When Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an emergency order in April to restrict gender-transition treatments in his state, he announced he was acting to protect vulnerable patients – particularly children – from “experimental” medicine, accusing the clinics providing such care of “harming children by ignoring the science.”

To many parents of transgender children in Missouri, however, the real threat they face is not from doctors but politicians. 

“The first thing you learn when you have a trans kid in a red state is that you have to protect them from the government,” says Daniel Bogard, a rabbi in St. Louis who has a transgender son in third grade and runs a summer camp for LGBTQ+ youth from across the Midwest. 

The attorney general’s order has been halted, for now, by the courts. But this week, Republicans in Missouri’s legislature moved to ban all gender-transition treatments for minors, except for those already receiving such treatments. It also passed a bill barring transgender youth from participating on certain sports teams. GOP Gov. Mike Parson has promised to sign both.  

Missouri is second only to Texas in the number of LGBTQ+-related bills introduced this year, part of a wave of states imposing new restrictions on transgender individuals in particular. In GOP-controlled legislatures from Florida to Arkansas to Montana, the ACLU has tracked 474 bills it characterizes as targeting LGBTQ+ rights in 2023 alone. Red states are banning trans athletes from playing on certain teams and placing restrictions on which bathrooms they can use. And at least 16 now ban or restrict medical treatments for transitioning. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

Rabbi Daniel Bogard is shown in the library of his synagogue, Central Reform Congregation, in St. Louis, May 7, 2023. The parent of a transgender son, he calls what's happening in Missouri "awful and painful," and says he knows many families who are leaving or preparing to leave the state.

Two decades after Republicans found success at the ballot box by mobilizing against same-sex marriage – only to watch public opinion rapidly move to embrace it in the years that followed – transgender rights are emerging as perhaps the most polarizing culture-war issue of the 2024 campaign. As trans people have moved into the mainstream of popular culture, at a pace that would have seemed remarkable not long ago, conservatives are stoking a social and political backlash, particularly among older voters unfamiliar with a once largely invisible minority. Former President Donald Trump and other GOP candidates are accusing liberals of promoting “radical” ideas about gender identity, and arguing such topics should be off-limits in schools. And many are raising concerns about transition-related medicine, especially for minors, saying it’s unproven and dangerous.

Those on the left, including many families raising transgender children, say conservatives are scapegoating a vulnerable subgroup –estimated in 2022 to number 1.6 million, though the number is fast changing – that still lags far behind gays and lesbians in social acceptance. More than 40% of all trans and nonbinary youth aged 13-24 have “seriously considered” suicide over the past year, according to a recent survey of more than 28,000 LGTBQ+ people. Supporters say the rights of trans individuals are being increasingly infringed upon by legislators for political purposes – and that when it comes to children, it should be up to families and medical providers, not politicians, to make decisions about what many characterize as lifesaving care.

As with so many culture-war debates, polling suggests most Americans hold nuanced, and sometimes contradictory, views. A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll taken late last year found strong majorities of Americans support laws prohibiting discrimination against trans people in various arenas from schooling to housing to the workplace. But 57% of adults also said they believe a person’s gender is determined at birth, and 68% would oppose giving trans children between the ages of 10 and 14 access to puberty blockers.

David A. Lieb/AP

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, shown speaking to reporters in Jefferson City on Jan. 3, 2023, issued an executive order in April to ban gender-transition treatments in his state, calling them "experimental." The order has been halted by the courts, pending a hearing.

Many Americans are still figuring out their views on transgender policy, says Kasey Suffredini, vice president of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project in Los Angeles, a nonprofit which works on LGBTQ+ youth-suicide prevention.

“The majority of people in this country are fair-minded. They want to do the right thing. And that’s why you see a split between them supporting fair treatment [of trans people] and then having conflicted feelings around sports and other issues,” he says. 

Further complicating the matter is a growing degree of uncertainty, even within the medical community, over how to respond appropriately to a surge in teen gender fluidity. Surveys show that among 13-to-17-year-olds, rates of self-identification as transgender are roughly triple that of adults. The number of youths receiving “gender-affirming care” – namely puberty blockers and hormone treatments – has risen sharply since 2017, with 5,621 new patients under 18 initiating treatment in 2021, according to a Reuters analysis of insurance data, though that is likely an undercount. 

Supporters point to studies that show positive outcomes for youth who receive such treatments, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical associations continue to support them. Many also argue that the risks of denying treatment are far greater. Critics, on the other hand, note studies have also shown that gender dysphoria in childhood – or the feeling of being in a wrong-gendered body – often recedes over time, suggesting advantages to a wait-and-see approach. And several European countries are now recommending more caution in treating minors.

Riley Robinson/Staff

St. Louis Children’s Hospital is shown lit up at night. A former caseworker at the hospital’s Transgender Center alleged in February that it was inappropriately prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors. Washington University, which owns the hospital, found that the allegations were “unsubstantiated.”

This clinical debate exploded into the open in Missouri in February after Jamie Reed, a former case worker at the Transgender Clinic at the St Louis Children’s Hospital, alleged multiple cases of malpractice by doctors who provided transition care to minors. The attorney general’s office launched a probe, while Washington University, which owns the hospital, announced its own internal investigation. In April, the university said it had found no evidence to substantiate the allegations.

That same month, Attorney General Bailey, who was appointed by Governor Parson, issued his emergency order, which put Missouri on par with Texas, where Republicans have used executive orders to shut down transgender clinics and ordered child welfare workers to report families who access care.

While the clinical and ethical debate over youth-transition medicine is complex, most medical professionals don’t favor bans on minors receiving transgender care and fear for these young people’s mental health if care ends. They say Republican lawmakers have reduced an issue with many shades of gray to a black-and-white choice in which support for transitions for minors equates to child abuse, to the frustration of many families of trans children navigating difficult and highly personal medical decisions.

Jennifer Harris Dault, a Mennonite pastor in St. Louis with a transgender daughter, says she wishes questions about treatment could be taken out of the political arena entirely. “Every time that our kids need medicine or need medical intervention, it is scary. But we listen to the benefits and the risks … and then we make the best decision that we have in front of us with the help of our care teams,” she says. 

For now, she and other families are fighting what feels like an “exhausting” battle – on an issue that has grown markedly more divisive in just a few short years.

Rapid political escalation

Midway through a speech to supporters in Davenport, Iowa, in March, Donald Trump said as president he would cut federal funding to “any school that’s pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity.” The crowd inside the theater, which had grown quiet during a long stemwinder about farm subsidies, erupted in sustained cheers. 

“Look at the hand you get for that,” Mr. Trump said admiringly, once he could be heard again. “Bigger than ‘We’re going to be energy independent.’” He then vowed to keep trans women out of sports and called a transgender swimmer a “monster.” 

But when Mr. Trump first ran for the GOP nomination back in 2016, he evinced a far more hands-off approach to transgender issues. 

That year, North Carolina became the first state to prohibit trans people from using their preferred bathroom, igniting a political firestorm that led to boycotts. Supporters of the North Carolina bill had argued that it was necessary to protect privacy and safety in schools and other public spaces. Researchers, however, say trans people are far more likely to be victims of public assault than perpetrators. 

Asked about the issue at the time, Mr. Trump said there had been “very few problems” with trans people using public bathrooms and advised North Carolina to “leave it the way it is.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was also running for the GOP nomination, attacked Mr. Trump for bowing to a politically correct ideology that would, as he put it, allow “grown men” in a bathroom with little girls.

The following year, North Carolina largely repealed its bathroom law after the NBA and NCAA moved its All Star and championship games out of state in protest. But the backlash on the right had begun. And as the politics evolved, Mr. Trump’s stance evolved as well.

In 2017, the then-president called for a blanket ban on transgender people serving in the military, bucking his own Defense Department, which wanted to retain and recruit transgender soldiers. A modified version of the ban that took effect in 2019 was reversed by President Joe Biden in his first full week in office in 2021. 

Since then, other states have taken up transgender bathroom access. In April, Republicans in Kansas overrode a veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly of a sweeping bill restricting trans people’s use of bathrooms in jails, prisons, and athletic facilities, as well as schools.

Riley Robinson/Staff

Pastor Michael Angell is shown at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion in St. Louis, May 9, 2023. He testified to state lawmakers multiple times this session, opposing efforts to ban gender-transition treatments for youth. “We’ve seen an amping up of attacks on trans people across the country. There is more hate,” he says.

Social conservatives have also focused on transgender women competing in sports, an issue that plays well on right-wing media but that also wins sympathy from some Democrats and independents. Supporters of bans say female athletes should not be forced to face opponents who may have physical advantages from being born male, and at least 21 GOP-run states have passed bans on trans student athletes competing as their preferred gender, with little protest from the NCAA and other sports federations with anti-discrimination codes. 

In April, the Biden administration issued new rules that were seen as a compromise of sorts – prohibiting schools and athletic associations from issuing blanket bans on transgender athletes, but also allowing them to make case-by-case decisions about imposing restrictions when questions of fair competition arise.

An evolving field 

But by far the thorniest and most fiercely fought issue of 2023 is gender-transition treatment for young people, a once-rare intervention that is now offered at more than 100 specialist transgender clinics across the country, including the St. Louis center that is under investigation. Minors who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria can choose, with parental consent, to use puberty blockers and hormone injections to transition. 

Others opt for continued counseling and decline medical treatments, often while going public with their new gender identity, known as “social transitioning.” Genital and breast surgery on minors, a popular talking point on the right, remain exceedingly rare, and some transgender clinics won’t offer referrals. 

Critics say the medical treatment of gender dysphoria has expanded rapidly without sufficient guardrails and that the long-term risks of medical transitioning, including on things like fertility, bone density, and even brain development, aren’t fully understood. A related concern is that some adolescents, whose evolving relationship to their bodies has always been shaped by peers and popular culture, may essentially be led by external forces toward a medical intervention with lifetime effects they could later regret. 

In recent years, France, Sweden, and other European countries have tightened their rules on gender care, citing the uncertainty over medical side effects and potential overuse. Others continue to use similar protocols as U.S. specialists in treating minors, while collecting more data on patients who transition.  

This evolving area of medicine has run headlong into the entrenched political polarization in the U.S., pitting social and religious conservatives, mostly on the right, against progressives who align with the LGBTQ+ community. Within the latter group, raising doubts about prescribing transition medicines, even in scientific journals, is often cast as undermining not just the rights but the humanity of trans people. Concerns about broader repercussions on trans people’s mental health and position in society – which activists say are already being impacted – has worked to further stymie debate on the left.

Riley Robinson/Staff

Pastor Lazarus Jameson poses in the Grove neighborhood of St., Louis, May 8, 2023. Pastor Jameson, who identifies as nonbinary and trans-masc, has advocated for transition care to remain legal in Missouri, and calls the current climate "dangerous for us and our children."

“The way that we’re living now is really dangerous for us and our children,” says Lazarus Jameson, a chaplain in St. Louis who serves trans adults. “I’m a trans person, visibly trans. My community members are trans people. The level of harassment at our jobs has been super increased. People are feeling unsafe.” 

Greg Razer, a gay Democratic state senator from Kansas City, says lawmakers seeking political victories need to keep in mind the young people whose lives might be impacted. “These are actual kids – and they’re hurting. Whether you think they’re right or wrong, they’re hurting. Don’t say something that’s going to push them over the edge,” he says. 

Those on the left see the recent rise in trans identification as a positive reflection of a more-accepting society, which they fear is now being undermined. On the right, however, that rise is often framed as a social contagion or even manifestation of mental illness that should be gently corrected, not accommodated. Critics point to studies that show a relatively high percentage of those seeking gender-transition care also have other diagnoses, ranging from depression and anxiety to autism.

Republicans say they’re propelled by genuine concerns, not politics. Brad Hudson, who represents a rural district in southwest Missouri, filed the state House bill banning gender-transition care. A pastor who was first elected in 2018, he took on the issue because he had met families who didn’t know how to deal with gender dysphoria. “These kids really do need help. And these parents need help, too,” he says. 

In an interview in his office on the second floor of the Capitol, Representative Hudson says he believes “many, many children” with gender dysphoria can learn to embrace their bodily sex, with the right supports in place.

Asked why lawmakers were spending so much time on an issue that affects relatively few Missourians – the attorney general’s office has put the number of trans adults and children at 12,400 out of more than six million state residents – he said that trans-identifying teens who take medication now might regret it later on when they can’t have biological children. (Some trans teens harvest eggs or bank sperm before starting hormone treatments.) 

Mr. Hudson emphasized that his bill only applied to minors. As a pastor, though, he said he would also counsel an adult in his community not to try to change their gender. “I would try to lovingly and thoughtfully explain to them why that would be a huge mistake. And I would try to help them embrace the way that God made them.”  

Rallies at the capitol

During the spring legislative session, supporters and opponents of Missouri’s transgender bills held rallies on different days at the Capitol under its vividly painted dome. Those opposed greatly outnumbered the supporters. 

Catherine Dreher was among the supporters. Her child came out as a transgender woman last year, two weeks before turning 18. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’m trans. I’d be happier as a female.’ But he couldn’t answer why,” she says.

Their relationship is now estranged, though she says she still sends regular emails. “I put things in the subject line, like, ‘I love you and I always will,’” she says. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

Catherine Dreher, whose child came out as a transgender woman shortly before turning 18, poses near her home in Moscow Mills, Missouri, May 9, 2023. Ms. Dreher supports the bans on transition treatments for minors, saying: “There’s no way a child could consent to this.” .

Ms. Dreher believes that her child, whom she homeschooled, has been misled by online friends and will someday regret the decision to transition. “I pray when the day comes that he realizes this is not, you know – that he made a mistake. That he knows it’s okay to say that he regrets it, and knows that he’s always welcome back home,” she says. 

Among those rallying against the bills was Stephanie W., a wellness coach from St. Louis whose trans daughter began medically transitioning in her first year in high school. It was her first political rally, not something she ever imagined herself doing. 

“I don’t like confrontation, but I will no longer just agree to disagree with someone. This is not a political issue. This is an issue of human rights, the health and well-being of another person,” she says. 

Stephanie, who asked not to use her full name for her family’s privacy, says her daughter, who was recorded as male at birth, always preferred girls as friends. In middle school, that child began to struggle with depression and bullying. “We went from having a happy kid that was creative and pretty well-adjusted to where I was checking on her every night because I was afraid,” she says. 

After two years of seeing a therapist, Stephanie’s daughter was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Like many families in the area, she ended up at the Washington University Transgender Center, where her daughter was treated first for depression before eventually starting hormone treatment. “She’s now three years into transition. She is the happiest I’ve seen her in a very long time. And this saved her life,” she says. 

Partisan and generational divide

Since 2017, at least 50 politicians who identify as trans have been elected to local and state offices in the U.S. They include Zooey Zephyr, a Democratic lawmaker in Montana who was barred last month from the House floor after telling Republicans they would have “blood on [their] hands” for ending youth transition care. 

Four days later, GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the medical-transition ban into law, making Montana one of the latest states to deny treatment to minors. Civil rights groups said they would sue to stop its implementation on Oct. 1. 

Analysts say as Republicans increasingly seek to impose restrictions on trans people, they run the risk of overreaching politically, giving Democrats an opening to label the GOP position as mean-spirited and extreme. Indeed, it’s not hard to envision the issue following a similar trajectory as the same-sex marriage battle, in which short-term political victories for one side might be masking or even facilitating a longer-term shift in the other direction.

But the issue has also opened fissures in the Democratic coalition, including among feminists who worry about women’s rights being compromised in the name of transgender equality and who say legitimate debate is too often shut down with charges of transphobia. 

In a 2022 poll, Pew found a wide partisan and generational divide on transgender issues. Among Democrats under 30, 72% said a person can be a man or a woman regardless of their sex recorded at birth; in older age groups that percentage fell to 60% or less. Among Republicans and those who lean Republican of all ages, though, only 13% said a person’s gender could be different than their sex at birth. And 66% said society had gone too far in accepting trans people.

“This is a wedge issue,” says Annise Parker, a former Democratic mayor of Houston and president of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund which supports candidates for office from that community. Even within her coalition, not everyone is fully on board, Ms. Parker admits. “We do lose some right-leaning gay candidates who will not support this issue,” she says. 

Over time, the stark generational divide behind the trans culture wars may well dictate where the issue is heading. “All the cool kids in high school are queer now,” Ms. Parker says, half-joking.

But for now, she adds, that generational split only adds to the political foment: “It taps into a deep well of unease among parents.” 

The United States is about to begin a new chapter in its fraught immigration policy. At midnight on Thursday, a provision that built a procedural wall against migrants – if not a physical one – is set to expire. American communities along the Mexican border are preparing for an influx of humanity, which has already begun in some areas.

The provision, known as Title 42, is part of the public health code that the Trump administration invoked to restrict immigration three years ago. Arguing for the need to protect the nation against COVID-19, the government used the code to turn away asylum-seekers and other migrants at the border without the chance to seek protection. Though challenged in court, the controversial policy continued under the Biden administration, resulting in more than 2.8 million expulsions since March 2020 – including those who tried to cross more than once.

But with the COVID-19 public health emergency sunsetting in the U.S. this week, so too does the immigration provision, coinciding with the time of year when attempted border crossings traditionally increase. To prepare for an expected increase, the Biden administration on Wednesday finalized a rule that further restricts access to asylum. Deployment of troops and other personnel to the southwest border, along with funding boosts to border communities, is also part of plans. Meanwhile, House Republicans are expected to vote on their own border bill today.

Anticipating change, Monitor reporters recently traveled to the border. This week, Latin America special correspondent Whitney Eulich chronicled the legacy of Title 42 on Mexican border cities that have swelled with migrants – and the difficulty that many of them have using the administration’s phone app to pursue asylum. Similarly, this reporter visited nonprofit migrant shelters on the receiving end in El Paso, Texas; and San Diego as they try to gear up for this next chapter.

“You need a plan to not create crisis in the local border communities,” says the Father Rafael Garcia of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit pastor of Sacred Heart Church in El Paso. The church runs a shelter for migrants that is full up – even before the change.

Mr. Garcia is speaking specifically of the need for a plan to uphold the right to seek asylum in the U.S. Yet his words underscore a debate about how the U.S. should calibrate its responsibility to migrants and Americans, amid competing visions of a humanitarian versus security emergency at the border.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Father Rafael Garcia, the Jesuit pastor of Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas, gives a tour of his church's migrant shelter, April 26, 2023.

Overflowing in El Paso  

Whatever change is coming, El Paso has been scaling up resources in the face of overwhelming need. In recent days, some 3,300 migrants have been staying on the streets around two shelters in the bustling downtown, many sleeping on scraps of cardboard.

Along with two other Texas cities, El Paso announced a state of emergency beginning May 1. That came five months after a similar declaration in December, when monthly border encounters reached a record.

That same month Sacred Heart, located just a few blocks from the Mexican border, opened its migrant shelter, a former parish gymnasium that holds up to 120 people.

In late April, many without shelter linger outside in the sun, unsure of next steps. They include asylum-seekers in fear of returning home as well as those in search of better economic conditions – which are not grounds for asylum. Many crossed into the U.S. unlawfully, encountering robberies and violence on their journey north. Some are hurt from scaling the border wall.

“I was robbed in the jungle; I was robbed on the train – I went through a lot,” says Katty, an Ecuadorian standing on the shadeless street outside Sacred Heart, who spent 12 days on the street without shelter. Like other asylum-seekers, she preferred not to have her full name published for privacy reasons.

Beneath a mural of the crucifixion, a group of men crowds around a gate where shelter workers call out the names of those who can come in. Inside, a boy pushes a lemon-yellow toy truck past rows of sleeping mats across the wooden floor. Germán, whose own son is still in Venezuela, has volunteered to sweep this floor since arriving earlier in the month.

“I’m super grateful,” says the asylum-seeker, who protested his government back home. “It’s great that places like this exist.”

Crowds around the shelter have reportedly thinned since then, following a federal informational campaign encouraging unauthorized migrants to turn themselves in for processing. Still, Mr. Garcia and his team are endeavoring to keep the shelter running, relying on private donations and volunteers. On a recent evening, a group of Latter-day Saint volunteers dons gloves to serve dinner to those who have secured a spot inside.  

With no resources from the state, the church is applying for federal funds. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has allocated funding for border cities to help with the reception of noncitizens released from custody.

The city, meanwhile, is readying vacant school buildings as temporary migrant shelters, and possibly resuming chartered transportation to move migrants on to their desired destinations. There’s a need to “decompress our system,” Mayor Oscar Leeser told reporters last week. 

“As a border city, we have a responsibility to provide a service for our country and make sure that everybody is treated with dignity and respect,” said Mr. Leeser, a Democrat.

Though they’re accustomed to migration in a city with multiple ports of entry that shares its border with Ciudad Juárez, some locals find their patience tested by the volume of border crossers. “There is a lot of sympathy for their situation, but it is hurting us,” says Bobby Abner, from behind the counter of Paso del Norte Gold and Silver. The increase of migrants downtown has reduced foot traffic to his business.

Eric Gay/AP

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shakes hands with members of the Texas National Guard in Austin as they prepare to deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border, May 8, 2023.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, has pursued a plan of deterrence. The state reports directing $4 billion to border security, deploying National Guard members and state troopers, and laying miles of concertina wire along the border at El Paso. State law enforcement has apprehended more than 373,000 unauthorized immigrants since 2021. Critics have questioned the legality of expanding the state’s authority in immigration enforcements.

By letting Title 42 end, “President Biden is laying down a welcome mat to people across the entire world,” Governor Abbott said Monday, announcing a new Texas Tactical Border Force of National Guard members. “Texas is doing more than any state in the history of the United States of America to defend our border.”

Secretary Mayorkas: potentially “very difficult”

After Title 42 ends, border officials will revert to using traditional immigration law, which they’ve still applied to some extent throughout the pandemic. Removals of noncitizens under the law carry steeper penalties than Title 42 expulsions, such as a five-year bar on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for future attempts.

Department of Homeland Security officials are bracing for a continued influx of border encounters, and estimate that border agents may face as many as 13,000 migrants a day starting on Friday. Some reports suggest the influx is driven in part by border policy misinformation received by migrants.

“We are cleareyed about the challenges we are likely to face in the days and weeks ahead, which have the potential to be very difficult,” Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a Wednesday press conference. “We are making it very clear that our border is not open.”

Many House Republicans disagree, calling for Mr. Mayorkas’ impeachment over what they call a colossal loss of control. They are expected to pass a border security bill Thursday that would build more border wall and place new restrictions on asylum-seekers. The bill has no future in the Senate, and the president has threatened a veto.

As Title 42 expires, the Biden administration’s plans include increased personnel and other resources for border operations and the interviewing of asylum-seekers, harsher targeting of smugglers, and regional processing centers in Central and South America to screen migrants for possible admittance.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Kelwin (right), a Venezuelan asylum-seeker, sits with his family in El Paso, Texas, April 26, 2023. His swaddled daughter came into the world a week before, born American.

The new rule announced Wednesday restricts asylum-seeking to “lawful pathways,” i.e., ports of entry and the use of the CBP One phone app, and only after an attempt to seek relief in another country is denied. Immigrant advocates have decried such limitations, which they see as reminiscent of the Trump era.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, argues the Biden government is violating the letter and spirit of the law “to essentially say only those people who go to ports of entry are able to access the asylum system.”

Other critics pan what the White House has touted as expanded legal pathways for entering the U.S. That includes broader use of parole – a system that temporarily allows migrants to enter the U.S., including for humanitarian reasons.

“They’re shifting the load from people illegally crossing at the border, which looks bad on TV, to people showing up at airports in the interior, which doesn’t,” says Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center. 

Up in the air

Even without Title 42, when a migrant is processed and permitted to remain in the U.S. pending court proceedings, next steps are difficult – especially with a language barrier.

Around midnight at an empty airport gate in Phoenix, a Colombian woman practices saying “North Carolina” aloud. She knows it as Carolina del Norte, where a family member settled.

Following her illegal border crossing from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, she was processed and then released from federal immigration detention with new clothes and a packet of paperwork. Official documents are in English, which she doesn’t speak, along with a list of pro bono legal services. Those could help her navigate the complex path ahead in her bid to stay – including a court date scheduled in the U.S. Virgin Islands for 2026.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

The border walls dividing San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico, are seen beyond spring blooms on the California side, April 29, 2023.

Such factors in immigration cases are beyond a defendant’s control, including delayed or inaccurate filing of paperwork by the government, says Margaret Cargioli, directing attorney of policy and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

Additionally, “there’s a tremendous need for improvement as to language access for asylum-seekers,” she says. “One can be ordered removed from the United States in absentia for missing a hearing, and it is quite unfortunate if it is a result of lack of access to language providers who can assist them in understanding when and where they have to appear in court.”

The California embrace

Linked by a nearly 2,000-mile border, Texas and California diverge in their reception of migrants in ways that align with their politics. While deep-red Texas focuses on deterring them, deep-blue California embraces them.

Since 2019, Democrat-led California reports investing around $1.1 billion in provisions for migrants, including COVID-19 testing and vaccines, temporary shelter, and travel coordination.

It’s a stance that makes state officials proud.  

“California has served as a model of partnership for a safe and welcoming border, undertaking humanitarian efforts in border communities to support arriving migrants once they have been released by the federal government,” writes Scott Murray in an email. Mr. Murray is deputy director of public affairs and outreach programs at the California Department of Social Services.

For example, the state has funded nonprofit Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego, which operates three migrant shelters in Southern California. Outside one of them in San Diego, an undisclosed hotel, some 60 men file out of white buses. The tongues of their sneakers flap open – their shoelaces have been removed – as they exit federal custody and ready to enter the hotel with the floral-patterned carpet.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

At an undisclosed hotel in San Diego used as a temporary migrant shelter, an overflow space is ready with cots ahead of a possible influx of migrant arrivals after Title 42 ends, April 28, 2023.

Water bottles and Welch’s Fruit Snacks await the arrivals on chairs, as well as an intake process and COVID-19 testing. No photos of migrant “clients” are allowed inside the sprawling building, where masks are mandatory.

Around 800 currently stay here, but the nonprofit is preparing to receive up to a few hundred more if necessary. Staff members are stocking more food in a storage room and lining overflow spaces with cots.

“It is better to have a very structured environment so that nobody falls through the cracks,” says Appaswamy “Vino” Pajanor, the nonprofit’s CEO.

After a day or two, many accept rides to the airport, en route to cities where they have family, sponsors, friends. 

“Almost everybody covers their own travel,” says Ralph Enriquez, director of refugee and immigrant services at Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego on a recent shelter tour. Assuming that migrants don’t have points of contact in the U.S. or financial arrangements to cover their own travel, he says, is “a big mis-narrative.”

Politicians on both sides of the aisle recognize the immigration system as broken, but they have yet to unite on major reforms in a divided Congress. The volume of border crossings has even vexed interior cities like New York, whose Democratic Mayor Eric Adams has pushed back on more migrant transfers to his turf while planning outward-bound transfers of his own.

Meanwhile, the cycle of shelter residents, the paperwork and planes, continues.

A few migrants walk past Mr. Enriquez on the tour, headed toward the departure area. Children clutch a bag of chips in one hand, waving goodbye with the other.

Victoria Jones/AP

Lord Carrington, Lord Great Chamberlain, presents the spurs to King Charles III during the coronation of King Charles III and Camilla, the queen consort, at Westminster Abbey, in London, May 6, 2023. The first of the regalia presented to the king, the spurs date from the coronation of King Charles II in 1661.

Britain’s Royal Collection catalog calls them, simply, “The Spurs.”

Yet nothing about last weekend’s coronation of King Charles III could be described as simple.

These particular spurs – gold, with velvet-cloaked leather – were the first of the regalia presented to the king just before he was crowned under the majestic medieval roof of Westminster Abbey. And like the crown itself, they dated from the coronation of the last English king to be named Charles: Charles II, over three-and-a-half centuries ago, in 1661.

They formed a small, yet indispensable part of a meticulously choreographed celebration embracing its roots in England’s history and established church, and bookmarked by public spectacle complete with gilded carriages and serried ranks of lock-stepped soldiery.

But the coronation, and the thousands of community events organized around it nationwide, also carried a very contemporary political message, not just for Britain but also for other democracies, like the United States, strained by increasingly angry political, economic, and social divisions.

Vadim Ghirda/AP

Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla travel back to Buckingham Palace after his coronation ceremony in London, May 6, 2023.

It was a reminder of the importance of institutions that are able to stand above that fray, standing instead for a shared understanding of history that provides ballast and stability, to offer a focal point not for what is pulling people apart, but for what they have in common.

And as King Charles III is keenly aware, it was a reminder of the delicate task he now faces in retaining that role for the monarchy – an issue that had faded in importance amid the popular affection built up by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, during her seven decades on the throne.

Charles’ challenge is to modernize the monarchy. But not modernize it too much.

The pull in both directions was evident over the coronation weekend.

The Abbey service was steeped in tradition: The king was anointed with oil, drawing his authority from God, not voters, and pledging his loyalty to the established church. But aware that only 2% of the British population still regularly attends Church of England services, and that most of his subjects are not Christians, he included representatives of other faiths as well in the service.

In a reflection of the need to forge a bond of his own with Britons, he opened proceedings by declaring, “I come not to be served, but to serve.”

And the congregation included representatives of charities and community groups, a recognition that while the monarchy enjoys huge wealth and privilege, millions are struggling to cope with double-digit inflation, housing shortages, and creaking public services.

Toby Melville/Reuters

People watch a screening of the concert marking Britain's King Charles' coronation, near Windsor Castle, Windsor, England, May 7, 2023.

Still, despite recent polls suggesting an erosion of support for the monarchy, the coronation weekend left little doubt that there is still broad support for the institution – not so much in spite of its remoteness from the realities of everyday life and everyday politics, but because of this.

Tens of thousands thronged into central London on coronation day. More than 20 million watched on television. Family celebrations, pub get-togethers, street parties, and volunteer events were held across the country in the two days that followed. They were punctuated by chants of “God Save the King” – some full-throated, some self-conscious, some no doubt ironic, but all part of a convergence that is increasingly rare in Britain, as elsewhere in the world.

Still, it is in defining the nature of the monarch’s political role – embodying an overarching unity of purpose, especially at a time of partisanship and waning trust in government institutions – that King Charles III may find his greatest difficulty.

That’s because a large part of his new job is essentially to follow a script.

He is head of state. But in day-to-day terms, that’s a fiction. The monarch ostensibly invites a party leader to form a government after a national election, but the choice has been made by the voters. The King’s speech, opening Parliament with a run-down of legislative plans, is delivered by the monarch as well. “My government,” he says, will do this or that. But his words are written by the prime minister.

Leon Neal/AP

Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla look at each other as they stand on the balcony of the Buckingham Palace after their coronation, in London, May 6, 2023.

And here’s the main challenge for Charles: in those moments when he does speak in his own voice, he will need to steer clear of politics, choosing themes and words that resonate equally with right and left, young and old, poor and privileged.

His late mother did this without fail, from the time she became queen in her early 20s, and perhaps never more powerfully and eloquently than during the pandemic.

As heir, however, Charles spent one of the world’s longest apprenticeships expressing strong opinions on all sorts of things, from architecture and agriculture to religion and refugee policy.

To continue to do so would risk tension with Britain’s elected leaders – as he well knows, since over the years government ministers have on numerous occasions appealed quietly to him to stay out of partisan political debates.

It could also court disaster. The king’s crown has raised the stakes considerably, demanding that Charles III stand above the rancor and division of day-to-day politics. For if he were to allow the monarchy to become just another political institution, its glitter would be reduced to glitz.

AP

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is displayed on a screen at a Communist Party memorial in Shanghai.

Twice in the past half-year, China has pulled itself back from the brink of disaster, offering up a lesson for any country where extreme official rhetoric can get out of control.

Last December, Chinese leader Xi Jinping abruptly reversed his “zero-COVID” policy – which relied on metaphors of war – after mass protests against its draconian effects on society threatened his rule. China has since fared well with a fading pandemic.

Then in recent months, Mr. Xi made an even more important about-face. Official media now allow commentary arguing against the regime’s own statements about taking Taiwan by military force, even allowing some articles to call the notion of war “stupid.”

Last year, Mr. Xi himself instructed his military to be prepared for an invasion by 2027. Chinese warplanes often flew into Taiwanese airspace. Yet the rhetoric of a war may have become too close to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Some ordinary Chinese have come to sincerely believe that war will break out over Taiwan in the near future,” says China expert Katsuji Nakazawa in the Japanese publication Nikkei. “It became necessary to calm, for now, a groundswell of public opinion inflamed by wolf-warrior propaganda.”

China will now “push for the peaceful development” of ties with Taiwan, said Wang Huning, a new and powerful official in charge of policy toward Taiwan. “Cross-strait exchanges should be restored and expanded step by step, and friendship with people from all social strata in Taiwan should be cultivated,” he said this week.

Mr. Xi has many reasons to cool the propaganda. He may want to influence the outcome of Taiwan’s democratic election next year – the country’s eighth presidential election – perhaps hoping for a Beijing-friendly leader to be chosen. He sees how badly Russia botched its invasion of Ukraine and the united Western response in defending a democracy. China’s threatening posture toward Taiwan has also brought many Asian countries, from India to South Korea, into formal or informal alliances.

China faces so many domestic problems – a low birth rate, increasing economic isolation by the West, and a dependency on Taiwan-made computer chips – that an invasion seems as threatening to the Communist Party as the protests against the harsh COVID-19 policy.

Mr. Xi has been “sobered” by the Russian invasion and the economic implications of an invasion of Taiwan, says CIA Director William Burns. That soberness is now reflected in the ruling party’s official rhetoric. Perhaps a more pacifistic tone will lead to more peaceful actions.