“The Trump administration has been using major hotel chains to detain children and families taken into custody at the border, creating a largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions without the safeguards that are intended to protect the most vulnerable migrants.” – The New York Times, August 17, 2020 Citizenship fees will be increased by more than 80 percent in a move by the Trump administration to also “substantially tighten eligibility requirements for a subsidized application.” – The New York Times, August 17, 2020 “Trump boasted about his own efforts to sharply limit immigration during his time in office, claiming to have made the country safer by blocking asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants seeking to live and work in the United States.” – The New York Times, August 19, 2020 California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Secretary of State Alex Padilla are among the two dozen names being floated to replace Senator Kamala Harris if she becomes vice president. California’s population is nearly 40 percent Hispanic. – The New York Times, August 17, 2020 “Trini Lopez, who had worldwide hit records in the early 1960s by creating a unique mix of American folk, Latin and rockabilly music, died (August 11).” He was 83. – The New York Times, August 12, 2020 “Thousands of Puerto Ricans (August 16) got a second chance to vote for the first time, a week after delayed and missing ballots marred the original primaries,” The Associated Press reported August 16. More than 60 of the island’s 110 precincts opened following a Supreme Court decision that a second round of voting would take place at centers that never opened on August 9 or closed early. “Mexico now has the third most COVID-19 deaths in the world, behind the United States and Brazil, while former success story Vietnam is struggling to control an outbreak.” – The Associated Press, August 1, 2020 Presidents Trump, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Andrés Manuel López of Mexico “all rarely wear masks and have resisted calls for strict lockdowns.” The Chicago Sun-Times, August 12, 2020