Human Rights

Sima Sami Bahous discusses women’s rights in areas of acute crisis and how UN Women is supporting gender equality and the empowerment of women around the world. The Sorensen Distinguished Lecture on the United Nations was established in 1996 by Gillian and Theodore C. Sorensen to highlight the United Nations and offer a special occasion for its most distinguished and experienced leaders to speak to the Council membership.

Julia Gelatt, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, discuss the Biden administration’s expansion of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program and recent developments in U.S. immigration and border policies. Gustavo Solis, investigative border reporter for KPBS San Diego, discuss sources for information and data on immigration topics and framing stories at the U.S. southern border. The webinar will be moderated by Carla Anne Robbins, senior fellow at CFR and former deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times.   TRANSCRIPT FASKIANOS: Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Local Journalists Webinar. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. CFR is an independent and nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, publisher, and educational institution focusing on U.S. foreign policy. We are also the publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. This webinar is part of CFR’s Local Journalists Initiative, created to help you draw connections between the local issues you cover and the national and international dynamics. Our programming puts you in touch with CFR resources and expertise on international issues and provides a forum for sharing best practices. So this webinar is on the record. The video and transcript will be posted on our website after the fact at CFR.org/localjournalists. So we are pleased to have Julia Gelatt, Gustavo Solis, and host Carla Anne Robbins to have this discussion on reporting on President Biden’s border policies. Julia Gelatt is senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute where she focuses on U.S. immigration policies, demographic trends, and the implications of local, state, and federal immigration policy. Previously she worked as a research associate at the Urban Institute. Her mixed methods research focused on state policies toward immigrants, barriers to and facilitators of immigrant families, access to public benefits, and identifying youth victims of human trafficking. Gustavo Solis is an investigative border reporter for KPSB (sic; KPBS) Public Media in San Diego. In 2018, he was part of a Pulitzer Prize winning team in explanatory journalism for “The Wall: Unknown Stories, Unintended Consequences,” which was a series led by the Arizona Republic involving over thirty journalists to cover the border wall separating Mexico and the U.S. And Carla Anne Robbins, our host, is a senior fellow at CFR. She is the faculty director of the Master of International Affairs Program, and clinical professor of national security studies at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. Previously she was deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times and chief diplomatic correspondent at the Wall Street Journal. So thank you all, and Carla, over to you. ROBBINS: Thank you, Irina, and I’m going to make a pitch—a naked pitch—which is starting tomorrow I’m going to be the co-host of the Council’s The World Next Week podcast, and it’s—I would like to say it’s not Only Murders in the Building, but I’m hoping that people will tune in. So with that, having done my self-promotion, thank you so much everybody for joining us. Thank you to the journalists on the call. We’re going to chat up here and then throw it over to you guys for questions, but if you have questions while we are talking, please, you know, throw them into the chat, raise your hand so we know that you are—you know, you can help shape that conversation as well. And we really appreciate the work you do. We know it’s an incredibly hard time to be in the business, and you’re doing the extraordinary job, and thank you so much for doing it. So Gustavo and Julia, thank you for being here. Julia, can we start with you? As a researcher, can you give us a sense of the scale of what we’re looking at here—you know, how many migrants are trying to enter the U.S., and how much has it changed since Biden came into office from the Trump years? GELATT: Sure. Yeah, last year we saw 2.4 million people being encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border, which is, you know, a really big increase. As soon as President Biden took office, we actually saw the border numbers starting to increase, which isn’t necessarily, you know, because of him. This coincided, of course, with kind of the reopening after really low border numbers during COVID-19, and kind of a resumption of trends that we saw starting in 2019 as well. But we really are seeing big numbers coming at the border. And also we’re seeing really different trends of who is showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border, so, you know, over kind of a longer history there are a lot of Mexican immigrants, a lot of Mexican single adults coming, and then in the Trump years we were really seeing kind of more Central American families and unaccompanied minors. Last year, for the first time, there were more Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans encountered than Central Americans, so we’re seeing just kind of ongoing shifts of who is coming at the border. So, yeah, really kind of big increases and also really different groups that are coming. ROBBINS: How can you explain the different groups? It’s not like Cuba is more repressive this year than it was last year. Venezuela is more repressive this year than it—you know, Haiti, granted, is worse, but that, you know, a long story. Why is it a different mix? GELATT: I think partly it’s the economic impact of the pandemic. That was, you know, tough all around the world, but we’ve seen a lot of economic downturns in the region. That was also why there were Haitians coming to the border in prior years that had been living in South America, but with some economic challenges increasing there, they were making their way to the United States. There are also—I think in some cases, even if the conditions aren’t where I said—sort of like a frustration point. In Cuba we saw big protests, and then a big crackdown, and kind of a sense that, well, this isn’t about to change; the same thing in Venezuela. You know, there had been some kind of hope of the opposition, and it seems like the opposition is really not succeeding. And so, you know, kind of giving up on the hope of change at home can lead people to leave. Maybe also there are people who, you know, were kind of frustrated when the pandemic hit, but delayed their travel while mobility was really hard, and there were public health concerns, safety concerns, and then it became an easier time to move. So I think there are a lot of different push factors. But there is also the impact of President Trump’s—sorry—President Biden’s border policies, which is that, you know Title 42 is still in place—those are really quick expulsions back across the border to Mexico. Those had been mainly applied to Mexicans and to Central Americans, and Mexico wasn’t really wanting to accept nationalities that it also couldn’t return to their home countries. The U.S. doesn’t really have a way to deport people back to—or didn’t—back to Venezuela, to these other countries, and so Mexico also didn’t and so wasn’t wanting to take people expelled under Title 42 from these countries. Now, you know, we’re seeing changing border policies, and Mexico is agreeing to take more nationalities under Title 42, which seems to be having some impact on the numbers. But the word was getting out, you know, that certain nationalities were going to be let into the United States and, you know, that this might be a good time to travel. So the administration is now kind of working on countering that narrative with its new policies. ROBBINS: Thanks. So Gustavo, you are down close to the border. You’re talking to people there. Two things: I want to talk about the factors of the—the push factors, but talk a little bit about the pull factors to start. Certainly the critics of President Biden would say, President Trump is really tough, and that’s why people stopped coming, and this is all because people think they’re going to get a really, you know, immigrant-loving deal from Biden. How much of this is, you know, perception rather than reality? Are people coming because they think they are going to get a better deal from Biden—people you talk to, and how much of it is just, you know, the factors that Julia is talking about? SOLIS: I think most of it is the factors that Julia is talking about—at least the main ones, right? The employment factors, right, working conditions, poverty, violence, discrimination. I mean, I think what Julia said was spot on and very—a key part of this is the shift in migration from traditionally adult men coming for work to now it’s a little bit more diverse, more families, women, children; people seeking kind of humanitarian aid, and I think that shift is very, very important because our entire immigration system was built on one type of migrant—the men, employment—and we’re experiencing a different one which presents a whole slew of different challenges. But back to your question, I think when I talk to them, and I ask them why they are coming and why they decided to come, all the reasons they point to are turmoil back home, whether they are coming directly from impoverished states of Mexico like Guerrero and Oaxaca, or like you mentioned, they are Haitian nationals who have spent the last couple of years in Venezuela or Chile and are kind of finally making their way over here. They do mention some of the policies. Especially like during the election, I do remember hearing in Tijuana there was a big migrant camp, and that essentially formed because there was—during the 2020 election Biden ran on this campaign of rolling back some of Trump’s policies, restoring a more humane system to asylum, and there was this expectation that, you know, not overnight, but eventually they would be able to kind of have a safe and orderly way to get into the country. That unfortunately hasn’t happened to the majority of them. And I would say that that was kind of a factor once they got here, but I wouldn’t say that is a major push factor to when people are deciding to leave their homes. I would say one of the last things they are looking at is U.S. immigration policies. It’s all the internal issues going on there. ROBBINS: This is such a hard trip for people, and it’s just so hard in so many ways. It’s physically hard. It’s dangerous. The potential for exploitation is so enormous. Why are so many women coming now with children that didn’t do it before? You know, I worked in Central America for a long time. Conditions were bad when I worked in Central America. You know, it’s a—why suddenly would women be more willing to take these risks with their children that they weren’t willing to five, ten years ago? SOLIS: Well, based on interviews I’ve done, it’s a calculated risk. And I think in their mind they’re seeing—at least the people for—like the asylum seekers and people fleeing violence—they would see that, if they stay at home, they will most likely die. I mean, just to be frank, they’ve been threatened individually or collectively as a family, and they view the dangerous journey as being less dangerous than staying at home. That’s the only way I can kind of understand that situation. I mean, nobody comes here thinking it’s easy. Maybe there are people who think it’s easier than it actually is, and that might be some human smuggling kind of putting these ideas in their head that it’s an easy walk across the border; it’s not a multi-day-long hike through dangerous territory. But I think they expect it to be difficult. They know it’s dangerous. I mean, they have friends who have done it before, and people go missing all the time. And they are aware of all the challenges, but I think they are making a calculated risk. And more than anything, it’s speaks to the level of uncertainty and desperation back home for them. ROBBINS: Julia, can you explain just some basic terminology for us? What’s the difference between a refugee and asylum seeker—that’s the first thing. And the second thing, can you explain what, under international law, are the obligations of the United States when people come declaring, asking for asylum? GELATT: Sure. So, yeah, refugees and asylum seekers—asylees—are people who are fleeing persecution, who meet the standard of having a well-founded fear of—either have experienced persecution or have a well-founded fear of future persecution on the basis of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group, things like that. Refugees are processed outside of the United States, so refugees are someone who is outside of their country of origin, but they have—you know, they have experienced persecution, they have a fear of persecution, and they are processed through a combination of U.N. agencies—specifically UNHCR—and then the U.S. government. And if they are found to be refugees in need of protection and, you know, are chosen to come to the United States versus some other country in the world, they will come to the United States with that refugee status, with a legal status. They will come in an orderly way. They will be placed in a U.S. community, given refugee resettlement assistance. Asylum seekers are people who come onto U.S. territory, whether they flew here or come to the border and get onto U.S. soil, and then ask for protection in the United States meeting those same standards. Asylum seekers go through a really long process of being put into removal proceeding and then asking for asylum—usually—in immigration court, and then having those claims adjudicated. If they are found to, you know, be an asylee; if they are granted asylum, then they are also eligible for that same resettlement assistance, although usually by then people have been in the country for quite a while, so they are less likely to be taking advantage of that. Under international law, we have an obligation—we have agreed that we have an obligation that anyone who gets on to U.S. soil has the right to present their asylum claim and to have that claim heard, which, you know, is something that you might not know, given some of the policies of the Trump administration and even some of the things that are being discussed as future possibilities by the Biden administration, but that is our obligation. ROBBINS: And so are people—given our obligations under international law—and it really isn’t just—I mean, international law—of course there’s, like, no police to enforce international law, but there is—there’s a pretty accepted norm internationally that under international law, people have the right to claim asylum, and that has to be adjudicated, but it’s adjudicated by a particular sort of judge, right? And how—is there just a huge backlog of cases? Can we kick people out while their cases are being adjudicated? You know, have different administrations dealt with that differently? I mean, what’s the process?  GELATT: Yeah, so asylum claims are adjudicated in immigration courts, which are part of the executive branch—they are not part of the judicial branch—by an immigration judge. Right now there is a backlog of two million cases before the immigration courts, and eight hundred thousand of those are asylum cases. So there’s an enormous backlog. It’s taking an average of over four years for someone to have their asylum claim fully adjudicated in immigration court. People have the right to stay while that’s ongoing. The exception would be if there is something, you know, very severe in their background. If they have terrorist links or something like that, they could lose their right to claim asylum. But for the most part, they have the right to stay while they are waiting for that full adjudication. The Biden administration has taken a step to try to speed this up. They are sending some asylum cases that originate at the border to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which has its own backlog, although it’s a little bit smaller. So you have those cases hopefully processed more quickly rather than going—waiting in the court backlog and going through the court system. It’s also a friendlier process. That’s in its pilot stage and, you know, we’ll see how that works out and whether that can be ramped up. But that’s one idea for trying to get people their asylum answers more quickly. ROBBINS: And did the Trump administration deal with it the same way? Did they—did they—if you got in and you claimed asylum, you were dealt with in the same way? GELATT: So they tried a number of things. One was having people wait in Mexico through the Remain in Mexico policy, so they would have a U.S. court date in the immigration courts in the United States, but had to wait in Mexico while that, you know, court backlog worked and while they were waiting for their day in court. Under Title 42, the border expulsion order, we are not allowing people to claim asylum in the United States. People who are expelled under Title 42, if they assert that they are afraid of torture in Mexico or their home country, they might be able to come into the United States rather than being expelled, but otherwise, they are not able to present their asylum claims. They are just turned right back to Mexico, which is why many people try again to come into the United States. Kind of at this point it’s a game of chance. If you are expelled under Title 42, you keep trying to cross until maybe you eventually make it into the country. There also—you know, the Trump administration also put into place a ban that was blocked by the courts, and then allowed, and then blocked again that said that anyone who had passed through another country on the way to the United States and hadn’t taken advantage of their asylum system would be ineligible for asylum in the United States. And that’s—the Biden administration is talking about some kind of policy where people who come to the border between ports of entry will have some kind of higher bar to meet in seeking asylum. We’re waiting to see the details of that. Some have said that that will be like that Trump rule—if you’ve crossed through another country you won’t be able to seek asylum. The Biden administration says it’s nothing like the Trump rule but, you know, we don’t exactly know what that’s going to look like yet to really assess that. ROBBINS: So Gustavo, when you talk to people who are seeking to come into the United States and who are going to make asylum claims—and this question of a well-founded fear of persecution is an interesting one. Is it political persecution or is it gang persecution? These are all interesting questions. You know, if you have an abusive husband, you know, an abusive partner—you know, these are violence against women questions. I mean, how much do the people you speak with understand the system? And I’m not saying that they’ve been coached to say the right thing, but it matters what they say, both to make their claim to get into the country, to remain in the country, and when the day finally comes for them to go to court because they are not guaranteed a lawyer, I assume. How much do they understand, and are there NGOs or—you know, do they get some support to at least understand the complexity of the system? Because, I mean, I’ve written somewhat about this, and I’m listening to Julia, and I’ve frantically taking notes because every time I read a story I think I understand it, but it’s pretty complex. SOLIS: Oh, it’s incredibly complex, and the question actually brings up—raises a lot of issues just from even like what asylum is, right? You’d think somebody fleeing gang violence would be a pretty good cause, but that’s not always the cause, and Julia, I think, maybe you could help me out. There are—the way the asylum system is set up in our country, you need, like, certain kinds of persecution, be it religious, gender, ethnic, and I think—and you can correct me if I’m wrong, Julia, but generally speaking, violence—like gang violence and just street crime doesn’t really have—you can’t—there’s no category for that in the way we understand asylum right now legally. So it does present a lot of challenges to their case. The other big issue you touched on is access to attorneys, right? Immigration court is not part of the quote, unquote, “regular court system.” It’s not like in criminal court where you are guaranteed a lawyer. In immigration court, you are—you have the right to a lawyer if you can pay for one or find one to do it pro bono, and a lot of people don’t have that luxury. There are some nonprofits along the border trying to provide legal aid. They do workshops. Al Otro Lado is a good one that does work throughout the border. They kind of do a little bit of asylum screenings, and every once in a while they will be able to provide legal aid to an individual family or migrant, but it’s a drop in the bucket. I mean, the number of people that require legal assistance to manage an incredibly complex case is a lot more than the lawyers who are, A, trained, and B, willing to take them pro bono. I think the Remain in Mexico program really kind of shed light on this, right, at one point. With the Remain in Mexico program you could come to the border, present an asylum claim, and you would start the process, but you would be forced to live in Mexico while that case was adjudicated. The problem with that is that almost nobody got lawyers from that one, right? To get a lawyer you would have to, A, find a lawyer willing to spend the entire day crossing the border in Mexico, meeting with their client, screening their client. It’s just not feasible, especially when you are doing it pro bono. At one point under the Remain in Mexico, I think the people in that program who actually completed and got an asylum status was less than 1 percent, so it just kind of shows you how difficult it can be. ROBBINS: So this is obviously not just a border issue. This is an issue across the country, not least because—unless we’re Native Americans, all of us are, you know, one or two generations away—if not immediately, you know, immigrants. And so say I live in X state that’s hundreds of miles away from the border, and I want to understand the challenges facing people who are trying to get through this legal system. How would I start that? You know, how do I—you know, where do I go to begin to understand that and, you know, understand the system, understand how many people in my community are, you know, going through this—without scaring the you-know-what out of people? (Laughs.) SOLIS: You go to immigration court. That will be the first and best place to start. I mean, they’re all over the country. ROBBINS: Are there immigration courts everywhere? I mean, where are they? SOLIS: Most, if not all, major cities have one. I mean, there’s one here in San Diego. I don’t know exactly where all of them are, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t one in every single state—definitely one in every major city. And you can—I mean, it’s a court. You can go in and just sit down, spend a morning or an afternoon just hearing the cases. I mean, back to your question about whether migrants understand the process, like, some of it can be heartbreaking because it’s clear that they don’t. I mean, I’ve seen children as young as eight representing themselves in immigration court through a translator, so like just imagine that, right? An eight-year-old, semi-literate child in their language trying to present a claim for themselves in court in a system that they—you know, a system most Americans don’t understand. But if you want to get from a reporting perspective to that point where you are talking to the people actually involved, go to immigration court. If you sit there long enough, you will start to see recurring patterns. You will—I mean, that’s where the immigration lawyers are, so that’s where you will get a couple of good contacts, as well. And you can identify one or two cases to highlight and talk—write something about a bigger issue going on. ROBBINS: Julia, how do you answer that question? How do we—if we want to—I mean, you’re a consumer of news as well as a maker of news. How do we—if we don’t live on the border, how do we begin to understand what’s in reality happening in every city, every community? GELATT: I mean, I rely on the reporting of many of the people on this call-in, many reporters, to know what’s happening at the local level. But, you know, at MPI we tend to look at things kind of at a national level. We produce a lot of data, have a lot of data tools that you can kind of see where immigrants of different nationalities are. We use the data from TRAC, from Syracuse, that shows, you know, what’s happening in the immigration courts, how many cases are being filed, what are the nationalities, what are the outcomes. So, yeah, we use a lot of data, and then I think, you know, right, the immigration courts are the place to go. And then there are networks of legal service providers. They are completely overworked and overstretched, but they are really on the front lines, and really, I think in every community, and trying to do what they can to provide representation of people. So those may be hard people to get on an interview, but those are good places to go to talk with people and to see where people are going. And then, you know, likewise are—I think in most cities now there are really great immigrant-serving organizations, nonprofit organizations that may or may not have legal services but are trying to kind of meet the broader needs of immigrants in their communities, and in many cases, also advocating for this community and really want to be, sharing their stories and talking with reporters about what they are seeing and what they are facing. SOLIS: And if I could add, I think a resource—if you live in a city that is—if you are lucky enough to live in a city that has a consulate, I would reach out to them. Here in San Diego, the Mexican consulate is very helpful, very open with us, and they are—they have an interesting perspective and connections with, obviously, the Mexican foreign nationals, but also undocumented immigrants and different groups that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to connect to. ROBBINS: Can you—and that’s really useful. Julia, can you go back and talk about your data sources—this Syracuse database called TRAC? Can you tell us a little bit about it? And we’ll send links out to everybody, but could you just tell us what that is? GELATT: Yeah, so all credit to them, to the TRAC folks for putting out the data, so they regularly— ROBBINS: Is it T-R-A-C-C or T-R-A-C-K? GELATT: T-R-A-C. I think if you Google that and immigration, you can find kind of a—it’s somewhat of a wonky page—(laughs)—but you can find a lot of their tools. So they regularly submit Freedom of Information Act requests to the government, and they get information on, like, every single immigration court case. They also have data on, you know, how many immigrants are in alternatives to detention, which is a new way that ICE is using to track immigrants that they have encountered. At MPI we have a—what we call our data hub, which is all of our data tools. There is lots of—tons of data in there. Mostly we’re using data from the Census Bureau, so we’re kind of giving a broad picture of who are the immigrants in the United States, what countries are they from, where are they living, what are their characteristics, what are their experiences in the United States. We also have international data tools. So if you go to migrationpolicy.org and then look for our data hub, or just Google MPI data hub, you can find all of the data that we have so that you can kind of get a bigger picture of, you know, who are the immigrants in your community, in your state, in the country overall. ROBBINS: That’s hugely helpful. That’s great. So on January 5, President Biden announced a new asylum policy which denies people from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti—and they previously announced this on Venezuela—the chance to apply for asylum if they cross illegally from Mexico. But they also raised the number of people who can apply for those two-year humanitarian parole, which is basically a temporary work visa. They claim that this was—you know, this very creative way that’s working to stem the flow of undocumented migrants, and the Department of Homeland Security announced in the middle of January, that they said that—had seven-day average from December 11—had gone down to mid-January, had fallen 97 percent because of this new policy for these four groups. Is that right? I mean, is this policy actually working, persuading people that if they just wait, that they have a chance of getting work visas? That’s to Julia and then to—and then to, Gustavo, what you’re saying. GELATT: Yeah, it certainly seems to be working in the short term, if by working they mean reducing the number of people trying to cross the border without authorization—from these countries. Whether that—whether that will hold long term, I think we’ll have to see. There’s just a lot of questions—(laughs)—around this policy, so nationalities of these four countries are now being expelled to Mexico under Title 42. But there are also these parole programs where, if people have a sponsor in the United States, and they have a passport, and they apply and go through a—you know, background check and other basic screening, they can come to the United States with humanitarian parole, which is a temporary right to stay for two years and work. It’s unclear what happens at the end of those two years. That’s one big question here. Another big question is whether the people who are, you know, really desperate and fleeing their homes, and making these really dangerous journeys, are those the same people who can wait at home, find a sponsor, you know, get a passport, and be able to come through this parole program? We’ve seen already thousands of people who have been able to take advantage of the parole program, so that’s another success that the administration can point to. If people who would have otherwise made the dangerous journey can take advantage of parole, I think that’s a really big win. Although, I should note that there is now litigation by several states, and then Stephen Miller’s new organization, against this parole program, saying that it exceeds executive authority to create a program like this. So, that challenge is hanging out there. (Laughs.) And they filed that suit in a friendly, to them, you know, part of Texas, where they may be able to get an injunction to stop that parole program. So that will—that could really stop that. But it—you know, it’s a combination of carrot and stick, carrot being this new pathway to the United States, and the stick being tougher border enforcement for these groups. The combination seems to, in the short term, you know, have had this impact. But people may be kind of just waiting to see how this plays out, and watching for a little bit. And then, depending how it does play out, that will shape, you know, future decision making, and whether those border numbers start to go up again, I think. ROBBINS: So, Gustavo, what are you seeing? Is this working? I mean, I understand working is a relative term— SOLIS: (Laughs.) ROBBINS:—it’s by their definition of what working is. SOLIS: Yeah, I—TBD, I think, just echoing what Julia said, right? It is a fact that the numbers of certain nationalities that are included in this program are going down. The most interesting issues I’ve seen is just that the method of obtaining this humanitarian parole is through this mobile phone app that isn’t really working for a lot of people. So I think if that app, CBP One, continues to not really deliver, then I would anticipate the numbers will go up, just out of sheer desperation. Other problems with the app, CBP One, solely available in English and Spanish right now, so if you’re an immigrant who doesn’t speak either of those, you know, good luck. Obviously, you need a smartphone, you need a reliable internet connection. That’s not always a given in border towns. And there’s just this sort of—the way it works, I mean, it’s like—one of the sources I talk to just described it as, like, Ticketmaster, right? It’s based—like, every morning, you get up—or I think it’s nine in the East Coast, six here in California—and you sign up, and try to sign up for an appointment. And if you get it, great. If you don’t, you know, good luck. Try again tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. It’s not really based on who has the highest need, or is in the most danger. And I don’t think it really—it sounds great in theory, it sounds great coming out of Washington, right? Like, oh, they can just download the app and sign up, and do it that way. In practice, at the border, particularly for people in dangerous circumstances, it doesn’t really work out. So, I think for now, it—we’re kind of—Julia said, wait and see. But there might come a time where people just kind of abandon the app, and then would kind of revert back out of desperation to crossing illegally. ROBBINS: So, we have a question, yay. (Gives queuing instructions.) We are now in the question time. Abigayl Martin has a question. Abigayl, do you want to ask your question? If not, I can ask it for you. Abigayl Martin asked, what does it take to be expelled under Title 42? GELATT: So, when someone, yeah, comes across the U.S-Mexico border, the Border Patrol is making decisions, kind of based on resources that they have, who they’ll process into the United States, who they’ll put into detention, who might already have a removal order, they can remove them, you know, using that old removal order. One of their options is to expel someone under Title 42. That’s the quickest, fastest, least resource-intensive option that they have, because it basically doesn’t involve any processing. They just send someone right back to Mexico. So—but Mexico, of course, controls who comes across their borders. So Mexico, you know, had agreed to take, of course, Mexicans, also people from the northern Central American countries under Title 42, and now, Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. But last month, only 20 percent of people who were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border were expelled under Title 42. Or, only 20 percent of encounters ended in an expulsion—it’s really events, not people. But so, most people are being processed into the United States under regular rules. But some of them are being expelled under Title 42. ROBBINS: So, we have a question from Phillip Martin from—I think from WGBH. Phillip, do you want to ask your—ask the question? Q: Sure, it’s—since it’s a long one. I’m always—I continue to be amazed by the inability, it seems, of the White House, and for that matter, many activists, to explain exactly what is happening, when you see these occasional stories of—that were—that are used politically—when you see, quote, unquote, tens of thousands of individuals lined up at the border. I’m trying to understand why it is that the White House, and for that matter, activists, seem to have a difficult time explaining accurately what is happening on the border. And I tend to believe that the reason it is, is because it’s a complex issue that is difficult to explain in simplistic terms. But because it’s politicized, it has taken on a life of its own. I’m just wondering if our—if Julia and Gustavo could put that—could basically talk about that form of communication, why it seems so difficult to get that across to most Americans, it seems. ROBBINS: Gustavo, do you—do you—you must encounter a lot of prejudice, too, from people, and—as well as confusion from readers. But you know, the pictures are very compelling, as Phillip says. And then there’s all this stuff about caravans coming and invading the United States, and all of that. I mean, how do you deal with that, as a writer and a reporter? SOLIS: Well, I think Phillip’s right, in just recognizing that these are incredibly complex and nuanced issues, right? It’s very difficult to sum up even something as simple as, like, a Title 42, without—(laughs)—a couple of lines of background and explanation behind it. I think the problem, especially with information coming out of Washington, is that the rhetoric is just so divorced from the reality at this point, right? You can only start talking about this topic so long before somebody mentions a phrase, like open borders, invasion, amnesty. I mean, all those things don’t really mean anything to me. (Laughs.) I don’t really understand them, because they’re used in a variety of different contexts. I think from a reporting standpoint, you should avoid using those phrases that sound awesome, but don’t really mean anything. And there should be kind of a balance between going that route and going the super wonky, legalese route. I mean, you’re only as good as your sources, so I think in terms of sources, I would avoid whenever possible, using elected officials—(laughs)—in D.C. or state capitals. I mean, just, if anyone tuned into the House Judiciary Committee hearing, like, it’s clear that a lot of these lawmakers don’t know the basic function of customs and border protection sometimes. So, I would just rely on experts, and really framing the stories on the individual migrants, asylum seekers, kind of how it impacts them. I think that simplifies it very well. Because you kind of only have to focus on one person and what’s going on with them, instead of trying to cover the border. But I—Phillip, I kind of echo what you’re feeling, and said, with—especially with the frustration of just how complicated and convoluted some of this can be. It’s very easy to mess up. ROBBINS: And it will get— Q: Thank you. ROBBINS: —I’m sorry—it will get even more politicized, I suspect, if the Republicans in the House go ahead with their threat to call for impeaching Mayorkas from Homeland Security. And this could be—this could really become a, just sort of a made-for—made-for politicization television moment. So, we’ll hear—we’ll hear a lot more of this. We have a question from Jessica Montoya, which I’m going to read quickly, just because we have lots of questions coming in, yay. And I think this is good for Julia. So, Jessica, if you don’t mind, I will—I will read it. What Jessica writes is: I’m from San Antonio, Texas, and this topic is everyday coverage for us. With all of these policies and restrictions to come in, every day people are led in and driven to immigrant centers, and then from there, they can go wherever. So, under what laws are these individuals coming in? If some have to, you know, do the refugee asylum process or are expelled under Title 42, I think, you know, how can some people get to come in and other people get expelled? GALETT: Yeah, I think I mentioned that there—that’s a great question, and it’s confusing. (Laughs.) And there are a bunch of different pieces of immigration law in here. When people come across the border, there are a number of ways that they can be processed. They could be expelled under Title 42. If they’re not, they could be put into immigrant detention. The Biden administration isn’t detaining families with children, so this would only apply to adults who are traveling by themselves or with other adults. But they could be put into immigrant detention, and then once they’re there, they could be there for a while, or they could be there for a short period. A lot of people—with the really high border numbers coming, and kind of overwhelmed government systems, a lot of people are released into the United States. And that looks like two different things. One thing is they’re issued a notice to appear in immigration court, so that’s the beginning of deportation proceedings. That can happen right at the border. They travel on to their community, but they have this court date waiting for them, and at some point in the future—but it can take a while, because of backlogs—they’ll go into the immigration court. And then they can, you know, if they want to claim asylum, they can present their asylum claims. Usually, there are multiple hearings that people have over time in immigration court, one to kind of schedule things, and then one to actually get into their asylum case. But whether they claim asylum or not, they’re in removal proceedings. And at the end of that, they could be ordered deported; they could be given asylum. Other people that are processed into the U.S. are told, because the government is overrun, and they don’t have time to kind of process those notices to appear at immigration court, they’re released and told, here’s the local ICE office in the place that you’re going. Go check in with them, and they’ll issue your notice to appear in court. And also, we’re enrolling you in alternatives to detention, meaning that you either have an ankle bracelet, or more likely, we’re giving you this cell phone app. You have to check in, you know, daily, show your face, or we’ll be tracking your location or something, some kind of monitoring, to try to make sure that people comply with these instructions to check in with ICE. And then that again will start their immigration court proceedings. So people are being let into the United States, but it’s not like they’re just being let in. They’re being let in to wait for their removal proceedings. People under general order can’t be removed from the United States without having a formal removal order from an immigration judge. The exception is Title 42; there may be some other exceptions. (Laughs.) But so, that’s why people are put into removal proceedings. I hope that clarifies, rather than making it more complicated. ROBBINS: Jessica, do you have a follow-up for that? I think you answered her question. So, we have a question from Rebecca Santana. Rebecca, do you want to answer your—ask your question? Or shall I read it? Jessica says thank you. Yes, answered. Rebecca Santana, do you want to ask your question? Q: No, you can go ahead and read it. Can you hear me? ROBBINS: Sure. Although— Q: Go ahead and read it. (Laughs.) ROBBINS: OK. (Laughs.) Rebecca, where are you from? I’m not actually looking at the list right now because I’m trying to— Q: Oh, OK. I’m in D.C. ROBBINS: OK. OK. So Rebecca asks: Can both of you talk through the process of credible fear hearings? Where they happen, who’s usually doing the interview, and what happens at the end of the hearing? Any insight you can give into that process would be helpful. Gustavo, I assume that you go to credible fear hearings? Can you talk about that? SOLIS: I can’t talk about that too much. That actually happens before the actual, like, hearing and court case begins. That’s actually—I think, Julia, you could talk more about that—but that’s one of the first steps to kind of establish that you have a reason to stay in the country, and have a shot at asylum. That’s, like, really early on. GALETT: Yeah, I can talk about that. That’s actually an option at the border that I skipped over, because it’s not happening a lot these days. But something else that can happen at the border, besides being expelled under Title 42, put into detention, or just released, is that people can be put into something called expedited removal. This is what most people went through at the border when border numbers were lower in, like, the late Obama years, early Trump years. And what this means is that it’s a process to quickly remove people from the country. As defense against being quickly removed through expedited removal, people coming to the border can say that they are afraid of going home, and then they’re given something called a credible fear screening. So, it’s kind of an initial screening to see if they have—if they’re likely to have some valid asylum claims. It’s a pretty low bar on purpose, because people are just coming across the border; they don’t have their papers in order; they’re in a state of, you know, kind of chaos and confusion. But if people can meet this kind of low bar to find that they have credible fear, then they can be released into the United States, and go into their asylum hearings. This takes more time, and usually, people are detained while they wait for their credible fear screening. It takes more government resources, so that’s why this is happening in a smaller percentage of cases. More people are either being expelled or released into the United States right now. But this is part of the regular order of border processing. ROBBINS: So, is it German Visbal with LTV Univision in Miami? German, would you like to ask your question? Is it—I just—I have, my name is German Visbal. I—yes, German, do you want to ask your question? Or should I read it? FASKIANOS: Carla, this is Irina. I think he needs to unmute himself. ROBBINS: Can you unmute yourself? Well, I can read it: For a long time, we’ve been discussing—I used to live in Miami—for a long time—(laughs)—yes, I’m going to read it for you. We couldn’t hear you. For a long time, we’ve been discussing that the policies that we see today are more an improvisation. Do you consider it this way? Gustavo, does it feel like they’re just making it up as they go along? Or does there seem to be a—some method to this? SOLIS: No, they are just making it up—(laughs)—as they go along. And for decades now, right? And that’s because in the absence of legitimate, comprehensive immigration reform, we’re kind of reduced to this system, where most new immigration policy happens either through executive action, like DACA, or court challenges, right? That’s kind of what kept Remain in Mexico, and is keeping Title 42, like, dead or alive, dead or alive, depending on what month it is. But it is very, I don’t know, reactionary might be a good term for it. But it’s tiring. I mean, you know, President Trump came in with a bunch of different executive orders, and things do change overnight. I think that add—this kind of culture and environment adds to the uncertainty, the confusion. And the complexity of our immigration system right now, is that it’s made up of executive orders for various administrations, and there’s a constant, like, dark shadow hanging on some individual policies in the—in the way of lawsuits, right? Depending on how one court rules, it can change the entire system overnight. ROBBINS: Julia, is there—I mean, I know there’s no—almost no possibility that Congress is going to do anything, but maybe. Because there is a possibility. There are moderate Republicans who may make common cause with Democrats on some issues. Is there any possibility of any sort of immigration reform? Or is that—or have you just stopped even paying attention to it, because it’s just so impossible to imagine? GALETT: It is hard to be— ROBBINS: And Lindsey Graham was supporting immigration reform. That’s exactly how old I am. (Laughter.) GALETT: Yeah, it is really hard to be hopeful about the chances of immigration reform in Congress. I mean, Congress struggles to pass legislation in general, much less something, you know, really controversial like immigration. I think one thing that we’re really watching is the litigation over the DACA program. It looks like it’s kind of—it’s been somewhat slow-moving, but we could have a court decision in April. The judge could decide, you know, not only that the program was illegal—which is probably, likely, how he’ll rule—but also he could, you know, mean—he could allow that to mean that current DACA holders will lose their protections when their work authorization expires. That, you know, I imagine would lead to a huge outcry, and tons of pressure on Congress. Like, it could—that could not happen. This judge could also stay the impact of his ruling. You know, it could kind of continue as it is until it gets to the Supreme Court. But at some point, there might be an adverse ruling, and that would really push Congress. I think there’s such, you know, enormous support for DREAMers in the United States, and giving them a path to citizenship. You know, and I hope that someday, there will, you know, be real reform. I mean, we really could use an update to our visa policies. You know, the president can use parole to try to let people in legally, but ultimately, Congress could give people a real visa pathway to the United States. Employers are hungry for workers, migrants want to come and work, and they want the safety of the United States. If we can, you know, allow for that match between willing workers and willing employers, that could go a really, really long way, along with all kinds of other fixes that are needed in our immigration laws. But you know, hard to hope for those broader changes in the short run. ROBBINS: So, can I take this moment here—I know this isn’t a border question, but I’m going to ask it just really quickly here. The Afghan Adjustment Act did not go through at the end of the year. Seventy-thousand-plus Afghans who worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan who are here, their visas could potentially, you know, run out this year. What’s happening with that? GALETT: Yeah, that’s another challenging one. I mean, there’s—there was such broad American support for the Afghans in allowing them to come to the United States, and you know, a big outpouring of support and help for Afghans once they arrived. And then that got caught up in politics too. I mean, in the past, whenever the U.S. has had a big parole program—like after the end of the Vietnam War, or for Cubans—we’ve had an adjustment act, where people paroled in could adjust to permanent status. So, I am—maybe not in the next year or two, but you know, maybe, hopefully after that, there could be room for an Afghan Adjustment Act. We also, of course, have seen over a hundred thousand Ukrainians paroled into the United States. You know, they also need a path to permanent residence, unless that war ends quickly, and people can go home. So, maybe there could be a combined push for those two populations, kind of as this all progresses. A lot of Afghans are applying for asylum right now, and many of them will be successful in their asylum claims. But that’s a really difficult way for them to get a path to permanent residence, when we already decided to invest the resources to evacuate these Afghans here, because we saw them as, you know, having supported the U.S. government, and being in danger. So, an Afghan Adjustment Act would just make it a lot simpler for the Afghans, and for the government. It would—it would save a lot of resources when we have this big asylum backlog. ROBBINS: So—(inaudible)—Julia, as I wait to see if there are any more questions. Are there? Ah, Sarah Betancourt. Sarah, do you want to read your question, or voice it? Ah, feel free to read this out loud. Sarah Betancourt, GBH News: Texas, Arizona, and Florida’s governors have bussed or flown immigrants from their states to cities and states with immigrant-friendly policies in the north for the past ten months. I remember one of the coldest—now, I’m going to add in here—one of the coldest nights in Washington, D.C., they also bussed them to the, funnily, vice president’s house. States like Massachusetts have seen two flights from DeSantis, but have seen overflow from New York City buses and local hospitals, ERs, airport. Wondering if the communication between immigrant advocacy groups and state governments in the border states, and state and local governments in northern states has improved at all? It seems like every time there’s a group of unhoused immigrants, everyone scrambles. It took a while to create some kind of process to get immigrants into the already strained Massachusetts shelter system. And that effort seems to be failing. I’m particularly interested in Massachusetts, and how organizations and governments on border states are communicating, with advocacy groups helping groups up here prepare, and make sure people’s needs are being met. Jump ball here. GALETT: I can start, and feel free to add, Gustavo. SOLIS: Sure. GALETT: So, yeah, the Texas governor was explicitly not communicating with the northern cities about, you know, when migrants were coming, which migrants were coming, any medical needs that they had when they arrived. But I—my understanding is that there are now relationships between the service providers in Texas, that are actually, you know, coordinating the migrants who voluntarily get on those buses, and then the service providers in D.C. and New York—which is not to say that there aren’t surprises, like changing the location of the dropoff. In Arizona, they—there is explicit coordination between the local officials and, I don’t know, service providers in Arizona and the service providers in D.C., where those migrants are being bussed. They send manifests. They send information about medical needs. And so, the local communities can prepare. I think your question also gets at, kind of more broadly, just, you know, the cities weren’t ready for this. We’re seeing a lot of—or we were seeing a lot of migrants who didn’t have U.S. ties. Traditionally, people who come to the United States, they know someone, they have somewhere to live when they first get here, and kind of have that initial safety net. But it seemed like particularly, a lot of the Venezuelans that were coming didn’t have that. And they were really depending on local governments for the very basic basics of shelter, and food, and you know, medical needs, and things like that. So, it does raise the question of whether there could be more coordination. You asked about coordination between kind of border communities and receiving communities. But I think there could really be a role for the federal government as well. There is some funding that’s available as reimbursements, but I feel like there could be more coordination of, kind of, how do you provide these services? What are the federal resources available, that are—you know, this is a problem that’s a federal problem, but hitting states and localities. And then just information-sharing, about who’s coming, what the needs are, kind of models that have worked, what’s been tried and not worked so well, and just lessons learned, you know, I think there could be more of that. SOLIS: Yeah, just to add a little bit. I know here in San Diego, the—I think—Julia, what you said about the fact that a lot of migrants coming in have established familial ties, friends, relatives, who they want to see—so, at least until a few years ago, most of the people who came, they would stay in a shelter in San Diego for two, three days, connect with their families, and then go either via bus or airplane to wherever their community was. And that, I think, is still the case. But like you said, the people who don’t have those ties present a unique problem. They are a little bit less transitory, and they do require a little bit more resources. And that’s where people are struggling a little bit. I know in the beginning, some of the people that were bussed to New York were kind of OK with it, because that’s where they wanted to end up, anyway. I mean, here in San Diego, and I would imagine most border cities, migrants don’t stay here. They go to their final destination. It’s just another part of the journey. But there is something to be said about the chaos of forcing a city who isn’t used to being part of that traditional migration route to essentially create a new one by force, by just kind of bussing people there. Doesn’t make much sense, especially if there’s no communication. ROBBINS: So, we have just a few minutes left. And I—David Lyons, from the South Florida Sun Sentinel, has made a statement, rather than a question. David, do you want to explain your statement about—oh, ah, here we go. So, David Lyons, from the Sun Sentinel noticed that they regularly receive announcements from the Coast Guard that it has repatriated migrants from different countries, multinational, who have been intercepted along the southeast Florida shoreline—you know, people on the same boat who come from different countries. Can they legally be returned to the country of their journey’s origin, without having their situation processed? GALETT: I have to confess to being a little bit ignorant about the law in this situation. But if someone’s not on U.S. soil, they wouldn’t have that right to claim asylum. So I believe that that’s the case. I believe that they can just be returned to the country that they were coming from. And that generally is what happens when Haitians or Cubans are being intercepted at sea. ROBBINS: And now that the Cubans are letting them be towed back, which they weren’t—you know, which they weren’t for a while. So, final round. As we said, we just have a few minutes left. Julia, as a consumer, as well as a maker of news, what do you think we’re not covering, and we should be covering? GALETT: That’s a tough question. I don’t have a great answer. But I just—I mean, I’m so grateful for all of the local coverage of, kind of, the impacts of things. As—I think, Gustavo, as you said, you know, we really closely follow what the administration is saying, and we read the press releases, and we read the announcements, and we kind of assess, like, what might this look like. But then we really rely on reporting to know how it plays out. What are the—what are individuals at the border, in U.S. communities, facing? What are they experiencing? You know, what are the unintended consequences of these policies? What are maybe the intended consequences? You know, how are—how are plans not kind of proceeding as they were planned, or, I don’t know, what—you know, what new trends are emerging? So, I think just, really, kind of having that real-world impact of, you know, we know what the official statement was, or we know what the initial plan was. But what does that really look like when the rubber meets the road? That’s what I really appreciate when I’m consuming the news. ROBBINS: Vertical integration. So, Gustavo, you—I don’t feel sorry for you, because you get to live in a really great place. (Laughter.) But—it’s like 30 degrees in New York right now. So, but if you weren’t in your really great place, and they said to you, go someplace else in the country, and follow this story, you know, what else would you be writing about, that would also be developing that? You know, what different experiences away from the border would you like to be reporting on? SOLIS: I think there’s so many to choose from. And every community is kind of affected differently. Like, I’m thinking of the—all of the meatpacking facilities in the Midwest. Those are mostly migrant-run. Even in San Francisco, there’s more—I think the immigration issue would be one about visas, and employment, and lack of access to those. I think it hits everyone differently. And I think the problem is, when we think and only discuss immigration and its relation to the border, we really limit the stories that we can tell over there. So I would—I mean, every—I would assume every, or most communities in the U.S. have a large immigrant population, and that’s where, like, just go there. (Laughs.) Be there. I mean, half the story is just showing up and being there, listening to the right people. But if we keep on—I think, like you said—relying on, kind of, press releases coming out of the state capitol or Washington, then we’re not going to—I think we’re just going to keep on telling the same narrative, kind of pushing that. We’re not going to create new ones, or really expand people’s understanding. ROBBINS: Well, this has been great. I just want to thank Gustavo Solis and Julia Gelatt. And of course, I want to thank Irina for bringing us all together, and thank everybody for such great questions. So, Irina, I’m going to turn it back to you, just with the reminder that we are going to share with you Gustavo’s writing and Julia’s research, and links to the things that they mentioned. So you guys will have easier time doing your research. So, back to you, Irina. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you, Carla, Julia, and Gustavo. We appreciate it. You can follow Julia on Twitter at @J_Gelatt, Gustavo at @Journogoose, and Carla at @RobbinsCarla. So, go there. And as always, we encourage you to follow us. Visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for the latest developments and analysis on international trends, and how they are affecting the United States. And of course, do share with us your suggestions for future webinars. You can email us, [email protected]. Again, thank you all for being with us, and for today’s really terrific conversation. We appreciate it. ROBBINS: Thank you, guys. (END)

Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, CEO of the Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy, and Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, associate professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, discuss women’s role in the Iran protests, the political and religious aspects of the movement, and what it means for the future of political Islam and Iranian women. Ray Takeyh, CFR’s Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies, moderates. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar Series. This series convenes religion and faith-based leaders in cross-denominational dialogue on the intersection between religion and international relations. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. The webinar is on the record, and the audio, video, and transcript will be made available on CFR’s website, CFR.org, and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Ray Takeyh with us to moderate today’s discussion on the protests in Iran. Ray Takeyh is the Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at CFR. His areas of specialization are Iran, U.S. foreign policy, and the modern Middle East. He served as a senior advisor on Iran at the U.S. State Department, a fellow at Yale University, and has held other positions. He’s the author or coauthor of six books. Most recently, his last one was The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty. So, Ray, thank you very much for doing this. I’m going to turn it over to you to introduce our speakers and to moderate the conversation. TAKEYH: Yes. Thank you very much, everybody, for joining. Today we have two terrific speakers. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, besides having a very timely last name, was a former parliamentarian in Iran, of the reformist variety. And today she’s the CEO of the Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy. Professor Tabaar is a professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School. His specializations are international security and Middle East politics. He’s the author of many timely and important books. I want to delve right into this discussion. And I want to begin with Parliamentarian Haghighatjoo. In forty-two years since its inception, the Islamic Republic has faced many different kind of protests from many different kind of factions. And the question that usually comes up is why are the current protest that began in September, with the death of Ms. Amini different—or, are they different in any way? Please. HAGHIGHATJOO: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me. And thank you, Ray, for introducing me. I believe this movement is different from the previous movement for several reasons. First of all, as many may know, that Iran’s constitution is a discriminatory constitution. It discriminates against minority groups, including women, ethnic groups, and religious groups. So women have faced difficulty for the past forty years. And I think in, recent events before September 2022, the morality police violated women, brutally cracked down on them on enforcing the hijab law. And I think women reached the point, after the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police, that enough is enough. So one important aspect has been women’s issues. Women have been the face of the movement. Also, the majority of people in the country are dissatisfied with how the regime runs everyday life, has been deteriorated. And I think everyone, to some extent, felt the anger. And different groups came together. There is very limited space on social, economic, political area in the country. So youths also joined with women and the movement [women] have created. I think another point is that the current movement, I believe, calls for fundamental change, which we can read as a call for a regime change. Even though different people joined the movement for different reasons, and some may want improvement of rights they would like, I think a great number of people really want fundamental change. TAKEYH: Thank you. Professor Tabaar, do you see this movement this same way? And do you believe that it can be durable? What is your perspective on the nature and the resilience of the movement? TABAAR: OK. Thank you. First of all, thank you, Irina and Ray, for the invitation and for the introduction. It’s great to be here on this panel with Fatemeh. I agree with Fatemeh that this is a very radical and widespread movement. It’s multiclass. It has affected different segments of the society, different strata in the society, different parts of the country we see being involved in this movement. Also, she’s absolutely right that this is probably one of the most radical movements that the Islamic Republic has been facing since 1979. There’s no call for reform, for gradual change. If anything, the protesters are calling for a completely different political system. So in that sense, it’s quite different. Another element that is very different in this movement, which is kind of related to this section of CFR, Religion and Foreign Policy, is the role of religion in this movement. There doesn’t seem to be any role for religion in this movement, which is quite astonishing for a country in which religion always played a major role. This time around, we don’t see any reference to religion, or very few, in the slogans, in the protesters’ platform. Not much. We don’t see clerics to be an influential part of this movement. So that’s another element. In fact, many social scientists in Iran have been writing commentaries and organizing events discussing this phenomenon, that why is it that suddenly the society has become so secular? And in some ways, some of them even argue that this could be potentially a far more significant development than even the ’79 revolution. So in that sense, this is quite remarkable, what you see. To what extent this is temporary or not, this role of religion, we have to see. But in that sense, it is different. But the question that is this going to lead to any major change? In the short term, if by change we mean political change, a change in the regime, probably not. We have already witnessed that the street have—that protests have kind of declined in the past couple of weeks. So in that sense, maybe not. But this is a long-term challenge. This is a long-term challenge between the state and the society. And even the strategies of the regime understand and they’re quite outspoken that this is going to be a long-term issue that they have to deal with. What they’re going to do to amend or to reduce this tension with the society, we’ll have to see. But, as I said, this is long-term. But let me just say one final point. And that is, the challenge that the protesters have faced is that they were not—or, they haven’t been able to bring the silent majority out. This hasn’t happened. This is the majority that sympathizes with the protesters but, for a variety of reasons, has decided not to come out yet. That’s why we haven’t seen the political changes that many people were expecting. TAKEYH: It is often suggested when you’re looking at this movement, and I’ll start with Ms. Haghighatjoo, it is suggested that it lacks organization, it lacks structure, and it lacks leadership. I’m going to ask you two questions. I think that’s true. Is that necessary for the movement at this stage? And second of all, is—does it need to have that at some point? And how will it have that in an internally repressive society? HAGHIGHATJOO: Yes. I think the main shortcoming of the movement is lack of leadership. Clear, united leadership. That doesn’t mean that at the street level there is no leadership. There are several reasons for that. The one main issue is the regime cracked down heavily. Over thirty thousand people got arrested. Many of them are those who have a potential [for] leadership. So if I look at any prison in Iran, we could see those who have leaders. So basically one scenario can be seen as leaders are forming from within prison. Just to name a few, I can say Narges Mohammedi can be one of those really who has a great potential vision, aspiration to be leader. Outside of the country, as we’ve seen—and it’s unique for the past seventy years—diaspora has played an important role in supporting the movement. But as we know, eighty thousand people attended the Berlin rally. Over fifty thousand people rallied in Toronto in October. But basically, still we don’t see a unified leadership because of different issues. One is historical fear, which goes back to 1979 leadership that Khomeini and its allies that have a long-lasting network throughout the country, could take over and purge these ideological differences, personality differences, and sometimes lack of a great leadership, and also the Iranian security forces manipulation. A combination of these several factors do not allow the opposition outside of Iran to come together and get united. Even if there have been some efforts, I don’t see it. So for now, because the regime for the past two decades has invested on security forces literally to crack down on political parties, organizations, civil society, journalists, press. So they have been trying to monitor everything, to question them, make them silent. So I think because of the level of repression, as you mentioned, it is difficult to form a leadership corps inside the country. So there are dots. People are working around the country. But they are not able to connect together because of that. So for now, maybe that is OK. Also, I don’t see it is necessary that in a daily or weekly pace people come to this different way of non-cooperative behaviors, actions, can also help the movement to grow in next couple of years. But I think if we want—if we want to see this movement to continue, it has to have leadership. And I think it is important, those who are in diaspora get together for leadership, but I feel the main leadership has to come from within Iran. I don’t want to separate between Iran—inside Iran, outside Iran. This is a way that the security forces in Iran like to do. But connection inside Iran is very important because they know daily things. Outside, they can create a strategy for this—a shared strategy that people inside Iran can understand as well. So, I believe at some point in the near future really we need to have a leadership for the movement to succeed. TAKEYH: Thank you. Professor Tabaar, I want to ask you about the performance of the regime for the past three months. Because there is a record of its performance. And it seems to me that the regime has—in some way, has lost its footing, has lost its narrative. It’s for the hijab, it’s for a loose hijab, it’s for restriction of hijab. Different people are saying different things. The prosecutor’s saying one thing, the head of judiciary another thing. If you can assess the performance of the regime, particularly focus on the security services? Because at this point, the Islamic Republic has only security services as a means of its prolongation in power. But this is also, in many ways, a conscript force. How do you assess the performance of the regime and the reliability of the security services as it continues to face domestic dissent? TABAAR: First of all, you’re absolutely right. They have lost the narrative. They know this. And that’s why they are trying to come up with a long-term solution to fix this problem. And that is, instead of relying on religion they’re using other forms of narratives—national security, nationalism, patriotism, and other things. And they keep saying this is not about veiling. This is not about hijab. And by losing narrative, it’s not just within the opposition. Losing narrative, as you said, even among their supporters. But the security forces, there have been some signs of tensions within the security forces, but overall we do not see any crack within the security forces, which is the key for any revolutionary movement to succeed. We don’t see that. And they’re not conscript. They are actually well-paid members of the regime. So, so far, yes, there are some supports that security elements have been tried and they have been criticized even by their own family members. But so far, they have managed to crack down on protesters. But again, this may not be a long-term issue. But here is what the regime is doing to reduce the tensions and the reliance on security forces in the short term. And that’s exactly what you were saying about how they are framing this—the tension about veiling and hijab. That’s why we’re seeing different signals from the regime because they want to reduce the state-society confrontation. They don’t want to have the morality police in the street having tensions, physical conflicts, with the citizens that sparked the very movement a few months ago. They want to reduce this. So in order to do that, they’re trying to redefine the veiling issue. And a few days ago—so, a few weeks ago, you were right—I think it was the Justice Department announced something—made a statement that basically they put an end to the morality police. It was not clear exactly what they meant. And I think it was ambiguous by design. And then a few days ago, the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that the compulsory veiling is very much part of the core part of Islamic law, and the state has to enforce it. Yet, he actually lowered the bar by saying that those who are not properly veiled, partially veiled, or he used the word—he said a hijab is ayefa and they have—they’re veiled weakly, or whatever, however you can translate this. And they are—they should not be seen as subversive or anti-regime elements. Which is interesting because up until recently the morality police were after anyone who was not following this strict dress code. But now Khamenei is reducing that and saying—basically signaling that only those who are defiantly unveiled, those who come out and are not veiling, they should be targeted. Which is—again, it’s a new development. We’ve seen in the past couple of weeks, past few months, when the movement started, more and more women are coming out completely unveiled, which is very new. And so the regime is now trying to target these citizens, those who are completely unveiled coming out. But even in targeting its citizens, it’s trying not to do it directly through the morality police, but using different enforcement mechanisms, including forcing businesses not to provide service to women who are not veiled. So they are coming up with different ways. So going back to your main question, they are making some tactical adjustments. You can see this as concessions, but they’re not really concessions. The regime is very careful to make concessions without being seen as making concessions, because they don’t want to do what the shah did, that basically giving an inch that would embolden the population. And yet, they are trying to be flexible, come up with different ways to divide the protesters and reduce potential tensions in the short term, until they can figure out that war of narratives that you mentioned earlier. TAKEYH: I’d just one more quick question to Parliamentarian Haghighatjoo. The opposition may not need the clergy, but the regime does. And they keep going to Qom looking for it. Have the general Ghalibaf, the head of parliament, was there talking to Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, Jeralzi, Hamdani, and they’re not getting it. What they’re coming back is criticism. At the end of the day, their security forces, if they’re loyal to regime, they’re loyal to the religious ideology of the regime. Can the regime afford not to have a clerical community that is very critical? And one of the parliamentarians, I think it was Abbasi or whoever, says, look, you got to stop criticizing us and offer a solution. You mentioned the resilience of the movement. How is the resilience of the security forces if clerical approbation outside the national government is not offered? HAGHIGHATJOO: This is really important point, as you mentioned. Clergy— TAKEYH: All my points are important. This is a particular important one. HAGHIGHATJOO: Yes. (Laughter.) Absolutely. I mean, clergy has been a key element and key supporter of the regime, basically the foundation of the regime. And Khamenei himself, other people around him, have tried directly, indirectly, to engage them, to bring them to the core of supporting the regime. But they did not lead the support to them. And this is very important. Unfortunately, for several reasons. First of all, they don’t listen to people. For instance, even Ayatollah Sistani, who is a great marja al-taqlid for Shia community. So I felt indirectly that he has been trying to provide some advice, but he says, unfortunately, nobody listens. Or other people, other clergy, so they have been requesting reform. Not only clergy. Even within the system, within the security forces, [there is a] call for the reform. But unfortunately, the supreme leader, as a key decision maker, doesn’t basically accept those—doesn’t accept calls for reform. Which is this call for reform is—ranges from simple reform to wider reform. And I think that is—clergy now [are now in a] very hard position. In one point clergy have been targeted by the movement. And young—especially young people see them as an ally of the regime itself. So they are targeted by the activists, protesters. On the other hand, they have been targeted by the security forces, by the leaders. So they originally have been placed in a very hard position. So maybe this is one reason also they are absolutely silent. They try to be—not support the regime, not support the—basically the protesters, because of the different position they have. I think gradually the regime try to move from the clergy to the security forces. For instance, if we see the combination of the government—and when I say government, as a general, the parliament, the executive office, even the judiciary—we see more and more military people compromise those institution. So they also—the regime will rely less. But definitely the regime needs clergy. And this is a hard position for the regime and for the clergy themselves as well. TAKEYH: Thank you. I’ll open it up for questions. If you have questions, Irina can direct you to how to go ahead and pose questions to our two speakers. OPERATOR: Thank you, Dr. Takeyh. (Gives queuing instructions.) We will take our first question from Azza Karam from Religions for Peace International. KARAM: Thank you very much, indeed, to the distinguished speakers—Dr. Tabaar, Dr. Haghighatjoo, and Dr. Takeyh. A very, very interesting and stimulating presentation. I request, if I may, for two specific clarifications. The first is, I heard a very clear point made by Dr. Mohammad Tabaar that religion has no role to play in this space and is not what has been motivating. At the same time, I thought that the whole point was about the veil, and imperative behind it, and therefore that created that whole setup. And then I heard very compelling conversations about the role of the clergy. So what is it? Is there no relationship? Is there some relationship? If there is, what is it? And sometimes being against the religion current in and of itself is a critical aspect of the religion engagement, or lack thereof. But the other question that I had is really more nuanced if you could please, Dr. Fatemeh, highlight the point about the potential for leadership, alternative leadership, not only within the country. Because one of the questions I heard some of our Iranian colleagues and friends say as well, they’re arguing for regime change. They want the downfall of the regime. But who would it be then? If this regime falls, well, who’s going to take—what would it be? So that is a question I’m curious about your own read on. But the other is, if we lack potential leaders from within or without, or ones who are obviously within and aligned with those diaspora, is that not a situation very similar to other contexts? I think of my own context in Egypt, with the conflict, and therefore how easy it was for the military to step in because of this so-called gap in leadership. Would anything like that—what would that actually imply for what’s going to happen now? Thank you. TAKEYH: What does the day after look like? Dr. Haghighatjoo. HAGHIGHATJOO: Yes. Thank you so much. First on veiling, unfortunately, unlike many other Muslim-majority countries, this regime tied hijab to its own existence, which is very bad idea in general. And even though other people, even within religious community, clergy community, wanted to ease—there is tension on that really. Some call that as an important point. Some, they say it should not enforce hijab. So there is tension on being needed to have hijab or not. But the final vote is for Khamenei. So Khamenei clearly stated hijab is mandatory and has to be enforced. Yesterday, the judiciary issued a statement. Even though their statement was absolutely illegal, they pointed out to several articles—legal articles, which are highly studied and those are really fake, not relevant to hijab. But anyhow, this is not the first time they do illegal action, right? So because the leader said the hijab is mandatory and has to be enforced, judiciary jumped in, even though there is no—there is only one law about seventy lashes, up to twenty—up to two months imprisonment. But the judiciary has created something new, which is needed a parliamentary legislation. Without parliamentary legislation, they issued something which is, as I said, all of their action has been illegal for the past hundred days or so. So this is on religious side, which it’s not easy to really analyze that section. On the leadership, yes, I think one reason that maybe not the majority of people joined to this current movement is fear of tomorrow, what tomorrow would look like, who is going to take over. Still the generation, this generation, has a memory of Pahlavi’s dynasty, that they thought, yes, by the revolution they are going to have freedom. And then from secular dictatorship country become a theocracy, another way even the worst form of dictatorship. But not now, knowing that what is going to happen in the future, I think this fear, plus the fear of crackdown on the people, prevent everybody to join. So I see—I believe Iranians are so talented. I believe Iranians have a leadership capacity inside the country and outside of the country. But still, everybody has its own narrative, its own ideology. Some people want return of dynasty. Some others want republicanism. But the reason is, basically, I think we have experience of religious dictatorial system and authoritarian regime. And this will be one great lesson that allows the next state to become a secular estate. I think this is the minimum agreement. Everybody has failed, even those who are inside the country. There is now a great call for not having supreme leadership out of the constitution or next regime. But I think there have been efforts to create that leadership and create a clear future for post-transition Iran, which I believe and I’m hopeful that that will be shaped. But it may take at least a year to reach to that point that we have a clear leadership and united leadership. TAKEYH: Professor Tabaar, do you want to take a crack at what comes next, and what does the day after look like? TABAAR: Sure, but let me quickly respond to the first question on the issue of religion, that how can this not be about religion? This is about religion, but what I was trying to say is that for the protesters, religion is not being used to mobilize the masses, as it was the practice for a long time in Iran, going back to the tobacco movement in the nineteenth century, and later the constitutional movement, and the Iranian revolution in ’79. All until recently, every time there was a movement, you saw either the clerics played a leading role or religion in general was very much part of the language and discourse of the protesters. But this time around, what we see is that this generation, this new generation of the protesters who came out in the past few months—this doesn’t not necessarily reflect the view of the silent majority that I said. But for those who came out, based on their slogans, what we saw was that they did not formulate their political actions and demands in religious terms. And again, this is a remarkable shift, at least according to many observers inside Iran. And you look at even the reform movement that Fatemeh was part of, you look at the Green Movement in 2009, religion and religious discourse was very much part of that. Trying to use this to mobilize the masses and also to undermine the cohesion of religion, for the very reason that Ray said a few minutes ago, that you need that in order to undermine the cohesion of the security forces. So, and again, there was this belief that only a diamond can cut a diamond. You need to have this kind of a discourse. But for this generation of protesters, they seem to have just gone way beyond this. They don’t even bother to engage with this, not to mention the anti-clericalism that we see rising. A lot of clerics have been attacked. And that is why many pro-regime clerics this time decided to remain silent, because they don’t want to increase the resentment and the anti-clericalism that they see in the society. So that’s what I meant. I didn’t mean this is not about religion. It is about religion. But it is no longer being used, at least for the time being, by the protesters, the way it was in the past. And then in terms of what is after. So, very quickly, this is the issue, that no one has been able to articulate a viable alternative so far. And that is why a lot of people—that is partly why a lot of people did not come out to join the protesters. There is a diaspora movement. As Fatemeh said, it was widely—it was divided for a long time. But they seem to have shown some form of unity in the past few months and weeks, some of them, some activists, and journalists, and athletes, and artists have gotten together, forming a coalition. But the question is, if we don’t know if they can translate that into a bigger political organization that is seen as legitimate inside Iran, that is credible, that can create—basically call for political action inside Iran. So we haven’t seen this. If that happens, then yes. So far, it seems that this coalition has been more influential outside Iran, trying to change policies of European and Canadian and American governments, than affecting inside Iran, because it just started. So we’ll see. We have yet to see to what extent it will be successful. But again, the lack of an alternative, a viable alternative, is what keeps a lot of people at home. TAKEYH: Thank you. Next question, please. OPERATOR: Our next question is a written submission from Chloe Breyer from The Interfaith Center of New York. Who asks: If you could speak about the connection between or the influence on Afghanistan and Iran right now. TAKEYH: Professor Tabaar, you want to start with that? TABAAR: I’m not an Afghanistan expert but, quickly, yes. So it is—I think is one of the most important and understudied developments as far as it’s connected to Iran. The rise of the Taliban, a group that went almost into war with Iran in 1998, coming back to power now is going to be an important development in the long term. So based on the commentaries we saw when the Taliban came to power two years ago coming out of Iran, it seemed Iran had a completely—at least, the conservative establishment had a very different view of the Taliban this time around. They did not see them as the enemy that the group was twenty years earlier. This time they saw the Taliban as a potentially—as a potential anti-American ally. So they kept emphasizing that the Taliban was an anti-American group. They defeated the Americans. And therefore, they could be a potential partner. Which is very interesting, because ideologically and ethnically the Taliban could not have been farther from Iran. At the time when Iran could have—and there was a cause, especially from the more moderate elements within the regime—that Iran could try to back the Persian-speaking ethnic groups, or the Hazaras, the Shia Hazaras. The regime decided not to, because they didn’t want to antagonize the Taliban and, more importantly, because it did see the Taliban as a potential partner. At some point, I even heard some regime strategy saying the Taliban could be a potential member of the axis of resistance. That’s how they see the Taliban. But so far, it hasn’t materialized. And there have been some tensions between Iran and the Taliban because of what is happening—border issues, and the Taliban crack down on their own population, and other things. But it is an important development. And it can go both ways. Taliban could be a very serious threat to Iran in the long term. It’s a potent force. But at the same time, as I said, Iran—the current regime, the current ruling faction, is trying to cultivate a partnership based on anti-Americanism. So we’ll see if that will materialize. TAKEYH: Thank you. I’ll go to the next question. OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Charles Randall Paul from the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy. PAUL: Hello. Wonderful conversation. I have two quick questions. One, has there in the last few years ever been a public opinion poll that could be considered legitimate for the citizens of Iran? And, number two, has anyone worked on a coalition of, shall we say, traditional, very strongly religious believers in Iran, and what we might call the liberal agnostic group, who merely want religious freedom? If you sense an American tilt on that question, you’ll see that the original Bill of Rights came about mainly because of a compromise between the adamant Baptists, who wanted to pitch their religion strongly in America and wanted to be allowed to do that, and the agnostics who did not want religion to control the government. And so they came up with the great compromise of “you can practice whatever you want, but you can’t be involved in government.” I’m wondering if there’s any thought at all going on in Iran of saying yes to religion with great enthusiasm, but also yes to freedom to not be religious. TAKEYH: Let me piggyback on that, Dr. Haghighatjoo. It is also said that the regime enjoys 20 percent of support among the population. I have no idea where that figure comes from. How would you—and I realize it’s dynamic. It changes. How would you assess the core supporters of the regime? I mean, I see opinion—Etana does opinion polls all the time. I have no idea if they’re reliable. But how do you assess what—if at all possible—what level of support the regime continues to enjoy? And from which segment of the population? HAGHIGHATJOO: Thank you. So on public opinion, yes, there have been some reliable public opinion [polls] many have done inside Iran and also outside Iran. General understanding from that public opinion showed a trend that Iranians have become less and less religious. And we’ve seen footage of videos. We hear stories that compare that polling. And some of these polls have been done by the regime itself. And regarding yes to religion and yes to freedom of religion, I think we see that very interestingly. Mr. Abdul Hamid, leader of Sunni in Sistan and Baluchistan, has played a great role in the past hundred days. Which is this very unique role. I haven’t seen any other religious leader play the role he has played. And every week they come out after Friday prayer. In his speech many times he supported Iran is for all citizens, regardless of if they are religious or not. And even he mentioned name of Baha’is, that Baha’i has a right to practice, and that right has to be preserved. Which, in some religious communities, Baha’is don’t have the right. And even if we look at today the Iranian constitution, Shia has absolute right. And to some extent, Abrahamic religion has some right. But some religions, such as Baha’ism, has no right at all. Even if they confess they are Baha’i, they will be barred from going to school, as simple as that. Or have a profession, or so on or so forth. It’s a very basic thing. They are denied—they seek a right. I think in general in society, we see people are more tolerant toward different type of religious spectrum. On core supporters of the regime, I think analyzing elections in the past twenty years shows almost what is the core element of the regime. Which is if we analyze election results, which we have done before a couple of times, that number comes to 10 to 15 percent. But this 10 to 15 percent, some are traditional religious people. They feel support of the regime is part of their religious duty, basically. They buy what—they buy regime’s narrative on use of religion. Some supporters of the regime who have benefitted financially, also I think that is another part. And as we see one reason that security forces especially—(inaudible)—have been a great core for the regime is because of these financial and political gain that they have gained throughout these twenty-plus years. This is the core, from my point of view. TAKEYH: Professor Tabaar, do you agree that it’s 10 to15 percent? And is it situated in a socioeconomic class, or it’s more diffused, as Dr. Haghighatjoo suggested? TABAAR: So there have been some public polls, and some government-sponsored polls. And there were some reports that, based on some government-sponsored news agencies such as Fars, that were classified but they were kind of hacked. A few weeks ago they came out. And they showed that—we see different figures, but something about 15 percent, the regime has the core supporters. Again, it kind of fluctuates. Sometimes it’s less. Sometimes it’s more based on what kind of threats they feel, religious or political. But I don’t think this has necessarily any specific, let’s say, social base. I think it’s widespread, fragmented. Different parts of the society, different parts of the country. But I do think a significant portion of it is among the core, basically, those who get the financial support from the regime—the families of the Revolutionary Guards, the security apparatus, and those who have specific, vested interests. So this is more about the just political and economic interests that they have connected directly to the regime. I don’t think it’s necessarily ideological, unless they fear that the day after could be an anti-regime government. At that point, yes, we do see, as Fatemeh said, some traditional religious segments of the people, they show some reluctant support for the regime because they fear an alternative. But relatedly, let me just say that this was a—this was—the second question was really, really important. And that is, if we see the alliance between more religious people and the liberal/agnostic people. We do see the rise in resentment among many religious people who are kind of apolitical. And they see that they go out to the streets and they see that a lot of people hate them, because they see them as being part of the regime. They’re not part of the regime, but they’re being part of the regime. So there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that shows more and more religious people are actually advocating for a secular government, precisely because they want to be left alone. They don’t want to be seen as part of the regime when they are not. And also, they are tired of the state control of their religiosity. It’s widely said that when the revolution happened one of the famous figures, clerics, at the beginning—right after the revolution said: The first casualty of this—in this revolution is Islam itself. And this is true, because a lot of clerics, a lot of religious institutions, they lost their independence. Because suddenly you have an Islamic government that wants to control the official narrative. So, I mean, in that sense, we see a rise. But recent—one of the figures who came out during this movement a few months ago was Fatemeh Sepehri, a religious figure. And she was very critical of Ayatollah Khamenei. And she’s now in prison. She’s fully covered with shutters. So there are a lot of religious people who are part of this movement, precisely because they want to be left alone in their religiosity. So they’re advocating for a secular government and for freedom, so. TAKEYH: Thank you. I’ll take the next question, as we’re wrapping up. So, next question, please. OPERATOR: Our next question is an anonymous submission. They ask: There is a critique in some quarters that the protests inside Iran have lacked the necessary intellectual and ideological rigor to persuade and invite the more learned layers of Iranian society to itself. There has been violence, vulgar language, lack of informed intellectual figures. Reliance has been on celebrities, stars, sportsmen, et cetera. Outside Iran, the discourse has similarly been divisive and pretty violent, plagued with personal attacks, defamations, et cetera. What is the way out of this? TAKEYH: Thank you. Please, Dr. Haghighatjoo, if you— HAGHIGHATJOO: Yes. I think there was also another question that what we can do—what NGO outside of Iran can do to support. I think to answer these questions together is, advocating for nonviolent action, strategy, and tactic. Exactly once people advocate for violence, that is basically super problematic. First of all, that creates fear of future, like some of these who have been engaged even in cracking down on the people. They may continue to crack down because they think what will happen to them after the regime. So they would try to fight to the last person. This one point. The second point also encouraging violence, as Erica Chenoweth research shows, that 55 percent of nonviolent—first of all, 55 percent of movement in general got succeed to change a regime. And nonviolent movement succeeded twice than violent. So encouraging peaceful transition to democracy is very important. And I think opposition outside of the country has to advocate for peaceful transition. Absolutely I disagree with those who advocate for eye for eye understanding and usage of violence. At the end of the day, the Iranian government has the upper hand on use of violence. And basically they try to find a way and excuses to crack down more on people. And that really is in favor of the regime itself. And it’s not provided any support for the protesters. TAKEYH: As we wrap up, let me ask Professor Tabaar and also Dr. Haghighatjoo, tell me how this ends? HAGHIGHATJOO: I could not understand the question. TAKEYH: I’ll start with Professor Tabaar. Tell me how this ends? TABAAR: Let me just start by saying that the last point that was raised is very critical, very unfortunate. And that is how this movement—part of this movement gradually became vulgar and has no intellectual—I would even go further, and say part of it is very anti-intellectual. And many of—some of the leaders outside or some of those activists inside, they even kind of brag that this is an anti-academic, anti-intellectual movement or approach that they have adopted. And the kind of language, as I said— TAKEYH: By the way, there was plenty of vulgarity in the 1979 revolution. TABAAR: But not—maybe it’s because of the social media, I don’t know. But this level— TAKEYH: I saw a lot of things about Pahlavi and others during the 1979 revolution. But go ahead. TABAAR: But I don’t know if people attacked each other the way they are doing now. I mean, as soon as somebody’s coming out and saying something that the other side sees as a little bit too moderate, or people are being accused of being different things. So this is—this is pretty vicious. And actually, I think that this has partly affected those silent majority, again, not to come out. And again, even in the media, people are just broadcasting this, which is surprising. So what is the way out? So—(laughs)— TAKEYH: No, how does this end? TABAAR: How does it— TAKEYH: What happens? TABAAR: From who’s perspective? I’m not super optimistic, as this is becoming more violent, I think the regime has an upper hand in the short term. But in the long term— TAKEYH: So in your perspective, it ends with the regime restoring its authority in some respects? TABAAR: In the short term. But, no, in the long term, no. There is no easy out for the regime this time around. So how’s this going to end? Let me just very quickly say, my fear is this could—there could be a diversionary war in the region that is caused by either the regime or neighboring countries miscalculating, like 1980 Saddam Hussein, and that could help the regime to restore order. That is my fear. TAKEYH: Dr. Haghighatjoo, very quickly, how does this end? HAGHIGHATJOO: Well, I think the current situation will continue unless the opposition is able to form a core leadership to convert it to post transition. I don’t see any chance for reform from within the system because Khamenei and—Khamenei blocked it. So I think this cat and mouse fight will continue for a while. This is a long-term trouble. I think at least will take two years to go. TAKEYH: Just a brief follow-up, Ms. Haghighatjoo. Do you see a role for your former reformist colleagues—Abdul Nouri, Tajzadeh—do you see a role for them in this movement and in the future of Iran? HAGHIGHATJOO: (Laughs.) I don’t know for future of Iran. As you know, that right now the regime itself and the opposition try to tack to the middle, which is the reformist. And that places them in a hard situation. For instance, as you say, Abdul Nouri a couple of weeks ago issued a letter criticizing the leader. And he was called to the security forces for interrogation, even though he has defended. I think—I doubt Khamenei will basically compromise. If Khamenei would compromise, I would see a role for the reformists. But I think as many activists, politicians, journalists, including former Speaker of the Parliament Mehdi Karroubi stated, maybe the best opening for change occurs in the days and months after Khamenei dies. TAKEYH: Thank you. I’ll turn it over to Irina to wrap us up. FASKIANOS: Thank you all very much for doing this. We really appreciate it. It was an excellent conversation. And I’m sorry we couldn’t get to all of your questions. We will just have to reconvene. Just a reminder, you can follow Ray Takeyh at @raytakeyh, and also on the CFR.org website. We also encourage you to follow CFR’s Religion and Foreign Policy program on Twitter @CFR_religion. And do email us at [email protected] with any suggestions or questions for future webinars. And just a quick announcement, we will have our next webinar, our Social Justice Webinar, on U.S. immigration and repatriation on Thursday, January 26, at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (EST). So keep a look out for that invitation. Thank you all, again, for being with us and thank you to our distinguished speakers. HAGHIGHATJOO: Thank you, Ray. Thank you, everyone, for inviting me. TAKEYH: Thank you. FASKIANOS: It was a pleasure.

Neela Ghoshal, senior director of law, policy and research at Outright International, provides an update on U.S. efforts to advance a more inclusive U.S. foreign policy on LGBTQ+ rights. Steve Rothaus, former LGBTQ+ issues reporter for the Miami Herald, discusses reporting in a way that promotes tolerance and acceptance for LGBTQ+ individuals and communities and ensures their representation in civic discourse. TRANSCRIPT FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Local Journalists Webinar. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. CFR is an independent and nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, publisher, and educational institution focusing on U.S. foreign policy. CFR is also the publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine, and, as always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. This webinar is part of CFR’s Local Journalists Initiative created to help you draw connections between the local issues you cover and national and international dynamics. Our programming puts you in touch with CFR resources and expertise on international issues and provides a forum for sharing best practices. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. This webinar is on the record, and the video and transcript will be posted on our website after the fact at CFR.org/localjournalists. We are pleased to have Neela Ghoshal, Steve Rothaus, and host Carla Anne Robbins to talk about reporting on LGBTQ+ issues. Neela Ghoshal is senior director for law, policy, and research at Outright International, an organization working to eradicate the persecution, inequality, and violence faced by LGBTQ+ people around the world. Previously, she served as an associate LGBT rights director and researcher at Human Rights Watch for fourteen years, leading global initiatives on LGBTQ rights and conducting research and advocacy on rights violations in Africa, and she’s also worked closely with the network in solidarity with the people of Guatemala, the Bronx Defenders, and the New York City public schools. Steve Rothaus is a freelance journalist covering LGBTQ issues in south Florida with more than two decades of experience at the Miami Herald, where he was LGBTQ issues reporter. During his time at the Herald, he was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team for breaking news coverage of Hurricane Andrew and co-producer of the Emmy award-winning documentary film The Day it Snowed in Miami, a chronology of the LGBT rights movement. He also served for five years as a national board member of National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association where he founded their Newsroom Outreach Project and traveled the country visiting newspapers, TV stations, and universities to discuss LGBTQ news coverage and workplace issues. And, finally, Carla Anne Robbins, our host. She is a senior fellow at CFR. She’s the faculty director of the Master of International Affairs Program and clinical professor of national security studies at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, and previously she was deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times and chief diplomatic correspondent at the Wall Street Journal. So, Carla, with that, I’m going to turn it over to you to take the conversation away. ROBBINS: Thank you so much, Irina. Thank you much, Steve and Neela, and thank you so much to all the journalists on this webinar. We so much appreciate the work that you guys do, and we know what a challenging time it is to be in the news business. I had it so much easier. So, we’re going to start—Steve, if I might start with you. ROTHAUS: Sure. ROBBINS: So I read the profile of you in the Columbia Journalism Review. It was a great piece and we will share it with everybody. And so I was intrigued that twenty-five years ago—and we’re dating ourselves here—the Miami Herald—and my husband worked there for eleven years—a paper I never considered to be especially forward thinking, created one of the first reporting beats covering what was then, I think, called gay issues. ROTHAUS: Correct. ROBBINS: So, can you quickly tell us how that happened? ROTHAUS: Sure. I’ve been at the Miami Herald since 1985, and in the summer of 1997 that was the summer that Gianni Versace was murdered in South Beach and it became an international story immediately, and the Herald discovered that we really didn’t have anybody who could go into the LGBTQ community and, you know, who could cover it with a perspective as not being an outsider. So they came to me after the story, you know, kind of wound down and they said, Steve, you know, would you be interested in doing something. I was already the chapter president for NLGJA so I was fully out. So they asked me if I would be interested in, basically, covering the community in some way but they really had no idea what or how. And so, you know, I said yes, with one condition and that was that my stories run the entire run of the Miami Herald, which at the time probably was five (hundred thousand), six hundred thousand, you know, circulation. I didn’t want them to zone my stories to where they thought gay people lived, such as putting it into the Miami Beach Neighbors book, and they immediately agreed that anything that I wrote would have to run the full run and, really, that’s how it started. And, you know, I worked with a couple of other people at the time. We were going to rotate a column. But very quickly I ended up being THE columnist and, you know, so within months, I mean, the word got out that we were doing this kind of work and the next year, GLAAD—the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation—they recognized our work by, you know, presenting to us the GLAAD Media Award, and at that time there was only one other person, you know, in the newspaper category who was, you know, running, you know, or nominated for an award, and I happened to win it. But it was kind of amusing back then. I mean, obviously, things have changed so much. But, you know, I have to say that when I started at the Herald I had the very concerns that you spoke about—was this going to be a safe place for me to be an out gay man. I was already in a relationship with someone who many of the people at the newspaper knew because he had taught journalism at Florida International University. So, you know, he had actually taught many of the people I was going to work with. And, you know, at the time, one of my professors at FIU—I was a student there, not one of Rick’s students but someone else’s—and, you know, he was the one who he told me about the job at the Herald. He was somebody who you might know from that era because he was the one-time editor of Tropic magazine, Kevin Hall (sp). And, you know, he asked if I’d be interested in a job. And just very briefly, you know, when I said, yes, absolutely, and he said, great, because as you know—just so you know that we’ve already asked, like, three people at FIU and they all said they didn’t like the hours of the job. So, I mean, they didn’t like the hours. They didn’t want to work nights. But I knew that was my foot in the door, and at that time, not coming from an Ivy League school, I knew that I had to go in and do whatever it is I needed to do. So I worked on the police desk for a year and a half and, you know, one thing led to another. By 1988, I was the Key West—Keys reporter. So I was promoted pretty quickly and did well, and down in the Keys I covered, you know, the gay community. But it wasn’t my beat. It was something that was part of my beat, and at that time in 1988 Key West had the highest AIDS rate in the entire United States per capita. So it was a huge story and a huge part of my job. And I was out. In the end, they didn’t even like my coverage because I was writing about things like gay bashings and HIV/AIDS—things that were never actually covered even in Key West by the Miami Herald. And, you know, so it was a learning experience for everyone because, you know, you should be careful what you ask for. They wanted coverage until I began to cover things that made them uncomfortable. And, you know, my job was to cover Key West for the Miami Herald and that meant writing about people who were victimized because they were gay and it wasn’t—I wasn’t presenting the image that they wanted for Key West. When I wrote the first front-page stories about HIV and AIDS in Key West, the immediate response was, oh, my God, no one’s going to want to swim in our pools. I was, like, that’s not my problem. I’m a reporter. And that’s how I, basically, maintained myself for the rest of my career at the Herald as I covered LGBT, to the point where I was interviewing and had access to people on who—the other side—you know, the people who were, you know, leading initiatives to ban anti-discrimination ordinances or to ban gay marriage—I mean, all of these things, and I had access because they felt more comfortable talking to me than they did with many of my non-LGBTQ colleagues. It was something I really worked very hard to be fair. ROBBINS: So, I’m going to ask—go to Neela and then come back to you because I want to talk more about this, you know, question of having gay people cover gay issues. And, I mean, do women have to cover women issues? Do Black people have to cover Black issues? I mean, this is sort of a basic—a basic question. I mean, there’s an empathy. On the other hand, there’s also the ghettoization potential there for reporters, and so this is an interesting question. So, Neela, first, and I want to talk about what you actually do. But I want to talk to you, first, as a smart person who consumes news. As a consumer of news, how do you think we’re doing, generally, these days? We’re not—it’s not 1987. It’s not 1997. You know, I would think that we’ve come a ways here. I mean, even Republicans voted for love is love suddenly for the Republican Party. So, how do you think we’re doing covering issues of gender identity, issues of—all of the issues that now cover—it’s no longer just gay issues. GHOSHAL: Yeah. Thank you for the question. So, I’ve been working on global LGBTIQ human rights issues for the last ten years and for much of that time I was based outside of the United States. I worked in east Africa for Human Rights Watch, initially working on other issues and then working on LGBTIQ issues, but from East Africa for many years, and so I often consumed U.S. news as someone who was seeing things from a not quite American perspective. So, I would say a couple things. On the one hand, it’s clear that coverage has improved dramatically in the last several decades and I can say a little bit more about that. But I also would say that one pitfall that I saw occasionally from my base in Nairobi for most of that time was that sometimes there was a bit of a kind of condescending or White savior angle when the issues of LGBTIQ people around the world were discussed. And so I would see headlines like top ten most horrible places for gay people around the world, which is not a helpful story for anybody working in the movement, for anybody living in those countries. I would see stories about kind of White or Global North-based folks who were doing things to save LGBTIQ people in places like Uganda and often the perspective of Ugandans was missing. So this is, again, something that I would say has gotten better in the last few years but where there’s still work to be done. One of the interesting things that we’ve discovered at Outright International, where I work now, is that we’ve been able to identify LGBTIQ organizations in every country in the world except about twenty-two, and it’s possible that they exist in those twenty-two countries and that we just haven’t been able to access them as an international organization. And I think a lot of American readers would be astonished to realize that in Zimbabwe, in Cameroon, in Malaysia, there are thriving LGBTIQ movements that are capable of speaking in their own voices. So the more that can be done to elevate those voices the better. The other issue that I think has really improved a lot in the U.S., I would say, I’d say that there’s some other parts of the world, and I will name the U.K. as one, where sensitivity around this issue is somewhat lacking is the issue of transgender people. I think that a lot of stories about trans people continue to sensationalize them and give airtime to arguments that are completely not evidence based like arguments around trans women being a threat to cisgender women or the idea that if we allow people to self-identify, if we allow people access to what we call legal gender recognition on the basis of their own identity, that this somehow poses a threat and will lead to swarms of men in women’s restrooms, et cetera. And so the U.S. media has typically dealt with that more sensitively than the U.K. media, for instance, but there’s still work to be done in terms of getting trans people, again, to speak in their own voices and not to amplify or give a microphone to kind of voices of hate that are not basing their arguments on any evidence. ROBBINS: Thanks for that, and I want to come back to, you know, some of those issues that you raised. But, Steve, to get back to you, you described a Miami Herald that I remember and one that makes me very sad because, certainly, the circulation of Miami Herald is no longer six hundred thousand, nor for most local newspapers around the country. I mean, the Herald could afford to take an experienced reporter and devote you to one community. ROTHAUS: Correct. ROBBINS: And but, today, very few newspapers have the resources to devote an experienced reporter or any reporter to a single community. So, given that, beyond the question that I asked before, whether you got to be gay to cover gay people, how does any person prepare themselves to cover this community and what would you tell them to prepare them to cover it because you can’t—I mean, most newspapers are not going to create this single beat because they can’t afford it. ROTHAUS: You know, unfortunately, towards the end of my time at the Herald they were giving me more and more work to do that was not on the beat. They gave me more editing responsibilities so that by the time I retired, very—a very small part of my job was covering LGBT. And, you know, I said to some of my peers, I said, I’ve—you know, it’s unfortunate, but I know that when I leave they will not be replacing me on this beat, and they didn’t. So, I mean, and this is not something that’s—you know, particularly, the fact that it was an LGBTQ beat—but it was any beat. They’re not filling jobs. And, you know, we were—this was a time before the company actually, you know, went through a bankruptcy. So it’s a very unfortunate time for the people who remain in the industry but worse than that, I think, is it’s an unfortunate time for the consumers of news. And, you know, so there are limitations. But I believe that, you know, it’s across the board. I don’t think that the LGBT community is, you know, any less covered than—you know, than the Christian far right, you know, outside of places like Fox News or MSNBC where they really focus on those kinds of issues. But, otherwise, I mean, they’re just fortunate, they feel, to be able to cover the school board and, you know, so this is—it’s a problem, and they take people who don’t have beats and they put them on stories that they really know very little about and they have to learn along the way, and this is the reality of the modern newsroom— GHOSHAL: And I think that— ROTHAUS: —that—if you’re on a breaking news desk. Yeah. ROBBINS: But that’s why I’m asking the question here— ROTHAUS: Sure. ROBBINS: —because I suspect that’s why we have so many people who logged on today, which is, you’re going to probably take a reporter who’s got three or four topics that they have to cover. Maybe, you know, an editor will say, OK, you cover social justice issues and—of which this is part of it. Or maybe you’re just a general assignment reporter and if you’re interested in this you can add this to your portfolio. But if you were going to run a boot camp, for example, to prepare someone to cover this community in an insightful way—and I’m not talking about walking on eggshells here, I’m talking about it in an insightful way—that treats the community fairly but also, you know, does it, you know, with the same—you know, without fear or favor, the way we cover everything else, what would that boot camp cover? And I’m going to ask you both that question. ROTHAUS: Sure. Well, I mean, I think that the way I covered it I had to juggle that, you know, there were activists in the community, many of whom saw me as, you know, a friend or a peer and didn’t quite relate to the fact that I was a reporter—that my job was not to, you know, be their friend but to show up at their events and to talk to them and get to know them well but that, you know, there were times I was going to be writing things that displeased them, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing today. There are stories out there that people will be pressured not to write because it will make a particular community, they feel, not look good. And I think that it’s the basic tenets of journalism, and you go in like anything else, no matter the beat. You may not know it but you’re going to learn it really quickly if you go to the right places and look for the right things. I mean, it’s much easier today to get information than it was when I started, that’s for sure. I mean, you know, people—they live on Google. They do searches. They go through Facebook and Twitter, and there are plenty of ways of finding sources and that’s the key is to find reliable people that you can turn to and that you trust and who will help make you look good. I mean, it’s all sourcing. ROBBINS: I think—I mean, you shared before, and we will share it with the group—you shared before two style books that seemed really important, and I was doing my homework because I actually do my homework before these things and looking—I was looking at the AP and the New York Times to see what—you know, how they are using different language—initialism, my new word. I told you guys that. And that style book seems really important. I mean, language is really important for making the community feel comfortable to trust you. But the terminology is also changing and it changes, you know, pretty quickly. So, Neela— ROTHAUS: And that’s like— ROBBINS: Yes? ROTHAUS: I just want to say that, you know, part of the problem in the industry is that we are a group of people, generally, who don’t do well with change—(laughter)—and when I talk about change I mean talking about style changes that—you know, I mean, look, the New York Times still puts, you know, periods in between LGBTQ and they’re the only news company that still does that. But you ask why and, you know, it’s because this is what the New York Times has decided is the way it wants to present, you know, an acronym, and, you know— ROBBINS: Back off. (Laughs.) ROTHAUS: —every time a letter—every— ROBBINS: I’m a former New York Times editor. (Laughs.) ROTHAUS: I know that. That’s why I can say it. But the fact that every time a letter gets added. You know, when I started, as you said, it was gay. I was the gay issues reporter, and then suddenly it was gay and lesbian. And, you know, you had mentioned LGB and LGBT and LGBTQ, and then the Q was, you know, offensive to some people but embraced by others. Years ago, 1999, 2000, there was a TV show called Queer as Folk, which had started in England and then Showtime, you know, did an American version and it’s still running. But we did a cover story on our weekend section for the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which, of course, isn’t called that anymore. But we did a cover story and we called the cover “Queer as Film,” and that cover was produced by, you know, myself. I did it. A gay graphic artist, gay copy editors—we were all gay. And do you know that because we used the word queer in the headline we all got these horrible phone calls from people how homophobic we were—how dare we. You know, and—you know, that still hasn’t changed dramatically among certain people. So there is no right way to say it or not because you’re going to hear controversy even within the community. ROBBINS: So that’s—I mean, that’s—but this is, I think, a potentially very intimidating thing if you are a nongay reporter— ROTHAUS: Right. ROBBINS: —and you are sent into a community and told to go and cover, you know, without fear or favor, which goes back to my boot camp thing. So, Neela, tell me what’s the best way to be a good reporter, which doesn’t mean you necessarily have to be all that sensitive—just to be a good reporter. I’m not sensitive when I cover the Pentagon. Why should I be sensitive covering anybody? I just want to be a good reporter, which means I want to get people comfortable enough that they actually talk to me so I can do the right reporting. So, tell me—you know, tell me what it is I need to know to do a good job of covering this community. GHOSHAL: Yeah. Thank you for that question, and it’s funny that Steve said that the media is very slow in adjusting to new terms and acronyms, and I think that our communities are some of the fastest in the world in changing the terminology and acronyms that we use to refer to ourselves and nobody can keep up with it, including ourselves. And so that’s just—(inaudible). I think that if you come into this with good intentions and you are willing to adjust to the circumstances on the ground people will recognize those good intentions, and you will always find people who just have a bone to pick with everything. And so I’m sure, you know, whatever acronym you include in your news story you will get comments in the horrible comments sections from people saying, why didn’t you include A for asexual, right, or why didn’t you include queer—you just said gay and lesbian. And for— ROBBINS: Wait. Wait. I thought A was allies. GHOSHAL: A can be asexual in many—(laughs)— ROBBINS: I’m just kidding. GHOSHAL: —in many versions of the acronym. I mean, the craziest version of the acronym that I’ve seen actually comes from the Ghanaian parliamentary opposition that has introduced a bill that would criminalize LGBTTIQQAAP people. So they’ve included—and this is an opposition bill, right, hostile to our interests—they’ve included transgender, transsexual, pansexual, ally, asexual, queer, questioning, in addition to all the other things that we’re a little bit more used to, which just goes to show kind of how far those who are opposed to our communities will go to cover all of us in any kind of hostile law that they’re promoting. So that’s the issue, right. So if someone writes a story and says gays and lesbians in Ghana are under attack, the point is the story, right. The point is not that they excluded pansexual people or some other group of people in the story. So, I would say that there will be people who will be very sensitive about it. But the most important thing is getting the stories out and not being intimidated to take on these stories. We also work in places around the world that use completely different terminology, right. We work with hijras in India. We work with communities in the Pacific that have a whole range of precolonial terminology and would not identify themselves as LGBTQ or anything else in that Ghanaian acronym. And so it’s important to try to get it right but not to let that hold you back, and just be earnest and ready to learn in your approach, which I know it’s hard to find time to do as a journalist. But I wanted to say a little bit about kind of what would be in my boot camp as well for reporters and the fact that people don’t have time to just work on this issue as their beat. One of the things that we’re always trying to emphasize in our advocacy at Outright International is that it’s hard to think of an issue that’s not an LGBTIQ issue, and so whatever issue you’re covering there’s usually an LGBTIQ angle and I would challenge anybody who’s reporting on any number of issues to find that angle, and if that angle is not there and if that LGBTIQ voice is not there to know that probably a part of the story is missing. And so I think of issues that we’ve been working on in the last year, right. We’ve been working on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and how that’s impacted queer people. We’ve been working on the war in Ukraine and how the policy that prevented men from crossing the border was also preventing trans women from crossing the border. Now we’re also looking in Ukraine at Russian war crimes and how those are impacting LGBTIQ people. When we look at things like immigration, asylum, these are, clearly, LGBTIQ issues. People who were stuck in Mexico, who continue to be stuck in Mexico, under Title 42 and other Trump administration policies who are queer are affected disproportionately by those policies. Obviously, if we look at education it’s an LGBTIQ issue. We have people like Kevin McCarthy, who are threatening to undo so-called woke ideology—this is his term—and the first thing he wants to do is go after any teaching about sexuality and gender in the schools. Climate change, right—the last climate conference was held in Egypt. This was a real issue for queer civil society activists, who would have wanted to participate in that conference, because Egypt is not a safe space—is one of the countries that’s most hostile to and most routinely arrests and prosecutes LGBTIQ people. And so in almost anything that’s happening in the world there is that angle and that would be kind of my boot camp. Find that angle and get it out there to readers. ROBBINS: So I want to turn it— ROTHAUS: So, Neela— ROBBINS: Yes, please. Steve? ROTHAUS: —I just want to say that, you know, things you’re talking about, you know, to me, it’s very heartening to me to know that there are people who now are coming on board, younger people, where, generationally, they don’t understand any of the reasons why we wouldn’t be included. When I started covering LGBT they—you know, just having a gay mother or a gay father on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day was considered to be groundbreaking, and the idea of finding, you know, a gay LGBTQ person for any story, to me, it’s very gratifying that we’re at that point. But it’s the truth. I mean, when I first started writing about this the features editor, you know, was bringing me on board for this project and she said to me, is there enough to sustain a twice a month column in Miami. ROBBINS: You mean are there enough gay people out there? ROTHAUS: Are there enough gay stories. I mean, are there enough stories that they could commit to running this column twice a month. And, you know, my reaction was—I would have liked to have done what you just did, to laugh. But I had to, you know, basically, you know, with a straight face, you know, very calmly say, look, for every gay person there’s a story. There’s a story, just as there is for anybody, and we just need to look for them and find them and write them. And she understood that then, but her immediate reaction was, like, how can we sustain this beat. You know, we’ve come a long way in the twenty-five years since, and the fact that the people who are, you know, listening to this conversation or watching this, you know, they don’t come in with the same baggage that so many reporters had twenty-five and thirty years ago when I was in the business starting. And, you know, I didn’t—what’s taken for granted today and that’s why I feel very comfortable that, you know, this coverage will continue just in a matter of fact way and that there may not be a beat but that you can find ways of writing about people in any story. ROBBINS: So, writing about people is one thing. Writing about policy is another, and policy is really important, not just because I’m a policy nerd, because policies, you know, affect people’s lives in a pretty fundamental way. ROTHAUS: But that’s the key. You know— ROBBINS: And as Neela raised, you know, what Kevin McCarthy is talking about and there’s a major shift in Washington coming, and a lot of this action is taking place in the states. So can we talk briefly—and I’m going to turn it over to the group for questions so, guys, can you please get ready to raise your hands and I’m going to call on you. Please—you’re reporters. I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions. Can you just talk—tee up a little bit, you know, what policy stories do you think are out there right now, what things we should be keeping an eye on that are going to really have a major effect on this community in—you know, in coming months? Because there’s major political shifts going on in Washington—some for good, some are bad—and a lot of this stuff that’s playing out on the state level. Neela, you want to pick that up first, and then Steve? GHOSHAL: Yeah. I can say a little bit about that. I mean, I actually work in a global organization and our version of global doesn’t really include what’s happening in the U.S., let alone in the states. But we look a little bit into U.S. foreign policy and how it impacts the rest of the world and we also look a little bit at how what’s happening in the rest of the world is impacting developments in the U.S. And so when I look at developments at the state level—and I hope that Steve can bring more expertise to this question—we’re seeing a lot of kind of tag team around the world from different actors in what we describe as the anti-gender movement. We also sometimes call this movement the anti-rights movement because its critique of gender is fundamentally related to a critique of human rights and democracy. And the anti-gender movement includes people like Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who Ron DeSantis, when he brought forward the “don’t say gay” policy, said that he was inspired by Viktor Orbán, who had passed a bill the year before in 2021 that, basically, prohibited people from bringing up issues related to sexual orientation or gender identity around children, right. So there’s a lot of kind of cross-pollination here. In Brazil, there have been efforts for the last eight years or so at the state and municipal level to prohibit discussions of sexuality and also of gender in schools. Even the idea of gender as a social construct there have been attempts to legislatively ban that, which so far the supreme court in Brazil has pushed back against. And so these issues are not new to the United States. In some cases, they’re coming into the United States after having been kind of spawned elsewhere, and then in other cases they are coming up in the United States and, unfortunately, the influence that the U.S. has abroad and kind of the mouthpiece that the U.S. has abroad means that these things are picked up by other people, like the politicians in Ghana, who I don’t think came up with that acronym that I mentioned before on their own. So we’re concerned about state developments, even though that’s not our expertise, because we know that those will reverberate internationally. And we’re also looking at, you know, as we see things happen—like Indonesia passing a bill that prohibits all extramarital sex, right? This is something that just happened the other day. Or Russia passing a harsh anti-LGBTIQ propaganda bill, that builds on a bill that already was there that prohibited talking to children about sexuality, and now basically says you can’t produce anything about sexuality for anybody—about queer sexualities. We’re looking at this back and forth, and how these negative actors are influencing each other. So it’s definitely a matter for concern. I just wanted to mention as well that in terms of the change that’s coming in Washington, we’re really concerned. I mean, this administration has shown itself to be really probably the most progressive issues on global LGBTIQ issues ever. Of course, we also had an ally in the Obama administration, but this administration has been able to do quite a bit more. And one of the things that it’s been able to do is increase funding through Congress for global LGBTIQ human rights programming. Now, Republicans in Congress get very agitated, in some cases, around, you know, oh, the U.S. is funding a drag show in country X. No. The U.S. is funding transgender communities’ human rights organizing, which can include culture and celebration. And this is really important when we have transgender people being killed at astonishing rates around the world, and the importance of being visible and speaking up for yourself is a fundamental human rights issue. So I think we need to watch closely what the next Congress does with regard to global LGBTIQ funding and programing. ROBBINS: And that can very much be a local story, because if your local representative is a key sponsor of some of this legislation or is making a big noise on some of this legislation, this, you know, opens the way for an explainer. Not necessarily an editorial, but it opens the way for an explainer. So if somebody wanted to do an explainer on legislation that’s—or, at least somebody’s standing up there and talking about, you know, we’re financing drag shows, where would they go to get information on what—you know, what the administration’s actually doing that’s not just going to the administration? GHOSHAL: So my organization, Outright International, is part of a network called the Council for Global Equality, which is a group of—a network of organizations that work on ensuring that U.S. foreign policy is LGBTIQ inclusive. And I will pop the link into the chat. The Council for Global Equality puts out a quarterly newsletter on both executive level and legislative developments. And that’s a really good source of information in terms of what’s happening in Congress, as well as what’s happening at the—at the various different departments of the executive branch with regard to global LGBTIQ rights. You’ll recall that there was a Biden administration memo—one of the first things the Biden administration did in February 2021, was a memorandum on the human rights of LBGTQI people around the world. And although sometimes not—there’s always a little bit of a critique, right, because I’m a human rights advocate. Sometimes not with the same urgency that we would desire but, you know, bit by bit the administration has been advancing the objectives that were set forth in that memo. And so the Council for Global Equality tracks that and reports on what’s happening and where we’re still seeing lags. ROBBINS: Is there an organization that puts out, like, a calendar or, you know, alerts, or something like that about here’s legislation, or a committee hearing, or a debate, or something that could flag people to things that are happening? Not that if you’re a local reporter you’re necessarily going to be covering what’s happening in Washington, but if your representative is on that committee, or, you know, a ranking member, or something of the sort, you know, that would be—you know, that could be very much a good hook for a local—for a local story. But most people don’t have the resources to monitor what’s happening on the Hill every day, certainly not if you’re a local reporter. So is there—are there good links for that? GOSHAL: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think Council for Global Equality does some of that. I would also look into the Equality Caucus in Congress, which is advancing pro-LGBTIQ legislation, and might have some reporting on what’s happening on the anti- side as well. And if I think of anything else—Human Rights Campaign, which mostly does domestic work, also does some following of foreign policy and might also be a good resource. ROBBINS: Great. Steve, you were going to answer that? And I would think that you are on the front lines because your state invented “don’t say gay.” ROTHAUS: Correct. I mean, you know, the whole conversation earlier with Kevin McCarthy and—you know, it was really Ron DeSantis and, I think, Neela, you know, mentioned his name before. But this is how he came in with 70 percent of the vote. Not talking about issues outside of, you know, these kinds of social issues. And there’s really nothing new or unique about any of this kind of politics. I lived here in 1977, during the Anita Bryant campaign, during that era in which, you know, they named their group, Save Our Children. That was in 1977. Save our Children from these people—these gay people. And then they would show TV commercials of men dancing in dresses and, you know, scenes from San Francisco Pride Parades, things that they knew would really get people excited and motivated to come out and vote and raise money for them. That hasn’t changed at all. And that’s exactly how they’ve pursed recently these anti-gay laws. And, you know, you talk about how to cover this, I mean, it’s obviously different today because you have politicians who don’t call you back. They don’t want to talk to reporters, and mainstream newspapers, and TV stations, certainly, or websites. You know, they’ll just put out a Twitter feed. And, you know, yeah, it happened to be the governor’s spokeswoman who put out a—you know, a tweet talking about grooming. And it’s, like, grooming, where did that come from? And then suddenly, that becomes the word. That’s what we keep hearing about. And so, you know, how do you get information? I mean, I read a lot. And I’m not reading novels. I’m reading news from all over the country, all over the world. But news that, you know, pertains to what it is that I’m interested in, but what I cover. And I put myself on every possible mailing list. Everyone’s putting out press releases today. Everybody’s giving statements. When legislation passes, such as the Respect for Marriage Act, you know, suddenly we’re deluged with email from both sides of the equation. You know, people saying how wonderful it is, and people saying how awful it is. So, you know, the resources are there. And it’s pretty easy. I mean, so much reporting today is done by going to somebody’s Facebook feed and just grabbing quotes. So, I mean, it is easy. But, you know, the thing is that in today’s world—you know, first of all, I find it difficult to separate policy from people. And that was something I just wanted to talk about a little bit, because when I covered LGBTQ people, but I did it—you know, I wrote about the policies. I didn’t just write about—but I wanted people to know—readers to know that these were real people that were being affected, whether it was children who were, you know, unable to be adopted by their gay parents or, you know, couples who wanted to build lives together and just have the same ability that everyone else—but they were real people. And, you know, I think that what ended up happening was, you know, you had these groups that, in Florida, for instance, that they petitioned to ban same-sex marriage in the state. And yet, when they went to court, they were told they had no standing. And they had no standing because they were not really affected parties. You know, yes, the voted. And, yes, they had petitions signed. But their lives were not affected one way or the other. And, you know, so we tried to show how real people were affected by the decisions on how people vote, or the decisions how Congress votes, or the Senate, or what happens when somebody gets appointed to the Supreme Court, what it really means to people. And then, you know, readers start to understand it differently. I mean, you know, you have to be able to tell the rest, but, still, you have to make it accessible to readers. ROBBINS: Completely agree with you. I think you can be a policy nerd and still make the story come alive. So what are the next set of policy issues that we should be watching for? I mean, certainly there was marriage equality. We’ve got the states which have their own versions of “don’t say gay.” We have very much the question of transgender sex-assignment surgery, questions including, you know, hospitals stopping surgeries as they review policies. You know, fearful of how the politics of that are going to play out. I mean, those are the things that immediately come to my mind from just reading the newspaper. What else should we be watching? And can you flag particular places that are going to be hotbeds for this in the near future? Anything else that? ROTHAUS: Yeah, no, I think that, you know, the trans story really—you’re very right that that is the story. It’s just beginning. It has not—it hasn’t reached a crescendo. You know, the Respect for Marriage Act I think was very convenient for people to be able to vote for that, and to be able to then say, well, you see, we are supportive of this LGBTQ community, but we’re not supportive of—then they refer to the child abuse. The child abuse being parents who are helping get medical care for their children. But they framed it as child abuse. That’s what Ron DeSantis called it during his debate with Charlie Crist. That he felt that—and it strikes a tone that suddenly it’s not based in anything other than fear. And that’s where it’s all still headed. And, you know, will there be collateral damage? There might be. I think that they’re trying to play both sides. ROBBINS: Neela, are there any other topics that we should be particularly looking out for? GHOSHAL: I just wanted to briefly highlight a couple of the positive developments around the world. So yesterday, Barbados became the fourth country this year to decriminalize same-sex intimacy. So this is a really incredible thing. When I started working in this movement about ten years ago, at the global level there were close to eighty countries that criminalized same-sex relations. In some cases, just between men, in some cases between women as well, in some cases with very vague language that could catch anybody up in it who the state decided to persecute. We’ve now gone down to about sixty-five countries in the last ten to fifteen years. And so that’s really remarkable. So this year we’ve had Barbados. We’ve Antigua and Barbuda. We’ve had St. Kitts and Nevis. And we’ve had Singapore. These cases in the Caribbean have all been led by a civil society organization called ECADE, the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality, which has just been charging through the Caribbean and making change in the most wonderful way. And so I think it’s important to keep to mind the dynamics in the U.S., I think, at this moment are very concerning. And there are concerning global dynamics as well. But there’s also globally a somewhat positive trajectory that I think is important to report on. And it’s important to report on the role of domestic civil society in these countries as actors who are changing things on the ground for themselves and their communities. So that’s—you know, that’s really incredible to see. I do think at the global level, the anti-trans developments are some of the most concerning things that I’m seeing as well. And I just also want to make a mention of intersex people’s human rights. We talk a lot about LGBTIQ. We were discussing acronyms earlier. But often when folks including the I, they don’t actually include the I, in terms of they don’t address the issues that intersex people experience. One of the issues that we work on at Outright is trying to end what we refer to as medical violence. Some communities also use the term intersex genital mutilation. Forcing surgeries on babies and children in order to normalize their genitals. And these are not medically necessary surgeries. And so there’s a movement around the world that’s pushing back against these surgeries. And Greece recently became the most recent country—there’s only about five or six—became the most recent country to ban these surgeries on infants and children who are not able to consent. And so that’s a kind of under-looked issue that I think is worth following. ROBBINS: So for these countries that are changing their laws, part of it is good organizing by civil society. But I have to assume that a good part of it is shifts in norms. You know, that people think differently. I mean, that’s certainly what happened with, you know, the Defense of Marriage Act, what happened with, you know, the change in the rules for the military. You know, just things happen. Institutions tend to trail shifts in society. But it was—you know, on marriage equality, it was really extraordinary how fast that happened. I mean, both legislatively, you know, with the courts, and ultimately the federal government caught up. But if you looked at the polling data, I mean, that was a shift that happened like that. I mean, it may not have felt that way—(laughs)—but it certainly felt that way for those of us who weren’t in the struggle. You know, that wasn’t our lives. It was really fast for a norm shift, for a cultural shift. I mean, when you look at the way—how hard it was for Obama to embrace. I mean, he had to have Biden, you know, shove him to it, drag him to it. So I’m just wondering, you know, a couple of things. One is, you know, is there really interesting polling data in the United States on transgender issues that you guys are paying attention to? Who does good polling on this? I mean, I’m always intrigued in how norms shift, how quickly they shift, and how out of step politicians are with their constituents. And I always think those make really good stories. So does anybody poll on this who you trust? ROTHAUS: I mean, Pew will put out research but, I mean, I’m very wary of all polling today. I mean, I’m just very uncomfortable with relying on polling, because I just don’t think that the pollsters have access the way they used to, and that you can particularly trust the people who they’re reaching to give them honest answers. I think that when we see what happened just in general elections, and how wrong they can be. So then you have the added, you know, layer that with many LGBTQ people, that they don’t want to identify that way publicly, particularly with a stranger who’s reaching out to them. So I just don’t know how easily that can be—that data can be, you know, obtained. But I just want to say something that, you know, on what Neela was talking about before, the positives. And if you look at what happened in Qatar in the last few weeks and, you know, the crackdown on not being able to present rainbow and the other signs that they didn’t want anyone to show, yet look at how many people said, you know, we’re going to show it anyway, and until they were made to take it off. They were not afraid. And that’s generational too. You know, the idea that an entire team would wear rainbow T-shirts until they were ordered that they had to take them off. But it also, you know, shines a light on what it’s like elsewhere. I mean you know, you wouldn’t see that happen here. At least, you wouldn’t see it at an organized—you know, an organized, you know, game like we saw in Qatar. I mean, yeah, it might happen on the field, you know, in some small county some place, if somebody was wearing a rainbow T-shirt that they might be, you know, bullied or harassed for that, but not in an organized way. And one of the other things that I think, you know, helped facilitate the change with marriage, certainly, but, you know, throughout the LGBTQ movement of the last twenty years was how business, you know, adapted, and how business really became, you know, the surrogate for the government. They were offering insurances, and they were doing things for people, and making people feel comfortable, long before the government told them they had to. And I think that that helped shift perspectives also for the people who work in these companies, and the people who shop. But, I mean, I know even Publix, which is a very conservative, you know, shopping chain here in the Southeast, even before they were told they had to insure their gay couples they were doing it. They had domestic partner benefits. That’s something we don’t hear much about today, but that’s what helped bridge the gap between having no coverage and having, you know, full marriage quality. People were allowed these domestic partnerships. ROBBINS: And we certainly saw that in states that were doing bathroom bills and things like that, and the reaction they—you know, the boycotts for conventions, and people just saying we’re going to pick—as well as sports teams. There were sports teams who weren’t going to play. So I’m not sure that your assessment on sports in the United States is accurate. I mean, there were sports teams that were going to refused to play in the states who were doing their bathroom bills. So. ROTHAUS: Right. ROBBINS: So there is a question from Meg Wingerter. I’m sorry if I pronounced your name incorrectly. Meg, do you want to ask your question? Or should I read it for you? I think I’ll ask it. Oh, here we go. Meg, can you tell us who you work with and ask your question? Q: Sorry. Can you hear me? ROBBINS: Absolutely. Q: OK. Well, my question was about—you know, there’s this kind of debate over objectivity and what that means, and whether we should even aspire to that. And I just wanted to get your take on—because you had talked about, you know, having relationships with people on both sides—to what extent we should be covering those—both sides the same way, taking a position of, you know, certain things are fundamental rights, and those are not things that are up for debate. ROBBINS: And Meg is the education reporter at the Denver Post. ROTHAUS: Meg, thanks for your question, because, you know, when I was in the early days of covering LGBTQ, there was a referendum in Miami-Dade County, where I live and where the Herald is based, to repeal the second gay rights ordinance that had been passed. The first one had been repealed in the Anita Bryant campaign in ’77. And twenty years later, the county commission passed a new—you know, a new ordinance that would protect people on the basis of LGBTQ. And then there was another referendum. And at the time—so this was about 1999-2000—there were reporters and editors who objected to my participating in the coverage. Because they said, well, he’s gay. How can he do that? And, you know, that became a talking point for me later because, you know, I would say to them, gee, you know, you have Cubans who covering Cuba. You have Jews who are covering Israel. Why is this any different? You have, you know, people of color covering, you know, the urban affairs beats. Why is this considered different? And they couldn’t give me an answer. And so, yeah, I just began participating in the coverage. So, you know, that—it evolved. Today I mean there’s absolutely no reason to think that a mainstream, you know, news organization, such as yours, should, you know, disqualify somebody because they identify as part of a group of people that they might be asked to cover. It might happen, but I think that that’s the response. Like, do you trust me as a reporter? Do you trust me as a journalist? And, you know, if you do, why wouldn’t you trust me to do my job as fairly and as accurately as I would if you were asking me to cover the school board. And it puts them on the spot. ROBBINS: But I think the question Meg—I think the question also that Meg was asking is that are there certain basic rights at this point that it’s, like, reporters no longer give equal time to climate change deniers. ROTHAUS: Right. I agree. I agree. ROBBINS: And so are you suggesting that—I think the question that Meg is asking is, you know, how much, you know, equal time does one give to people—sorry, my camera just fell off. Thank you. How much equal time—I got so excited there—how much equal time does one give to people on the other side on— ROTHAUS: No, absolutely. I mean, I think that that’s something that has also changed dramatically. I mean, I think that, you know, when I first started covering LGBT, I mean, it depends on the story. If I was writing about a campaign, you know, to ban marriage between, you know, same-sex couples, I mean, that requires a different level of coverage in terms of, you know, having equal sides, and fairness. And I used to say, you know, that’s fine. But if I’m doing a Mother’s Day story and I’m writing about a gay mother, I am not going to find somebody who would go on the record and say, oh, I think it’s a terrible thing that this lesbian is raising children. That’s not the appropriate time to have, you know, the other side represented. It all depends on the story. And the other thing is, today, you know, you talk about, you know, relying upon the science. I mean, when somebody says it’s child abuse to do something, it’s child abuse to give your children surgery when they’re still teenagers, or it’s child abuse to put them on, you know, hormones that will, you know, stop them from entering puberty, things that have been done. These are techniques that have been done to help basically safe some kids’ lives because they were able to, you know, prevent these children from developing the physical characteristics of the gender that they don’t identify with. OK, so that’s one thing. But then on the other hand—and this is something that I’ve seen great debate recently, that there shouldn’t be another “on the other hand,” but when you have doctors—and I’m talking about legitimate doctors—who say, well, there are risks to giving these hormones to young people, that they might develop osteoporosis, they might develop other kinds of, you know, health problems as a result of being on hormones that, you know, are not intended for a twelve or thirteen year old, I think that that needs to be reported also. I think people need to have all the information that’s available, and then be able to work it out with their professionals, with their doctors, the people they trust to make the right decision. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to ignore those kinds of, you know, ideas if they’re rooted in real science, if these are trustworthy people who are saying this. I mean, there’s a story that broke this week that Fox News has covered extensively. And I know that there are many activists who wish it would just go away. And that is the Kristen Beck story. Kristen Beck was the Navy SEAL who transitioned about ten years ago, and wrote a book called Lady Valor, and, I mean, she was—she was just totally adopted by the LGBTQ community as someone who was a Navy SEAL who had come out as trans—as, you know, somebody that the community should know about and who should be honored. She was given awards. Well, unfortunately for the community that honored her many years ago, this week she repudiated that. She went on television, and she said it was, you know, the biggest mistake, it ruined her life. She’s now identifying again as Chris, and she has de-transitioned. And that is a very uncomfortable story for people to have to cover, and to share, because there’s pressure not to. Because, well, we shouldn’t—she’s only one person. Or he’s only one person now, if you, you know, use the current pronouns. Well, you know, unfortunately, I don’t think you can have it both ways as a journalist. If ten years ago I was asked to do a story because this was an important story within the community and I was covering an award that was being given, a national award to this person, how can I ten years later just say, oh, well, he’s only one person. We shouldn’t be paying attention. Well, it was the same one person ten years ago that everybody wanted to know. So— ROBBINS: Steve, I’m going to interrupt you because we’re about to run out of time and I want to give Neela the last word here. We could go on so much longer. This has been a fabulous conversation. Neela, could you sum up, you know, just in, sadly, only a minute. But this has been fabulous. But we’re going to share all sorts of links to your organization and everything else. What’s, you know, another big takeaway you want our group to take? GHOSHAL: Well, I just wanted to respond a little bit to that question, which is keeping in mind that I work in regions where there are politicians who will go on the record saying things like, “LGBTIQ should be killed,” right? And that’s a story too, right? And so the important thing is not to report on these kinds of opinions uncritically. And I mention again the issue of kind of trans people and the language around trans people being a so-called threat. I have seen some very unfortunate reporting that has quoted, you know, people like J.K. Rowling in the U.K., I mentioned the U.K. before as being kind of a bastion of a lot of anti-trans sentiment right now. That has quoted a number of cis women making unscientific, non-evidence-based opinions or generalizations about trans people. And responsible reporting requires not taking that as face value. So it is a news story that J.K. Rowling, because she’s famous and wrote a lot of books, says these things. That doesn’t make it a fact that should be, you know, not critically reported on. And if, you know, anyone’s going to report on, oh, some feminists are saying that transwomen are a threat, then it’s your obligation to say there is no evidence that shows that Argentina, that has had a gender identity law for the last ten-plus laws, has had any kind of increase in gender-based violence against cis women. So we know what the facts are. And someone’s opinions do not discount those. So I think, you know, we’re in for an interesting number of years ahead, where these issues will continue to be highly politicized. And I really think it’s important for the media in the U.S. and around the world to s think about hat the facts are, and to make sure that marginalized voices and voices aren’t being heard, are being heard and being—and being centered, and not that media is amplifying the voices of the powerful who would seek to undo or hide the realities of the powerless. And I just want to mention one more thing, which is why this is why freedom of expression is so important, right? And this is why countries like Hungary, Russia, Nigeria, Ghana, are trying to legislate against freedom of expression on LGBTIQ issues. Because where there is freedom of expression and people are able to tell their own stories, and where—I mean, we have a problem with—you know, when the media space is owned by people who don’t give a voice to everyone who needs to have that space, then you still have certain voices that are heard, and others that are not. But as long as there is access for marginalized voices to be heard, that’s when that opinion change happens that you were speaking about earlier, around marriage and other issues in the U.S. When you know someone who’s trans, when you know someone who’s queer, and you hear their story, you are more likely to support policy change that will allow that person to live a safe and dignified life. But if you shut down the discussion and you don’t allow people to even talk about sexual orientation or gender identity, then you’re never going to get to that place of positive change. And that’s what a lot of politicians are trying to do right now around the world and in the United States. And I think the media has a really important obligation to push back. ROBBINS: Well, thank you. That sums it up perfectly. You guys have helped an enormous amount. We have put in the chat links to the work that you guys do, as well as to these stylebooks. But we’ll send things out as well. And I’m going to turn this back to Irina. And thank you, Neela, so much. And thank you, Steve, so much. ROTHAUS: Thank you. It was very interesting. FASKIANOS: Yes, I second that. And as Carla said, we will send you the link to this webinar and the transcript, along with the links. You can follow Neela Ghosal on Twitter at @adi. Steve Rothaus at— GHOSHAL: Actually, sorry, my Twitter account has been hacked. (Laughs.) And, unfortunately, nobody at Twitter will respond to my efforts to get it back. So do not follow me on Twitter. That hasn’t been me for the last three months. FASKIANOS: OK then. (Laughter.) GHOSHAL: And sometimes I feel that—(inaudible)—I’m giving up on Twitter right now. ROTHAUS: And I’ll say something. So am I. I mean, I want to say that too, because I’ve not been posting. I’ve been lurking/looking, but I’m really uncomfortable with what’s happening at Twitter. And so I’d prefer not to give my Twitter address, only because I don’t know that I’ll be using it. ROBBINS: (Laughs.) Take that, Elon Musk. OK. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: OK. And you are all—both right, that this is—we need to be following what’s happening on Twitter and watching that space, for sure. (Laughs.) So delete from—erase from your memories what I just said about Twitter. And please do follow us on CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com and ThinkGlobalHealth.org. You can go to those websites for the latest developments and analysis on international trends and how they are affecting the United States. Please, of course, email us your suggestions for future webinars. You can email [email protected]. And, again, thank you all for today. We really appreciate it. It was extremely informative and a worthwhile conversation. GHOSHAL: Thank you very much. ROBBINS: Thanks, guys. ROTHAUS: Thank you. (END)