Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's a big take. I'm Wescsova.
Speaker 1: Today the US braces for a wave of asylum seekers.
Speaker 1: Pandemic restrictions that made it much harder for immigrants seeking
Speaker 1: to enter the US are being lifted today, and once
Speaker 1: that happens, tens of thousands of people a day are
Speaker 1: expected to cross the southern border from Mexico seeking asylum.
Speaker 1: That will further strain an immigration system that's already overwhelmed.
Speaker 2: The desire for people to come to the country had
Speaker 2: been almost entirely where the southwest border is concerned people
Speaker 2: from Mexico. That began to change. We began to see
Speaker 2: people coming from Central America and coming in family group.
Speaker 1: That's dooris Meisner. She was in charge of US immigration
Speaker 1: during the Clinton administration and she studied this issues for decades.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more from her in just a bit. First,
Speaker 1: I want to bring in White House reporters Justin Sink
Speaker 1: and a Kayla Gardner, who are covering this story. Justin
Speaker 1: the current controversy at the border seems to be focused
Speaker 1: on this old and one time obscure provision in the
Speaker 1: law called Title forty two, which was put into effect
Speaker 1: during the pandemic as a way of restricting immigration. How
Speaker 1: does that work?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's useful to take a step back
Speaker 3: to before the pandemic and how people were coming to
Speaker 3: the US. There was a group of folks who had
Speaker 3: all their paperwork in order and were coming on flights
Speaker 3: or maybe border crossings, but had gotten their visas, gotten
Speaker 3: all their paperwork done, We're going through the system as normal.
Speaker 3: And then there's a wider group of folks who were
Speaker 3: coming over without documentation. So there were folks who were
Speaker 3: sneaking across the border areas where there wasn't surveillance, and
Speaker 3: we don't know a ton about them because by definition,
Speaker 3: they were seeking to sort of avoid detection. And then
Speaker 3: there's a third group who came across the border and
Speaker 3: ask for asylum. And so what those folks say is
Speaker 3: that they've got a credible fear of persecution back in
Speaker 3: their home countries. So for lots of folks, they're escaping gangs, violence,
Speaker 3: persecution because of things like sexual orientation or gender, for
Speaker 3: any of those reasons, an immigration judge might look at
Speaker 3: their case and say, hey, the United States agrees and
Speaker 3: thinks that you are deserving of asylum status refugee status
Speaker 3: in the United States. But what other folks know is
Speaker 3: that if you come across the border and claim asylum status,
Speaker 3: you have to go before a judge, and that sets
Speaker 3: off a longer process under which you're given a court date,
Speaker 3: but then released in the country until you have to
Speaker 3: get to that court date. So some folks think that
Speaker 3: they'll get refugee status at the end of it and
Speaker 3: legitimately are going through the process, but might not. Other
Speaker 3: folks really want to get through the first part of
Speaker 3: that process, which is to get a court date and
Speaker 3: then be released and then can kind of go wherever
Speaker 3: they want in the country and seek economic opportunities. And
Speaker 3: so for folks who are coming to the US in
Speaker 3: search of those economic opportunities, this is a way that
Speaker 3: they can circumvent the worry about being caught right at
Speaker 3: the border as they cross.
Speaker 1: So some people who are coming to the US just
Speaker 1: to work have learned that the easiest way to do
Speaker 1: that is to ask for asylum and then disappear into
Speaker 1: the country and.
Speaker 3: Go to work exactly. And so I think you see
Speaker 3: critics on both sides of this say it's a process
Speaker 3: that isn't working very well. There aren't enough judges to
Speaker 3: adequately look at folks who have legitimate and reasonable fear
Speaker 3: of persecution, have reasons that they need protection from their
Speaker 3: home country, And there's also not enough judges to say, hey,
Speaker 3: this is a case where somebody is just trying to
Speaker 3: bypass the line and get another country quickly. What happened
Speaker 3: during the coronavirus pandemic is a wide array of sort
Speaker 3: of emergency powers came into effect. So what the Trump
Speaker 3: administration did was dig up this old law from nearly
Speaker 3: one hundred years ago and use it degrees.
Speaker 4: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has decided to
Speaker 4: exercise its authority under the Title forty two of the
Speaker 4: US Code to give customers of border protection the tools
Speaker 4: it needs to prevent the transmission of the virus coming through.
Speaker 3: And whether it was because they were seeking to legitimately
Speaker 3: stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, whether it was
Speaker 3: because they were trying to stop undocumented migration across the
Speaker 3: southern border, or some combination of both, what ended up
Speaker 3: happening functionally was that lots of folks who otherwise would
Speaker 3: have been able to go through this asylum process ended
Speaker 3: up being returned back to their home countries or returned
Speaker 3: back across the Mexican border, and.
Speaker 1: A kala that caused a huge backlog of people on
Speaker 1: the border.
Speaker 5: So they have now turned away some two million people
Speaker 5: who have come to the border seeking asylum. Those people
Speaker 5: no longer really have to go through the same process
Speaker 5: that they have.
Speaker 1: And for years.
Speaker 5: It's sort of frustrating for these people who've made this
Speaker 5: long journey that they can no longer have a chance
Speaker 5: because of this law.
Speaker 1: And what's happening to them are the countries where they
Speaker 1: came from just taking them back.
Speaker 3: In Well, it really depends some countries won't take these
Speaker 3: folks back. The US has tried to get other countries
Speaker 3: to take them back. They've had some success with Mexico,
Speaker 3: with Canada, with Spain, with other allies and partners in
Speaker 3: the region where folks can go back. Some countries are
Speaker 3: taking them back. The administration is doing flights on a
Speaker 3: daily basis from the southern border back and some are
Speaker 3: just kind of camped out on the US Mexican border,
Speaker 3: and these massive towns that have emerged seeking another chance
Speaker 3: to try to get back into the United States, and this.
Speaker 1: Is especially a problem from countries where the US doesn't
Speaker 1: really have diplomatic relations like Cuba.
Speaker 3: Yes, so often those countries that the US has the
Speaker 3: worst relationship are the ones where the economic situation is
Speaker 3: the most dire, and so that's why folks are making
Speaker 3: this journey away from their families and friends. The administration
Speaker 3: has been trying to address this in many different ways.
Speaker 3: Vice President Harris has looked to American companies to invest
Speaker 3: in some of these countries.
Speaker 6: Question as I've asked Microsoft to partner with us on
Speaker 6: what we can do to get people access to banking
Speaker 6: systems through technology and basically help them with their digital connectiveness.
Speaker 6: Let's see the people, let's see their needs, and let's
Speaker 6: focus on it.
Speaker 3: And they've also worked with other countries in Central and
Speaker 3: South America and asked them to take more refugees, to
Speaker 3: work with the United States to help people who are
Speaker 3: genuinely trying to get out of terrible situations and just
Speaker 3: looking for somewhere else that they can go.
Speaker 1: It's notable that even though Biden's stands on immigration is
Speaker 1: very different from Trump's, he didn't repeal Title forty two
Speaker 1: when he took office.
Speaker 5: Exactly. They have continued it over the past something like
Speaker 5: two years.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: This program was supposed to end in the spring of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two, because back in April, the CDC said,
Speaker 5: the situation of the pandemic has just improved so much,
Speaker 5: vaccination reads are much higher. This is no longer necessary.
Speaker 1: So they could no longer justify it for it tended purpose,
Speaker 1: which was to protect Americans from the spread of disease.
Speaker 5: Exactly, they could no longer justify as a public health emergency.
Speaker 5: And so basically this was supposed to end last year.
Speaker 5: But this group of Republican states, this coalition, came together
Speaker 5: and said, if you end this program, chaos is going
Speaker 5: to ensue at the border. So this group of Republican
Speaker 5: governors follow a lawsuit to prevent Title forty two from ending,
Speaker 5: and this escalated all the way up to the Supreme
Speaker 5: Court at the request of the Biden administration, and they
Speaker 5: decided to tie the end of Title forty two to
Speaker 5: the end of the COVID nineteen pandemic, which is now
Speaker 5: May eleven.
Speaker 3: And that's the sort of dual purpose when we're looking
Speaker 3: at the Trump administration. It's, on the one hand, there's
Speaker 3: that real public health emergency. On the other it's a
Speaker 3: way to sort of back into an immigration policy that
Speaker 3: Republicans prefer, which is that you don't have this pathway
Speaker 3: open where people can both claim refugee status and also
Speaker 3: exploit the loophole of the gap between when you're captured
Speaker 3: on the southern border and when you have to show
Speaker 3: up to a court date to go anywhere you want
Speaker 3: in the US potentially fall off the map and disappear.
Speaker 1: So the justices ruled that Title forty two was to
Speaker 1: remain in effect until there was an official declaration essentially
Speaker 1: of the end of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: And Republicans in Congress have been eager to get that,
Speaker 3: especially because they've wanted to see covid era vaccination requirements,
Speaker 3: covid era travel restrictions, all these sort of things that
Speaker 3: were implemented during the pandemic rolled back. And so even
Speaker 3: though the Biden administration had planned to let public health
Speaker 3: officials make that decision, when lawmakers on Capitol Hill pushed
Speaker 3: for legislation that would have it rolled back in May,
Speaker 3: ultimately the White House said that's okay, we'll go forward
Speaker 3: with that date.
Speaker 7: We're here today because of the impending end of Title
Speaker 7: forty two policy. President Biden is laying down a welcome
Speaker 7: matt to people across the entire world, saying that the
Speaker 7: United States border is why to but President of Biden's
Speaker 7: open border policies is going to cause a catastrophic disaster
Speaker 7: in the United States.
Speaker 1: That's Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, and justin
Speaker 1: Republican governors like him who were arguing that once Title
Speaker 1: forty two is lifted, there's gonna be a crush of
Speaker 1: people once again pouring over the southern border. They're not wrong.
Speaker 1: The Biden administration is pretty worried about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're estimating that there could be as many as
Speaker 3: ten thousand people coming across a day, which is a
Speaker 3: huge logistical challenge for everybody at the border. So in
Speaker 3: preparation for Title forty two being lifted, the administration has
Speaker 3: done a series of things that they hope will sort
Speaker 3: of stem that flow and also hope will support folks
Speaker 3: who are working the border at the border patrol agents
Speaker 3: right now. But there's a real concern that these steps
Speaker 3: might not do enough, and we could see, as we
Speaker 3: did early in the Trump administration, lay in the Obama
Speaker 3: administration and often happens in summers, a real big push,
Speaker 3: especially of all these folks who have been pent up
Speaker 3: waiting for Title forty two to end.
Speaker 5: So one thing that they just recently announced is that
Speaker 5: they are going to be sending one thy five hundred
Speaker 5: troops to the boarder to basically assist in these first
Speaker 5: few months now that Title forty two is ending. And
Speaker 5: they specifically said they will not be doing law enforcement activities,
Speaker 5: they will not be even interacting with migrants, but they're
Speaker 5: going to be helping with logistical things like data entry
Speaker 5: and warehouse support. So they are in some ways trying
Speaker 5: to prepare for this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so in addition to those troops, the administration
Speaker 3: unveiled a whole news set of rules and policies that
Speaker 3: will mean that these interactions go differently than they did
Speaker 3: before the pandemic. Back in January, the President announced that
Speaker 3: he was going to expand parrole so that more people
Speaker 3: could come through the refugee system. So thirty thousand people
Speaker 3: a month from four countries Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela
Speaker 3: will be eligible for that sort of asylum status. But
Speaker 3: there are new tougher restrictions for how you can qualify
Speaker 3: for it. So you have to have checked with every
Speaker 3: country that you transited through on your way to the
Speaker 3: US to see if you could be offered refugee status there,
Speaker 3: and have the paperwork to show that you were denied
Speaker 3: in those countries.
Speaker 1: Instead of just showing up and getting a court date exactly.
Speaker 3: And on top of that, you have to use a
Speaker 3: new app for a smartphone that the government has developed
Speaker 3: and make an appointment with an asylum officer on the
Speaker 3: other side of the border. So if you show up
Speaker 3: and you don't have one of these coveted appointments, you're
Speaker 3: sent straight back. The idea is that there are more
Speaker 3: slots available, there are more sort of legal pathways that exist,
Speaker 3: but that for folks who don't kind of check all
Speaker 3: the boxes, and those are hard boxes to check, it's
Speaker 3: tough to get through if you don't have all your
Speaker 3: paperwork in order, you don't have a phone. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: not only are you sent back, you're not eligible to
Speaker 3: come back to the United States under any sort of
Speaker 3: legal status for the next five years.
Speaker 1: Is there a concern that this is just going to
Speaker 1: increase pressure people trying to sneak over the border, get
Speaker 1: through the fence, go across the Rio grind River, all
Speaker 1: the ways that people have over many years tried to
Speaker 1: sneak into the US instead of at least trying to
Speaker 1: go through the process the right way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a huge concern of immigration activists who say
Speaker 3: the system that we had before was ad hoc and
Speaker 3: broken in many ways, but it did route people towards
Speaker 3: fairly safe border crossings. And if you remove the incentive
Speaker 3: for all but the lucky few who get one of
Speaker 3: these appointments to go through normal, designated pathways to get
Speaker 3: onto US soil, you really open the door to exploitative
Speaker 3: and dangerous routes into the US.
Speaker 1: When we come back, what other countries are doing to
Speaker 1: control the wave of immigrants on their way to the
Speaker 1: US Akayla Winter, Mexico and other countries in Central America
Speaker 1: doing to prepare for this wave of immigrants, people who
Speaker 1: are going to pass through their countries on their way
Speaker 1: to the US, or who are going to be on
Speaker 1: the receiving end of people the US turns away.
Speaker 5: I think the US's biggest partner in this right now
Speaker 5: is Mexico, and they have basically agreed to accept thirty
Speaker 5: thousand migrants a month who are turned away from the US,
Speaker 5: and they've also said they're partnering with the administration in
Speaker 5: terms of preventing drug trafficking.
Speaker 3: We are seeing Colombia Guatemala invite the US in to
Speaker 3: create processing centers in their native countries so that folks
Speaker 3: don't make the dangerous journey without having had the chance
Speaker 3: to do one of these interviews, and it doesn't create
Speaker 3: this sort of cycle of displacement, cycle of chaos. Ideally,
Speaker 3: folks would be able to, if they're genuinely seeking refugee status,
Speaker 3: either come from or come to Colombia Guatemala, go through
Speaker 3: these interviews, then buy a plane ticket and fly to
Speaker 3: the US directly because they've got all their paperwork in order.
Speaker 3: And so you see these other countries, see countries like
Speaker 3: Canada and Spain saying if the US is able to
Speaker 3: process these folks, we might be able to take more refugees.
Speaker 3: You see these partnerships developing where they're trying to find
Speaker 3: ways to quell the chaos. But the real question is
Speaker 3: are these systems big enough and are the resources there
Speaker 3: so that people are actually disincentivized from just crossing the border. Illegally,
Speaker 3: And I think the real worry among activists, among folks
Speaker 3: in the administration, and certainly among critics is that this
Speaker 3: system just isn't built well enough right now to stop
Speaker 3: what could be a really massive search.
Speaker 1: If people do have to show that every country they
Speaker 1: went through they sought asylum and were denied, will the
Speaker 1: US be able to make better judgments about who the
Speaker 1: people are who are coming, or is it they'll just
Speaker 1: be a rubber stamped through all these other countries who
Speaker 1: kind of want to pass them along.
Speaker 3: There's certainly a lot of rubber stamping happening in Mexico
Speaker 3: in particular. Mexico will essentially give you a document as
Speaker 3: soon as you apply for asylum saying that it's rejected.
Speaker 3: This is in certain Mexican states, and then as you
Speaker 3: work through the system, you might be able to come
Speaker 3: back and actually in fact get accepted. The US has
Speaker 3: created this incentive structure for other countries to reject refugee
Speaker 3: applications so that people can move along pathways. And so
Speaker 3: you know, this is an issue that actually hits not
Speaker 3: just the US but every country along the line and
Speaker 3: has created political and economic issues. So it's why you
Speaker 3: hear a lot of talk about trying to come up
Speaker 3: with unified solutions across the hemisphere, because I think everybody
Speaker 3: sees migration as a real challenge.
Speaker 1: Justin We're also starting to see a little bit of
Speaker 1: motion in the Senate over this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a bipartisan bill from Senators Cinema and
Speaker 3: Senator Tillis that would essentially extend Title forty two type
Speaker 3: restrictions for the next couple of years, with the hope
Speaker 3: that they could use that space to sort of get
Speaker 3: the big white whale of Congress, which is a comprehensive
Speaker 3: immigration reform bill. This short term bill isn't very likely,
Speaker 3: it needs sixty votes in the Senate, doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: have it, and it lacks something that would give Democrats
Speaker 3: a thing they could point to for immigration activists, something
Speaker 3: like a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, where they could say, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: we're not just keeping people out, including legitimate refugees. We're
Speaker 3: trying to do something that could actually help people who
Speaker 3: are really in need. It's an interesting idea, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to have a pult home moment right now.
Speaker 5: There's also a proposal in the House from Republicans that
Speaker 5: proposes resuming wall construction, which we know was this deeply
Speaker 5: unpopular policy under Trump that has basically stopped under the
Speaker 5: Biden administration. And they also want to up the border
Speaker 5: patrol agents to twenty two thousand. It's right now at
Speaker 5: nineteen thousand, and that twenty two thousand number is sort
Speaker 5: of seen as this optimal size for the agency. There
Speaker 5: are things that Democrats and Republicans agree on with immigration,
Speaker 5: but there's sort of these two different extremes that they have.
Speaker 5: They know that this is a problem that needs to
Speaker 5: be dealt with, but they just see it in two
Speaker 5: drastically different ways on how to deal with it.
Speaker 1: And a Kayla that points to, of course, the politics
Speaker 1: involved in immigration. And we're heading into another presidential campaign,
Speaker 1: and the last one, immigration was front and center. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump made it a centerpiece of his campaign. Do you
Speaker 1: think that the crisis at the border will once again
Speaker 1: be a central issue in the campaign.
Speaker 5: I think it definitely will. But I think we're definitely
Speaker 5: going to see it from Republicans. I don't think that
Speaker 5: President Biden sees this as a winning issue for him,
Speaker 5: so I don't think it's something that he's going to
Speaker 5: seek to highlight Governor Rond De Santis, who has been
Speaker 5: one of these Republicans who've been sending migrants to other cities.
Speaker 5: It's definitely going to be something that he is going
Speaker 5: to be hitting Biden on if and when he announces,
Speaker 5: and of course Trump as well. He was sort of
Speaker 5: seen as someone who was tough on immigration when he
Speaker 5: was in office.
Speaker 1: Justin as you continue to report on this, what are
Speaker 1: you looking for?
Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing that we're looking at is
Speaker 3: the real humanitarian toll that this has the potential to have,
Speaker 3: because if you have perhaps over a million people bottled
Speaker 3: up waiting to get across the border, and in fact
Speaker 3: do sarge across the border, just in terms of food, water, housing, healthcare,
Speaker 3: basic logistics, keeping families together so that they're not separated,
Speaker 3: making sure that people are getting to save places, whether
Speaker 3: it's in the US or back in their home countries
Speaker 3: or in third party countries. It is a massive logistical undertaking.
Speaker 3: And these aren't boxes that you're trying to get from
Speaker 3: one place to another. These are human beings that have
Speaker 3: health issues, personal issues, all sorts of problems. Because if
Speaker 3: they didn't have all sorts of problems, they wouldn't have
Speaker 3: taken this sort of harrowing journey to the United States
Speaker 3: in the first place. There's just this real danger of
Speaker 3: a humanitarian crisis developing, and I think that's going to
Speaker 3: be something that we're watching very carefully.
Speaker 1: Justin Akayla, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having us when we.
Speaker 1: Come back, an immigration expert on what a system that
Speaker 1: actually works might look like. Now, let's hear from someone
Speaker 1: who's seen the challenges of immigration policy from inside the
Speaker 1: government and has worked on the issue for years. Doris
Speaker 1: Meisner was Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service when
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton was president, That's what the department was called then.
Speaker 1: She's now senior Fellow and director of the US Immigration
Speaker 1: Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. That's a nonpartisan
Speaker 1: think tank here in Washington. Ms Meisner, how did we
Speaker 1: get here? Can you give us a broader perspective about
Speaker 1: what's always been the same at the border and what's
Speaker 1: different right now?
Speaker 2: Well, the same over the years with this problem is
Speaker 2: that the United States has always been a nation of
Speaker 2: immigrants and is a place where people want to live
Speaker 2: and create a future for themselves and for their families.
Speaker 2: We've always had illegal immigration just as we've had legal immigration,
Speaker 2: and we have a very generous legal immigration system, but
Speaker 2: it is focused almost entirely on family members coming for
Speaker 2: people who are already in the country. But we do
Speaker 2: not have a large share of our immigration that is
Speaker 2: employment based, that is based on people coming to work
Speaker 2: in the United States who do not already have family ties.
Speaker 2: The other part of our immigration system is what's known
Speaker 2: as the humanitarian dimension, and that is offering protection through
Speaker 2: refugee programs and now through political asylum, which is what's
Speaker 2: so much an issue at the Southwest border. The desire
Speaker 2: for people to come to the country had until ten
Speaker 2: years ago or so, been almost entirely where the Southwest
Speaker 2: border is concerned people from Mexico. They were typically young
Speaker 2: males coming on their own, attempting to avoid the border
Speaker 2: patrol and we're in the United States. That began to
Speaker 2: change in the two thousands, and especially in the twenty teens.
Speaker 2: We began to see more and more not only Mexicans,
Speaker 2: but people coming from Central America and coming in family
Speaker 2: groups and young people unaccompanied. And that was because of
Speaker 2: changing conditions in Central American countries, and that pattern has continued.
Speaker 2: It's also people from further south in the Hemisphere and
Speaker 2: often from other parts of the world. And those people
Speaker 2: are coming for a mixture of reasons, both economic and
Speaker 2: arguably political and repression, and they are not trying to
Speaker 2: avoid the border patrol. They are trying to turn themselves
Speaker 2: over to the border patrol in order to apply for
Speaker 2: protection and safety in the United States. But it has
Speaker 2: led to our asylum process being deeply, deeply overburdened and
Speaker 2: unable to decide those cases is in a timely fashion.
Speaker 1: And so is this the case of the government simply
Speaker 1: not keeping up with changing conditions or is it that
Speaker 1: the politics of America changed along with it.
Speaker 2: It's probably both. The systems that we have at the
Speaker 2: southwest border have been inadequate for these numbers. What we've
Speaker 2: done in funding terms as a post nine to eleven
Speaker 2: phenomenon really is funded heavily our border patrol, our enforcement
Speaker 2: and technology along the southwest border, but we have not
Speaker 2: funded proportionately what we think of as the downstream agencies
Speaker 2: that must support that border enforcement mission for it to work.
Speaker 2: And to be specific about that, we do not have
Speaker 2: asylum officers at the numbers that we need in order
Speaker 2: to screen people that are applying for asylum and decide
Speaker 2: the cases. We do not have facilities to be able
Speaker 2: to make it possible to hold people during the period
Speaker 2: that they're interviewed for removal if they're not eligible for asylum.
Speaker 2: We do not have the judges in our court system,
Speaker 2: which is part of the Justice Department. Nor do we
Speaker 2: have the resources at the Department of Health and Human
Speaker 2: Services to place people with sponsors in the United States
Speaker 2: if they have an ability and are legally eligible to
Speaker 2: stay here. So this is a cross government system and
Speaker 2: it's unevenly resourced. So the pieces of the system that
Speaker 2: need to work together don't work together effectively.
Speaker 1: Why hasn't the immigration funding change to meet the changing needs.
Speaker 2: Well, let's be clear, it's the Congress's job to fund
Speaker 2: the federal government, and this administration has been asking for
Speaker 2: sufficient funding for more than a year, and there have
Speaker 2: been at least three or four opportunities for Congress to
Speaker 2: rise to meet those needs, and they have refused to
Speaker 2: do so for decades. The broad consensus is that there
Speaker 2: were policy disagreements. Should you have guest worker programs, what
Speaker 2: kinds of humanitarian assistance should be given through immigration, but
Speaker 2: there was a general bipartisan agreement that immigration is a
Speaker 2: net plus for the country. It's a net plus for
Speaker 2: our economy, it's a net plus for our competitive edge
Speaker 2: around the world. It reflects our values as a nation.
Speaker 2: That changed with the Trump administration. The Trump administration described
Speaker 2: immigration and views immigration as a threat to the country.
Speaker 1: We need a wall, we need border security.
Speaker 4: We got to get rid of catch and release. You
Speaker 4: catch a criminal, you take his name, you release him,
Speaker 4: and he never shows up again. He goes into our society.
Speaker 2: And that basic, broadly different philosophical outlook on immigration and
Speaker 2: what it represents has persisted and deepened. So the politics
Speaker 2: that underlie all of this are certainly an important factor.
Speaker 1: One thing the United States has done in recent years
Speaker 1: is to put more pressure on Mexico, on Guatemala and
Speaker 1: other nations where immigrants are coming from, in order to
Speaker 1: absorb the number of people who are coming before they
Speaker 1: cross the border. Do you see that continuing. Is that
Speaker 1: a viable part of a solution.
Speaker 2: Yes, I see it continuing, And it is a viable
Speaker 2: part of a solution. Because this has become a hemispheric issue.
Speaker 2: Until very recently, the western hemisphere has not been a
Speaker 2: refugee producing region as has been South Asia or the
Speaker 2: Middle East, but in recent years it has become a
Speaker 2: refugee producing region. So there is an assumption of shared
Speaker 2: responsibility around the world. Mexico is the most important to
Speaker 2: the United States, of course, because they're on our border,
Speaker 2: and Mexico's situation geographically has changed dramatic in the last
Speaker 2: ten years or so. It used to be primarily a
Speaker 2: migrant sending country. Then it became increasingly both a migrant
Speaker 2: sending and a migrant transit country. Now it's a migrant sending,
Speaker 2: a migrant transit and a migrant destination country.
Speaker 1: What do you see happening? How do you think that
Speaker 1: this problem can be eased?
Speaker 2: Well, in an ideal world, we would have the executive
Speaker 2: branch and the legislative branch working together to change our
Speaker 2: laws and the funding of those laws. But fundamentally, the
Speaker 2: laws themselves to align with realities on the ground, and
Speaker 2: those realities on the ground do have to do with
Speaker 2: the fact that many of the people who are trying
Speaker 2: to come are not suitable asylum candidates. But asylum is
Speaker 2: the only possible avenue to get to the United States.
Speaker 2: If you don't already have family here, and many of
Speaker 2: the people who do have family here have family here
Speaker 2: who are in an illegal status. And that too goes
Speaker 2: back to the Congress, because we have a country of
Speaker 2: a foreign born population in the forty millions, and about
Speaker 2: a fourth of it, or about eleven million, do not
Speaker 2: have legal status. Now, yes, they broke the law to come,
Speaker 2: but they've been here more than sixty percent of them
Speaker 2: have been here more than ten years. We need a
Speaker 2: legalization program along with more opportunities for people to come
Speaker 2: to the country for employment reasons. Now, that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that we can take everybody that wants to come, but
Speaker 2: we could have a rational system that recognizes what today's
Speaker 2: needs are and that is more flexible and that makes
Speaker 2: it possible for people to come for work purposes. We
Speaker 2: don't have that. And so what the administration is working
Speaker 2: with and what the Administration is now laying out as
Speaker 2: it's vision for the post five to eleven period is
Speaker 2: a whole series of measures which, if they are able
Speaker 2: to be implemented effectively, do represent the pieces of a
Speaker 2: longer term, durable response. That doesn't mean that there won't
Speaker 2: be illegal immigration, but it does mean that they may
Speaker 2: have the chance of succeeding in a much more orderly
Speaker 2: system that incentivizes and provides ways for people to apply
Speaker 2: for asylum, but at the same time achieves a degree
Speaker 2: of control along the border so that there are not
Speaker 2: the chaotic conditions and unexpected, unpredictable surges and flows that
Speaker 2: we're seeing today. The next sixty to ninety days is
Speaker 2: critical in being able to determine whether the immediate response
Speaker 2: is changing people's behaviors. But it will take longer than that.
Speaker 2: I mean, we should talk about this a year from
Speaker 2: now in order to really see whether the broad measures
Speaker 2: and shifts that the administration is attempting to incentivize in
Speaker 2: fact take.
Speaker 1: Hold, Doros Meisner, thanks so much for speaking with me today.
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Speaker 2: Do Do Poking Potter