WEBVTT - Fixing Immigration 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:00.560 O. 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:04.360 Let you know, USA listener, it's Mariino Hosam. I know 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.800 that you're interested in the issue of immigration because you 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.800 want to cut through and know what's real. So we're 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.319 going to share an episode with you today from our 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:17.360 colleagues at Future Hindsight. It's going to give you the 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:23.599 full historical and complicated picture of our broken US immigration system, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:25.880 which by the way, has not been updated since the 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:31.160 nineteen nineties. Host Mila Atmos is joined by Aaron Reichlin Melnick, 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.440 the policy director at the American Immigration Council, which is 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.599 a nonprofit organization that looks to strengthen our country by 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.440 shaping immigration policies and practices. They're going to talk about 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.840 why they see the only cure to the challenge around 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:52.840 immigration is comprehensive immigration reform coming from Congress. So here 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.080 you go. Take a listen. 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.360 Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.520 about civic life and democracy and turns them into action 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:19.440 items for you and me. I'm Nila Atmas. Democracy is 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.040 not a spectator sport, so we're here to bring you 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.520 an independent perspective about border rhetoric. Getting the full attention 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.880 of the media what's actually going on to help us 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.360 better understand American immigration policy and the kind of comprehensive 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.319 reform that would be necessary to render a functional system. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.560 We're joined by Aaron Reichlan Melnick. He's the policy director 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:45.479 at the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit organization that strives 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:49.200 to strengthen the United States by shaping immigration policies and 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:54.680 practices grounded in evidence, compassion, justice, and fairness. Welcome erin, 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.040 Thank you for joining us, Thank you for having me. 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.880 We all know that immigration in the US is deeply dysfunctional, 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.600 and we also know that there are no easy answers. 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.760 In fact, it's so complex that it's safe to say 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.680 that most Americans really don't have a firm grasp on 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.920 what's happening. So justice at the stage, how would you 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.320 describe a state of play when it comes to immigration. 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.560 I mean, the most important thing for people to know 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.800 is that we haven't changed our immigration law since the 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.520 nineteen nineties. Our legal immigration system dates back to November 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:32.839 nineteen ninety one, month before the first website went online, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.720 and our current border enforcement and asylum system dates back 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.320 to nineteen ninety six, at a time when the Macharena 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:42.600 was the hit dance craze still sweeping the nation. 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.000 Wow. So if we think about the history of immigration 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.440 policy as being long and complicated, is this really the 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:52.400 main problem that it's old and outdated? 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.280 That is a large part of it. So there are 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.840 some sort of systemic issues of how the system was designed, 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.760 ideas we had twenty seven thirty three years ago about 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.320 how a system should work that have proven to be 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.560 incorrect over the last quarter century. And then there's also 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.240 the question of resources. Do you provide enough funding to 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.320 the system to ensure that it is working as intended? 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.840 And the answer is no. Congress hasn't provided enough resources 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.919 to the system, so it isn't working as intended. But again, 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.320 even if it was working as intended, some of the 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.960 ideas that people had twenty five years ago, you know, 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.080 over a quarter century ago, just didn't turn out to 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.360 be correct, and we need to tweak those as well. 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.120 So let's unpack those. What are the ideas that were 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.240 incorrect and then what were the intentions. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.000 I mean, one of the great examples is the flaws 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:48.480 with our legal immigration system. In nineteen ninety, Congress set 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.320 the number of visas that would be available in any 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.200 given year with an expectation about how many people should 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.360 be coming to the United States to benefit the country. 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.840 Those numbers have proven inadequate, but they are staturee ratory caps. 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.280 It is illegal to grant more visas beyond those certain numbers. 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.200 So as of today, there are more than four million 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.280 people waiting who have been approved for visas but can't 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.080 get them because they're in twenty to thirty or forty 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:20.000 or even longer year waiting times just to get legal status. 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.960 There are people today who have been approved for a 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:27.240 visa who cannot get that visa because they will die 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.559 of old age first because there are so many people 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.960 in line in front of them. And that's in part 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.719 because of the system Congress designed. They massively underestimated the 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.120 demand in short, and they made a couple of sort 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.680 of structural decisions that exacerbated it, including, for example, that 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.720 one country can only get seven percent of the global 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.440 visas in any given year. So that means that some 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.640 countries India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines, where there are 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.480 large amounts of immigrants from those countries approved for visas, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.400 get stuck in these backlogs because every year they can 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.920 only get set percent of the pretty small number of 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.200 visas that are being handed out, but they apply and 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.840 are granted for way more than seven percent. And that's 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.320 why Indian nationals in particular weight in backlogs that are 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.119 routinely twenty to eighty years long. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.680 Twenty to eighty years. I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. Well, I 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.279 want to backtrack here a little bit, because are you 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.560 saying that the ideas that were wrong were the concept 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.000 that you should limit the numbers or is it that 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.080 there's a different idea that they got wrong. 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.080 Well, that's part of it. Is the first is that 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.880 they need to update the numbers, you know, again because 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:38.960 they came up with this idea of like, what does 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.479 the United States need in terms of numbers of people coming? 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.000 And they came up with these ideas again before the 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.600 World Wide Web existed, when the Soviet Union was still around, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:53.039 in this Cold War era, pre modern internet world that 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.000 doesn't exist anymore, and of course, what our economy needs, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.479 who is coming and from where? We didn't know the time. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.760 We could have predicted some things about how the Internet 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.080 was going to go, but we got a lot of 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.560 it wrong, and we didn't predict that, for example, there 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.800 would be a massive need for STEM workers coming from 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.160 countries like India and China, and we set a bunch 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.920 of visa numbers without being aware of that demand that 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.520 was going to quickly become a big thing within a 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.239 few years when the dot com boom happened in the nineties. 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.240 Already within ten years after this law was passed, the 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.280 backlogs were starting to grow significantly. And now we are 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.600 in this point where there are Indian nationals graduating with 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.480 master's degrees with PhDs from American universities today who find 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.599 that they may have no realistic way of ever living 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.600 here permanently, and they have to literally enter a lottery 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:46.760 to hope that they get one of the very limited 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:50.120 slots of h one BB's as available, or eventually they 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.719 just give up and go to Canada or the United 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.920 Kingdom or some other country that has a legal immigration 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.520 system which can be amended more rapidly. You know, right now, 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.359 Canada is eating our lunch when it comes to immigration 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.840 because they have a flexible system that can be updated 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.600 rapidly in response to changes in labor demands. We don't 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.960 have that in the US. We literally have this system 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.400 that was created in nineteen ninety and that just by 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.880 and large has not been updated since that point. So 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.960 by losing out on the flexibility to respond to changes 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.440 in demand, changes in labor needs throughout the United States, 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.160 we are losing out on the world's best and brightest. 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.720 And we're also sending a message, you know, tying this 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.160 back into what's going on at the border, that the 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.800 only way to get here legally is to come to 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.200 the border and ask for asylum, which is not how 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.720 our legal immigration system should incentivize people. 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.720 M Yeah, I definitely want to talk about the border 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.480 and asylum seeking, but let's go at this from the 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.640 other side. We know that there's no silver bullet, and 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.240 we know that Congress needs to take action. So how 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:01.600 do you and the American Immigration consul envision comprehensive immigration 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.000 policy reform? Because obviously, you know, it's been thirty four 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.520 years since things have changed. Canada is eating our lunch. 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.000 But what would it look like to have something that 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.040 actually is adaptable to your point into the future and 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.440 really looks at all the nooks and crannies that we 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:18.120 need to address. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.120 Yeah, I think the number one thing is we have 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.840 to do a big approach here. Yes, small scale change 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.120 is a good idea, and I don't want to discourage 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.440 small scale change because there are a number of small 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.720 fixes that can be made to fix obvious problems in 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.840 the system. One great example of this is backlogs. Is 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.199 I've mentioned all of these backlogs lead to situations where 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.280 people who are here on visas who bring their children 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.040 over as dependents. If they have to wait twenty years 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:47.960 to get a visa, their children who they bring here 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.320 legally grow up in the United States and then age 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.040 twenty one, their status is a derivative of their parent 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.760 expires and they have to leave. So these are kids 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.360 who grow up in the United States on visas here legally, 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.160 and this is a group that calls themselves documented dreamers, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.760 and estimate there is about two hundred thousand kids in 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.679 the country who basically have to self deport when they 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.920 turn twenty one. And Congress can fix that. There's bills 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.560 out there, so you can do these small fixes, and 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.440 I think Congress should do small fixes. But if you 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.880 really want to solve the bigger problems, you have to 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.560 do something together. You have to look at what is 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.240 driving people to come to the border, and that is 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.040 both what's going on around the world, but it's also 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.640 the failures of our legal immigration system and the ways 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.200 in which the parts of the system do not function 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.120 together as a coherent whole to give people real viable 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.560 alternatives if they want to ever come to the United States. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:39.680 You know, most people say, why don't they just get 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.840 in line, But the reality is, for the overwhelming majority 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.559 of people around the world, no line exists. It's a 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.360 myth that there is a line that they can even 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.280 get in. The closest thing is the Diversity Visa Lottery, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.400 which twenty two million people applied for last year for 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.720 fifty thousand slots. If you are one of the lucky 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.400 fifty thousand out of those twenty two million who manage 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.840 to get a visa, congratulations, that's your only way to 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.160 come here. But for most of the rest of the world, 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.880 unless you are the best in the brightest, and then 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:08.760 even if you are the best in the brightest, there 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.400 are still obstacles. So we really have to look beyond 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.400 the lens of just the US Mexico border and tackle 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.040 this as a more comprehensive whole. But that's sort of 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.280 just my pitch for comprehensive in general. So like the 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.120 specifics here, one, we need to fund the asylum system. 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.560 I mean, I think that is the key. We don't 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.280 have enough asylum officers. We don't have enough immigration judges. 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.800 We don't have enough people to enforce immigration law, even 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:33.880 if we want to do that. We don't have enough 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.280 people to deliver decisions. We don't have enough staff at 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.679 the courts. We don't have enough staff in the legal 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.400 immigration system at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. We 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.200 don't have enough staff at US consulates abroad. Just systematically, 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.080 the adjudication process, either for people who cross the border 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:54.240 irregularly or for people applying for benefits is broken. Six 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.719 to seven to eight year weights are now common in 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.240 immigration court just to have a claim heard, and that 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.200 is in part because of the high volume of people crossing. 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.800 But this is not a new problem. These numbers have 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.560 been rising pretty much every few years for the last decade, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.720 and despite the alarm bells ringing about the need for 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.560 more funding, Congress continues to dribble out ten percent increases here, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.360 fifteen percent increases. They are rather than going big and 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:26.439 bold beyond that the legal immigration system, we really do 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.400 need to rethink these static caps and these seven percent 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.880 country quotas that are creating these huge backlogs. Know, one 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.199 way to do this would be simply say no one 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.760 can wait in a backlog beyond the set number of years. 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.240 There's one proposal out there that would say if you've 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.480 been waiting for ten years or visa again, these are 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.080 for people who are approved, that just says, all right, 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:48.880 you just get it at ten years. So you could 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:50.680 do something like that. You could just cap it and 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.160 say after a certain point, everybody just gets the visa 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.160 after you've been waiting for that long enough, you can 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.160 increase the number of visas. I think that's very necessary 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.040 given again how much bigger the US population now is 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.760 than it was thirty years ago, and that is part 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.800 of the reason why you need to sort of increase 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.160 the immigration numbers to keep up with increasing demands for labor. 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.800 And then at the border, we really do need to 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.520 think through both alternate pathways to drive people away from 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.520 the border and again ways to deliver a decision on 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.000 whether or not someone gets to stay or has to 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:29.880 go in a reasonable period of time, not five six years. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.760 Right, right, So tell us a little bit more about 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.320 how the asylum process works, because I think this is 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.680 a source of great confusion because people popularly think that 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.199 you can show up at the border and ask for asylum, 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.160 but actually you can also do that in your country 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.960 of origin. So what are the steps? In broad strokes, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.280 just people have an idea of like, who are these 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.880 people who apply for asylum, and what's the process, how 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.920 long does it take, and what can we expect and 0:12:57.960 --> 0:12:59.480 if you're funding it, what does that mean. 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.800 Yeah, so a brief correction here, you actually can't apply 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.280 for asylum in your country of origin asylum. Asylum is 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.240 a protection that is only available to people who are 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.240 physically present in the United States. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:13.520 Thanks for the correction. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.559 This is distinct from refugee status, which you can apply 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.439 for outside of the United States. Both are about determining 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.080 whether someone is a refugee. Asylum is about basically this 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.640 idea of we won't send you back, and refugee status 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.640 is we will agree that you're a refugee and take 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.199 you in as part of an international process. So refugee 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.440 processing in the Western Hemisphere is done in collaboration with 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.240 the United Nations High Council on Refugees. They identify people 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.600 who are potential refugees. Those people are then referred to 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.120 the United States, screened by refugee officers, they go through 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:55.200 several extensive rounds of vetting, security vetting, and then after 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.680 all of that process is over, which can take upwards 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:59.880 of two to three years depending on where people are, 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.640 then they enter the United States legally as having already 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.040 been granted refugee status. They're already on a path to 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.000 a green card, and then after they get their green card, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.680 on a path to a citizenship. By contrast, asylum is 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.360 for people who come to our borders or come on 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.920 a visa and say I'm here, I'm in the US, 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.720 please don't send me back, I am a refugee, and 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:25.920 then it's up to the system to determine whether they 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:30.240 actually do meet the legal definition of a refugee. This 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.120 process happens a wide variety of different ways, and this 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.840 is part of the confusion. There's really no one standard 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:40.040 process that actually occurs. So in theory, how it works 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.080 for somebody who is supposed to come to the border 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.440 is they come to the border, they turn themselves into 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.400 a border patrol agent or go to a port of 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.080 entry and ask for asylum and say I fear persecution 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:55.880 in my home country. At that point, they are supposed 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.760 to be referred for what's known as a credible fear interview, 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.480 which is like an initial screening to determine whether their 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.960 claim meets a very easy threshold bar does it pass 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.640 the smell test. Basically, if they pass that screening, which 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.560 is supposed to happen in like seven to fourteen days, 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.360 then they get referred to immigration court where they have 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.600 to file an asylum application in front of an immigration judge. 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.120 The judge then decides whether or not to grant that 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.480 person asylum. If they lose at any stage of that process, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.360 then they can be deported. Now, the problem is is 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.040 that breaks down a lot in practice because of these 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.040 resource constraints that I mentioned before. Credible fear exam interview 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.680 is the best example of this. In order to carry 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.120 out those credible fear interviews that initial smell test, you 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.120 need to have enough asylum officers to do those. Basically, 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.640 an asylum officcer can usually do about one a day, 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.320 maybe two a day if it's particularly fast. So if 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.360 you don't have enough asylum officers, you can't put people 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.640 through these credible fear interviews and right now there's less 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.360 than a thousand asylum officers. The bid administration is doing 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.360 more asylum credible fear interviews than any administration has ever 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.640 done in the past, and that works out to about 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.240 four hundred a day. There are more than four hundred 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.760 a day people crossing the border. So what happens in 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.480 those circumstances, well, what happens is the same thing that 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.840 happened in Obama and a Trump and now under Biden. 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.520 If you can't do the credible fear interview, then your 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.760 second option is to simply release the person and send 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.960 them directly to the immigration's judge, so they skip the 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.480 credible fear stage and go straight to the judge where 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.440 they can file an asylum application, and then the judge 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.320 can decide to grant or deny. As of now, there's 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.960 three million cases in the immigration court stage and people 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.120 end up waiting five six years. All of this is, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.800 of course solvable if you just give the system the 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.960 resources it needs to function. But Congress doesn't even fund 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.640 the asylum officers. They're actually paid for by fees that 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.840 people pay in for regular immigration benefits like green cards 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:55.480 or citizenships or visas. Those fees paid for by users 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.760 go to fund asylum officers, because again, in nineteen ninety six, 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.440 Congress created this process. They decided that it should not 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.200 be funded by Congress, it should be funded by fees 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.439 because at the time they thought, well, this is probably 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.360 only going to be a few thousand people a year, 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.320 and so we don't really want to spend a bunch 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.080 of money on this when it's going to be a 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.680 pretty small amount of the work that this agency does 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:18.800 on a day to day basis. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.280 Uh huh wow. Yeah, so things have changed. Things have 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.640 changed a lot since nineteen ninety six, for sure, and 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.679 the funding model doesn't work. But let's talk about the 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.000 numbers at the border, because of course people talk about 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.560 if you believe Fox News that the borders are open, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.560 that there are droves of people crossing and smiling drugs, 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.800 et cetera, et cetera. And you've just described the situation 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:52.720 with asylum officers and how underfunded it is and really 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.280 why people end up getting released in order to go 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:59.399 to immigration court. But if you were to have a 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.159 conversation with somebody who is on the right it this 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.479 person will not believe that the border is not open. 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:07.960 What would you say how would you describe the situation. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.800 Yeah, the border is not open, But of course the 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.280 fundamental difficulties of having a discussion about that is that 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.280 there's no agreement on what it means to have an 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.159 open border. If you ask me, an open border is 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.240 one that any person can simply walk across with no problem, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.160 without having to do anything. And for that, I would 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.960 point to the border between states. New York and New 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.600 Jersey have open borders with each other. There are no 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.119 checks when I cross between the two of them, or 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.359 you know, between any state in the United States. No 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.520 one is checking my passport, nobody is confirming whether or 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:43.600 not I have a right to cross, and you could 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.199 see similar things in the Schengen Zone. In Europe there 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.400 are external border controls, but inside Europe there are open borders. 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.280 You can go from France to Germany without having to 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.600 get your passport checked, and that is open borders. What 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.639 isn't open borders, you know, I would argue, is the 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.199 situation we have today where people cross and then are 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.320 placed into an enforcement system. Some people who cross had 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:10.280 the immigration laws immediately enforced on them. They are rapidly deported, 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.440 thousands of people every single month, But because of these 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:18.720 resource constraints. Other people get shunted into this long term system, 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.119 you know, in order to figure out whether or not 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.720 they can stay permanently or not. And to me, that's 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.359 not an open border. That's a system that has broken down. 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:30.960 But at the same time, we have to keep in 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.000 mind this idea that every single people person crossing is 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.480 let in. That's just not true. Tens of thousands of 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.560 people are sent back to Mexico every month. Under the 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.600 Biden administration and the Trump administration, the Title forty two 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.760 Health Policy was in effect for three years, over two 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:51.600 point five million times. Border officials carried out expulsions of 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.720 people under that authority, which ended in May twenty twenty 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.159 three when the COVID nineteen Public Health Emergency expired. And 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:00.400 so this is not an open border when you over 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.000 millions of people being sent back to Mexico. But of 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.760 course not everyone was. And there are some people who 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:08.879 say the border is open so long as a single 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.960 person can cross and be released. And I think that's 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.960 what makes this conversation so challenging. There are just these 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.840 fundamental disagreements about what should happen. I would say, when 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.000 someone crosses our border, and expresses a fear of persecution. 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:24.840 We have to have a system to figure out whether 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.679 or not they are bonafide refugees, because we know that 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.600 people cross our borders in these situations. That I mean 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.080 in the nineteen eighties, during death squads in Guatemala and 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.680 El Salvador, during indigenous genocide in Guatemala, the Reagan administration 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.479 turned away ninety seven to ninety eight percent of all 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.639 people from those countries who were seeking asylum because geopolitically, 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.919 it was a bad thing for the United States to 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.119 admit that our allies in Central America were persecuting people. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.920 So we basically encouraged our government to turn away genuine 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:02.119 bonafide refugees who were fleeing death squad And because we 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.800 haven't forgot that lesson, we built these protections into the 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:08.399 law for a reason, the fundamental realities you don't know 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.119 if a country is collapsing necessarily or for genocide is 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.480 about to occur until after it happens, and there are 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.520 people who leave before it happens. And this is in 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.880 nineteen thirty eight, we turned away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.080 because at the time we thought, well, they might be 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.720 German spies and because there were a number of anti 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.439 Semites in the FDR administration. But the reason they gave was, 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.560 we can't take all these German Jews fleeing Germany because 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:33.679 some of them could be Nazi spies, and maybe some 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:35.880