Welcome New Loop Substack Subscribers!

We appreciate the jump in recent subscriptions - curation and relevancy - and our story: 147,000

Easter Sunday, April 9th, 2023

Dear Vashon Loop Readers and Substack Subscribers,

Over the past week, we’ve seen a jump in new Loop Substack subscribers. Welcome!

You can expect a mix of content from us, about two times a week. Some of it is available to everyone, other pieces are only viewable by our paid subscribers. Why?

We need some of our readers to step up and become “voluntarily paying readers,” of our paper. This is how we’ll cover our printing costs - without raising advertising rates & the cost of goods and services on the island. In this complicated, topsy-turvy world, we’ll do well to lock elbows, combine resources, and prioritize community. Thank you!

Relevancy

To build a better future, we need to see clearly where we stand today. Let us ask you a question: “Do you think local news matters?”

When it comes to media, we have three generations alive today who tend to believe that global news issues are of primary importance. This creates a weirdly illogical impression that “local news” is secondary. Why do we say weirdly illogical?

Because, all news is local to someone. The train derailment in Palestine, Ohio is clearly a “local” news story, but it’s absolutely important to all Americans, whether they live in Palestine, Ohio - or not.

Why? Because, by seeing what has happened to that small community, we can extrapolate one very simple message: “It can happen in my town, too.”

A Perfect Example

In January of 2023, Andy Valencia began researching a topic that causes him considerable concern: human trafficking and disappearances of vulnerable adults and children, within the USA.

Sadly, this tragic state of affairs gets relatively little attention, especially in communities which enjoy a bucolic reputation as an escape from civilization’s woes. Still, we ran the story in our March Issue. And within days, there was a major police operation, on Maury Island, triggered by a federal grand jury indictment of an islander charged with violent human trafficking, involving serious harm, threats of harm, and aggravated sexual assault.

In the same way that “hyper-local” stories along our southern border have relevance to Americans living thousands of miles away, many of our articles, stories and columns are directly relevant to readers elsewhere within the United States and the world. “Okay,” you say. “But why does this matter? What’s different about The Loop?”

Curation. Curation. Curation.

The world is full of news. Journalists need not seek for worthwhile stories. They land in our laps. They bump into us. They are everywhere. And from this plethora of potential content, the editor decides what does and does not get printed. Think of all the major news stories of your lifetime. It’s exciting to think of journalists doing the scary, hard work of tracking down hidden details and meeting with FBI Associate Director Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat) in a parking garage, but the stories that changed our world were not simply written.

They were approved. They were permitted. They were allowed space on pages and plenty of ink. They were curated by the all-powerful editor. And, ultimately - those who pulled his or her puppet strings.

The Vashon Loop is owned by three families who live on Vashon Island. We are not puppets. No one has a controlling interest in our community newspaper. No corporation. No government. Just us. Regular, long-time islanders, independent and free to curate as we wish. And, this is rare.

What does the Vashon Loop Offer?

Independent journalism. News curation free from corporate control. Honesty in a time of suppression. Bravery in the face of cancel culture. Truth, to the best of our knowledge, and a willingness to learn and change our minds, should new evidence be presented. Humility and a commitment to apologize and correct errors made. We are you. Humans. Doing our best. And we welcome you to walk alongside us.

Read the article here, then visit our website: The Vashon Loop, where you will find roughly 20 sources and links to follow.

147,000

by Andy Valencia

Stop off at a rest stop along almost any major highway, and you’ll see signs – in English and Spanish – telling trafficking victims how to ask for help. Look at all the vehicles coming and going at a highway rest stop. How often is it one with a few children, minded by men with cold, careful eyes?

Consider 600,000 unaccompanied minors smuggled across our border each year. A larger and more vulnerable population is hard to imagine. How many land in desperately bad situations? Only a very few try to argue that this is minor problem.

This is not a political issue; it happens in Red states and Blue ones. It happens to places dominated by Republicans and by Democrats. It happens in wealthy states and in poor ones. But it is the poor and vulnerable who bear the brunt of this plague – an evil tax paid with lives, including children.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation National Crime Information Center system tracks active federal law enforcement cases, along with cases where a local agency chooses to enter their case into the FBI NCIC system. In 2021 (the latest reported year), 337,195 reports on missing children were added. The year closed with 30,400 of those reports still open.

For those taking cold comfort that “only” 30,400 cases are unsolved at year’s end, remember that these are cases where somebody like a parent went to law enforcement, went through all the institutional barriers to get a police report into the system, and then put an entry into the FBI’s NCIC system. What about those who dare not contact law enforcement?

In October 2021, the New York Times noted an influx of 1.7 million illegal border crossings, including 479,000 families and 147,000 unaccompanied children. The numbers race ahead of the reporting; in December 2022, border patrol reported 250,000 encounters in that single month. These are the ones encountered, which is to say, the ones who didn’t elude the US border agents. In another 2021 article, they note that the number of unaccompanied minors at the border are growing, and approaching 20,000 per month.

How many did elude the authorities? By definition, this is an unknown number, but various experts estimate that, for each encountered crosser, there’s one, two, three, or more who elude the US agents. There is no reputable authority claiming it’s a small number. We might really have 50,000 minors, alone, coming through our border. Each month.

Even for those children who are caught and enter the federal system, there are serious doubts about their long term safety. Bloomberg has documented cases where the children disappear without a trace. According to Edwin Mora: "It's not uncommon for federal officials to lose contact with unaccompanied children after their release from government custody."

Criminal cartels in Mexico have become major players in human smuggling, and children provide a terribly convenient source of victims. Since the cartels are de facto owners of illegal immigration across wide expanses of the US border with Mexico, they ("coyotes") could easily bring children across and route them into captivity instead of the promised brighter future. How would we know? Nobody’s going to enter it into an FBI system.

A resource for these victims, projectnorest.org has a “LEAVE PAGE NOW” button floating on the right, so a victim can quickly hide their search for help when they hear their “handler” coming. How often is that button used in earnest? How would we know?

Medics checking a bandaged wound will use their nose, sniffing around the perimeter, to see if it smells of corruption – rotting flesh. In researching this article, I’ve caught that same whiff of corruption. The delegation of our border to cartels, the swarms of children, the lost children reported to our law enforcement, and the untold thousands who dare not use that system. And now, in late 2022, US Customs and Border Patrol has been ordered to not release border patrol statistics on social media, or even to the press. Why? To hide good news?

Consider that crossing number of 600,000 children per year. Stalin famously noted that one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. These children have become almost a Stalin statistic, but are also an unprecedented tragedy.

So far, talking about this is like talking about bad weather. Everybody agrees it’s terrible – then you turn the page. Before you turn this page, take a moment to imagine these thousands of children, and what fates they’ve encountered. Now, imagine the ways that this situation might be improved. I hope you’ll hold these ideas in your mind as you interact with politicians and others in authority.