Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Hey it's Sarah Today. We're bringing you an episode of
Speaker 2: The Big Take DC featuring reporting on the ground from
Speaker 2: the US Mexico border as asylum seekers make the dangerous
Speaker 2: journey across the Rio Grande. Here's my colleague Salamosen with
Speaker 2: more on the immigration debate shaping this year's election and
Speaker 2: the real life stakes.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, Donald Trump had a simple solution that
Speaker 3: he believed would stop the migrant crisis, build what he
Speaker 3: called a big, beautiful wall on the border between the
Speaker 3: US and Mexico. At the time, a lot of Americans,
Speaker 3: even some Republicans like Jeb Bush and Rick Perry, dismissed
Speaker 3: the IDEA simple fact is.
Speaker 1: That his proposal is unrealistic.
Speaker 4: It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: The cost, the time, the maintenance of that is not reality.
Speaker 3: And for most of Maria voters, immigration was not at
Speaker 3: the top of the list for issues driving their votes.
Speaker 3: Today that's changed. A Harvard Caps Harris poll found immigration
Speaker 3: is now the top issue for voters over the economy,
Speaker 3: and one from Monmouth University found that a majority of
Speaker 3: Americans now support building a border wall.
Speaker 5: One of the things we heard when we were in
Speaker 5: New Hampshire for the primaries Iowa South Carolina is that
Speaker 5: not only is the economy top of mind for voters
Speaker 5: this year, but also immigration and border security were coming
Speaker 5: up time and time again in all different places in
Speaker 5: the US.
Speaker 3: That's Peggy Collins, Washington bureau chief for Bloomberg News, as
Speaker 3: the person shaping the newsroom's coverage of the election. Peggy
Speaker 3: is watched as the border has taken center stage in
Speaker 3: both Trump and Biden's campaigns, but she hadn't seen it
Speaker 3: for herself. So Peggy decided to go to the place
Speaker 3: at the heart of this issue to understand how national
Speaker 3: politics are playing out there. She flew down to Eagle Pass.
Speaker 3: That's a small city right on the border in Texas.
Speaker 3: It's become a beacon of hope for many migrants seeking
Speaker 3: asylum in the US and an inflection point for law enforcement.
Speaker 1: That you've walked and ridden trains and hitchhiked. You can
Speaker 1: just see in her face like she was gone.
Speaker 5: Resources that we have.
Speaker 6: That's the most that we can do, like the best
Speaker 6: that we can do.
Speaker 3: Today on the show, we bring you voices from the
Speaker 3: US Mexico border after Bloomberg's Washington Bureau chief Peggy Collins
Speaker 3: went down there, How are the state and national policies
Speaker 3: that everyone is talking about playing out on the ground,
Speaker 3: and how could all of this shape the border conversation
Speaker 3: in the twenty twenty four election. From Bloomberg's Washington Bureau,
Speaker 3: this is the Big Take DC podcast. I'm Salaamoso Eagle Pass, Texas.
Speaker 3: It's a city of twenty eight thousand people right along
Speaker 3: the Rio Grande. You can see right over to Mexico.
Speaker 3: The US border with Mexico is almost two thousand miles long.
Speaker 3: Parts of it are urban, others are desert, and some
Speaker 3: parts have sand dunes. In Texas, the Rio Grande is
Speaker 3: the dividing line. And the thing about Eagle Pass that
Speaker 3: makes it unique is that it sits at a spot
Speaker 3: where the river is especially narrow.
Speaker 5: I mean, it really looks like you could throw a
Speaker 5: baseball across and hit it. You look across at the
Speaker 5: river and you think, oh, I could swim across that,
Speaker 5: no problem.
Speaker 3: People drive multiple times a day from Eagle Pass, Texas
Speaker 3: to Padres Negress, Mexico, across a bridge connecting the communities physically, socially,
Speaker 3: and culturally. There were people we talked to who had
Speaker 3: grown up in Mexico, gone to school in Eagle Pass,
Speaker 3: become citizens, now have homes in Eagle Pass, but go
Speaker 3: back to Mexico to see family or for events in
Speaker 3: a given week. This proximity and just how narrow the
Speaker 3: river gets are what brings thousands of migrants a day
Speaker 3: to Eagle Pass. They're all hoping they can get across
Speaker 3: the river into US territory.
Speaker 7: It's deceptive.
Speaker 1: It looks really peaceful, right.
Speaker 3: Pancha Navarus is a former Texas state representative who owns
Speaker 3: a ranch right along the border in Eagle Pass. He says,
Speaker 3: the Rio Grande may look narrow and ease it across,
Speaker 3: but it's actually really dangerous.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of crevices and limestone where you can
Speaker 1: get caught. It'll kind of suck you in and drown you. Right.
Speaker 5: The current is very strong, and many people have died
Speaker 5: by drowning when they tried across the border because the
Speaker 5: current is deceptibly fast. But thousands of people do make
Speaker 5: it across, leaving their wet clothes on the banks of
Speaker 5: the river. Telea, I can't express enough how when we
Speaker 5: drove up to this part of the border. There are
Speaker 5: mounds and mounds and mounds of clothes, Like when you
Speaker 5: step on it, you can't feel the ground because the
Speaker 5: clothes are stacked up and it's so thick.
Speaker 3: Shirts, jeans, bras, children's sneakers. But making it across the
Speaker 3: river and into dry clothes is far from the end
Speaker 3: of the journey. Right on the water, right up against
Speaker 3: the piles of clothes are razor wire fences with rows
Speaker 3: and rows of sharp teeth.
Speaker 5: It's really striking and emotional to see because it almost
Speaker 5: looks like it's possible to get through them, because they're
Speaker 5: kind of circles, and so it's almost like a bit like, wow,
Speaker 5: I think someone could actually get through that, But when
Speaker 5: you get closer, you realize that it's almost impossible to
Speaker 5: get through them without you know, really getting cut or scraped.
Speaker 3: There are a few spots in the fence where people
Speaker 3: have found openings. Peggy sow one.
Speaker 5: On this rancher's property, there was a part of the
Speaker 5: wire that had basically been opened or pushed down enough
Speaker 5: that people were able to come through. And because so
Speaker 5: many people have access to social media now, they have
Speaker 5: basically been able to message to lots of people that
Speaker 5: there's this opening and a place you can get through.
Speaker 5: Navarrees agreed to let the state put up that barbed
Speaker 5: wire fencing along his border, but before long he had
Speaker 5: an experience that made him reconsider. He was walking around
Speaker 5: the property with his daughter.
Speaker 1: We came across as young girl. She was barefoot, carrying
Speaker 1: a child and pregnant. You know, we found out later
Speaker 1: after talking to her that she was seventeen years old.
Speaker 1: The child she was carrying was two and a half
Speaker 1: years old, and she had walked and ridden trains and
Speaker 1: hitchhiked all the way from Atlantida on nudahs. By the
Speaker 1: time we got to her, sar like you could just
Speaker 1: see in her face like she was done.
Speaker 4: I spent.
Speaker 1: She was gashed from the wire, but she had beat it.
Speaker 1: And so what it instantly told me is that somebody
Speaker 1: who's walked three thousand miles and ridden trains and hitch
Speaker 1: hike and probably been beaten and robbed is not going
Speaker 1: to be stopped by that. I've been talking to the
Speaker 1: guard I told him I want to shut out because
Speaker 1: it's any humane and doesn't do anything.
Speaker 3: Generally, it's up to the Federal Border Patrol agents to
Speaker 3: police the US Mexico border, but Texas Governor Greg Abbot
Speaker 3: says the Biden administration isn't doing enough to prevent illegal crossings.
Speaker 3: In fiscal twenty twenty three, officials encountered almost four hundred
Speaker 3: thousand migrants crossing the border into the Del Rio region
Speaker 3: where Eagle Pass is located. So Abbot took matters into
Speaker 3: his own hands. He took aim at one place in particular,
Speaker 3: a spot right on the water called Shelby Park. In January,
Speaker 3: Abbot sent in the Texas National Guard and created a
Speaker 3: militarized zone. They blocked out Federal Border Patrol agents and
Speaker 3: put up new barriers, razor wires, and buoys, all to
Speaker 3: discourage migrants from trying to cross the river.
Speaker 7: It was a ship at Contatas first, and then it
Speaker 7: was a concertina wire. And then there's a new barrier.
Speaker 7: I'll show you right now. That's a cycle fence. It's
Speaker 7: called an anti clim barrier.
Speaker 3: Lieutenant Christopher Olivarros works for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Speaker 3: He showed Peggy the new reinforcements at Shelby Park.
Speaker 7: I mean this was ground zero used to be. If
Speaker 7: you remember back in December, there was a lot of
Speaker 7: I guess you know video images from other media outlets
Speaker 7: where you would see thousands that were kind of grouped
Speaker 7: here in this field. This is where that's where this
Speaker 7: was taking place.
Speaker 5: Do you see a market difference in terms of the
Speaker 5: volume of people coming through here as a result.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So December we're averaging probably in the last two years,
Speaker 7: a little over two thousand crossings a day a day
Speaker 7: in this area here at Shelby Park and even outside
Speaker 7: of Shelby Park in the close proximity. And then when
Speaker 7: National Guard took over the park, secured the park, put
Speaker 7: up more barriers, more fencing, more wire. Ever since then,
Speaker 7: it's been a ninety percent decrease in illegal crossings.
Speaker 8: At Shelby Park.
Speaker 3: Abbott and other Republican lawmakers count this as a win,
Speaker 3: but some argue that the dip in crossings could be seasonal,
Speaker 3: something we see every year during the winter, and Pancho
Speaker 3: Navarrees believes that even if crossings are down at Shelby Park,
Speaker 3: it just means that people will find another spot at
Speaker 3: the border to cross. He told Peggy that he sees
Speaker 3: all of this as a political stunt.
Speaker 1: Having us under siege if you will makes it look
Speaker 1: good for them, and the truth is, we're fine. But
Speaker 1: what we need is people to stop believing that somehow
Speaker 1: this protects anybody, because it doesn't. You don't really care
Speaker 1: about this crisis other than to mine it for votes.
Speaker 3: When it comes to using the issue for votes, it's
Speaker 3: worth noting that bipartisan immigration legislation has been held up
Speaker 3: in Congress. Biden has blamed Republicans for that, saying they
Speaker 3: don't want to pass it and let him take credit. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: calling in the National Guard was just one of Governor
Speaker 3: Abbott's moves. The other one that's gotten a lot of
Speaker 3: publicity busing migrants to other states up north. We get
Speaker 3: into the political consequences and the human consequences of the
Speaker 3: bussing after the break. In April twenty twenty two, Governor
Speaker 3: Greg Abbott announced a radical new.
Speaker 5: Plan to move migrants away from the Texas border.
Speaker 2: This morning, more migrants arriving in New York City bus
Speaker 2: after bus, at least six pulling into the city's port authority.
Speaker 3: Since then, the state has spent more than one hundred
Speaker 3: and forty eight million dollars doing just that. It's been
Speaker 3: a very effective tool enforcing the issue onto Democrats and
Speaker 3: President Biden's agenda. Biden is in a tricky spot. He
Speaker 3: can't tout high numbers of turnaways at the border without
Speaker 3: angering progressives who are pushing for a more sensitive and
Speaker 3: humane approach to border policy. But he also needs to
Speaker 3: do something to show voters around the country who are
Speaker 3: increasingly concerned about immigration policy that he's taking it seriously.
Speaker 3: Here's Washington Bureau Chief Peggy Collins again.
Speaker 5: I think in the last few months, as the issue
Speaker 5: has become so intense, and as the volume of people
Speaker 5: going through places like Eagle Pass has just exploded, the
Speaker 5: Biden administration has realized that it does have to have
Speaker 5: a stance on this, be able to point to ways
Speaker 5: that they are trying to help it, or ways that
Speaker 5: they can say, look, we tried to do this, but
Speaker 5: Republicans are not allowing us to do this.
Speaker 3: In February, Biden took a visit to a border town
Speaker 3: some three hundred miles from Eagle Pass, and you can
Speaker 3: hear him trying to convince the people there that he's
Speaker 3: been trying to get stuff done with the most recent
Speaker 3: border bill that's making its way through Congress. But he
Speaker 3: says that Republican lawmakers are standing in his way.
Speaker 8: I want the people to understand clearly what happened here.
Speaker 8: This bill was in the United States Senate, was on its
Speaker 8: way to be passed, and it was derailed by rank
Speaker 8: and file politicans ranked a partisan politics.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, down the river in Eagle Pass on the exact
Speaker 3: same day was his opponent.
Speaker 2: This is a Joe Biden invasion.
Speaker 8: This is a Biden invasion over.
Speaker 2: The past three years.
Speaker 3: Peggy spoke with a city official during her visit who
Speaker 3: said that all these stump speeches are not helping people
Speaker 3: on the ground.
Speaker 5: They said that sometimes it's frustrating because people will come
Speaker 5: and take a photo op and then leave, and they
Speaker 5: feel like they need help now, and they can't wait
Speaker 5: till the election, and they don't want to be pawns
Speaker 5: in this political back and forth. What we need is
Speaker 5: for people to really sit down and try to do
Speaker 5: immigration reform in some ways.
Speaker 3: Peggy also met migrants who had just crossed the border
Speaker 3: into Eagle Pass. One of them was Nancy Lopez, a
Speaker 3: mother of two Sally PORKI.
Speaker 4: I left because I was attacked by the father of
Speaker 4: my children, and I was afraid of being there, so
Speaker 4: I left. I came here with my kids to give
Speaker 4: them an education and to work.
Speaker 3: Nancy said she traveled nearly eighteen hundred miles all the
Speaker 3: way from Honduras, soial.
Speaker 4: I borded the train to cross the river. And I
Speaker 4: was worried the whole way because I was traveling with
Speaker 4: my kids and it's not safe. You feel afraid, like
Speaker 4: I said.
Speaker 3: Nancy hoped that once she arrived she could find her
Speaker 3: way north. She said her sister lives in North Carolina,
Speaker 3: so she planned to save up enough money for bus
Speaker 3: fare for her. Governor Abbott's busing program might actually be
Speaker 3: a welcome offer, and she's not alone.
Speaker 6: We have received people that come and rite when they
Speaker 6: enter our place, They're like, we want to go in
Speaker 6: the free buses.
Speaker 3: That's Valerio Wheeler, the executive director of a nonprofit called
Speaker 3: Mission Border Hope. The organization gives recently arrived migrants basic support, shelter, clothing, food,
Speaker 3: phone lines to call their families. Valeria said that those
Speaker 3: migrants have been increasingly showing up and asking about Abbot's buses,
Speaker 3: which they heard about on TikTok.
Speaker 6: It's like, Hi, I'm in New York I took a
Speaker 6: boss from Middle Past to New York for free.
Speaker 3: Critics say that Abbot's busing program is using migrants as
Speaker 3: human political tools, trying to overwhelm social services in northern
Speaker 3: cities that are unprepared for this sort of influx. But
Speaker 3: it's complicated for people like Valeria, who are on the
Speaker 3: ground providing care to hundreds of thousands of migrants who
Speaker 3: crossed the border into her city each year. Valeria told Peggy,
Speaker 3: she said.
Speaker 5: You know, I understand that, and we don't want to
Speaker 5: be a burden to other places. But we are Eagle
Speaker 5: Pass and we are very small town and doing the
Speaker 5: best that we can with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people,
Speaker 5: as we were told in December across the border in
Speaker 5: one day.
Speaker 6: The least think we want to create iscare and difficult
Speaker 6: situation in other places with the resources that we have.
Speaker 6: That's the most that we can do, like the best
Speaker 6: that we can do.
Speaker 3: And she was saying, look, I hear you, but also
Speaker 3: we're very small and places like New York and Chicago
Speaker 3: are much bigger, so we do need some help here.
Speaker 3: Peggy saw things that stunned her.
Speaker 5: We saw children who were there in a nurse's station
Speaker 5: that was set up because a lot of the migrants
Speaker 5: that are crossing have walked for days, weeks, and sometimes
Speaker 5: even months, and so their feet are severely damaged. We
Speaker 5: saw one child where they were taking tweezers and taking
Speaker 5: some things out of the bottom of their feet, and
Speaker 5: she heard about problems that were regular occurrences in eagle paths.
Speaker 5: Some people who may feel like they don't qualify for
Speaker 5: asylum are more likely to try and cross farther away
Speaker 5: from a port of entry and then potentially link up
Speaker 5: with a smuggler that they've heard of through TikTok or
Speaker 5: so media. For example, we were told jump in a
Speaker 5: car and then try to get as far away from
Speaker 5: the border as fast as possible. We heard the state
Speaker 5: troopers say that they've had issues with literally some of
Speaker 5: these cars driving down streets in the opposite direction, and
Speaker 5: sometimes they call it a bailout, where all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: the driver will realize that they're, you know, they're stuck,
Speaker 5: like they're not going to be able to get out
Speaker 5: of a law enforcement at a certain point, and then
Speaker 5: everyone just like jumps out of the car and runs.
Speaker 3: I asked Peggy, what's stuck with her from her visit
Speaker 3: to the border and what she'll be thinking about as
Speaker 3: she steers coverage of the immigration debate going into the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four election. That felt like when we were
Speaker 3: in Eagle Pass and on the Texas border, that it
Speaker 3: has reached a breaking, if not inflection point. We do
Speaker 3: need to figure out a way to improve our immigration
Speaker 3: system because the flow of migrants is not going to stop.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News. I'm Salaiah Mosen. This episode was produced by
Speaker 3: Julia Press. It was edited by Caitlin Kenney and Stacy
Speaker 3: Vanick Smith. It was mixed by Ben O'Brien. It was
Speaker 3: fact checked by Thomas Leu. Thanks to Adrianna Tapia Zafra
Speaker 3: for providing translations, and a special thanks to our Bloomberg
Speaker 3: Originals colleagues and to Julie Fine. Bomi Shaven is our
Speaker 3: senior producer. Michael Shepherd, Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide
Speaker 3: editorial direction. Nicole Beemsterbower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman
Speaker 3: is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Please review and subscribe to
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