SUMMARY: In a sleepy, no-stoplight town 25 miles from the Arizona-Mexico border, you'll pass surveillance towers, border agents on patrol and checkpoints. This is life along the border, where security has been ramped up significantly since 9/11, sweeping up American citizens in its wake. William Brangham reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): President Trump today faced questions from both parties over who will pay for his promised wall on the U.S.- Mexico border.
He's already pledged to hire thousands of new immigration agents, whose jurisdiction extends deep (100+ miles) into the U.S. itself.
For Americans on the Southern border, interactions with Border Patrol vary. Some see an occasional inconvenience, others a daily torment.
William Brangham has story.
CARLOTTA WRAY, Arivaca Resident: Right now, it looks more like a war zone.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): Carlotta Wray's commute has changed a lot over the past few years. She lives in Arivaca, a sleepy, no-stoplight town 25 miles from the Arizona-Mexico border. You drive in any direction from here, you will pass surveillance towers and border agents on patrol.
Checkpoints run by Customs and Border Protection, CBP, stop traffic in either direction out of town.
CARLOTTA WRAY:When the checkpoint was only temporary, I thought it wasn't a big deal, until it got serious. They never left.
SUMMARY: According to a new study, some 50 percent of all Muslim students in the U.S. have been bullied by their peers. In mostly-white St. Cloud, Minnesota — where thousands of east African refugees have relocated — the problem got so bad that Muslim students walked out of the city's high school en massè. John Tulenko of Education Week takes a look at the intersection of education and Islamophobia.
JOHN TULENKO, Education Week: Hafsa Abdi, who's 18-years-old, remembers well the day four years ago when she was first bullied for being Muslim.
HAFSA ABDI, Student, St. Cloud Technical High School:The last day of by eighth grade year, I was just going home, and then this boy — I think he was a year younger than me — he pulled off my hijab. And at the time, I was wearing a longer one, so it was more easy to kind of like pull off from the back.
And then I also had like a pin underneath to hold it in place. And then that kind of came loose. So, like, at the time I was just trying to think of like five different things at one time, like trying to get the pin to not stab me in the neck, and then turn around to see who this kid is.
JOHN TULENKO: In high school, the bullying continued, especially when she and other Muslim students would gather to pray.
HAFSA ABDI:Mostly, the upperclassmen, they would come into the bathroom sometimes and start fighting with the Somali girls that were trying to wash for prayer, and then when it gets reported, nothing would happen.
JOHN TULENKO: What would they say?
HAFSA ABDI: So they'd be like, oh, well, why are you making the bathroom dirty, you stinky Somalian or you terrorist or stuff like that, or go back to where you came from.
JOHN TULENKO:Where Hafsa comes from is Minnesota. She was born here, after her parents fled Somalia to escape civil war. Thousands of other East African refugees have also come to St. Cloud, changing the face of this mostly white, mostly Catholic small city.
WILLIE JETT, Superintendent, St. Cloud Area School District 742: My job is to make sure that all children, whether it's their children, whether it's somebody brand-new to the country, that they have the best tools available to be successful here in America, here within our community.
JOHN TULENKO: For superintendent Willie Jett, educating the new arrivals required changes across the board.
WILLIE JETT: What we have had to do is start from ground zero. You're trying to make sure that, (A) All the different languages within school are welcomed.
You're trying to make sure that you have interpreters. You're making sure that you're revamping teaching staff and support staff and the way that you hold conferences, the way that you send messages home. It's not what it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, even 10 years ago.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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