During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden decried U.S. border policies enacted by the Trump administration as racist. But Biden has not only not rolled some of them back — in some cases, he's doubled down.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden decried U.S. border policies enacted by the Trump administration as racist. But Biden has not only not rolled some of them back — in some cases, he’s doubled down.
Today, we try to figure out what changed. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times immigration reporters Hamed Aleaziz and Andrea Castillo
More reading:
Top Democrats warn Biden: Don’t restart family detentions
Biden immigration plan could force asylum officers to break law, union warns
Asylum seekers face decision to split up families or wait indefinitely under new border policy
Gustavo Arellano: The images were heartbreaking and brutal.
Tape: At least three dozen migrants have died in a fire at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border. Images from the scene show ambulances, firefighters .…
Gustavo: The tragedy comes as Mexican border towns have seen a dramatic increase in non-Mexican refugees trying to cross into the United States, and as the Biden administration has been trying to address that influx.
President Biden: Today my administration is taking several steps to stiffen enforcement for those who try to come without a legal right to stay.
Gustavo: Earlier this year, President Biden announced a new policy for those trying to enter the U.S.
Biden: This new process is orderly, it's safe and it's humane. And it works.
Gustavo: If implemented next month, the rule changes would make it a lot harder for people to claim asylum.
Gustavo: His administration hopes that this policy will cut down on the number of people trying to illegally enter the country, But critics say that Biden's plan is simply dusting off and expanding policies that President Trump put into place and that Biden once decried as racist.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to “The Times: Essential News From the L.A. Times.” It's Wednesday, April 5th, 2023. Today, what's behind the new asylum policy from the White House, and why it probably won't stop people from trying to come into this country.
Here to talk to me about all this are my L.A. Times colleagues, immigration reporters Andrea Castillo and Hamed Aleaziz. Andrea and Hamed, welcome to “The Times.”
Hamed Aleaziz: Thank you.
Andrea Castillo: Thanks, Gustavo.
Gustavo: Hamed, this new policy that President Biden announced at the end of February, what does it do exactly?
Gustavo: Andrea, so with this new policy, what do people have to do now in order to apply for asylum or enter the U.S. legally?
Andrea: So migrants have to first seek and be denied protection in a country that they've passed through, um, in order to claim asylum in the U.S. And so at that point, they've got to schedule an appointment at a U.S. port of entry, and the way that they schedule those appointments is through the CBP One app. And so failing to do those things would, in most cases, actually render them ineligible for asylum.
Gustavo: So are there any exemptions to the Biden administration's new rules on how to file for asylum?
Hamed: Yeah, there's a few ways people can get around it if they cross the border without authorization, if they have a medical emergency, if they're in a situation where they're fleeing from imminent danger. But the bar is pretty high. Essentially, most people who are crossing without authorization are not going to be able to seek asylum. And I think this is kind of a point of contention for the Biden administration. They want to say that this is not a categorical bar on asylum at the southern border, that there are these exemptions, but practically, it's going to be quite difficult.
Gustavo: Wow, and that's the latest development in something that's been going on for decades — issues at the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration in general. So why are we seeing all these rule changes now, Hamed?
Hamed: Yeah, I mean, I think if you look back to the past year, the increase in crossings at the border.
AP: Illegal border crossings surged, with December posting the largest number of President Biden's term.
Hamed: You have border towns in Texas declaring states of emergency, unable to take care of people who are crossing into the country, a homeless situation in El Paso, where there were, you know, migrants who had crossed sleeping on the streets, and the mayor there was basically saying that he needed more support,
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser: We have, um, a crisis on our hands, and, we've been, uh, really working together with our partners, whether it's the federal government, the county. And one of the things that we've said from the beginning that this is bigger than just El Paso.
Hamed: And beyond there, you have Democratic mayors in New York City and Washington, D.C., calling on this administration to do more about the situation at the border and the increase in numbers.
New York Mayor Eric Adams: El Paso does not deserve this. Chicago, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, we expect more from our national leaders to address this issue in a real way.
Hamed: And ultimately, it led this administration to kind of take a rightward shift at the border. They needed to come up with an idea to limit the numbers of people crossing, somehow try to bring the numbers down, and especially so as we look toward May, when it's expected that Title 42 — this policy that, you know, was activated during the Trump administration that allowed border agents to turn back migrants quickly without giving them access to asylum — this is coming to an end. And, you know, you could see some worry that if they didn't have something in place, that there could be an even bigger increase in numbers at the border, and that could be, uh, a disaster, quite frankly.
Gustavo: Wait. Andrea, I thought that Title 42 ended. I mean, we had you on the podcast on “The Times” last April to talk about the end of Title 42. So what's happened since?
Andrea: Yeah, Gustavo, it's been a bit of a "hurry up and wait" situation. So the Biden administration's initial attempts to end Title 42 last year stalled after these Republican-led states sued the administration and they took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court had required the Biden administration to keep Title 42 in place in the meantime. But after the administration announced that they would end the public health order related to COVID-19, which is coming up in May, the Supreme Court canceled the arguments in the case. And so, you know, the end of that health order means the end of Title 42. Hence that new rule taking its place.
Gustavo: Coming up after the break, President Biden's visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, and how people are dealing with the new rule.
Hamed: Yeah, it came after a year in which Republicans were really criticizing him for the high numbers at the border.
AP: President Biden is visiting the border city of El Paso, Texas, today for a firsthand look at the migrant situation.
AP: Some 300 migrants camped out on sidewalks outside of church, chanting the good, outnumber the bad. Many say they're afraid to seek formal shelter with the president's new restrictions announced last week
Hamed: He basically was saying that it was good for him to see it and to dedicate more resources to the situation and they were going to figure it out.
Biden: They need a lot of resources and we’re going to get them for them.
Gustavo: Andrea, you mentioned something about an app that the Biden administration is asking people to use if they want to go through the asylum process or try to cross over. How's it supposed to work and what's the point of it?
Andrea: That's right. So the CBP One mobile app is intended to reduce the number of illegal crossings between those ports of entry, and so migrants are supposed to register on the app and make appointments so that they can seek an exemption to Title 42 in order to request asylum at a port of entry. Of course, that requires the migrants to have a smartphone that has the ability to download the app in order to use it.
Gustavo: And if they don't have a smartphone, then what?
Andrea: It's really difficult to seek asylum at that point. They have to try and find an organization that can help them, but that's really limited in rare cases.
Gustavo: Wow, so do we know if this app has been successful in processing asylum claims?
Andrea: Customs and Border Protection numbers that were released earlier this month showed that the agency processed more than 20,000 people last month at ports of entry as exemptions to Title 42 — so that's people that used the CBP One app — and they encountered 13% fewer people between ports of entry than they did in January, so there's been a decrease there. They also said that the weekly average number of encounters of specifically Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans between ports of entry has dropped by a whopping 98% since they expanded the CBP One app in early January, so it's obvious that it is having an impact.
Hamed: Yeah, we've seen in January and February, ever since the Biden administration decided to expand Title 42 to allow border agents to turn back specific populations — Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans — the numbers have dropped dramatically, back to the point of when, uh, the administration took over in 2021.
Gustavo: Hmm, so the people who are actually going through this process, what sort of issues are they facing with this?
Andrea: In short, it's not really working well. I spoke with some migrants who said that the app was really confusing to use, that it runs out of appointments within just a couple of minutes. That it crashes really frequently. And, of course, one big issue is that it's unavailable in most languages right now. It's available in Spanish, English and Haitian Creole. Although I've also heard that the Haitian Creole translations can be pretty rough. Black and Indigenous users who have darker skin tones were complaining as well that the facial recognition feature fails to capture their photo. So, you know, in some cases, people are spending upwards of 30 minutes just standing there with their phone up to their face trying to get it to capture their photo.
Last month, I reported that families weren't able to get appointments altogether, which was forcing them to decide whether they were going to split up or give up their appointments that they had fought so hard to get. One guy that I spoke to was John, a Haitian migrant. At the time he told me that he and his family were out of money and they had just returned to the shelter in Reynosa after spending $300 to travel to Laredo for an appointment. But because only he and his wife had secured appointments, they were missing one for their daughter and they were turned away.
Gustavo: Coming up after the break, what immigration advocates are saying about the Biden administration's new policies, and how it could change the situation at the border forever.
Hamed, a big criticism from immigration advocates about Biden's new border rules is that, well, they sort of look a lot like President Trump's. I mean, you mentioned the extension of Title 42. We've been talking about the new rules for when and where migrants can apply for asylum. And even beyond that there's talk recently about reviving the detention of migrant families. To what extent, then, do Biden's rule changes reflect Trump’s own policies?
Hamed: Yeah, I think the context here is really important. You had four years of the Trump administration, where they were focused on restricting asylum in every way possible.
Tape: We will build the wall. Mexico is going to pay for the wall. We're going to stop drugs from coming in. The drugs are poisoning our youth and ….
Video footage shows children kept behind chain link fences while their parents are detained for trying to illegally cross the border.
No more free passes. No more get-out-of-jail-free cards.
Hamed: They tried multiple policies trying to bring down the numbers as much as possible at the border.
Tape: We do not want to separate parents from their children, you can be sure of that. If we build a wall, we pass some legislation, we close some loopholes, we won't face these terrible choices.
Hamed: And immigration attorneys spent four long years dealing with this administration.
Tape: [Demonstrators chanting]
Hamed: And when Biden came, there was this hope, there was this relief that they were going to go back to an old process. And to see the Biden administration bring back a version of a Trump administration policy. You know, the Trump version categorically barred asylum seekers at the border if they crossed through a third country and hadn't applied for asylum on their way to the border. And this one, like we talked about earlier, is a little bit different. But for them to see a version of this come out during Biden was incredibly discouraging. I think it's been the most vocal outcry so far from advocates during this administration, and they've said that they're going to protest it throughout its existence.
It's important to note that while at the border the Biden administration has, uh, been restrictive and, and limited access to asylum and continue to use Title 42, in the interior of the country you see that ICE — immigration and Customs Enforcement — there's been a more progressive approach. They're no longer taking on “sanctuary cities” in the public manner that they were during the Trump administration. And elsewhere, in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services you see a relaxing of the process to apply for visas and immigration benefits as well. This administration has gotten rid of the Muslim ban, tried to at least begin to rebuild a refugee program that was dismantled under the last administration. So there's a big difference between what's happening at the border and the interior of the U.S.
Gustavo: Andrea, how has the Biden administration responded to criticisms?
Andrea: Publicly, the Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, often talks about how it's up to Congress to enact lasting changes on immigration.
Alejandro Mayorkas: The immigration system is fundamentally broken, a fact that everyone agrees upon. Congress must pass legislation to fix it. In the meantime, we are taking ….
Andrea: He's said that without these parole programs and other legal pathways that migrants would be vulnerable in the hands of smugglers.
Mayorkas: We are enforcing our immigration laws, including those of accountability and humanitarian relief. We are enforcing expedited removal, and investigating and disrupting the smuggling and drug trafficking organizations….
Andrea: DHS has also defended that application — the CBP One app. They say that, you know, it's free, that it cuts out smugglers, that it decreases exploitation of migrants and that it improves security and efficiency. And they say that they've worked to fix the bugs on the app. But, of course, I think the response to that would be that it hasn't come quick enough and that the app still has all of these issues.
Gustavo: Finally, to the both of you, how would you place what's going on now in the bigger context of U.S. immigration history? Because on one hand we could say, oh, yeah, the Statue of Liberty, bring me your poor, tired, huddled masses. But we’ve also long severely limited migration from certain countries, both in the past and present. So where do we place what's going on now in that bigger context?
Hamed: I think, like I mentioned earlier, this new policy limiting asylum at the border is a version of a Trump policy. And while this administration says it's going to be in place for a limited amount of time, that it's not forever, you just can't imagine a situation where any Democrat for the foreseeable future will decide to go back to the way it was. If you crossed the border, regardless of the way you crossed it and you said you were seeking asylum, you would have access to protections in the U.S. You would have to go through hurdles, right? You would have to go through screenings and go through the court process, but you would have that access.
It's hard to imagine that any future administration would actually say, OK, we're going to get rid of the limits of the border and place themselves into the political debate on this issue. It just seems, you know, impossible.
Andrea: Yeah, Hamed's absolutely right. I mean, there's this tension between asylum being recognized under national and international law as this legal right, as he said, regardless of how somebody arrived to the U.S. But this is obviously a dramatic departure from that notion.
Gustavo: Hamed and Andrea, thank you so much for this conversation.
Andrea: Thank you.
Hamed: Thank you.
Gustavo: And that's it for this episode of “The Times: Essential News From the L.A. Times.” Natalie Bettendorf and Kasia Broussalian were the jefas on this episode. It was edited by Jazmín Aguilera, and Mario Diaz mixed and mastered it. Our show is produced by Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian and David Toledo and Ashley Brown. Our editorial assistants are Roberto Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our fellow is Helen Li. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto. Mike Heflin. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany and our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back Friday, with all the news and desmadre, gracias.
END TRANSCRIPTION
Intro mux or cold open tape
Gustavo: Earlier this year… the Biden administration announced a new policy meant to address what’s been happening at the US southern border.
<<TAPE of President Biden’s press conference from 1/5/23: “Today, my administration is taking several steps to stiffen enforcement for those who try to come without a legal right to and to put in place a faster I emphasize a faster process process to decide a claim of asylum.>>
If implemented next month, the rule changes would make it a lot harder for people to claim asylum in the United States.
<
The Biden administration hopes that this policy will cut down the number of people trying to illegally enter the country.
<
But critics say that Biden’s plan is simply dusting off and expanding policies that President Trump put into place…and that Biden once decried as racist
BEAT drop 1
I’m Gustavo Arellano. You’re listening to The Times, essential news from the L.A. Times.
It’s Monday, April 3, 2023..
Today… What’s behind the new asylum policy from the White House …and why it probably won’t stop people from trying to come into this country.
BEAT drop 2
Mux bump to fade out
Gustavo: Here to talk to me about all this are my LA Times colleagues, immigration reporters Andrea Castillo and Hamed Aleaziz.
Andrea and Hamed, welcome to the Times.
Andrea: Thx…
Hamed: Thx
Gustavo: Hamed, this new policy that President Biden announced at the end of February — What does it do exactly?
Hamed:
Aims to lower the number of migrants crossing into the US
It limits asylum access for immigrants crossing into US without authorization / who don’t apply for protections on their way to the southern border
“Limiting” here means that migrants must get the application and be granted authorization *before* arriving at the border. They either have to obtain that authorization from the US before they get to the border OR they must have applied for asylum in a country they’ve passed through and been rejected
Gustavo: Andrea, with this new policy..what do people have to do now in order to apply for asylum or get into the United States legally?
Andrea:
Migrants have to first seek and be denied protection in countries they’ve passed through to claim asylum in the US
Migrants will have to schedule an appointment at a US border port of entry or find another legal pathway to enter, rather than attempt to get onto U.S. soil first between ports of entry and then request asylum. Failing to do those things would, in most cases, render them ineligible for asylum .
They schedule that appointment CBP One app
Gustavo: The US-Mexico border, of course, has been a political hot-button issue for decades now. Immigration, in general.. So… why are we seeing all these rule changes now, Hamed?
Hamed:
It comes as the administration prepares for the end of Title 42, the Trump administration’s pandemic-era policy to quickly turn back migrants.
What Title 42 did:
Trump activated this title - it’s been in place for decades, just not used until COVID-19 under Trump
Border agents could rapidly expel migrants at points of entry into US during a public health emergency
It overrode immigration law that allowed people to ask for asylum after entering illegally. B/c Title 42 is still in place, it allows Biden’s policy to turn people back without processing their asylum claims at the port of entry
Gustavo…make sure we gather somewhere here that the new policy is likely to be finalized in May
Gustavo: Wait…I thought that was supposed to end a long time ago. In fact, Andrea, wasn’t Title 42 supposed to be over? I mean, we had you on The Times last April to talk about it. So what has happened since?
I’m
Andrea:
Biden administration’s initial attempts to end Title 42 in 2022 stalled after Republican-led states sued, taking the case to the Supreme Court.
SCOTUS required Biden to keep Title 42 in place in the meantime
After the Biden admin announced they would end the public health order related to COVID-19 on May 11, SCOTUS canceled arguments in the case. The end of the health order means the end of Title 42, hence new rule taking its place
Gustavo: Ok…so are there any exemptions to the Biden administration's new rules on how to file for asylum?
Hamed/Andrea
Yes…a couple
Government officials have defended the proposed rule by explaining that it is not a categorical ban. The officials also point to programs that allow migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti to seek entry to the U.S. if they have a financial sponsor. Another process allows those who cross without authorization to challenge the presumption that they are ineligible for asylum in certain cases, such as medical emergencies
Mux bump
Gustavo: Coming up after the break…the situation at the US-Mexico border.
Mux bump to fade or hard out
<<
Gustavo: Hamed, President Biden visited the southern border back in January, for the first time in his presidency. What sparked the trip, and what did he see?
Hamed:
Republicans criticize Biden for the high number of arrests at the border…it’s actually turning into a major campaign thing for them, etc etc
Biden was there to “assess border enforcement operations and meet with local elected officials and community leaders” who are
Kasia to pull tape to build a scene
Gustavo: And Hamed, how have those numbers of border crossings changed?
Hamed:
the numbers of unauthorized border crossings declined to their lowest levels in almost two years.
Explain why
Gustavo: Andrea, you mentioned that there’s this new app that the Biden administration is pushing people to use. How exactly is it supposed to work, and what’s the goal behind it? ?
Andrea:
“The CBP One mobile application, which was rolled out in [January], was intended to reduce the number of illegal crossings between ports of entry”
Migrants are supposed to make appointments on here if they are applying for asylum within the US
Rather than what the process was in the past which was to send in paperwork, wait etc etc
Gustavo: Wow. So do we know if this app has been successful in processing asylum applications more efficiently?
Andrea:
No data ready yet but border crossings went way down for certain groups when it was rolled out earlier this year?
CBP numbers showed the agency processed more than 20,000 people last month at ports of entry as exceptions to Title 42 using the CBP One app. Border Patrol encountered 94,000 people between ports of entry -- 13% fewer people than in January.
CBP said the weekly average number of encounters of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans between ports of entry has dropped by 98% since the CBP One app expansion was announced in early January.
Gustavo: [prompt to remove later] And what about the people who are actually using this mobile app? What sort of issues are they facing?
Andrea:
Not working well… spoke with some migrants who said that the app was confusing to use, runs out of appointments within a few minutes, that it frequently crashes, and is unavailable in most languages. Last month, families were not able to get appointments altogether, forcing them to split or give up their appointment slots. Black and indigenous users with darker skin tones have complained that the facial recognition feature fails to capture their photo
I caught up a few days ago with Jean, one of the Haitian migrants I spoke to for my story last month. He and his family still haven’t secured appointments. They’re out of money and living at a shelter in Reynosa. Last month they spent $300 traveling to Laredo for an appointment, but because only he and his wife had secured slots and were missing one for their daughter, they were turned away.
BEAT
Gustavo: Coming up after the break… what immigration advocates are saying about the Biden Administration’s policy…and how it could change the situation at the border… forever.
Mux bump to fade or hard out
<<
Gustavo: So Hamed, what are immigration advocates saying about Biden’s new rules for applying for asylum?
Hamed:
They’re frustrated and not happy… “lipstick on a pig” for Trump’s old policies, including Title 42
Pull out here just how similar these policies are to Trump’s…basically an endorsement of his policy/strategy
Gustavo: Is that the case? To what extent is the Biden Administration just maintaining or even expanding the Trump Administration’s policies? Because it sure seems like it to me, and I find it disappointing that Biden is doing this considering he rightfully trashed Trump over this issue a few years ago…and now he’s basically doing the same.
Hamed:
tktktkt
some Biden administration officials privately acknowledge that the adoption of the new strategy was driven by politics.
Gustavo: Andrea, how has the Biden administration responded to these criticisms?
Andrea:
DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas often talks about how it’s up to Congress to enact lasting change on immigration policy and that without the parole programs and other legal pathways, migrants remain vulnerable in the hands of smugglers.
DHS has defended the CBP One app, saying it’s free, cuts out smugglers, decreases migrant exploitation and improves security and efficiency. They said they’ve worked to fix bugs on the app
DHS is under federal court order to track and report the number of people allowed into the country through exceptions. Republican-led states that sued to keep Title 42 in place have closely monitored those monthly reports and in November filed a motion accusing DHS of increasing exceptions without properly notifying the court, which the federal government denied.
Gustavo: Finally…to both of you…this new direction that the United States is heading on immigration…what does it mean for the southern border, and the people who are trying to come here seeking asylum, or just a better life?
Andrea/Hamed:
The policy would roll back America’s longstanding commitments to people seeking asylum, placing strict limits on where and how those who flee persecution can apply for protection.
Asylum is recognized under national and international law as a legal right, regardless of how someone arrives on U.S. soil. This is a dramatic departure from that notion.
Get into the idea that the southern border is forever changed now
Mux bump
Gustavo: Hamed and Andrea, thank you so much for this conversation.
Guest: Thanks so much for having me.
Mux bump to fade or hard out
<<
Outro mux in
Gustavo: And that’s it for this episode of The Times, essential news from the L.A. Times.
Natalie Bettendorf and Kasia Broussalian were the jefas on this episode. It was edited by Jazmin Aguilera and [audio engineer] mixed and mastered it.
Our show is produced by Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Roberto Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our fellow is Helen Li. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back [Wednesday, Friday, Monday] with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.