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0:58

I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

1:00

And I'm Mara Lyerson, senior national

1:02

political correspondent. And Sergio Martinez Beltran

1:04

is back with us. He covers

1:06

immigration for NPR. Hello, my friend. Hello.

1:09

Today on the podcast, President Biden

1:11

plans to take executive action aimed

1:13

at sharply curbing U.S. southern border

1:15

crossings, including for people seeking asylum.

1:18

This is a significant policy move on

1:20

the president's part, but also a decision

1:22

weighted in election year politics. Sergio,

1:25

let's start with the policy. Or what is President Biden trying

1:27

to do? Yeah, I mean, we've been

1:29

waiting for this policy for a few weeks

1:31

now. And you mentioned seeking asylum. That's key

1:34

here, right? This action that the president took

1:36

today is aiming at

1:38

reducing the high number of asylum

1:40

claims that are happening at the

1:43

border. And so once the measure

1:45

goes into effect, migrants who cross

1:47

without authorization, upset exceptional circumstances, would

1:49

not be eligible for asylum. And

1:52

senior administration officials say they expect to remove

1:54

those individuals in a matter of days, if

1:57

not hours. And then also

1:59

those migrants who cross. the southern border

2:01

unlawfully and happen to be processed for

2:03

expedited removal would get a credible fear

2:05

screening only if they say they have

2:07

a fear of returning to their country

2:09

but that threshold for credible fear would

2:12

be increased. Again, this

2:14

is probably one of the

2:16

most impactful border policies that the

2:18

Biden administration has implemented. The restrictions

2:20

will remain in place until 14

2:22

days after the average of the

2:24

legal crossings drops below 1500 and

2:27

then the measures will be implemented again if

2:29

that number goes to 2500

2:32

or more. And currently with the numbers

2:34

that we're seeing at the border and the

2:36

administration has also confirmed this, they

2:38

expect that this policy will go into effect

2:40

immediately. Sarah, to

2:42

be frank, this sounds a whole lot like

2:45

a border enforcement strategy that was supported by

2:47

then President Donald Trump. It sounds like Biden

2:49

is trying to revive some of the former

2:51

president's policies here. I mean, Biden is using

2:53

the same law that President Trump used when

2:55

in 2017 he tried to ban immigration

2:58

from several majority Muslim countries. And also

3:00

in 2018, former President Trump

3:02

used it to suspend the entry of migrants between

3:05

ports of entry along the southern border. So it's

3:08

the same law that the president back

3:10

in 2017, 2018, President Trump used, President

3:14

Biden is using it now. And it's one

3:16

of those things that immigration rights advocates say

3:19

that it's weird to see the president

3:21

do this, especially when we are five months away

3:23

from the election. Mara, this action seems

3:25

pretty clear here. You know, Biden tried to get

3:27

a border law passed through Congress. There was

3:30

a bipartisan Senate border deal that fell

3:32

apart when Donald Trump and top Republicans

3:34

came out against it. Does doing

3:36

something like this provide Biden

3:38

the political cover he's seeking on this

3:40

issue? Well, I think if it does, it

3:42

will be very, very skimpy political cover. I

3:45

think that Biden is hoping that there can

3:47

be some new visuals coming out of the

3:50

border showing that there's not a backlog. There's

3:52

not tons of people there. But

3:54

the problem is politically, this is

3:56

an issue that is so firmly

3:59

identified with Donald Trump and the Republicans.

4:01

Don't forget, he came down the escalator in

4:03

2015 and announced that

4:05

all sorts of rapists and criminals were coming over

4:07

the border. And one of the

4:09

reasons that Donald Trump stopped the bipartisan

4:12

border deal from happening is because he

4:14

wanted this issue to continue to help

4:16

him for the election. He didn't want

4:18

the border problems solved. But

4:20

I think that Democrats have a recurring

4:22

political problem. They are very late

4:24

to understand how important basic

4:27

public safety issues are for

4:29

voters. We saw this with

4:31

crime. All during the 80s and 90s, Democrats were

4:33

slow to understand that you have to have a

4:36

safe neighborhood before you can talk to voters about

4:38

almost anything else. Same thing with the border.

4:41

But I do think this will help him a little

4:43

bit. But I think that the

4:46

feelings that voters have about which

4:48

party, which candidate is better on immigration,

4:50

are really set in concrete and Trump has

4:52

the advantage there. I think that's

4:54

an important point, though, because on a lot of

4:56

issues, sometimes Republicans care about it more, Democrats care about

4:58

it more, but immigration is one of

5:00

these issues in this election environment that

5:02

does seem to have broad concern. It's

5:04

not just conservatives and Republicans saying it.

5:06

You're hearing it from independents. You're hearing

5:08

it from Democrats, from Biden supporters who

5:11

are still saying, I want to see

5:13

something at the border. And I'll tell

5:15

you when that really changed. When busloads

5:17

of asylum seekers were sent from

5:20

border state Republican governors to northern

5:22

states and blue states and blue

5:24

cities and blue city mayors

5:27

started saying, we cannot handle this influx.

5:30

But there's a lot of

5:32

misinformation and disinformation about the problem at

5:34

the border. A lot of disinformation promoted

5:37

by Republicans about the problems that

5:39

migrants cause in communities, often exaggerated.

5:41

But still, I see

5:44

this as a basic public safety issue

5:46

like crime. It's

5:48

a threshold issue. People

5:50

have to feel safe in their neighborhoods and they have to

5:52

feel that the border is safe before you can talk to

5:54

them about other issues. And they want to see their politicians

5:56

doing something about it. They don't always know what it is, but

5:59

they want to see it. something. That's right. And

6:01

this is very late, but Biden

6:03

is now doing something and we'll see if it helps

6:05

him. So, you know, is it safe to

6:07

expect that there's going to be some legal challenges to

6:09

this? It seems like executive actions on immigration always beg

6:11

for those. I mean, I'm not

6:13

a man who bets, but I would

6:15

bet that that's going to happen. And

6:18

that is because we've already heard from

6:20

different advocacy groups who have said they

6:22

are monitoring this announcement and that they

6:24

will sue. And right, we saw advocacy

6:27

groups like the ACLU that sued President

6:29

Trump in 2017 and 2018 when he

6:31

implemented the same policy. So we're expecting

6:33

the same. And actually the administration is

6:35

even expecting it. They have said that

6:39

they know that they would probably be sued

6:41

by some of the immigrant rights groups and

6:43

also maybe by some of the right

6:45

leaning groups, but that they are confident that the

6:47

steps they're taking in with this

6:49

particular action are consistent with their

6:51

obligations under international law. All

6:53

right. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about this when we get

6:56

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Untangled from WOSU Public Media,

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part of the NTR network.

8:29

And we're back. And Mara, I wonder if

8:31

there's a question here on the politics from

8:33

the left side of the spectrum, because polling

8:36

and other reporting has indicated that President

8:38

Biden has a base problem. He has

8:40

an enthusiasm problem. He has a problem

8:43

with young voters. And the Democratic Party

8:45

coalition is far less white than the

8:47

Republican Party coalition. And also in this

8:49

election, the president seems to have dip

8:51

support among Latino voters. And so could

8:53

an action like this also

8:55

continue to create problems within his own house?

8:58

If it does, I think they're minuscule

9:01

compared to the problems he has with

9:03

independent voters and voters

9:05

who aren't young or minority voters.

9:07

But what's really interesting here is

9:09

don't assume that Hispanics want

9:11

more lenient border policy.

9:13

Sure. The

9:15

border, as I keep on saying, it's a very

9:18

basic, basic issue. And people think the border should

9:20

be secure. That doesn't mean people are against legal

9:22

immigration or against immigrants, but they don't

9:24

like the border looking out of control.

9:27

I think that the issues that are

9:29

causing young voters, people of color, to

9:32

turn away from Joe Biden, immigration

9:34

is not at the top of their list.

9:36

It's more about the war in Gaza, inflation,

9:38

the cost of housing, the cost of groceries.

9:41

That's what's causing them to tune out Biden.

9:44

I think that if this helps him, it's going

9:46

to help him with the voters that

9:48

the Biden campaign is really worried about, which

9:51

is not based Democratic voters. They're worried

9:53

about independence. So can we talk about

9:55

the timing here? It seems convenient in

9:57

many ways that President Biden has been a part of this.

10:00

Biden is announcing he's going to take this

10:02

action when the number of people approaching the

10:04

border naturally falls in the summer months, doesn't

10:06

it? Yeah. And,

10:08

you know, it's also happening at

10:10

a time where we're seeing even

10:13

additional patterns that are defined the

10:15

tradition when we talk about seasonal

10:17

migration. Usually in the

10:19

spring months, we would see the

10:21

number of crossings go up. But

10:23

this year, those numbers have gone

10:25

down drastically. And the reason

10:27

for that is Mexico. Mexico has been enforcing their

10:29

immigration laws. And so they've been cracking down on

10:32

their side of the border, and that has prevented

10:34

migrants from crossing into the U.S. And by the

10:36

way, that is happening because Mexico and the U.S.

10:38

have agreed on that. But

10:40

one thing that I hear over and

10:42

over by talking to people in border

10:44

communities, in fact, I was talking yesterday

10:46

to the mayor of IUPAS, Texas, which

10:48

is at the epicenter of this immigration

10:51

fight between the state of Texas and

10:53

the federal government over immigration, Sergio

10:56

Solandos-Alinas told me that, you know, he

10:58

wished this announcement would have come in

11:00

December when his community was

11:03

seeing 2,000, 3,000 illegal crossings every single day.

11:08

So he's also questioning the timing here

11:10

of why is the president coming out

11:12

now when, again, the numbers, particularly in

11:15

states like Texas, have gone drastically down.

11:18

And assuming this action goes into place, obviously,

11:20

the legal challenges to it are unknown. Could

11:23

the impact be felt immediately, or is it

11:25

something that would actually take time to see

11:27

a change at the border? People

11:29

are worried that this new action would go

11:32

into effect immediately in terms of impact. The

11:34

administration is saying that they expect to start

11:36

removing people right away. So they're saying that

11:38

they expect those numbers to continue to go

11:40

down. Now the thing with

11:42

the border, right, and I think this is something

11:45

that I think is important to remind people, is

11:47

that the border is huge. And

11:49

right there is the port of entries, but people

11:51

tend to cross between the port of entries. Oftentimes,

11:53

and then they seek asylum that way. What

11:55

we're hearing from advocacy groups is that

11:58

they worry that this would make a difference. make

12:00

people who have real legit asylum claims

12:02

have tried to secure border patrol in

12:04

order to make it into their country

12:06

because they might be afraid that their

12:08

asylum claim will be rejected under these

12:11

expedited processes now. Marn, do

12:13

you think that in this election, where

12:15

immigration does seem to be a central

12:17

issue that concerns Americans, that

12:19

the winner of this presidential election

12:21

could argue next year that they

12:23

have a mandate to

12:25

finally address comprehensive immigration legislation,

12:28

which has been incapable of

12:30

getting done since the Reagan

12:33

era? Well, the failure of

12:35

comprehensive immigration legislation is one of

12:37

the biggest political and policy tragedies

12:39

that we've had in decades. There

12:41

is a bipartisan consensus, or at

12:43

least there used to be, which

12:45

is we should have no

12:47

illegal immigration, but we should have enough

12:50

legal immigration to solve our labor shortages.

12:53

And there used to be a consensus where

12:55

there would be a path to citizenship for

12:57

the Dreamers, these young kids who were brought

12:59

here undocumented when they were infants. There

13:01

would be more resources for the border. Why do we have

13:03

this 2 million backlog of asylum

13:05

cases? Because Congress hasn't

13:08

passed enough funding for more asylum

13:10

judges and border patrol officers. But

13:13

if the next president is Donald Trump, he

13:15

will say that he has a mandate to

13:18

deport somewhere between 11 and

13:20

15 million people. That's who he says are

13:22

in the country illegally, and he says that he'll deport them,

13:25

something like what Eisenhower did. He'll even

13:27

build detention camps if necessary. That is

13:29

quite different from what

13:32

you're talking about, comprehensive immigration legislation.

13:34

They can actually get through Congress.

13:37

Yeah. All right, Sergio

13:39

Martinez Beltran, as always, thank you for coming

13:41

on the podcast. So good chatting with y'all. And

13:43

before we go, a huge thank you to

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