Vox Sentences: Thailand discovers one way to keep an election from getting hectic

Did Melania Trump come to the US the right way?; Australia's offshore detention camps under scrutiny; an upcoming vote on a new Thai constitution.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

What would be funny is if the name on her visa were "Michelle Obama"

Getty / Alex Wong

• Over the weekend, tabloids published some nude photos of Melania Trump from 1995. Naturally, this raised questions about her immigration history.

  [Bloomberg View / Francis Wilkinson]

• Statements Trump has made in the past have made people assume she first came to the US on a tourist visa. If that's true, then by modeling (nude or otherwise), she was working illegally in the US.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Naturally, this has caused a whole big kerfuffle, because it's August and news is slow Melania Trump's husband won the Republican presidential nomination by, among other things, being tough on unauthorized immigration.

  [Politico / Ben Schreckinger and Gabriel Debenedetti]

• But it's totally possible Melania Trump really was on a work visa. An agent actually stepped forward Thursday and said he'd gotten one for her.

  [AP / Chad Day, Jeff Horwitz, and Alicia A. Caldwell]

• We already knew Melania Trump was an immigrant. And honestly, Donald Trump's policies would cut legal immigration too. So if you wanted to call him a hypocrite, you could do so regardless.

  [Donald J. Trump]

• But don't be obtuse. Models from Eastern Europe aren't really the immigrants that Trump and his supporters are worried about. They're worried about immigrants who they fear won't adopt American culture and values.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

For shame, Australia

Getty / Brook Mitchell

• A joint report, published this week by Amnesty International and Human Rights First, alleges that refugees are being unlawfully held on the island of Nauru without adequate medical care and with no hope of release. Several of the refugees in the report, including children, had attempted suicide at least once.

  [Amnesty International / Anne Neistat]

• The Australian government, which runs detention in Nauru, "strongly refutes" the allegations. Australia was mad it didn't get a chance to hear about them in advance (which would have been tricky, as it's blocked outside observation of Nauru's operations).

  [ABC Australia / Stephanie Anderson]

• Australia's operations in Nauru, as well as a camp in Papua New Guinea, are the results of its policy over the past several years to detain asylum seekers offshore rather than allowing them to stay in Australia.

  [NYT / Michelle Innis]

• Amnesty and Human Rights First recognize this as a form of attempted deterrence: discouraging families from seeking asylum in Australia to begin with. It's a strategy that the US and Europe also take in handling asylum seekers, despite little evidence it works – and despite the fact that it dooms asylum seekers to harsh conditions in detention.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• The Papua New Guinea detention site, on Manus Island, is in the process of being dismantled by a PNG judge, who ruled it was a violation of human rights.

  [The Guardian / Ben Doherty]

• The judge has asked Australia to show up for the hearings to see if it bears some responsibility for resettling the asylum seekers. Australia simply says it has nothing to do with the case.

  [Sydney Morning Herald / Tom McIlroy]

(no joke here in case anyone's reading this in Thailand)

Getty / Dario Pignatelli

• On Sunday, Thai citizens will vote in a referendum on a draft constitution proposed by the country's military government.

  [The Guardian / Adam Ramsey]

• The military government seized power in 2014 and released the draft constitution in 2015; it argues the new constitution will reduce corruption and entrench the reforms it's already made.

  [Time / Colin Hinshelwood and Chiang Mai]

• To most outside observers, though, the biggest effect of the proposed constitution would be to consolidate the power of the junta.

  [NYT / Richard C. Paddock]

• A Reuters analysis suggests that the military is seeking to restore stability to Thailand (which has had frequent coups) by assuming a permanent role in the country's politics and reducing the role of political parties.

  [Reuters / Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Andrew R.C. Marshall]

• Polling suggests that nearly half of Thais support the referendum, while only single digits oppose it. 35 percent told pollsters they didn't know.

  [Asian Correspondent / Hanis Maketab]

• That breakdown makes more sense when you consider that the government has essentially made it illegal to campaign against the referendum, and has been cracking down hard in the days before the election.

  [The Guardian / Adam Ramsey]

• In one case, a pair of 8-year-olds were charged with obstructing the political process for tearing down a couple of pieces of pretty pink paper that turned out to be voter rolls.

  [Foreign Policy / Siobhan O'Grady]

MISCELLANEOUS

Maybe it should not be this easy to buy the ingredients for a dirty bomb? [Center for Public Integrity / Patrick Malone]

• A trip to the hometown of Britney Spears.

  [Fusion / Kelsey McKinney]

• How small are Donald Trump's hands, actually? A very thorough investigation.

  [Medium / Richard D. Morey]

• The NFL's most intimidating pair of brothers are also its weirdest comedy duo.

  [ESPN / Mina Kimes]

• A Missouri lawyer assigns a case to the governor as a way to call attention to its public defender crisis.

  [The Atlantic / Matt Ford]

VERBATIM

"Frank Sinatra Is a Complicated Person (and Unfortunately Our Reporter Did Not Get to Speak to Him)" [The Atlantic / Adrienne LaFrance and Robinson Meyer]

• "On the April day when Hilde broke the murder story, she was out covering the local Chocolate Stroll, 'sampling all the different kinds of chocolates — muffins, doughnuts, everything — milkshakes, chocolate mochas ...' she says, with the reverence of a candy-loving kid — when she got a call from her dad."

  [New York / Marin Cogan]

• "Had the list of enumerated rights included shopping at Home Depot, the case would have been a cinch."

  [WSJ / Jacob Gershman]

• "The mayor of Stockton, California, was arrested on Thursday on a felony eavesdropping charge stemming from a strip poker game he is accused of surreptitiously recording at a summer camp he hosts for disadvantaged inner-city youths, prosecutors said."

  [Reuters / Steve Gorman]

• "It's important that their dad is a feminist, because that's now what they expect of all men."

  [Glamour / Barack Obama]

WATCH THIS

Why women’s clothing sizes don’t make sense [YouTube / Dion Lee]