Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known I'm David Remnick and each week on the New York radio hour I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker Nancy Pelosi Liz Cheney and so many more That's all the New York radio hour wherever you listen to podcasts Hi, this is Charlotte and Nate from San Francisco, California We're enjoying a pint at the highest pub in Africa tomorrow We'll tackle Sandy Pass as we drive across the border from the Sioux to into South Africa This podcast was recorded at 1.37 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday January 11th, 2024 things may have changed by the time you hear this But hopefully we will have successfully navigated the harrowing 4300 foot descent into South Africa to leave this beautiful kingdom in the sky and continue our honeymoon. Cheers Wow, sounds like an awesome trip a very active honeymoon. Hey there.
It's the NPR politics podcast I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics and I'm your well-shy cover Congress and today we're joined by NPR's immigration reporter Jasmine Garz Jasmine welcome back to podcast. Hi, so glad to be back My grins are crossing the Southwest border in high numbers in December border authorities reported 225,000 encounters with migrants at the US Mexico border and house Republicans are blaming the Biden administration for the influx of migrants and targeting homeland security secretary Alejandro Mallorkas Wednesday They began the process to impeach the secretary before we get to all that though Jasmine remind us who is crossing the border right now And why is this happening at such high volumes? Sure.
I've been covering immigration for several years And I've never seen anything quite like this at the border And what I'm talking about is like a really diverse group of people over the last two years or so I've met people you know from Ukraine from Russia who are fleeing that conflict a lot of people a lot of people from Venezuela Who are trying to get away from a very repressive government and poverty a ton of people from Ecuador who as we saw in very recent News is is being really run over by violent gangs Which leads to the next point which is I don't think you can talk about this big influx of migration without talking about the fact that there was A historic rise and in the last year of displaced people worldwide that that's according to the UN the White House has also signaled that and It's really really tangible when you get to the border that displacement I know this has changed over time, but like can you tell us what happens to these migrants now once they actually reach the border? I mean it really depends on who we're talking about really the centerpiece of the Biden administration's immigration policy has been this kind of Carat stick approach where you know it encourages people to apply through legal pathways You also get plenty of people who are coming in through non legal pathways And I have to say there's a lot of misinformation there I think a lot of people are crossing through you know via Organized crime and they are being told if you cross just turn yourself over to border patrol and you'll get asylum Which isn't how it works so many people who I've spoken to in the last year What happens is you know they either turn themselves in or they get apprehended and they're given an NTA a notice to appear in court Which is the initiation of a deportation proceeding and they can apply for asylum, but the asylum application process It's really really complicated. Yeah, and here's the objects of thousands of people amassing at the US border with Mexico Obviously is not great for the Biden administration You know optics and policy are two very different things. What is your sense of the reasoning house Republicans are giving for impeaching secretary?
Mayorkas right now I mean house Republicans or Republicans in general I think see this issue of the crisis at the border as a huge political Advantage for their party going into the 2024 election and in terms of Mayorkas house Republicans are really singling out the secretary of home insecurity as sort of the person responsible for the failures or the Overwhelmed system at the border right now. They say he's ignoring the law other people say he's not enforcing the law But they're sort of making him sort of the poster child Yeah, and I think part of that is that the border whether it's in districts or states along the border or in districts even away from the border They're feeling the impact that this situation is having whether it's in terms of migrants being moved into their communities like places like New York Or the fentanyl crisis that it continues to plague this country and have an impact around the country And I think the politics too are that there seems to be agreement among house Republicans Which aren't always on the same page about the issue of addressing immigration and impeaching my orcas while there isn't a green Necessarily about impeaching president Biden. I mean they're moving on two tracks to do both But it seems to me right now they have more agreement amongst their members about targeting the Homeland Security Secretary Yeah, and how have house Democrats been responding to all this so far? I mean they are painting it as purely political they had first hearing yesterday in the Homeland Security Committee to start the process of impeaching my orcas The Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green says there's gonna be a series of hearings They've invited my orcas to appear he hasn't agreed to appear yet, but they're scheduling another hearing next week So it seems like they're keeping the process moving the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee yesterday Benny Thompson referred to a media report of Green telling donors last April that he was moving forward to impeach my orcas Obviously before he did an investigation and so Thompson and Democrats are you know pointing to that and saying this is all about politics and they want the campaign cash to continue So they're focused on this issue, but in peaching my orcas their argument is not the way to do it Yeah, and you know where just days away from another possible government shutdown is immigration one of those factors That's holding up a deal to keep the government funded it is I mean there was a deal an overall deal on how much federal agencies can spend that Senator leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to but now that they're getting into the details of that a group of House conservatives Are very upset that the speaker agreed to anything with Democrats and are demanding Border policies to to change the policy at the border be added to the spending deal So there is a possible chance that that could upset the apple card We could be looking at a shutdown where only eight days away And the you know the speakers been meeting with conservatives over the last day or so to sort of see what he can do But if he changes the deal in any way that he agreed to ascend a Democrats We will essentially be on a path to a shutdown and Jeff and how have local officials and local lawmakers in these border towns How have they been responding to this search and border crossings?
I mean I think in some of these towns I mean when you look at you know towns in Texas and Arizona One of the things that's been happening now for quite some time is is but thing of large amounts of migrants to cities throughout the US So whether it's Chicago, Denver, New York, and this has caused a great amount of tension, you know even with a Democrat mayors, you know in New York City mayor Eric Adams who has said you cannot keep busing people here You know because he's saying New York can't handle this influx and at the same time You know you have a lot of local mayors and in town throughout Texas We're saying we also can't handle this amount of people coming in through our town. Well, that's a great place to take a break We'll hear more about Jasmine's reporting from the border after the break Welcome back Jasmine just before the new year There was a meeting in Mexico the White House sent several high-ranking officials to Mexico City to speak to Mexican president Andress Manuel Lopez-Obertor about immigration enforcement you went to the meeting who was there and how did it go? Notably, it was the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mallorgas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and you know prior to this meeting about a week before President Biden had spoken to President Lopez-Obert-Obert about you know collaborating on border enforcement There was nothing officially declared at this meeting President Lopez-Obert-Obert did say that he would be willing to collaborate with the US on migration I mean certainly Mexico has always collaborated with the US on this He also said that he didn't think enforcement at the border was going to work What he said is if you really want to curb immigration You need to address the root causes that people are fleeing from now There were no official conclusions to these meetings But shortly thereafter on the Mexico side of the border You started to see the Mexican National Guard and there was a significant drop in border crossings through non-authorized Pathways, and so you know right now I'm in one town, Hakamba, California Which is right at the border and you can at times see the Mexican National Guard on the other side The detention sites the open air detention sites where migrants are usually held they're quite empty And I guess how likely are we to see new policies passed in like the next six months? Well, I mean there are bipartisan talks that the Biden administration was part of going on in the Senate They've been happening for several weeks.
I spoke to some of the negotiators just today at Senate votes And they continue to say they're working those talks are focused on sort of two buckets of policy changes And some of these issues are things that Jasmine brought up earlier in terms of what's happening at the border now They're focused on potential changes to asylum rules and they want to tweak those or change those Potentially return them back to something sort of like what was in place under former president Trump a lot of progressive Democrats are nervous about that prospect They're also talking about changing the Biden administration's parole rules There's a lot of uneasiness among progressives about that issue. I talked to Senator Chris Murphy He's the top Democrat in these talks. He talked about how important it was for the president to use parole He says parole rules have allowed the Biden administration to reduce the number of patients Ecuadorians coming in at the border But he also sort of pushed back at the idea that some Republicans are pushing in terms of potentially capping it Which he thinks you know could turn into something where the numbers really go up again and a lot of these border crossings along the southwest border The role is one of the ways that the president Manages orderly arrivals at the border since the president started using his parole authority for Haitians and Nicaragua The number of agents in the garage is a drive to the border dramatically declined The agents in the garage is a coming country now are vetted any kind of bipartisan immigration reform happening on Capitol Hill is Kind of a long shot. I mean this is a super-thorting issue that Congress has not been able to act on in decades But there is a bipartisan motivation to get something done because of what Jasmine is seeing right because of the record numbers of displacement from Communities across Latin America South America and Ukraine right in talks with you know White House officials They've expressed you know a huge amount of frustration over how little you know they can do over immigration Parole is one of the few executive functions where the president can decide on people you know from certain either crises like climate crises or you know violence and war and Allow those people to come into the US legally now It's not permanent and I think you know one really important thing to consider with parole is that even though it's not permanent You know you still can apply for asylum when you're on parole It does allow you to get a work permit and that's like a really major issue that I've been covering in cities like New York and like Chicago Where you know when you come in as a migrant you don't automatically have a work authorization and as an asylum seeker It takes a really long time to get a work authorization And that's something that's been really frustrating to democrat city mayors in cities like Chicago and in New York where they've asked the Biden administration We need folks to be able to support themselves.
We cannot be supporting this huge amount of people That's one of the functions of parole that is really important You know you can get a work authorization and I think in terms of parole There was a lot of resistance from Democrats to even put that issue on the table in these Senate talks But I think what Jasmine just talked about is part of the reason why Democrats may be open to potentially some changes because they do see Trying to make it more workable to address the concerns that Jasmine just raised that they're hearing from cities across the country Maybe a reason why it could end up in a deal I mean that being said does either side really want to do anything about this because so far it looks like this has been a Pretty great campaign fodder for both Democrats and Republicans, but especially Republican presidential candidates so far I mean, I think it depends on which people you talk to I mean I think that Senate Republicans many of them are open to a bipartisan deal house Republicans view those talks is not being Broad enough and I think even if they get a deal in the Senate the place that could run into a brick wall is in the house All right, Jasmine Garz is NPR's immigration reporter. Thanks for joining us. Hey, Jasmine Thanks for having me one last note former New Jersey governor Chris Christie suspended his presidential campaign yesterday tomorrow We'll talk about that the Iowa caucuses and the ever-shrinking field of candidates and you might notice something different about the pot We have a new look and logo on our website and in your podcast feeds We hope you like it. I'm Ashley Lopez.
I cover politics and I'm here to watch I cover Congress. Thanks for listening to the NPR politics