big picture: 40% of Americans surveyed by Gallup this year said that they were "very dissatisfied" with the nation's gun laws — up from 21% in 2008.
Since 2009, the share of people who have said that gun sale laws should be more strict has risen from 44% to 60%.
Guns even became the top 2020 issue following the shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohios, Axios found. But the fervor doesn't tend to last.
What to watch: Searches for "mass shooting" have been steadily growing beyond the spikes that immediately follow attacks.
A woman and her daugher fill out an application for food stamps. Photo: Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
A rule that would penalize immigrants who use or are likely to use public benefit programs such as food stamps, housing assistance or Medicaid will be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The long-anticipated rule will make it much harder forimmigrants with low incomes or low levels of education to obtain visas or green cards. It will also be much harder for immigrants already in the U.S. to stay longer, change their immigration status or become citizens if they have used any of the specified safety net programs.
The rule would also likely create a "chilling effect" on immigrants who are eligible to use certain public benefit programs, but choose not to out of fear of being penalized, according to immigration experts. Immigrants reportedly began turning down food stamps after early reports about the rule last year.
Worth noting: Not all immigrants even qualify for public benefit programs, as most need to have to have been in the U.S. for 5 years.
What's next: The new rule will go into effect 60 days after it is published in the register. At the same time, the Trump administration is planning to find ways to force immigrant sponsors to pay the government back for any use of public benefits by the immigrants they've sponsored. Trump gave government agencies 90 days to implement such rules in a May memo.
The bottom line: This is all part of the Trump administration's attempts to move toward what it calls a merit-based immigration system — and a part of its broader attempts to slow most forms of immigration to the U.S.
