Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Let's go ahead and get
Speaker 2: to the major news here in Washington. The border bill
Speaker 2: arrived and seemingly died upon arrival. It was negotiated by
Speaker 2: Senator James Langford, Senator Kirsten Cinema, and some Senator Chris
Speaker 2: Murphy as well from the Democratic side.
Speaker 3: Christin Cinema, I guests from the independent side.
Speaker 2: Shall we call it that Crystal, And then we have
Speaker 2: Senator lolled outside.
Speaker 3: Langford being from the state of Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: So Senator Langford appeared on Fox and Friends yesterday morning
Speaker 2: to make his case for the bill and to rebut
Speaker 2: some of his GOP colleagues who preemptively were rejecting some
Speaker 2: of the details.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 4: He said, no self respecting center, he should agree to
Speaker 4: vote on a three hundred and seventy page bill this week.
Speaker 4: Any forty one centers can prevent the bill from proceeding
Speaker 4: if you agree that centers should have this bill for
Speaker 4: at least a few weeks and certainly more than a
Speaker 4: few days before voting on it. Say so, you understand
Speaker 4: where he's coming from, right, don't you guys have a
Speaker 4: procedural vote this week. You're going to vote on the bill.
Speaker 5: By the end of the week, so we actually have
Speaker 5: this bill came out yesterday Sunday. The first procedural vote
Speaker 5: is Wednesday, and that procedural vote is literally just open
Speaker 5: it up to be able to go through it and
Speaker 5: to be able to say, are we going to debate
Speaker 5: it this week? That's what Senator Ali is actually talking about.
Speaker 5: It's interesting that he said he's already opposed to it.
Speaker 5: He needs three weeks to be able to read it,
Speaker 5: but he's already opposed to it. So again, people have
Speaker 5: got to be able to read it, go through it themselves.
Speaker 5: Don't just go off a Facebook post somewhere what the
Speaker 5: bill says. This dramatically changes asylum and dramatically changes deportations.
Speaker 5: We no longer have a ten year backlog, it builds
Speaker 5: more wall. Those are the key things that it actually does.
Speaker 5: But read it for yourselves. Don't just believe what's online.
Speaker 3: Read it for yourselves.
Speaker 2: And many Republicans did and still have ended up rejecting it.
Speaker 3: We will get to that.
Speaker 2: But there's actually a good summary of this deal from
Speaker 2: Bill Miluugan. Some of you guys may be familiar with him.
Speaker 2: He's the Fox News reporter who covers the border. He's
Speaker 2: very critical of the immigration situation out of Biden. So
Speaker 2: I think you know his overall summary. I think it
Speaker 2: could take from the most skeptical point of view. We
Speaker 2: can go ahead and put this up there on the
Speaker 2: screen and I'll read from some of it. So he says,
Speaker 2: quote new my initial highlights from the border deal. There's
Speaker 2: no amnesty and legalization of anyone already who is in
Speaker 2: the US illegally. It funds an increase for ice detention
Speaker 2: capacity from fifty thousand from the current thirty four thousand.
Speaker 2: There's a seven day This is the most controversial part,
Speaker 2: so please pay attention to this. At a seven day
Speaker 2: rolling average of five thousand encounters per day, or eighty
Speaker 2: five hundred encounters in a single day.
Speaker 3: The Department of Homeland.
Speaker 2: Security quote would be required to shut the border down
Speaker 2: and turn away anyone who crosses. No new asylum claims
Speaker 2: would be allowed. Anyone crossing would be removed. It would
Speaker 2: end the idea of quote I made it to US soil,
Speaker 2: and you have to process me. That would be over
Speaker 2: border patrol would not process an I legal crosser and
Speaker 2: they would be removed. No asylum claim permitted unless it
Speaker 2: was made at a port of entry. Pay attention to that,
Speaker 2: because it's important. They can go on and they say
Speaker 2: this does not mean the quote full quote, five thousand
Speaker 2: are allowed in before the authority kicks in. Single adults
Speaker 2: would be detained. Families would be released via alternative to detention.
Speaker 2: Asylum cases would be fast tracked two months rather than
Speaker 2: years under a new rapid expandage system.
Speaker 3: Those who fail would be quickly remote from the US.
Speaker 2: The initial pass would be reviewed from work authorization claims
Speaker 2: in ninety days supervision until file US up final asylum
Speaker 2: claim is determined. Shutdown authority doesn't drop until the crossings
Speaker 2: decrease significantly in the days following that significantly. There are
Speaker 2: tougher asylum requirements and a highly credible fear standard, including
Speaker 2: the three bars to eligibility, criminal history.
Speaker 3: Could they have resettled in.
Speaker 2: Another country under the way to the US called a
Speaker 2: safe third country and quote, could they have resettled somewhere
Speaker 2: else in their own country? Just say that you're schedule
Speaker 2: return home no longer is enough to be required in
Speaker 2: the initial interview. It appears that that legislation would then
Speaker 2: move asylum claim decisions away from immigration judges and have
Speaker 2: them be handled by USCIS, which is the US immigration system. Next,
Speaker 2: they talk here about some of the increases to FEMA
Speaker 2: humanitarian aid, increase in the number of new visas they
Speaker 2: will be granted over the last five years to fifty
Speaker 2: thousand funding.
Speaker 3: And this is another important part.
Speaker 2: I want to pay attention to funding to hire hundreds
Speaker 2: more iced deportation officers, border patrol agents and USCIS asylum officers.
Speaker 2: It says no unaccompanied minor could be removed, and some
Speaker 2: of these miners would receive attorneys pro bono and are
Speaker 2: taxpayer funded. Dhs would take ninety days to have this
Speaker 2: new system before it goes into place. And the context
Speaker 2: that he adds at the end is that the border
Speaker 2: has seen at least five thousand counters almost every single
Speaker 2: day of the last couple of years under Biden. So
Speaker 2: if the bill were signed into law, the border would
Speaker 2: likely be shut down on the first day that it
Speaker 2: takes effect. So crystal with all of that, and with
Speaker 2: that skeptical summary, I think here by the Fox News
Speaker 2: it does seem to still mean that almost all Republicans
Speaker 2: have rejected it out of hand. The House of Representatives
Speaker 2: say it's a non starter and that it's not going
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear there. This
Speaker 1: is a bill that is very, you know, pretty far
Speaker 1: in the restrictionist direction. It is not something that Democrats
Speaker 1: ever would have agreed to under Donald Trump or would
Speaker 1: agree to next time under Donald Trump. Historically, any sort
Speaker 1: of increased enforcement mechanisms have been tied in a quote
Speaker 1: unquote conferhensive immigration bill with some sort of path to legalization.
Speaker 1: There is absolutely none of that there. There's a real
Speaker 1: So I do want to say there are pieces of
Speaker 1: this bill that I would actually support, including as we've discussed.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the biggest problems is you have
Speaker 1: this massive asylum case backlog, millions of cases, so it
Speaker 1: takes years for these cases to be adjudicated. You know,
Speaker 1: there are provisions in here that would help to expedite
Speaker 1: that and also would flood the zone with resources to
Speaker 1: help get rid of that backlog. I think that part
Speaker 1: is important. But there's also a sort of direct attack
Speaker 1: on asylum itself, making it much more difficult to claim asylum.
Speaker 1: It's already extremely difficult to be granted asylum. The bar
Speaker 1: is already extremely high. And then there's also, as we
Speaker 1: discussed before, this quote unquote shut down the border, which
Speaker 1: is a little bit misleading. How this is labeled, I
Speaker 1: could not, but basically the idea is once you get
Speaker 1: to over five thousand on average on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: and there are some provisions in there, like the president
Speaker 1: could change that authority, which is the other piece, is
Speaker 1: like you were giving the president, whether it's Biden or Trump,
Speaker 1: massive new powers under this bill. But the idea is
Speaker 1: once you get to that five thousand, you basically sort
Speaker 1: of like end due process and say screw it to
Speaker 1: asylum whatsoever. So let me just talk about the politics,
Speaker 1: because in some ways what's in the bill isn't all
Speaker 1: that important, given that it does have a chance in
Speaker 1: hell of passing. You know, the politics here are that
Speaker 1: Trump basically came out and said, I don't want you
Speaker 1: guys to support this bill, and the Republican Party was like, okay,
Speaker 1: we won't. And so someone like James Langford, who you know,
Speaker 1: took at face value the idea that the Republicans actually
Speaker 1: wanted a deal that combined border funding with Ukraine funding
Speaker 1: with Israel funding, which was what Republicans were pushing for
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this process. Someone like him, who
Speaker 1: you know, really tried to negotiate in good faith and
Speaker 1: really tried to give Republicans the restrictionist ideas that he
Speaker 1: wanted under the context of a democratic administration. He's left
Speaker 1: holding the bag like, hey, guys, I thought this is
Speaker 1: what y'all wanted, But you know, the politics at the
Speaker 1: end of the day rules the day. One more thing
Speaker 1: on the politics, because I think this is important. There
Speaker 1: is a lot of democratic glee about oh Biden is
Speaker 1: so clever, like look at how he called their bluff
Speaker 1: and now he's flipped the script on immigration, and now
Speaker 1: Republicans are, you know, look bad on this, and it's
Speaker 1: they're exposed. It's not really wanting to be serious about this. Problem.
Speaker 1: I don't buy that analysis at all.
Speaker 3: I totally agree.
Speaker 1: I do not buy that analysis at all. Number One,
Speaker 1: the border, whatever's happening there is still happening on your watch.
Speaker 1: And you know, whatever I think of it, there are
Speaker 1: many Americans who find the chaos and I think that's
Speaker 1: fair that who want to see an orderly border process
Speaker 1: and that does not exist right now. That is still
Speaker 1: going to be the case. It is still going to
Speaker 1: be under a Biden administration, and so that's a problem.
Speaker 1: Number Two. You know, in the last election, Biden versus Trump,
Speaker 1: we had that. Prior to that election, we had the
Speaker 1: whole child separation policy, which Americans were genuinely horrified by.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was terrible, these kids who were orphaned
Speaker 1: by the United States government. You know, the audio that
Speaker 1: was leaked of the border patrol agents mocking them, and
Speaker 1: all of that was horrifye and Biden, in part to
Speaker 1: win a Democratic primary, he really positioned himself as being
Speaker 1: much more compassionate of having this inclusive message about immigration,
Speaker 1: saying he would be a clean break from Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and that ended up being a winning message. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that was like the number
Speaker 1: one reason why he got elected. But that was part
Speaker 1: of the appeal is it would be a break from
Speaker 1: the cruelty and the chaos of a Donald Trump administration.
Speaker 1: What Biden the Democrats have effectively done here is just
Speaker 1: embraced all of the Republican arguments on immig just completely
Speaker 1: caved and effectively said, like, you're right about immigration and
Speaker 1: your model is the right model. And guess what, if
Speaker 1: you want a border hawk, you are not going to
Speaker 1: defeat Donald Trump totally on those grounds, Like why would
Speaker 1: you compete on who can be the biggest asshole at
Speaker 1: the border? You are not going to win that competition.
Speaker 1: So one of the basics of politics is to try
Speaker 1: to fight the fight that you want to fight on
Speaker 1: the grounds that you want to engage where your strengths are. No,
Speaker 1: don't go to the place where he's the strongest. Where
Speaker 1: if it's a competition of like who's going to be
Speaker 1: the most cruel and the most restriction is the border,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that Donald Trump and Steven Miller are
Speaker 1: going to win that all day long. So I think
Speaker 1: all of this celebration, Oh Biden, so clever, Biden, so smart,
Speaker 1: this was such a great ploy is insane. I think
Speaker 1: it's cope, I think it's ridiculous, and I think it's foolish.
Speaker 2: I totally agree on the politics, disagree a bit on
Speaker 2: the policy. People can go watch some of our debates
Speaker 2: on that in the past. But yeah, I mean listen,
Speaker 2: no matter what. Like, I'm a pretty strong immigration voter.
Speaker 2: I would say, is one of the main if anything
Speaker 2: still ties me to the main Republican Party, it would
Speaker 2: be immigration. Why would I ever vote for Biden. It's
Speaker 2: like one of those where if this is a policy
Speaker 2: where it's one of my number one issues, and why
Speaker 2: would I vote for somebody who consistently undermined the immigration
Speaker 2: policy over the first three years, got dragged here kicking
Speaker 2: and screaming, and is trying to do this for a
Speaker 2: political ploy, which, as you said, is not going to work. Now,
Speaker 2: I'll take myself out of it and just say, who
Speaker 2: are people who are voting on the border. If you
Speaker 2: are voting on the border, you're a Republican Like I
Speaker 2: just want to break it to you.
Speaker 3: You are.
Speaker 2: You are the number one issue in the Republican Party
Speaker 2: today amongst the GOP primary electorate is immigration. Also, something
Speaker 2: else that has become very clear on the politics here.
Speaker 2: I'm curious what you think of this is that in
Speaker 2: the past, excuse me, is that in the past is
Speaker 2: that there was a major split on immigration in the
Speaker 2: Republican Party. Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, the Gang of Eight
Speaker 2: by and large embraced in twenty thirteen the idea of
Speaker 2: comprehensive immigrant reform paired with some future border enforcement. Now,
Speaker 2: with the basically the shutdown and the collapse of GOP
Speaker 2: support for even a bill like this, it basically means
Speaker 2: Trump has won the argument within the party.
Speaker 3: Even in this it is over.
Speaker 2: The starting point for the Republican Party now is zero
Speaker 2: zero illegal immigration asylum itself over. I support that, by
Speaker 2: the way, just so everybody knows, in terms of vamping
Speaker 2: our asylum process. But my point is is that this
Speaker 2: view was a minority view within the establishment Republican Party.
Speaker 2: And the way that you know this, Crystal, is that
Speaker 2: the US Chamber of Commerce endorse this bill. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter at all, they know, why do they endorse it? Well,
Speaker 2: because they like cheap labor. But that's the secondary part.
Speaker 2: My point is just that the establishment centers of power,
Speaker 2: big business groups and others, which with combined with the
Speaker 2: Coke Parties had I wouldn't say they had won the
Speaker 2: argument with voters, but they certainly had won with the establishment.
Speaker 2: To have a guy like Langford, who comes from that
Speaker 2: wing of the party, who did you know even he
Speaker 2: tried to negotiate something like this and it just be
Speaker 2: nuked out right, I think that demonstrates like a major
Speaker 2: shift in immigration politics period. I also agree with you
Speaker 2: on the democratic side, which is and this is where
Speaker 2: I actually want to know what you think, because for me,
Speaker 2: under Trump, it was easy to scream about child separation,
Speaker 2: even though Obama did it too, and all of this,
Speaker 2: and then everyone just conveniently forgets that whenever it happens.
Speaker 2: But to me, the asylum and the images of the
Speaker 2: border under Biden just became so untenable within the system
Speaker 2: that they're trying to use past frameworks for the current
Speaker 2: problem where you have six to eight million people that cross.
Speaker 2: You know, under the Biden administration, it just seems to
Speaker 2: have collapsed within its own logic.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the collapse is a long time coming
Speaker 1: and predates Joe Biden because basically, I mean to go
Speaker 1: back in some of the history of our immigration system
Speaker 1: for a long time, the overwhelming number of people who
Speaker 1: were coming to America were single Mexican males who were
Speaker 1: coming for work. And there started to be a shift,
Speaker 1: largely driven by the way by our total messed up
Speaker 1: foreign policy vis A vi Guatemala or Salvador in particular,
Speaker 1: where these countries became incredibly violent and it was incredibly dangerous,
Speaker 1: and the number of people coming from those Northern Triangle
Speaker 1: countries spiked. We have not had a major overhaul of
Speaker 1: our immigration system since the early nineties.
Speaker 3: Yes, we have insy.
Speaker 1: Exactly, so we have a system that it's you know,
Speaker 1: even when it was sort of reflective of the predominant
Speaker 1: type of migrant that was coming, it's not like it
Speaker 1: was working that well then either. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: never been updated to be able to process the number
Speaker 1: of asylum claims that are coming in. There's you know,
Speaker 1: always been this tension over, okay, who actually is who
Speaker 1: actually merits asylum. There's been a massive amount of discrimination
Speaker 1: between the types of migrants that will be granted asylum.
Speaker 1: For example, if you're from Cuba, probably granted asylum. If
Speaker 1: you're from Guatemala, foot drive, you're not going to be
Speaker 1: granted asylum. If you're from Haiti, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be granted for asylum. If you're from mal Salvador, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be granted asylum. If you're from like
Speaker 1: a former communist country, you know, escaping persecure Venezuela, for example,
Speaker 1: you will be granted asylum. So it's always been very selective,
Speaker 1: very political, and largely broken, and the resources inadequate to
Speaker 1: deal with the number of people who come now claiming asylum.
Speaker 1: And that really is the core of the issue. Now.
Speaker 1: The other piece of the issue is of course just
Speaker 1: a question of like, okay, but how many people do
Speaker 1: you want to come? How many people is appropriate for?
Speaker 1: You know, how many people? I think there's a practical
Speaker 1: consideration of how many people can be absorbed in a
Speaker 1: nation at a time, given the amount of resources, et cetera.
Speaker 1: My number for that is much higher than your number
Speaker 1: for that, you know. I mean that's where we just
Speaker 1: like wildly differ. I think we can agree on the
Speaker 1: need for the additional resources to process the claims, but
Speaker 1: when it comes to how many people should come into
Speaker 1: the country, you know, I think we feel very differently
Speaker 1: about that. But with Joe Biden, what do I think
Speaker 1: happened that brought him to this place. First of all,
Speaker 1: I do think he had this idea of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to call their bluff. Yes, And it's an
Speaker 1: instinct that we you have seen reflected in a bunch
Speaker 1: of European nations as well, among these sort of like
Speaker 1: center left neolibs, where it's like, oh, the right is
Speaker 1: beating me up on immigration, so let me pretend like
Speaker 1: I'm on the right, and I was telling you. There
Speaker 1: was a study that The Guardian wrote up recently that
Speaker 1: looked at whether or not that worked electorally, and they
Speaker 1: were like, no, it doesn't work, because if people want
Speaker 1: an immigration asshole, sorry, then they're going to vote for
Speaker 1: the most you know, for the right wing party. At
Speaker 1: the same time, you're demoralizing your own base. Biden, as
Speaker 1: we know because of Israel and other issues, but in
Speaker 1: particular because of Israel, his base is already demoralized. This
Speaker 1: only further is like another thumb in their eye of
Speaker 1: I'm going to be even harsher on immigration than Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was, and I'm going to completely flip from the
Speaker 1: messaging that I ran on back in twenty twenty. So
Speaker 1: I think electorally, it's foolish. I think the other thing
Speaker 1: that happened, Soger is because you did have these like
Speaker 1: I think the project of bussing migrants into cities. I
Speaker 1: think that that was very effective because because it is
Speaker 1: true that, you know, especially like a city like New York. Now,
Speaker 1: I think it's preposterous the idea that a gigantic city
Speaker 1: like New York, a city that in a very short
Speaker 1: period of time in the last century gained thirty percent
Speaker 1: of its population and is a city of immigrants, can't
Speaker 1: handle absorbing one hundred thousand plus immigrants. I think that's preposterous.
Speaker 1: But if people are coming with zero resources all at
Speaker 1: once and no work permits even to be able to
Speaker 1: provide for themselves, well yeah, that's that is a drain
Speaker 1: on resources.
Speaker 3: Well, and they have the right cool thing to deal with,
Speaker 3: that's the main thing.
Speaker 1: And they have the right to shelter. And so Eric
Speaker 1: Adams is going like, you know, I need help, what
Speaker 1: are we going to do? And Kathy Hogel is the
Speaker 1: same thing in Chicago. May are same thing. And so
Speaker 1: I do think that that also impacted some of the
Speaker 1: politics here of how we ended up in this place.
Speaker 3: No question. I totally agree.
Speaker 2: I actually think that's probably the single most impactful thing.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons again why I think it collapse
Speaker 2: on its own logic is Europe is a good example.
Speaker 2: So back in twenty fifteen, if people will remember, there
Speaker 2: was the great Syrian Afghan migrant wave across Europe, some
Speaker 2: of which they're still dealing with today. They had the
Speaker 2: same level of asylum law that they had to grapple with,
Speaker 2: which is like, how much of this is real? Most
Speaker 2: of these guys are military age men. What exactly does
Speaker 2: this all mean? Are they trying to stay here? Are
Speaker 2: they really fleeing for their lives? While also they're from
Speaker 2: a war torn country? Can we send them back?
Speaker 3: Like? What do we do?
Speaker 2: And that led to, I mean the rise of places
Speaker 2: like Victor Orbon Hungarian politics. I was just in Vienna
Speaker 2: and in Budapest. Both of them told me that the
Speaker 2: migrant crisis was the single biggest sea change in.
Speaker 3: All of politics.
Speaker 2: That led to the first breakdown of the Shingen and
Speaker 2: since the nineteen nineties it really undermined a lot of
Speaker 2: the internal logic of the European Union. Even today, there's
Speaker 2: no massive battles about it. And you know Rishie Sunnach
Speaker 2: for example, he is under massive pressure from his right
Speaker 2: because of the asylum thing. Arguably Brexit would not have
Speaker 2: happened if the German asylum invit thing had nothing. So
Speaker 2: the politics of it, I think really comes down to
Speaker 2: the fact that the law from the nineties was just
Speaker 2: not prepared for what the situation was.
Speaker 3: Going to be. I think we can genuinely.
Speaker 2: Agree in terms of the policy and all of that
Speaker 2: now here, as I said, it has has now been
Speaker 2: and shifted dramatically to the right for the Republican Party. Now,
Speaker 2: depending on where you stand, I think that's a good
Speaker 2: thing personally, but you know that's a it's an overtone
Speaker 2: window shift.
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, can we put this please up on the screen.
Speaker 2: It's the actual whip list, which is the opposition right
Speaker 2: now to the Senate border deal. That what we see
Speaker 2: here in the opposition right now, Crystal, is that you
Speaker 2: have two no votes Bobminenez, Alex Padilla. Actually I believe
Speaker 2: burn Sanders has been added to that as well.
Speaker 1: I think Marquee and there's one more that I think
Speaker 1: there's five Democratic or Burnings and independent no votes.
Speaker 2: A lot of this is moving quickly, so we're chewing
Speaker 2: our best. The reason why this is important is that
Speaker 2: right now it is going to be very difficult for
Speaker 2: this to even get to sixty votes.
Speaker 3: The reason why that would matter is that.
Speaker 2: If it's at sixty, then it can't Even if it
Speaker 2: doesn't get sixty votes, it will not even be able.
Speaker 3: To get kloture.
Speaker 2: The secondary thing that is very important to understand here,
Speaker 2: if we could put a three please up on this,
Speaker 2: is that the House of Representatives has already declared this
Speaker 2: is a joint statement from Speaker Johnston, Steve Scalice, who's
Speaker 2: the House Majority Whip, and Elie Stephonic have all a
Speaker 2: statement that they've put out and say that the Senate
Speaker 2: supplemental says any consideration of this Senate bill in its
Speaker 2: current form is a waste of time. It is dead
Speaker 2: capital D on arrival in the House. We encourage the
Speaker 2: US Senate to reject it. That as I understand it,
Speaker 2: Crystal is actually playing a huge part in undermining many
Speaker 2: of the votes in the Senate because many Republicans do
Speaker 2: not want to take a risky vote on immigration, but
Speaker 2: they know that it's not I mean, it makes sense obviously,
Speaker 2: you know you don't want to take a bill already.
Speaker 3: Senator Langford, by the way.
Speaker 2: Is under a massive fire amongst the GOP faithful. From
Speaker 2: what I've seen, Trump basically disavowed him yesterday, even though
Speaker 2: plot twist he endorsed him. Also, many desantismotors are passing
Speaker 2: this around. In his endorsement of Senator Langford, he said
Speaker 2: he's strong on the border.
Speaker 3: You can't even make it up.
Speaker 1: I mean, but this bill is strong on the butt.
Speaker 1: This build up as a which but no, this compared
Speaker 1: to the status quo. If you're in favor of restrictionist
Speaker 1: immigration policies, this makes it much more stringent. It makes it,
Speaker 1: you know, much more towards the Republican vision. And I
Speaker 1: have to say, for me, what this reminds me of is,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys remember, I know, you
Speaker 1: remember back in the Obama days when there's all this
Speaker 1: grand bargain. We're going to try to get a grand bargain,
Speaker 1: and which meant like you know, cutting social Security and
Speaker 1: medicare basically and Obama came to the table with the
Speaker 1: deal like here, tea party, I'm going to cave to
Speaker 1: your wishes and I'm going to put cuts to Social
Speaker 1: Security and medicare on the table, and because they you know,
Speaker 1: I think it was probably some of the same logic
Speaker 1: if they didn't want to quote unquote give Obama a win.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, the stated reason was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this doesn't go far enough and this doesn't do enough.
Speaker 1: So the Tea Party did you know, the work of
Speaker 1: people like me who don't want to see those programs
Speaker 1: cut and killed that initiative, and guess what, that never
Speaker 1: came around again. And so, you know, I think first
Speaker 1: of all, it's it's very uncertain whether Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: going to end up in the White House. I think
Speaker 1: it's a fifty to fifty prospect. That's number one. There's
Speaker 1: no way he's going to have a filibuster proof majority
Speaker 1: and control of the House and be able to just
Speaker 1: like do whatever he wants on the board or now.
Speaker 1: He can do what he wants to do with executive action,
Speaker 1: but that's always limited both in what you can do
Speaker 1: and also in the duration of how long that lasts.
Speaker 1: So if you actually want to quote unquote close the
Speaker 1: border and limit asylum and all of these things like
Speaker 1: this is probably your best chance under a democratic president.
Speaker 1: Democrats like I said would never agree to something that
Speaker 1: was so enforcement heavy under under Trump or under Republican president.
Speaker 1: So I think this probably is their best chance to
Speaker 1: actually care about, you know, the restrictionist policies that they
Speaker 1: claim to care about. Just to give you one example,
Speaker 1: this bill would more than double the budget. Device Yes,
Speaker 1: it would give the DHS secretary unilateral powers to deport
Speaker 1: as many people as he or she wants to deport.
Speaker 1: These are powers that this is again from the democratic perspective,
Speaker 1: I think this is insane, like, yes, you're giving these
Speaker 1: powers right now to Joe Biden and Joe Biden's administration,
Speaker 1: But if Trump wins, you're giving those powers to Trump
Speaker 1: on his administration. Are you really comfortable with that and
Speaker 1: the way that they would use those powers. So again
Speaker 1: I think if you actually, you know, back the rhetoric
Speaker 1: that they back and believe in a restrictionist policy, this
Speaker 1: is probably the best deal you're going to get. And
Speaker 1: I am incredibly delighted, especially when you pair it with
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Israel aid, well, yeah, they want to well
Speaker 1: and there we can agree that they want to kill
Speaker 1: the thing and that it's quote unquote dead on arrival
Speaker 1: in the House.
Speaker 2: I'll give you the case that I've heard, which is
Speaker 2: McConnell's an old man. He's either going to die or
Speaker 2: he's not going to be there very soon, and he's
Speaker 2: the only person who is standing. Trump actually encourage him
Speaker 2: to nuke the filibuster. In the case of for border
Speaker 2: enforcement deal. If we remember, for the border Wall, HR
Speaker 2: two already passed the House of Representatives. HR two goes
Speaker 2: much farther than this. I'm a very strong supporter of
Speaker 2: HR two. I think it's a great bill immigration. It
Speaker 2: completely reforms asylum in a very different policy, endorsed also
Speaker 2: by the Border Patrol Union, which.
Speaker 1: This bill is endorsed by the Border That's why I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about this, so I did some digging.
Speaker 2: I asked them, my immigration friends, like, oh, what the
Speaker 2: hell are these do it? Because I was I was like,
Speaker 2: this can't be real. Brandon Judd, who I know, by
Speaker 2: the way, Brandon was the head of the Border Patrol Unit.
Speaker 2: I used to work with him quite a bit in
Speaker 2: the past. So Crystal, one of the reasons the Border
Speaker 2: Patrol Union sup forces this is because it dramatically increases
Speaker 2: their pay. It's not just over asylum.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but they I mean, what they wrote in
Speaker 1: their endorsement is this gives us like the strongest set
Speaker 1: of tools that we've ever had.
Speaker 3: That's true, Yeah, absolutely, no question.
Speaker 2: But again my case, the case that I have heard
Speaker 2: from those who say is look, Mitch is going to
Speaker 2: be gone. We already have the House, We've won the argument.
Speaker 2: Now the Senators are going to vote the way that
Speaker 2: we tell him to. If we knew the filibuster. For
Speaker 2: many many Republicans who are not named Mitch McConnell are
Speaker 2: very open to nuken the philibuster and they're like, we'll
Speaker 2: just pass our immigration bill.
Speaker 3: I know you're amazed philibuster too.
Speaker 1: So maybe, but there's no reason why you couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: You couldn't pass this bill and then still do that
Speaker 1: down the road. I think, like that doesn't the possibility.
Speaker 2: To kill us island on the DHS secretary, you know,
Speaker 2: gets unilateral authority. Well, Republicans don't try. Theyre impeaching him
Speaker 2: right now because they say that he's.
Speaker 3: Not following the law.
Speaker 2: For them, it's actually one of the reasons not to
Speaker 2: give the power to Myorky sports.
Speaker 1: Doesn't I mean, but that doesn't know it gives him
Speaker 1: unilateral authority to deport as many people as he wants
Speaker 1: to report. That's not like, it's not like unilateral authority
Speaker 1: to give them an amnesty. It just goes in one direction.
Speaker 1: So your worst case scenario is, you know the status quo.
Speaker 2: Well, if you gives somebody a work permit and you
Speaker 2: don't deport him, that basically is amnesty, because when the
Speaker 2: hell are they going to leave? I mean, that's kind
Speaker 2: of the But here's.
Speaker 1: The thing, just on a substantive level, that I genuinely
Speaker 1: don't understand, and I want to hear your analysis of Republicans.
Speaker 1: We've covered this on the show a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, all these people who are leaving
Speaker 1: New York, going to Texas, going to Florida, and that
Speaker 1: seen is like that internal migration is seen as like,
Speaker 1: I think justifiably so terrible for New York and terrible
Speaker 1: for calif Cornia, and fantastic for taxes and fantastic for Florida.
Speaker 1: But suddenly when it's people who are coming from outside
Speaker 1: the country, even though they're also just human beings. And
Speaker 1: by the way, immigrants like some of the clearly like
Speaker 1: hardest working and oftentimes most patriotic people you could possibly be.
Speaker 1: Suddenly when they're coming from out of the country, when
Speaker 1: they come to New York, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is terrible for New York. So how is it
Speaker 1: that people leaving is bad but also people coming as bad.
Speaker 2: It's a philosophical difference, Crystal, which is that the first part,
Speaker 2: your people are lawful permanent residence in their American citizens
Speaker 2: and the people who are coming here are not.
Speaker 3: And in most they could.
Speaker 2: Say maybe, but you know, they don't pay taxes and
Speaker 2: elish that would be but that would.
Speaker 1: Be an argument for a pathway to citizenship, to legalizing them,
Speaker 1: bringing them out of the shadows. Because yeah, the problem,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the arguments about like, oh,
Speaker 1: it depresses the wages. What depresses wages is when you
Speaker 1: have people who are not legalized, who are in the shadows,
Speaker 1: who are being paid under the table, oftentimes like less
Speaker 1: than minimum wage and not having to abide by labor regulations.
Speaker 1: What you're making is an argument for legalizing immigrant for
Speaker 1: allowing in more legal immigrants versus having this massive shadow.
Speaker 2: I actually don't support legalizing immigrants, and I don't support
Speaker 2: pathway delitionship for the vast majority of people here, and
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why, which is that as fundamentally as
Speaker 2: a fairness issue, people like my parents spent years and
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers trying to get visas.
Speaker 2: They had PhDs and master's degrees. It's not that easy
Speaker 2: for people to get a visa to this country. You
Speaker 2: can ask anybody who's like me. I think it's bullshit, frankly,
Speaker 2: that you can just cross the border just say I
Speaker 2: fear for my life because Al Salvador sucks, and you
Speaker 2: get to stay here and you get to work for
Speaker 2: five ten years lively never leave. The other case and
Speaker 2: this is look, you can call me racist if you want.
Speaker 2: Vast majority of people arriving here have no skills. We're
Speaker 2: lucky if they have a fifth grade reading level in Spanish,
Speaker 2: let alone in English. They're not educated in terms of
Speaker 2: the jobs that they're going to take. I mean, is
Speaker 2: it really fair to depress like wages for the lower
Speaker 2: class Americans?
Speaker 3: I mean, the research is a supply and demand.
Speaker 1: It's your assumption is that there are some set number
Speaker 1: of jobs in the economy and that's it, end of story.
Speaker 1: It doesn't shift. So again, it comes back to Okay,
Speaker 1: then why is it a great thing for New Yorkers
Speaker 1: to be moving to Texas? Why is that great for Texas.
Speaker 1: Why isn't that them taking their jobs and depressing their
Speaker 1: wages and ruining their community.
Speaker 3: Many people, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Many people in my home state of Texas would say
Speaker 2: it's ruining their community and it is driving prices up
Speaker 2: because of the story.
Speaker 1: But they brag about, oh, all the moving vans coming
Speaker 1: here to Florida and to Texas. But when it's when
Speaker 1: it's you know, American citizens coming from New York, then
Speaker 1: it's amazing and it's great for the economy, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But somehow, even though it's just also people
Speaker 1: they just happen to be coming from outside the country,
Speaker 1: then suddenly it's terrible. It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: I just think there's a fundamental difference between a guy
Speaker 2: who makes two hundred fifty thousand dollars from New York
Speaker 2: and moves to Austin, who's paying taxes and can buy
Speaker 2: a house, and somebody who comes here with.
Speaker 1: Literally I think that's so classiest because they're not First.
Speaker 3: Of all, they're not from he look, they don't deserve anything.
Speaker 1: Think about but I'm okay put aside, like you know
Speaker 1: who deserves what, et cetera, et cetera. Just think about
Speaker 1: the best interests of the country. Like it's very clear
Speaker 1: that some level of immigration, and you can see it
Speaker 1: again when we're talking about internal migration is very good
Speaker 1: for local economies. And you know what, what we have
Speaker 1: seen as a nation of immigrants is that in these
Speaker 1: subsequent waves of immigration, some of the hardest working people,
Speaker 1: most family oriented people, etcetera. Absolutely, and more law abiding.
Speaker 1: By the way, are immigrants depends on the type, But yes, nope,
Speaker 1: not true. If you look over all, immigrant populations more
Speaker 1: law abiding than native born citizens. Not to mention, yes,
Speaker 1: when they first come and they're learning the language and
Speaker 1: they're new, et cetera, and they're bringing their cultures. We
Speaker 1: all know what the next generation looks like. They just
Speaker 1: look like Americans. Their kids are going to speak English,
Speaker 1: they're going to be one hundred percent American.
Speaker 3: Well, it depends. Look.
Speaker 2: George Borjas, who works over at Harvard University, has done
Speaker 2: a twenty seventeen fantastic study which shows that massive legal
Speaker 2: immigration largely depresses wages for lower class Americans. So that's
Speaker 2: number one. I would say the empirical data is pretty
Speaker 2: set on this in terms of the laws of supply
Speaker 2: and demand. But number two, again is a deep philosophical difference.
Speaker 2: I think that the net and migration level that we
Speaker 2: should have over the next thirty years should be zero.
Speaker 2: And this is my case again, this against and and Look,
Speaker 2: people will be like, how can a guy son of
Speaker 2: Indian immigrants? My mom Vihamillion disagrees with me. If anybody
Speaker 2: wants to know, and she also votes, so she can
Speaker 2: vote the way that she wants.
Speaker 3: If people want to know, I'll.
Speaker 2: Tell you, which is that in the nineteen nineteens and
Speaker 2: the teens, we had a hyphenated American crisis very similar
Speaker 2: to the one that we have here. Mass internal strife,
Speaker 2: complete differences of opinion. People speak in German, people speak
Speaker 2: in Italian. They had dual loyalty to their old countries.
Speaker 2: As we saw during the war of the First World War,
Speaker 2: it was a huge problem. We had a massive foreign
Speaker 2: born population equivalent only to today. Internal strife was solved
Speaker 2: one way. We dramatically lowered the level of immigration. We
Speaker 2: let people assimilate into the country and for the next
Speaker 2: forty to fifty years we had very very little immigration.
Speaker 2: Now that is my case, we're actually becoming a cohesive
Speaker 2: nation which can have a true national identity, and one
Speaker 2: where the foreign born population, where it is currently at
Speaker 2: an all time high, should not continue to be higher
Speaker 2: with the orderly process. I will also say many Indians
Speaker 2: will be pissed off at what I'm saying because I'm
Speaker 2: also claiming that legal immigration should go to net zero,
Speaker 2: and I strongly believe it, because I do believe that
Speaker 2: our current sovereignty and internal politics is so divisive, largely
Speaker 2: because we do not relate to.
Speaker 3: One another whatsoever, and.
Speaker 1: That really has nothing to do with immigrants world.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just not going to work even.
Speaker 1: If you look at like the political divide has never
Speaker 1: been actually less racially polarized than it is right now. Sure,
Speaker 1: and in fact Republicans are winning. This is the other
Speaker 1: thing with all this great replacement. Oh, they want to
Speaker 1: bring in all these immigrants to so they can vote
Speaker 1: for Democrats. Like that's actually happening less and less and Republicans.
Speaker 1: Republicans love to brag about how they're winning over this population,
Speaker 1: but also fear monger about how they could never win
Speaker 1: this population. So that's another part of the conversation that
Speaker 1: I think makes absolutely no sense and is utterly ridiculous.
Speaker 1: The divide in this country. Yeah, some are, you know,
Speaker 1: there are some racial divisions, but increasingly we're actually less
Speaker 1: polarized among racial lines. And you know, I would I
Speaker 1: would wager and I think most people would agree that
Speaker 1: ultimately the country was much better for those waves of
Speaker 1: Irish and Italian and Polish and German immigrants. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's part of what has made this country what it is.
Speaker 1: And I don't see this new wave of migrants coming
Speaker 1: from a different part of the world in any different way.
Speaker 1: So listen, is there is there a limit to how
Speaker 1: much we can you know, bring in at one time.
Speaker 1: Just again, you know, practically, if you flood the zone
Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of new people and that creates
Speaker 1: how there's there's problems. I'm not going to say that
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, you can just bring in the
Speaker 1: whole world and it's not going to cause an issue.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there's something fundamentally broken in
Speaker 1: a logic that would say, you know, it's very clear
Speaker 1: when a place like the industrial Midwest empties down and
Speaker 1: these towns are decaying and people are fleeing. It's very
Speaker 1: clear that's like, that's a bad thing. It's very clear
Speaker 1: when it's New York people are leaving New York that
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. But then somehow, when it's other
Speaker 1: people who are coming in, which in a different scenario,
Speaker 1: if they you know, came from a different country, a
Speaker 1: different part of the world, you say this is great,
Speaker 1: this is wonderful. Somehow that's terrible. It just doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense to me. And I don't think that the
Speaker 1: studies back up. The studies show that if you have
Speaker 1: a massive undocumented illegal workforce, that that can be a
Speaker 1: problem for wages. Actually documented immigrants, the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: studies show it's actually good for It's neutral on wages,
Speaker 1: and in general is good for the economy and helps
Speaker 1: for the like thriving of that local area. So that's why,
Speaker 1: you know, again, I'm not like open borders, just you know,
Speaker 1: let's have an unlimited number, but I think we can
Speaker 1: handle a lot more than we have. I think it'd
Speaker 1: be good for all kinds of people, all kinds of
Speaker 1: parts of the country. And I also just think it's
Speaker 1: fundamentally like goes against some core American values. This complete
Speaker 1: attack on the asylum process and this idea that we
Speaker 1: don't care if you're being person, We don't care if
Speaker 1: you fear for your lives, you know, we don't care
Speaker 1: if you're like, you know, do you try and to
Speaker 1: escape Nazi Germany or whatever.
Speaker 3: It is these people are.
Speaker 2: These people are not fleeing hol No, but no, they're
Speaker 2: playing gang violence, by the way, but hold on.
Speaker 3: Hold on.
Speaker 1: But if you end the asylum process, you are telling
Speaker 1: people who would potentially be fleeing a holocaust like, we
Speaker 1: don't care. That's too bad, We're full.
Speaker 2: What we could say is if there's a future holocaust,
Speaker 2: then sure, we're on a case by case basis.
Speaker 3: We can evaluate what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: And again I would even say, is that the okay,
Speaker 2: El Salvador, let's currently look.
Speaker 3: Everyone likes to talk about root causes. Well, what just happened.
Speaker 2: We just had a mass election of a right wing
Speaker 2: authoritarian president who through all the criminals in jail and
Speaker 2: dramatically lowered their murder rate. That proves they are adults
Speaker 2: with agency. They can elect leaders who want to deal
Speaker 2: with their problems and deal with their own problems and
Speaker 2: stay where they are.
Speaker 3: El Salvador's problems are El Salvadors.
Speaker 2: Venezuela's problems are Venezuela's hasn't been exoaccurbated by US sanctions, sure.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, who can.
Speaker 2: It's not our problem, it's not our fault that your country.
Speaker 2: If your country sucks, it's your responsibility to fix it.
Speaker 1: But see, I just look at this totally different. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, like you know, we can't exempt ourselves
Speaker 1: from the foreign policy that we up till very recently,
Speaker 1: we're you know, screwing over these countries or the drug
Speaker 1: war that has is one of the you know, most
Speaker 1: critical root causes in making many of these places incredibly violent.
Speaker 1: But even if you put that aside, like I said, like,
Speaker 1: I don't see this as like a punishment. I think
Speaker 1: if you if you look at it through another lens
Speaker 1: of you know, typically it's a great thing when people
Speaker 1: want to move to a place, When they want to
Speaker 1: move to Florida somehow, it's a great thing. You know,
Speaker 1: when they want to move to Texas, somehow, it's a
Speaker 1: great thing. So I don't see this as like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're being punished by having clean up other people's messes. No,
Speaker 1: I think we should have a process that's orderly. I
Speaker 1: think we should have enough resources to be able to
Speaker 1: deal with the number of people that are coming. I
Speaker 1: think we should have an ability, you know, a system
Speaker 1: that makes sense that lets in a certain number, you
Speaker 1: know that's not going to overwhelm the entire country. But
Speaker 1: we should, in general see it as a good thing
Speaker 1: that people want to come to the United States of
Speaker 1: America and still see it as the land of opportunity.
Speaker 3: You should see it as a land of opportunity. It
Speaker 3: should be.
Speaker 2: It should be a land of opportunity for people who
Speaker 2: live here and people who are natural born US citizens
Speaker 2: or a lot.
Speaker 1: But I don't see. But that's the thing, is like
Speaker 1: you see this as a zero sum game, and it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 2: Like I said, there's a lot of data to back
Speaker 2: it up. Now in terms of the difference between the
Speaker 2: Irish and the German is we were rapidly industrializing economy
Speaker 2: which needed cheap labor. I would also say that a
Speaker 2: lot of people who were natural born hated the Irish
Speaker 2: and the Germans with some good reason, because they were
Speaker 2: depleting their wages or were willing to work for much
Speaker 2: less than they were and they were driving around their
Speaker 2: old overall wages, which led to major labor disputes even
Speaker 2: within unions at the time.
Speaker 3: So that played out one hundred years ago. But that
Speaker 3: was one hundred years ago, and we can say what
Speaker 3: it is today.
Speaker 2: We are not a rapidly industrializing economy or a rapidly
Speaker 2: de industrializing economy.
Speaker 3: We don't need a lot of cheap labor.
Speaker 2: The predominant amount of cheap labor that does come here
Speaker 2: and ends up working work in places like home health
Speaker 2: care space, they don't. They end up depressing wages in
Speaker 2: places like construction and others. And there's also we have
Speaker 2: a housing supply issue. I mean, you know, like where
Speaker 2: are these people gonna live? But then look, this is
Speaker 2: this is why I don't even like to have an
Speaker 2: economic argument as much. It's about process and it's about legality.
Speaker 2: If you, for example, and you're using it one it's
Speaker 2: about El Salvador. Why is it fair that we invaded
Speaker 2: Iraq and Iraqis can't just walk here? Don't they have
Speaker 2: more right to live here than anyone else? Salvador I
Speaker 2: would say, yeah, absolutely, But it's because they can't walk.
Speaker 1: But we do have special programs for I think Iraqis,
Speaker 1: but definitely Afghan interpreters as well, who helped us work.
Speaker 2: Absolutely clarity, but not every random Iraqi who happened to
Speaker 2: live in the country between two thousand and three and
Speaker 2: two thousand and twenty. It's not it's not a fair
Speaker 2: process that just because you can walk across Mexico, or
Speaker 2: if you're some Chinese or Haitian or whatever that Somali
Speaker 2: or whatever, you can afford a ticket to their that
Speaker 2: puts you ahead of the line. And the reason that
Speaker 2: these are all men is because it is based upon
Speaker 2: a belief that you can come here, you can Western
Speaker 2: Union your money back.
Speaker 3: And most of these countries, just so people.
Speaker 2: Know, huge portions of their economy come from illegal labor
Speaker 2: and Western Union transfers from the United States. They're called remittances.
Speaker 2: There was a huge effort in the Trump years to
Speaker 2: try and tax remittances, which of course the Republicans squash.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's secondary for the conversation right now.
Speaker 2: My only point is that it has to be orderly.
Speaker 2: I think we agree, but on the net benefit, I
Speaker 2: totally disagree that a bunch of people who cannot even
Speaker 2: speak English. The vast majority of these people, some of
Speaker 2: them don't even speak Spanish. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't.
Speaker 1: This may be controversial on the left, Like I don't
Speaker 1: actually have a problem with part of the citizenship process
Speaker 1: being a requirement to speak English. So make that a requirement.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing is you can't say.
Speaker 3: But that's citizen. You can't I'm talking about living.
Speaker 1: But you can't say you have to follow the process,
Speaker 1: but then there is no process to follow, and be
Speaker 1: like also, I'm going to make sure that there is
Speaker 1: no process to follow. I just, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that's fundamentally unfair. And you know, the other thing is
Speaker 1: like there's this assumption that everyone in the world would
Speaker 1: come to the United States of America, and that's just
Speaker 1: not born out by the data. Even among you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of focus on the like Central and
Speaker 1: South American migrants who come here. There's far more Venezuelans
Speaker 1: who have migrated to neighboring countries to Venezuela than there
Speaker 1: are who have attempted to come here. People typically they
Speaker 1: want to, you know, if they're under pressure. First of all,
Speaker 1: most people don't want to leave their homes. And I
Speaker 1: think anyone out there could relate to like you like
Speaker 1: where you live, you have a certain level of comfort,
Speaker 1: like you want to stay in your home. So already,
Speaker 1: if you're like I have to migrate, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary circumstance. Then most people, the overall majority of
Speaker 1: migrants are looking to go to the countries that are
Speaker 1: most proximate where you know, again, they may have family
Speaker 1: ties or just may feel more comfortable for them or whatever.
Speaker 1: So it's it's not true true that if you you know,
Speaker 1: open things up, that literally everyone in the world would
Speaker 1: want to come here. That's just not the way it works. So,
Speaker 1: you know, to your point about like, oh, it's not
Speaker 1: fair that Iraqis can't come, like okay, so let's get
Speaker 1: a plane tickets.
Speaker 3: Right, but they can't. That's my point.
Speaker 2: And looks Gallup survey twenty twenty one, nine hundred million
Speaker 2: people would migrate to the West if they could.
Speaker 3: Sorry, that's just not going to happen. And this is
Speaker 3: the same thing again.
Speaker 1: I'm not arguing that we should just like let an
Speaker 1: unlimited number in. I just think the focus only on restrictionism.
Speaker 1: And here's The other thing that I'll say is there's
Speaker 1: this assumption that the more cruel and restrictive you are
Speaker 1: at the border, number one, the more orderly it's going
Speaker 1: to be. That's not true because almost definititionly, the more
Speaker 1: that you're squeezing the number of actual legal migrants, the
Speaker 1: more you're going to have illegal migrants. Because these are
Speaker 1: not people who are like casually leaving their homes. They have,
Speaker 1: you know, real reasons and are not going to be
Speaker 1: and haven't shown any deterrence based on the cruelty at
Speaker 1: the border or the restriction policies at the board. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a perfect example. After Trump instituted the child
Speaker 1: separation policy with these dramatically cruel images, I mean some
Speaker 1: of the most like cruel imagery you could possibly imagine
Speaker 1: coming out, the number of migrants actually went up. There
Speaker 1: has been no evidence that the more you crack down
Speaker 1: at the border that it actually serves as a deterrent
Speaker 1: effect and people don't come. That simply has not worked
Speaker 1: out in history. So even if your goal is like
Speaker 1: let's keep people away, the restrictionist direction isn't effective for that.
Speaker 2: The counter to that is that the reason they started
Speaker 2: coming back is because Trump caved and he actually went
Speaker 2: away from family separation and he basically reverted back to
Speaker 2: the original policy. The one reason where the one time
Speaker 2: it worked was during the pandemic when we didn't allow
Speaker 2: people to cross illegally period and you have to stay
Speaker 2: in Mexico, which I support that policy if you that.
Speaker 1: Didn't mean that people weren't coming, It just meant that
Speaker 1: they were being dealt with at a different point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's right, and I you know, the remain in
Speaker 1: Mexico policy have some issues with, but the general principle
Speaker 1: of we should have of structures and bureaucracy in place
Speaker 1: so that the whole of the issue isn't being dealt
Speaker 1: with at the border, I do think actually makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: There's actually was a Trump policy at the time which
Speaker 2: Biden did away with, which encourage people to apply for
Speaker 2: asylum in their home country at the US embassy if
Speaker 2: they wanted to. Unfortunately, that policy was done away with,
Speaker 2: which I don't think.
Speaker 1: There was also a Biden policy that would use this
Speaker 1: CBP one app or something like that that would allow
Speaker 1: people to apply in their home countries, which also was
Speaker 1: incredibly effective and which Republicans have. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that they're citing as a problem here is
Speaker 1: that it would enable that program to continue.
Speaker 3: I am not saying the Republicans have been perfect on
Speaker 3: this issue.
Speaker 2: In fact, they've been complicit and in many cases have
Speaker 2: embedded this because it's good for big business. Let's you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of the wage theory. So that's what I
Speaker 2: would say. I am not, you know, a Republican stand here.
Speaker 2: I'm purely representing the interests I guess of mister Sager
Speaker 2: and Jetty from my Again, I think philosophical difference is
Speaker 2: that I think mass illegal migration is bad. I think
Speaker 2: mass migration net is also bad for the United States.
Speaker 2: Foreign born population is far too high. We need a long,
Speaker 2: long period of assimilation and of a strong socialization net policy.
Speaker 2: And I firmly believe that overall that this type of
Speaker 2: unmitigated control and all that actually does it a great
Speaker 2: disservice to people like my family and others who came
Speaker 2: to the country legally, and it is an unfair policy.
Speaker 1: You have the ability to and your family had the money.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, and.
Speaker 1: That's not on how was that fair? But how is
Speaker 1: that fair? Though? Because you had the resources to do it,
Speaker 1: and you happen to be from a country where there
Speaker 1: was a possibility of getting in that you're able to.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, nobody owes anybody, so in terms
Speaker 2: of policy, it makes sense that you probably want people
Speaker 2: who are higher skilled, who already speak English and who
Speaker 2: are well educated, so they can more firmly and easily
Speaker 2: fit into the overall economy.
Speaker 3: That's number with that. Well, but that's a difference.
Speaker 2: And I don't think anybody has a right to come here,
Speaker 2: and in fact, my net is that nobody has a right.
Speaker 1: Here's what I would say. Yeah, I do think mass
Speaker 1: illegal migration is a problem. Yes, not knowing who's coming in,
Speaker 1: having chaos at the border, having people who are being
Speaker 1: paid under the table, and who could you know because
Speaker 1: they're working in the shadows. That can depress wages, No
Speaker 1: doubt that that is that is for sure an issue.
Speaker 1: Having a you know, significant level of legal migration where
Speaker 1: people have a path where you can put the requireent Okay,
Speaker 1: they have to speak English or whatever. I think that
Speaker 1: is net and throughout history has shown to be net
Speaker 1: beneficial to America. I think it's a core part of
Speaker 1: why America has been, as you know, economically successful and
Speaker 1: as vibrant and thriving and innovative as it has been
Speaker 1: throughout history. So I just you know, and there isn't
Speaker 1: isn't evidence that legal immigrants negatively impact wages for anyone.
Speaker 1: As I said before, so that as a population, they
Speaker 1: tend to be over overall more law abiding, that's what
Speaker 1: the numbers show. Tend to be some of the hardest
Speaker 1: working people in the entire country. And actually, you know,
Speaker 1: oftentimes tend to have a lot of conservative values that
Speaker 1: Republicans are excited to, you know, grow about and try
Speaker 1: to win over when it's convenient for them politically.
Speaker 2: No question, You're right. I think immigration is obviously been
Speaker 2: a net positive to America. Wouldn't be here without it, yeah,
Speaker 2: throughout the past. But I would also again, I would
Speaker 2: say that periods of great migration were also followed by
Speaker 2: periods of great chuckdowns, and I think there was deep
Speaker 2: wisdom in that because it allowed for assimilation, it allowed
Speaker 2: for the benefit of that industrialization. Before we had overall
Speaker 2: changes to our laws, the Immigration Naturalization Act of nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five, which by and large has not changed and
Speaker 2: I think dramatically should change. We currently have a chain
Speaker 2: migration based system where if you happen to have a
Speaker 2: relative here, it's easier to migrate, which is nuts because
Speaker 2: it al should be merit based, which is what I support.
Speaker 1: That's nuts. I think it makes sense that if you
Speaker 1: go that I mean this was again like a tradition
Speaker 1: in America is if you know people who were in
Speaker 1: your family come and then they sort of set up
Speaker 1: and then you have some a support system that.
Speaker 3: Just com is tied and zoo good.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I think, I mean to me it
Speaker 1: ma some sense, sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it has its proponents. That's why it's
Speaker 3: been the law of the land for the last fifty years.
Speaker 2: What I would say is, I think we should move,
Speaker 2: like Australia, Canada and many other Western developed countries to
Speaker 2: a dramatically merit based immigration system with a point based
Speaker 2: in terms of the criteria. We've talked about being able
Speaker 2: to speak English.
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: But that belies the fact that it's not going to
Speaker 2: be fair. It's not fair because immigration shouldn't be fair.
Speaker 2: Not everybody should have an equal right to immigrate or
Speaker 2: go anywhere, and I don't have an equal right to
Speaker 2: set foot in any country. Whenever I go through passport control,
Speaker 2: any country in the world can deny me if they
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 3: I don't care. I don't have a problem. But you know,
Speaker 3: the Poland or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, the reality is, because we are relatively well
Speaker 1: off in American we pretty much can go wherever we want. Mostly,
Speaker 1: we pretty much can go whatever we want. So what
Speaker 1: you're advocating for is a policy We're basically like, rich
Speaker 1: people can come and poor people can't. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: even outside of the fairshi, I don't actually think that
Speaker 1: that is the ideal migration system because again, I think
Speaker 1: it's classes. I think it ignores the skills and the
Speaker 1: abilities that you know, people who happen to have been
Speaker 1: born in the wrong country and to the wrong set
Speaker 1: of parents that they can bring to the table. And
Speaker 1: I think that's demonstrated by the strength of America through
Speaker 1: migration throughout our history.
Speaker 2: My care for the lapoor and the lower class extends
Speaker 2: to the borders of the United States. For everybody beyond that,
Speaker 2: I hope for the best for you, but it's not
Speaker 2: my problem. And that can sound harsh if you want,
Speaker 2: But I've seen enough of the world to know that
Speaker 2: there is so much suffering that is out there that
Speaker 2: there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. My parents
Speaker 2: are from India. I feel no obligation to street urchins
Speaker 2: in India. I think that's the Indian government's problem. I
Speaker 2: think it's really sad. I've seen a lot of them,
Speaker 2: you know, in horrible Sanantari conditions. But I believe that
Speaker 2: the number is so vast and so grand that there's
Speaker 2: a certain hubris to the extent that we can think
Speaker 2: that we can extend those rights and.
Speaker 1: Benefits to And that's where you and I are just
Speaker 1: fundamentally different, because the fact that we can't solve every
Speaker 1: problem for every person in the world does not harden
Speaker 1: my heart to being able to do what we can
Speaker 1: hand within the bounds of things that again are actually
Speaker 1: good for our country and have been shown to be
Speaker 1: good for our country over time. And the last thing
Speaker 1: that I'll just go back to. It doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me that when New Yorkers are flying to Texas,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is terrible for New York. But
Speaker 1: when migrants who again over time, law abiding, more law
Speaker 1: abiding than the native born population, hard working, have gone
Speaker 1: through hell in order to get here, are going to
Speaker 1: probably be way more patriotic than your average American. But
Speaker 1: when they come suddenly it's a disaster and it's terrible
Speaker 1: for the say, it doesn't make it. It just doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to me.
Speaker 3: Well, public opinion doesn't agree with you. I can at
Speaker 3: least say that.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of Americans who are very committed to the basic
Speaker 1: concept of America as a nation of immigrants, who you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is again, Biden ran on this last
Speaker 1: time around, and he won the presidency, and I think
Speaker 1: it's been I think it's foolish for him to completely
Speaker 1: abandon the more inclusive messaging, not you know, any sort
Speaker 1: of radical open borders thing, but the more inclusive messaging,
Speaker 1: values based messaging that helped him win the White House.
Speaker 1: I think it's a dramatic political mistake.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 2: We've been going for an hour, I believe, so if
Speaker 2: people want to leave a comment.
Speaker 3: And I know, I hope that it was worth the time.
Speaker 3: I think it was valuable.
Speaker 2: I think people should be able to hear these different
Speaker 2: perspectives