Virginia is still digging out from under the icy snow that blanketed the region over the weekend. Tomorrow, a rally is planned in Hanover County in protest of a federal proposal to open a US Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) facility there. 

Below, I look at the perverse economics of how President Donald Trump is incentivizing ICE operations in Virginia. 

And I recommend some Richmond post-apocalyptic space cowgirl music.

Anti-ICE protestors in Richmond on January  23, including one holding a sign saying, “State violence only benefits the rich.” (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

A recent report from the Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) offers a glimpse into the economics of Trump’s nativist and inhumane immigration policy for local law enforcement. 

According to the report, state and local law enforcement agencies can get the work they do for ICE completely reimbursed and up to 25% of overtime reimbursed. 

As Alex Kornya, LAJC’s director of litigation, put it to me, that helps create a conflict of interest, especially for small law enforcement agencies with tight budgets, between doing the normal duties most people expect of local law enforcement officials and doing federal immigration work. 

“Now those priorities are going to conflict even more because of the effectively unlimited amount of money that you can get by billing these activities to the federal government,” Kornya said.

The Trump administration it seems has created perverse incentives for cash-strapped law enforcement agencies to join up with its cause, which should be worrying to anyone horrified by the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

• Victoria A. Ifatusin at The Richmonder reports that Richmond Public Schools educators are on average making thousands more than they did last year, and more than their counterparts in Henrico and Chesterfield counties for the first time in years.

• The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press Editorial Board published a piece highlighting a report on increased wait times at Veterans Affairs Hospitals caused by Trump spending cuts.

• The most-clicked link in Thursday’s Virginia Capital was an FFXnow story on federal data showing that Northern Virginia saw a jump in unemployment last year.

Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash

Speaking of the labor market, this week we got some updated figures on Virginia’s labor market from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The good news is that the state unemployment rate stayed below the national average. 

Virginia’s unemployment rate was 3.6% in December, a slight uptick from 3.5% in November. The national unemployment rate in December was 4.4%.

The bad news is that November saw a spike in people leaving their job either because they quit, got laid off or fired, or retired. 

Virginia saw an increase of 37,000 in the total number of people who left their jobs for these reasons in November compared to the previous month. That was the third largest increase in the country. 

A reason for this spike may be that the data is finally reflecting the federal workers who took the “fork in the road” to leave their jobs last year, but still got paid through September. 

“home movie” by Betsy from Mars

Today, I want to highlight a Richmond folk rock band I found on Instagram that I now love. 

The band is called Betsy from Mars and was created by Betsy Podsiadlo to “share her post apocalyptic space cowgirl music from beyond the confines of her home studio.”

Check them out online or try to catch their next show on February 13 at Black Iris Social Club in Richmond. 

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