Dear Friend,

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas always speed by in a blur, and it can be tempting to rush right along with them. So I appreciated Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s call to sit in silence before the Word of God in a collection of his Advent reflections, God Is in the Manger. “In being quiet there is a remarkable power of clarification, or purification, of bringing together what is important,” he wrote.

I’ve also enjoyed hearing how you are spending the holidays, especially your ideas about how to bless those who may not have family nearby or are new to American holiday traditions. One reader said his family invites church members from the local military base to join their family festivities. Another reader told me her family started a tradition of inviting international students or recent immigrants to share Thanksgiving dinner. The guests brought their own traditional dishes to add to the smorgasbord. She recommended reaching out to a local college or resettlement agency for the names of students or immigrants who would enjoy an invitation to an American Thanksgiving.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my family’s Thanksgiving tradition of reading aloud Abraham Lincoln’s first Thanksgiving proclamation. One reader told me he and his wife read aloud a founding father’s Thanksgiving proclamation as well as the current president’s Thanksgiving Day message and compare the two. A couple of readers recommended attending a worship service on Thanksgiving.

Please keep sharing your holiday reflections and unique traditions, and I’ll share more of them here. Now, here’s this week’s news in criminal justice, immigration, and poverty-fighting.

Florida Rep. Sam Garrison says his state is charting a new course in addressing chronic homelessness—one that diverges from the federal government’s Housing First approach, which is also the chosen strategy of many states. A growing number of lawmakers and homelessness experts say the model misidentifies the root problem. I report on the states moving away from Housing First, plus what President-elect Donald Trump has said about the strategy.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to shutter an Austin homeless ministry in federal court under a local nuisance law. I report on the case, which illustrates the tension between loving your neighbor who lives on the streets while balancing respect for other local residents.

HELPS AND HINDRANCES

Closures: The Federal Bureau of Prisons is permanently closing its notorious women’s prison in Dublin, Calif., after temporarily shuttering the facility in the wake of an Associated Press investigation that exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse in 2022. The agency is also temporarily deactivating six more facilities, including three minimum-security prison camps in Florida, Minnesota, and West Virginia and three satellite camps near federal prisons. The agency announced the closures amid mounting costs to repair crumbling infrastructure, severe staffing shortages, and allegations of abuse throughout the federal prison system. On Friday, BOP officials also agreed to a court-appointed monitor to resolve a class-action lawsuit seeking interagency changes in light of the abuse at Dublin. The agreement, which is pending final approval from a judge, gives nearly 500 former inmates access to lawyers and counselors, among other provisions, and requires the BOP to release eligible plaintiffs to halfway houses or home confinement.

Chaplains needed: Border Patrol is training more chaplains to support its agents who regularly counter cartel violence and human smuggling amid an increasingly polarized immigration debate. While police departments and the military typically enlist faith leaders to fill the role of chaplain, Border Patrol chaplains are lay agents with regular jobs who are endorsed by their particular denominations and trained to assist when needed. The new trainees will join about 240 chaplains already on call. Four years ago, the agency only had 130. Trainees practice comforting agents who are forced to respond to emotionally distressing situations such as immigrant deaths or children crossing the border alone. Building up the chaplaincy program is part of the agency’s effort to help agents cope with the pressures of their role to prevent family conflict, addiction, and suicide.

Under investigation: In a probe that concluded last week, the U.S. Department of Justice determined the police department in Memphis, Tenn., and the City of Memphis regularly use excessive force, discriminate against black residents and people with disabilities, and conduct unlawful stops and searches. Federal officials launched the investigation after five Memphis police officers beat Tyre Nichols, a black man, during a traffic stop last year. He died three days later. The city said it will not agree to a consent decree—court-ordered third-party supervision of department reforms—until it has had a chance to review the report’s specific allegations, City Attorney Tannera Gibson wrote in a letter to the DOJ. The Justice Department has launched 11 similar investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies since April 2021, according to the Associated Press. All five of the completed investigations in Trenton, N.J.; Louisville, Ky.; Lexington, Miss.; Phoenix; and Minneapolis found patterns of unlawful policing practices, while six are still ongoing.

OF NOTE

• President-elect Trump nominated former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, an advocate of more immigration enforcement, to serve as U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner. Trump also tapped Caleb Vitello, who has spent more than 23 years with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to take charge of that agency.
• The Trump transition team is also reportedly preparing a list of countries, including Panama and Grenada, that will accept deported immigrants whose home countries refuse to take them back.
• Deaths associated with carfentanil, a fentanyl derivative that’s 100 times stronger, are rising even as total overdose deaths decline, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Between January 2021 and June 2024, the powerful synthetic opioid was responsible for 513 deaths—238 of which took place between January and June of this year.
• In the nation’s largest-ever fentanyl seizure, Mexican authorities confiscated more than 1 ton of pills in two raids last week, only days after President-elect Trump threatened to levy a 25% tariff on Mexican goods unless the country cracks down on migrant and drug smuggling,
• Border authorities have apprehended 539,560 unaccompanied immigrant children since 2021, nearly double the number during the six fiscal years before President Joe Biden took office.
• The Indiana Supreme Court declined to stay the execution of a man convicted of killing his brother and three other people. The court directed the state to set a date for what will be the state’s first execution since 2009 due to a shortage of the lethal drug pentobarbital.
• More than 340,000 individuals on probation or parole who are over age 65 now qualify for Medicare thanks to a new rule the federal government approved last month.
• Some immigrants are choosing to return to their home countries rather than wait in Mexico, Reuters reported, fearing they won’t get a CBP One appointment before President-elect Trump takes office and imposes more restrictions.
• Alabama authorities arrested a prison guard on drug smuggling charges that include allegedly sneaking methamphetamine into Elmore Correctional Facility.
• California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom visited his state’s border with Mexico where he announced the construction of a new port of entry and warned about the economic effects of potential mass deportations.
• A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesperson issued an apology for only delivering 27 travel trailers and manufactured homes for Hurricane Helene survivors in North Carolina after promising to provide 103 by the end of Thanksgiving week.
• Some immigration judges have denied up to 100% of their asylum claims, according to a Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse report on immigration case outcomes between 2019 and 2024. Other judges took a different legal approach and denied as few as 1% of their cases, a Border Report analysis of the report noted. Overall, judges have rejected just over 57% of claims during the past five years.

WORLD-WIDE REPORTS

• In The Sift, Josh Schumacher reports on the jury’s decision in the trial of former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny for his role in the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man Penny put into a chokehold after he threatened fellow subway passengers. In WORLD Opinions, Hunter Baker reflects on the outcome of the case.
• In the December issue of WORLD Magazine, Grace Snell talks to Christian families determined to reclaim Christmas—by rejecting or reimagining it.

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Thanks for reading. God bless!