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Economies of Scale: Smart Ideas to Fight Fish Fraud

by DorothyWbb Posted on June 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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When you buy fish from the grocery store, it’s not always clear exactly what you’re getting. The industry is fragmented and murky, plagued by seafood fraud—when fishermen or processors take cheaper, lower quality fish and disguise or mislabel it to try and make more money. Don’t count on regulators to catch this deception. In 2009, the Government Accountability Office took a hard look at the three agencies responsible for detecting seafood fraud, and concluded they were failing to “effectively collaborate with each other”—putting consumers’ wallets and health at risk.

Monica Jain, the founder and executive director of Manta Consulting Inc.—and also our guest on this week’s episode of Bite—believes innovative businesses may hold the key to solving some of the industry’s woes. Drawing on a background in marine biology and decades of experience in environmental consulting, in 2013 Jain founded the Fish 2.0 conference, which pairs smart seafood start-ups with investors looking to make an impact.

At Fish 2.0 2015, held at Stanford in November, entrepreneurs from 37 companies pitched everything from portable algae farms to skateboards made from reclaimed nylon fishing nets to a room of tony impresarios.

“Take out your duct tape, paper clips, tools,” urged Jain in her opening speech. “Think like this guy!” she exclaimed, as the screen behind her flashed to a cheesy poster for MacGyver, the ’90s television show about the secret agent whose name has become synonymous with resourcefulness in any situation. “If we all do it, I think we can change the future of the oceans.”

Several of the companies that pitched at Fish 2.0 focused on making seafood more transparent and safer to eat. Here are a few that just might have landed the next big idea:

Better tracking: Vessel tracking systems are little boxes placed on boats that work with GPS and satellite systems to follow where fish is being caught. Some new versions have cameras that capture footage, says Jain, helping to show whether the boat is complying with quotas, using the right gear, and throwing bycatch—sea creatures caught accidentally—back into the ocean. Pelagic Data Systems makes a solar-powered box that sends data via cellular networks, marketed to small-scale fishermen who can’t necessarily afford fancy new technology. The company hopes to make it easier for fishermen to gather and pass along information about what they catch.
Snazzier transparency tools: TRUFish hopes to create “fraud-free” fish. The company’s founder, Roxanne Nanninga, teamed up with a lab at Duke University to use DNA-sequencing to verify the true genetics of any type of fish, “fresh or frozen,” no matter what’s on the label.
Thoughtful brands: Let’s be honest—not many of us know how to distinguish tilapia from cod or halibut after it’s been skinned, fileted, and frozen. So it can be tricky to know when we’re the victims of seafood fraud. Several seafood brands now provide customers with detailed information about a fish filet’s source. California-based Salty Girl Seafood (deemed the early stage business with the “strongest market potential” at last year’s Fish 2.0 competition) sells pre-marinated filets that arrive in packaging displaying the species of fish, where it was caught, and a code customers can enter online to view more details about what they’re eating.
Farmed fish redemption: Love the Wild, based in landlocked Colorado, promotes traceable farmed fish, which arrives with a sauce so you can quickly whip up a dinner of “Red Trout with Salsa Verde” or “Catfish with Cajun Creme.” Though fish farming historically has a bad rap—mostly based on mistakes made by massive unregulated fish farms in Asia—aquaculture is undergoing something of a renaissance in the United States. Fish farmers control every step of the growing process, which makes it easier for interested farmers to raise food in an environmentally friendly fashion. Says Jain: “People want their systems to be less wasteful and polluting because those are not just better for the environment—they’re more profitable. It creates more production risk to do it unsustainably.”

Bite is Mother Jones‘ new food politics podcast. Listen to all of our episodes here, or by subscribing in iTunes, Stitcher, or via RSS.

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Economies of Scale: Smart Ideas to Fight Fish Fraud

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Bernie Sanders Officially Admits He Lost

by AmparoTrn382087 Posted on May 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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Bernie Sanders gets tossed a bone today:

Top Bernie Sanders supporters Dr. Cornel West and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will be among those on the Democratic Party’s important Platform Drafting Committee after the Vermont senator won a key concession as he looks to leave his mark on the party’s platform. The roster of the drafting committee, released by the Democratic National Committee on Monday, reflects the party’s agreement that Sanders would have five supporters on the committee, compared to six for Hillary Clinton.

First off: If Bernie has officially agreed to accept five out of 11 members on the Platform Committee, isn’t that a tacit admission that he’s already lost the nomination?

But also: Does anyone care about the platform? Seriously. I know it’s a big fight every four years, but does either party platform ever have any effect at all on the election?

And as long as we’re talking about Bernie, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels write today that his supporters don’t actually support his lefty politics:

In a survey conducted for the American National Election Studies in late January, supporters of Mr. Sanders…were less likely than Mrs. Clinton’s supporters to favor concrete policies that Mr. Sanders has offered…including a higher minimum wage, increasing government spending on health care and an expansion of government services financed by higher taxes.

….Mr. Sanders has drawn enthusiastic support from young people, a common pattern for outsider candidates. But here, too…the generational difference in ideology seems not to have translated into more liberal positions on concrete policy issues — even on the specific issues championed by Mr. Sanders. For example, young Democrats were less likely than older Democrats to support increased government funding of health care, substantially less likely to favor a higher minimum wage and less likely to support expanding government services. Their distinctive liberalism is mostly a matter of adopting campaign labels, not policy preferences.

That’s interesting, if not especially surprising. We’re all basically tribalists at our cores. Except for you and me, of course.

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Bernie Sanders Officially Admits He Lost

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How About a Constitutional Right to Vote?

by MaricruzLaws Posted on May 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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I have a longstanding belief that a liberal democracy is basically in good shape if it guarantees three rights:

Freedom of speech/press.
The right to a fair and speedy trial.
The right to vote.

I don’t mean to denigrate other important rights. Freedom of religion is important, but plenty of free countries operate just fine with state religions. Freedom of assembly can probably be mandated by law. Warrants for searches are necessary, but again, could probably be mandated by law. A ban on slavery is important, but we already have it, and it’s not really a pressing issue in the 21st century anyway. And lots of democracies take wildly different views on the right to bear arms. The bottom line is that all these things can be in the Constitution, but if they’re not they probably don’t preclude a pretty free society.

The first two rights on my list are already enshrined in the Constitution (speech and press freedom in the First Amendment; fair trials in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments). The third, for generally disgraceful reasons, isn’t. But for some reason, among the dozens of pet amendments that various interest groups propose even though they’re mostly pie in the sky, this one gets almost no attention. Why not?

Don’t worry too much about the precise wording of a voting rights amendment. Here’s a proposal from Reclaim Democracy! that originated with Jesse Jackson:

All citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, shall have the right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides. The right to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, any State, or any other public or private person or entity, except that the United States or any State may establish regulations narrowly tailored to produce efficient and honest elections.

Reps. Pocan and Ellison have recently proposed a shorter version:

Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.

Maybe you’d want to add some further protections: change voting day to voting week; mandate early voting; make changes to redistricting rules to better guarantee that all votes count equally. I’m agnostic about this.

Needless to say, this would open a can of worms. Basically, anyone who shows up to vote is assumed to have the right to vote unless the government has actively put them on a list of non-voters. Possibly some kind of ID would be required: maybe a Social Security card or a national ID card. Perhaps everyone would be required to enroll for voting on their 18th birthday, and would be given a card that identifies them as a voter. They could do it at the same time they enroll with Selective Service (just as soon as women are added to Selective Service requirements).

There would be exceptions. Can prisoners vote? The Supreme Court has already ruled that prisoners have limited access to free speech rights. They obviously have no right to freedom of assembly, and the right to bear arms has been curtailed with extreme prejudice. This would almost certainly be the case with voting rights as well, though it could easily be written into the text of an amendment if it was considered important enough to spell out specifically.

So why not do it? It seems like a pretty populist idea for a Democratic presidential candidate. How about it, Hillary? She already supports automatic voter registration at age 18, and that’s a short jump to a constitutional amendment.

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How About a Constitutional Right to Vote?

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Finally You Can See How Much Added Sugar Is Hidden in Your Food

by HomerSevttp Posted on May 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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After years of delay, the Food and Drug Administration finalized new nutrition facts labels on Friday. The label you’re used to seeing on processed foods was more than 20 years old; the government says the new one reflects updated scientific information and “will make it easier for consumers to make better informed food choices.”

The changes include a magnified calorie count and the addition of a line showing added sugar (highlighted below).

Food and Drug Administration

It’s a big deal that companies will now have to identify the added sugar in their food. Once corn-syrup-filled sodas and cheap processed snacks started overtaking our supermarkets in the 1960s, added sweeteners infiltrated nearly every corner of the American diet. As I’ve written in the past:

Naturally occurring sugars (the kind in fruit, for example) come with fiber, which helps us regulate the absorption of food. Without fiber, sugar can overwhelm your system, eventually leading to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems.

Given these risks, experts have warned that no more than ten percent of your daily calorie intake should come from added sugar, or around 12 teaspoons a day; Americans wolf down 30 teaspoons on average by some estimates. It doesn’t help that three-quarters of processed snacks include such added sweeteners. But until now, consumers had no real way of knowing how much of the sugar in their food was naturally occurring, and how much was added in manufacturing. Adding to shoppers’ confusion is how tricky it can be to determine whether sugar is an ingredient in a food: it goes by at least 57 names.

With the new labels, manufacturers will have to reveal more about how they use this ubiquitous ingredient. Time will tell whether the transparency spurs big food companies to look past adding sugar and find new ways to make their food palatable.

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Finally You Can See How Much Added Sugar Is Hidden in Your Food

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This Genius Lawyer Is Our Best Hope Against Deadly Food Poisoning

by MarcelFalk49809 Posted on May 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Listeria in frozen foods. E. coli at Chipotle. Salmonella-laced pistachios. Practically every week there’s a new tainted food to avoid—and as a result, foodborne illness sickens 1 in 6 Americans, hospitalizes 128,000, and kills 3,000. The problem of bugs in food has stumped government agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the United States Department of Agriculture.

But there’s one guy who has arguably won more battles against foodborne illness than anyone. This week’s Bite podcast guest is Bill Marler, a Seattle-based attorney who represents victims of food poisoning.

In a landmark 1993 case, Marler sued Jack in the Box over its infamous E. Coli outbreak—and won. Since then, he’s gone up against dozens of food industry giants: McDonald’s, KFC, Cargill, Taco Bell, Odwalla, and most recently, Chipotle, to name but a few. In addition to his work as a lawyer, Marler also fights for our government to tighten the rules that food suppliers have to follow. He runs the website Food Safety News, and he blogs at marlerblog.com.

We talked to Marler about why he insists on washing his own lettuce, how Chipotle became a victim of its own success, and tips on avoiding contaminated chow.

Also in this episode, Tom tells us how the giant poultry company Perdue is leading the way in ditching antibiotics (and what oregano has to do with it). And Maddie solves the mystery of how food behaves at 32,000 feet (and what sichuan peppercorns have to do with it). Have a listen!

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This Genius Lawyer Is Our Best Hope Against Deadly Food Poisoning

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He Killed Two FBI Agents. Or He Was Framed. After 40 Years, Will Obama Free Leonard Peltier?

by OlaOng861826061 Posted on May 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Leonard Peltier, a member of the Lakota tribe who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents in 1977, has spent 40 of his 71 years in federal prison. During that time, some have come to view him as an international symbol of the mistreatment of Native Americans by the US criminal justice system; others see him as the murderer of two FBI agents who should continue to pay his debt to society. Recently a group of prominent lawyers—backed by world leaders, civil rights activists, and several members of the US Congress—have renewed efforts to win his freedom by filing a formal appeal for clemency to the Department of Justice and requesting that President Barack Obama intervene on Peltier’s behalf.

In February, Martin Garbus, a well-known New York City trial lawyer and the lead attorney of the group, joined by former US Attorney Cynthia Dunne and attorney Carl S. Nadler, wrote a five-page letter to Obama urging him to grant Peltier clemency. “The time has come for the interests of the law enforcement community to be balanced against principles of fundamental fairness, reconciliation, and healing,” they contended.

They also submitted a 44-page petition for clemency to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney on behalf of Peltier, who suffers from various medical conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and a heart condition. All of this, the petition notes, impairs “his ability to walk, to see, and to conduct normal life activities…He is ill-equipped to cope with life in the maximum security prisons in which he has been jailed for many years.” The petition includes more than two dozen letters from supporters including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Coretta Scott King, several Native American tribes, and Amnesty International.

“Mr. Peltier has exhausted all appeals and is next eligible to apply for parole in 2024, in the unlikely event that he lives that long,” the letter to Obama states. “The Parole Commission has yielded to the objections of the FBI and DOJ in denying Mr. Peltier’s applications for parole at every turn. Effectively, this Petition represents the last chance in Mr. Peltier’s lifetime for the Government to take curative and/or reconciliatory action.”

Peltier’s case has long been a flash point in the strained relations between federal law enforcement and Native Americans. The killings occurred on the the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, about 18 miles from Wounded Knee, where 300 Sioux were massacred by the US military in 1890.

In 1973, about 200 Sioux, led by members of the American Indian Movement, occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest injustices against Native Americans and what they perceived as the corrupt leadership of the reservation’s president. By the end of the standoff, two Native Americans had been killed, 12 were wounded, and 12 were “missing” but suspected of having been killed by tribal leadership, according to Peltier’s petition.

The three years after the Wounded Knee occupation became known within Native American circles as the “Reign of Terror,” a period during which dozens of Native Americans were murdered and hundreds were assaulted by a private militia that was aligned with Oglala Lakota Souix chairman Dick Wilson and known as the “GOON squad.” Two years after that, with the Reign of Terror fresh on the minds of everyone in the area, the deadly shootout with the FBI agents occurred.

Many of the facts about the deaths of FBI agents Jack Williams and Robert Coler are disputed. The FBI says the agents were on the reservation to arrest a different man wanted for robbery and that they were not looking for Peltier, who was wanted on a separate warrant related to an alleged attempted murder of an off-duty police officer in Milwaukee. When the agents came to the reservation that day, according to the FBI, they encountered a vehicle carrying Peltier and found themselves under fire. Williams and Coler each died as a result of point-blank shots to the head.

Peltier’s version of the story is presented in detail in his petition. He maintains that after the FBI agents came on to the private property, “I heard shooting, grabbed my rifle, and ran towards a residence where there were women and children, but quickly ran in another direction because my presence had attracted additional gunfire to the area.” He says the area was surrounded by more than 100 FBI agents, SWAT team members, Bureau of Indian Affairs police, and members of the GOON squad.

“Along with many other American Indians who were present that day, I fired shots in the direction of men whom I later learned were federal agents,” Peltier notes in the petition. “At the end of extended gunfire, three men lay dead: Special Agents Jack R. Williams and Robert A. Coler, and American Indian Joe Stuntz.”

Peltier says he fled the area, eventually ending up in Canada because he thought he wouldn’t get a fair trial in the United States. Using affidavits from a woman later determined to have been either coerced or incompetent, the US government had Peltier sent back to the United States in February 1976 to stand trial. Two other Native Americans, Robert Robideau and Darrelle Dean Butler, were arrested for the deaths of the two FBI agents, but only Peltier was convicted in a trial that contained a number of irregularities, including sworn affidavits from witnesses who said they’d been coerced by the FBI. While Robideau and Butler were acquitted in 1976, Peltier was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in June 1977.

Peltier and his supporters have pointed out the many problems with his trial, highlighting the fact that the government eventually admitted it did not know with certainty who had fired the point-blank shots that killed the FBI agents. Nevertheless, the latest petition for clemency flatly states that Peltier is not trying to re-litigate the case: “The finality of my conviction should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the means that were employed by the government to achieve the result” (emphasis in original).

Over the years, prominent figures such as Nelson Mandela, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, and Robert Redford have called for Peltier’s release.

Garbus tells Mother Jones that this is Peltier’s second formal petition for clemency. The first, submitted in 2000 during the Clinton administration, was likely undermined by a protest of 500 active and retired FBI agents who marched in front of the White House after the petition was delivered. Garbus has now reached out to several members of Congress, including Reps. John Lewis and Barbara Lee and Sen. Patrick Leahy, to advance Peltier’s cause.

“This is a different application than the one before Clinton,” says Garbus. “We hope that we will not see the same kind of opposition at this point from these FBI families, given the passage of years, given his sickness, and given his very clear expression of remorse.”

Garbus says he has not heard from any White House officials. A White House spokesperson and the FBI both declined to comment on the petition. The Office of the Pardon Attorney—the office within the Justice Department that handles requests for pardons and clemency—also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Garbus says he’s trying to help Peltier for one simple reason: “Forty years is enough for a wrongful conviction.”

Read the letter to Obama and Peltier’s latest petition below:

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LEONARD-PELTIER-Clemency-Petition-2016 (Text)

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He Killed Two FBI Agents. Or He Was Framed. After 40 Years, Will Obama Free Leonard Peltier?

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BinC Watch: Donald Trump Still Has No Idea How Government Debt Works

by Carina76B36539 Posted on May 9, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump last week:

I’ve borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts. I’ve done very well with debt….Now we’re in a different situation with the country, but I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal. And if the economy was good it was good, so therefore, you can’t lose.

Donald Trump today:

It was reported in the failing New York Times and other places that I want to default on debt. You know, I’m the king of debt. I understand debt better probably than anybody….But let me just tell you, if there is a chance to buy back debt at a discount, in other words, interest rates up, and the bonds down, and you can buy debt, that’s what I’m talking about.

….But in the United States, with bonds that won’t happen because in theory the market doesn’t go down so that you default on debt and that’s what happened. So here’s the story, just to have it corrected. If we have an opportunity where interest rates go up and you can buy debt back at a discount, I always like to be able to do that, if you can do it. But that’s all I was talking about. They have it like I’m going to go back to creditors, and I am going to renegotiate and restructure debt, it’s ridiculous and they know it’s ridiculous.

I’ll give Trump this much: it was ridiculous and everyone knew it was ridiculous. It was pure Trump bullshittery. But here’s the thing: even if you accept that this was what Trump was talking about, it’s still ridiculous. The US government isn’t a third party trading Treasury bonds. It’s the issuer of the bonds. If interest rates go up, should the Treasury refinance? No: it should keep paying the lower interest rates on its outstanding bonds. But what if interest rates go down? The answer is still no. Let’s hand the mic over to the Economist:

The interest rate on Treasury bonds is fixed. If the government issues debt during a low-rate period, that’s good news. To refinance that debt in a period of higher bond yields i.e., lower bond prices, the government would have to borrow from the market at much higher rates….Currently, most of the US’s longer-term debt trades above par value because it was issued at a time when bond yields were higher. For example there is a bond with a 2030 maturity and a 6.25% coupon; it trades at 152 cents on the dollar. Would it be worth offering 155 cents on the dollar upfront, and refinancing the debt at today’s lower rates? The dollar value of US debt would rise, not fall, in such circumstances.

In short, any voluntary deal with the market would require the government to pay fair value. And unless you think the Treasury bond market is mispriced (and it is the most liquid market on the planet), the government is unlikely to profit. It might be sensible for the government to alter the patterns of new Treasury issuance; borrowing long-term to lock in low rates for a generation. The Treasury has discussed the idea of refinancing illiquid bonds to improve market liquidity. But that is quite a different idea from Mr Trump’s proposal; the interest savings would be trivial.

Here’s the scary thing: debt really is one of the few things that Trump probably knows a bit about. It’s certainly bitten him in the ass often enough. And yet he still has no idea how it works. He continues to think that the federal government is basically the same thing as a trader on the Goldman Sachs trading desk.

It’s not. Whatever Trump is talking about, it won’t work. Sovereign debt is sovereign debt, and it gets paid off at 100 cents on the dollar. Trump may think everyone except Trump is an idiot, but I’m pretty sure the folks at the Fed and the Treasury are already keenly aware of how to handle open market operations to maximize value for the US government. Someone at the Trump Organization needs to clue him in about how all this stuff works.

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BinC Watch: Donald Trump Still Has No Idea How Government Debt Works

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The Residents of Flint Need to Know the Truth About Lead Poisoning

by JanineKinser Posted on May 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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This article about Flint is heartbreaking, but not quite for the obvious reason:

Health care workers are scrambling to help the people here cope with what many fear will be chronic consequences of the city’s water contamination crisis: profound stress, worry, depression and guilt.

….Diane Breckenridge, Genesee Health’s liaison to local hospitals, said she had seen “people come into the hospitals directly related to breakdowns, nervous breakdowns, if you will….Most of it’s been depression or suicidal ideation directly linked to what’s going on with their children,” she added. “They just feel like they can’t even let their children take a bath.” Children, too, are traumatized, said Dexter Clarke, a supervisor at Genesee Health, not least because they constantly hear frightening things on television about the lead crisis, including breathless advertisements by personal injury lawyers seeking clients.

….Too often now, Nicole Lewis cannot sleep….To help her nerves, she recently installed a home water filtration system, paying $42.50 a month for the service on her main water supply line. She also bought a blender to make her sons smoothies with lead-leaching vegetables, like spinach and kale.

But still her mind races, especially late at night. Her 7-year-old was just found to have attention deficit disorder, she said. Her 2-year-old is already showing athletic promise, but she wonders whether lead exposure will affect his ability to play sports.

These people desperately need to be told the truth:

What happened in Flint was a horrible, inexcusable tragedy.
Residents have every right to be furious with government at all levels.
But the health effects are, in fact, pretty minimal. With a few rare exceptions, the level of lead contamination caused by Flint’s water won’t cause any noticeable cognitive problems in children. It will not lower IQs or increase crime rates 20 years from now. It will not cause ADHD. It will not affect anyone’s ability to play sports. It will not cause anyone’s hair to fall out. It will not cause cancer. And “lead leaching” vegetables don’t work.

For two years, about 5 percent of the children in Flint recorded blood lead levels greater than 5 m/d. This is a very moderate level for a short period of time. In every single year before 2010, Flint was above this number; usually far, far above.

The choices here are sickening. On the one hand, nobody wants to downplay the effects of lead poisoning, or even be viewed as downplaying them. On the other hand, feeding the hysteria surrounding Flint has real consequences. The residents of Flint should not be tormented about what’s going on. They should not be flocking to therapists. They should not be gulping Xanax.

Of course, at this point Flint residents probably don’t believe anything the government tells them, and for understandable reasons. So maybe it’s time for someone they trust a little more to begin telling them the truth. I’m looking at you, Rachel Maddow.

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The Residents of Flint Need to Know the Truth About Lead Poisoning

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Watch Emma Thompson take on fracking … with cake

by ArnoldDunne564 Posted on April 28, 2016

Watch Emma Thompson take on fracking … with cake

By on Apr 28, 2016Share

In the first and only episode of The Frack-free Bake Off, actress Emma Thompson and her sister Sophie turned baking into a new form of environmental activism.

They filmed The Great British Bake Off parody on land leased for drilling activity in Lancashire, England, where activists were banned after a 2014 protest. Thomspon, a longtime Grist crush, held the event in collaboration with Greenpeace to bring attention to the British government’s inconsistent commitment to the climate (“Lancashire voted for its favorite cake. But the government won’t let them have the final vote on fracking”).

In the process of whipping up confectionery feats — scrumptious renewable-energy-themed cakes — the sisters’ operation was sprayed with manure by a retaliatory local farmer.

So whose cake won: Emma’s wind-power cake or Sophie’s solar? Watch the video above to find out — and remember that in the game of fracking, really, none of us win.

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Watch Emma Thompson take on fracking … with cake

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Kansas Becomes the Latest State To Freak Out Over Syrian Refugees

by IssacG42rrwyqu Posted on April 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced on Tuesday that Kansas is withdrawing from the federal government’s refugee resettlement program over concerns that Syrian refugees could be security threats.

“Because the federal government has failed to provide adequate assurances regarding refugees it is settling in Kansas, we have no option but to end our cooperation with and participation in the federal refugee resettlement program,” Brownback said in a press release.

Brownback had already issued an executive order in November stating that “no department, commission, board, or agency of the government of the State of Kansas shall aid, cooperate with, or assist in any way the relocation of refugees from Syria to the State of Kansas.” Tuesday’s announcement would apply to refugees from any country. But while the move sounds drastic, it’s mostly a symbolic act that will have little on-the-ground impact for refugees or public safety.

For one, pulling out of the federal resettlement program doesn’t mean refugees won’t be allowed to live in Kansas. While Indiana and other states have tried to bar Syrians from entering their borders, they aren’t actually able to do so. Like any other visa holders, refugees are able to go anywhere the United States they’d like. It also doesn’t mean that support for refugees who are currently living in Kansas or may move there will dry up. The funds that state agencies use for refugee aid are almost entirely federal money, and the Department of Health and Human Services retains control over the funds even if state employees or agencies don’t take part. In those cases, Health and Human Services simply appoints another organization to administer the money. “This is the situation in some other states, usually because their resettlement program is very small,” says Stacie Blake, the director of government and community relations at the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, one of the nonprofit groups that resettles refugees. “The money is not ‘lost.'”

According to data from the State Department, only five Syrians have settled in Kansas since October of last year.

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Kansas Becomes the Latest State To Freak Out Over Syrian Refugees

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