Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 144 | Illegal Immigration

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

A serious issue that doesn't need to be as complicated as it's made out to be.

Hello, relatable listeners. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Today, we are going to talk about a hot topic. We're going to talk about immigration. Of course, that includes illegal immigration. But as we have done with all of these episodes, I really want to give you the basics. I want to lay a good foundation of this topic of immigration by telling you a little bit about our immigration system, the problems with our immigration system, what's going on with illegal immigration? part of why that happens in some solutions that have been offered to fix our immigration system. You have probably heard several times from both Democrats and Republicans that our immigration system is broken. Now, both sides kind of have different perspectives and different definitions of what that brokenness actually is and how to fix it. But there's pretty much a consensus that

our immigration system, as it is right now, is not working. And I don't know about you, but I've been wondering for a while, well, what do people mean? What do people mean when they say that our immigration system is broken? So I dug into that to see what people are talking about when they talk about this brokenness. But I kind of want to back up, of course, and give us a little bit of context, as I always do. You've heard Donald Trump talk about the wall. You've been hearing rhetoric lately in the past couple of years about kids in cages. But this debate really has been happening for, several decades. Almost every president, Republican, Democrat, since at least, at the very least, the 1980s has something to say or has had something to say about illegal immigration and how it needs to be solved. Yes, even Barack Obama 2009. And then I think again, as recently as 2013, I've seen a clip circulate stating that we need to rein in illegal immigration. We need to figure it out. We need to make sure that this isn't happening at the rampant levels that it is happening right now. A lot of Democrats actually called Barack Obama the deporter in chief. Now, they kind of said

this under their breaths. This wasn't like a nickname that he had in the media, but he was known for deporting a lot of illegal immigrants and illegal immigrant criminals. Also, the whole kids in cages thing that you have heard about so much over the past year or so in regards to President Trump was happening under Barack Obama. So all of a lot of the problems that we see right now have been happening for a while and have been discussed for a while on both sides of the aisle. These problems have existed and have several different reasons why they have persisted for so long, and that's kind of what we are going to get into. It is, it might be partly Trump's fault. I'm not going to say that the president of the United States doesn't take any blame whatsoever, but this

narrative that you've been hearing that this is all new, that these problems are new, that they've arisen under the Trump administration and that it's his fault for enacting draconian laws against illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. That is just not true. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's an important topic for conservatives, of course, to know about and to be thinking about, but especially conservative Christians, because this is a topic that is going to be brought up to you by people on the other side of the aisle who say, how can you support Republicans or how can you be a conservative when they're the ones that are treating immigrants so badly? How can you not be more compassionate towards immigrants? How can you turn people away who are fleeing crime? Well,

the reality is much more complex, but we have to dig a little bit deeper to really understand that complexity. So we'll look at the facts and then we'll discuss what we need to think of this stuff. from a conservative perspective or just from really not even a conservative perspective, but in light of the facts, what we can make of all of this and the solutions that actually need to be enacted. So immigration is one of the things. Now, this is not a bipartisan statement. Immigration is one of the things that makes America unique. You hear that more from the left than the right, but the fact of the matter is, it's true. Immigration does make America unique. When the first English settlers landed in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. We were then a land of foreigners,

just a few foreigners, but we became a colony, not a colony, but a land of foreigners at that point. That's not the only thing or the primary thing that has made us unique, of course, but it is one of the things. It's not just, though, that we are diverse, that we are a land of foreigners, that we come from all kinds or all nations. We are people of all different national. it is that in our diverse culture and in our diverse nationality that America represents, we are and should be united in desire, united in values, and united in purpose. That was really the vision for the United States that the settlers and the founders had, that yes, we would be a land that welcomes immigrants, welcomes people no matter where they come from, but that we would be

united and purpose and vision and values. This is an idea that is so ingrained into our society that during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison stated this, that his wish was for the United States to invite foreigners of merit and Republican principles among us. America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. And that's absolutely true. The idea that people of all different backgrounds could build a country not based on their original nationality or their ethnicity or their lineage or the color of their skin, whatever, but on shared values was really radical at the time. It was new.

There was virtually no other country in the world that was doing the same thing that was seeking to build a republic based on ideas rather than based on the supremacy or the unity of a particular kind of people. it was on an idea. And this is why the founders made sure to explicitly state in the Declaration of Independence that this is a country that recognizes that all men are created equal, given certain inalienable rights by the same creator that among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Now, we know, of course, that this idea has been very imperfectly implemented throughout America's history, even by the founders themselves. but that does not change the fact that it was a good, a true, and a revolutionary idea. So revolutionary that it actually sparked a literal revolution in which blood was shed for the sake of it, for the sake of the liberty to seek opportunity to speak and to worship according to individual conscience rather than according to the will of a monarchical tyrant. It was, it might be monarchical. Is it monarchical?

Is it monarchical? I'm not exactly sure, but you guys know what I'm talking about under the tyrannical rule of a monarch. I'll say that. It was this pursuit that united foreigners of all backgrounds who came to our shores. Today, there is this idea, particularly on the left. You hear this a lot, that diversity is our strength. You hear people also say that our country is a country of immigrants. But both of these assertions, when left,

by themselves get it wrong, at least partly. So first of all, diversity of nationality, of ethnicity, of belief systems, et cetera, is only strength. It is only our strength when these diverse groups are united together in values and in purpose. Then diversity really is a strength, offering a variety of perspectives from different walks of life. But when it's just diversity, when diversity leads to tribal. where the tribe that you belong to according to your skin color or nationality or whatever it is has its own

set of competing values and interests, values and interests that are opposed to the values and interests of the whole country, then that diversity is not strength. Then diversity is actually weakness. It's actually division. It is chaos. It is polarization.

It is anarchy. This is why I always take a second to clarify when someone says they value diversity or prioritize diversity. in their organization or in their church or in their business. It's such an easy thing to say. It makes us sound good. It makes us sound righteous or inclusive or woke or kind. But the question that should be asked when you hear someone say that is why? Is it because you value different

perspectives united behind a singular purpose or set of values? Okay, that's great. So do I. I think that in that case, it can be important. But often I find that people say that they value diversity, just because they think that having people with a different skin color makes them seem like better people themselves. Superficial diversity has very little, if any, value at all. But a diversity of perspectives united towards a shared goal or a value system, that is very beneficial. And that is what America was meant to be. Now, second, when people say, and again, this is typically on the left that we are a nation of immigrants. Yes, we are. But that is, it's not that characteristic that makes us unique, primarily. What makes us unique is that we were founded on the idea that men and women

of all backgrounds, all nationalities were created in the image of God and therefore should have the freedom to pursue opportunity as they see fit and should be given the privilege or given the right the founders believed to self-governance. That is what makes America unique and great. Immigration of people who do not share the values of liberty, of equality, injustice, a respect for the United States, a respect for our laws and our values, do not actually strengthen our country. So it is overly simplistic and incorrect to say that we are a nation of immigrants, period.

And no, we are or we should be a nation of immigrants who share common cause for freedom, who share the same basic fundamental values. That doesn't mean that we have to agree on everything. That doesn't mean our politics are going to be the same. One of the values that we have is free speech and is the freedom of debate to exchange ideas. That doesn't mean we have to agree. But one of the values that we have is free speech because one of the most basic values that we have is freedom. We need to at least be able to agree on those things, including when we're

talking about immigration. You've probably heard the lines of the poem that was added to the base of the Statue of Liberty many years. It was years after the statue was actually unveiled. This has been recited on cable news. Again, usually by Democrats or members on the left. It is a poem by Emma Lazarus in it's called The New Colossus. So, These are the lines that are typically recited. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these the homeless tempest toss to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door. We've heard Jim Acosta and others use this line as pushback against the Trump administration who draws a hard line or is trying to draw a hard line on illegal immigration. It's really unfortunate that it's been misused and really exploited in this way because these are beautiful, true lines that I believe do speak to the heart of America,

who is a country who is, despite our many flaws, the most compassionate, the most welcoming country in the history of the world. We accept millions of immigrants every year. Any list that you look at online that says, you know, what is the most welcoming country for immigrants or who accepts the most immigrants every year? It's going to be us. We also welcome thousands of asylum seekers. Pew Research has America at the number one country or the country that accepts most immigrants every year. That's amazing. When you look at that and you hear people still say that we are an unwellcoming racist or white supremacist country, we accept more immigrants than anyone else in the entire world. And we are the greatest economic superpower in the entire world. We are also not even

the largest country in the entire world. And yet, we continue to add people in, not out of, and you'll see this in a little bit, not out of getting any economic benefit from it, but truly, simply from a place of we want to, simply from a place of being generous. It's amazing that someone could still accuse America of collectively being xenophobic in light of that statistic. we have offered protection and amnesty to millions, millions of immigrants who came here illegally, thus showing no respect for the rule of law. America would have been perfectly justified and is perfectly justified to deport all illegal immigrants.

They are illegal. They did break the law. But instead, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration granted millions of illegal immigrants amnesty rather than telling them to leave or making them leave. We are abundantly, I think too much so, and we'll get to that, abundantly gracious towards people who cross our borders illegally for the most part. And we are, and this part is good, we are gracious towards outsiders. The author of the poem that I was reading that is now at the base of the Statue of Liberty, she would not have intended for her poem to be used as the justification for open borders. orders or justification for loose illegal immigration laws. That's not what this poem is about. And I think it's very disrespectful to the immigrants and the true asylum seekers and the true refugees that have come to America for freedom legally. Americans who were present at the reading of this poem,

and Americans who were alive at the inscription of this poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty would have never construed these lines to me that we should let everyone in, no matter. matter what, foregoing borders and the sovereignty of our country, which is, and we will get to, essentially, what Democrats are, are desiring. That line of thinking would have been so incredibly offensive to the men and women who themselves or whose parents came to America at that time to make something of themselves, who adopted the American dream and followed American laws. They would have never accepted the idea that anyone, no matter what, especially especially anyone who has animus towards our country and its values should be allowed in without

discretion. Never. So understand that yes, we are a nation of immigrants, which is unique and can offer a wonderful richness to any country when this diversity is united in values and united in purpose, but we are not and should not be a nation of illegal immigrants. And the immigration that we do have should be limited to those who want to be here because they have respect for American values of liberty, of tolerance, of equality, and of hard work. That is what the founders meant when they envisioned a nation of immigrants. That is the heart of the poem added to the base of the Statue of Liberty. But the left and the right do not agree on this anymore.

This is somehow to the left become a racial issue where they believe that, those who think laws should be enforced at the border or who believe that illegal immigration should be punished and immigration should be merit-based are white supremacists. That's what they're purporting. This didn't used to be the case. Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, even Bernie Sanders at one point spoke out about the dangers of illegal immigrants or illegal immigration and the importance of stopping or at least limiting the entry of illegal immigrants. So now we are totally unable, because it's become this crazy racial, emotional issue, we are totally unable to have a logical conversation about it.

Because anyone who stands for any kind of border security is not just wrong, but they're bad. They're a racist. They're some imperialist, colonialist person who wants children to die. So a little bit, though, let's just take a step back from all of that ridiculous hyperbolic rhetoric that has no grounding in reality whatsoever. And let's just look at the facts of the United States current border policy. So the law governing current immigration policy is the Immigration and Nationalization Act.

INA. The policy allows for an annual 675,000 permanent immigrants with certain exceptions for close family members. Congress and the president determine a separate number for refugee admissions every year. According to the American Immigration Council, our immigration policy is based on these principles, the reunification of families, admitting immigrants with skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy, protecting refugees, and promoting diversity. And we can see that in the Immigration Act of 1990 that was signed into law by George H.W. Bush, which was very monumental, that did the following. It created a family-based immigration visa. It created five distinct employment-based visas.

It categorized by, that were categorized by occupation and a diversity visa program. that created a lottery to admit immigrants from low admittance countries. And it's the last point that a lot of people, conservatives, at least have a problem with, this visa lottery system and the priority of promoting diversity for no other reason than to just promote blanket diversity. The visa lottery system is run by the State Department. It makes available about 50,000 immigrant visas annually and aims to diversify the immigrant population in the United States.

It selects applicants from countries with low numbers of immigrants in the previous five years. As of 2017, around 20 million people apply for the lottery every year. 20 million people, that's crazy. A lot of people find this to be contradictory. A lot of conservatives find this to be contradictory to the founder's vision of immigration, which was, as we already talked about, one that was based on values and merit. Why does it matter? A lot of people ask, why does it matter what country,

someone comes from? Why does it matter that we get more immigrants from India than Ethiopia? Why should someone who loves America, no matter where they're from and has skills to offer be denied so that the country, our country can meet a quota for diversity. It doesn't make any sense. Now, that said, this makes up a really small percentage of people who are granted permanent citizenship. And of course, this is not the only problem that conservatives are concerned with when it comes to immigration, but this is one of them. So besides those who are granted visas from the visa lottery system, America also has family reunification-based immigration.

Those who qualify for this include spouses of citizens or green card holders, unmarried minor children of green card holders, and parents of green card holders or citizens and parents of citizens for people under the age of 21. There are a lot, as you can already tell. are a lot of people who qualify for this kind of immigration. You've also got employment-based immigration where certain immigrants may be prioritized for the skills they offer. If an immigrant is applying for a temporary work visa, he or she has to be sponsored by a

United States-based employer that will petition on their behalf. The United States limits the amount of permanent or the number of permanent employment-based immigrants to 140,000 per year. And that number also includes families of the employee. And then, of course, we also accept refugees and asylum seekers. Those two things are different. Refugees are defined as people who are admitted to the United States based on an inability to return to their home, to their home countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, their membership at a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin. Admission for refugees is based off various factors from the risk they face to the amount of people at risk in their specifically targeted group.

the president consults Congress and they determine the number of refugees that they are going to accept every year. Asylum seekers, that's a little bit different. An asylum seeker is similar to refugee status in that the visa status is granted off a fear of harm from where they come from, but they can apply at any point of entry at any time that they seek admission. There's no limit on the number of individuals who may be granted an asylum status. Being granted asylum, though, is really not easy to do. It's not easy to accomplish. It's a process that a lot of times takes many years, and it usually involves some kind of detainment while this process is going on. It requires interviews. It requires documentation of the immigrants' prior suffering, and the odds just aren't really

great that you will be granted asylum status. There's just a lot that has to go into that. But both refugees and asylum seekers are available to be. become lawful permanent residents one year after admission to the United States. And we do admit a lot. It might be a difficult process for some of them, but we do admit a lot. There's also a temporary protected status given to migrants, immigrants who enter the U.S. and are in danger if they return to their home due to a national disaster or war. And then, of course, immigrants have the ability to become U.S. citizens. So if someone has LPR status, a green card for at least five years,

it's lawful permanent resident status. So a green card for at least five years, then they can qualify for consideration for citizenship. Now, there are exceptions to this five-year rule if you are serving in the U.S. military, for example. So people who apply for U.S. citizenship have to be 18 years old. They have to demonstrate continuous residency. They have to demonstrate good moral character.

Of course, that's pretty subjective. they have to pass English and U.S. history and civics exams with certain exceptions to that. And they have to pay an application fee among other requirements. So the vast majority of immigrants in the United States, despite maybe what you've heard, are here legally. There are millions of immigrants here illegally, but most immigrants in the United States are here legally. A lot of people say that the reason why we do still have so many people here illegally, millions and millions is because our legal system of immigration is inefficient and insufficient and ineffective. That's not completely true. That's not the only reason why we have so much illegal immigration, but it is partly to blame for sure. There's no question about that. So you've

probably heard it said from both sides of the aisle, as we already addressed at the top, that our immigration system is broken. Republicans and Democrats look at that a little bit differently, but here, here's the reality of our immigration system. This is according to the Department of Homeland Security. In 2016, the United States granted nearly 1.2 million individuals' legal permanent residency. That's a lot. More than two thirds of these, more than two thirds of these 1.2 million people were admitted based on family reunification. So the vast majority of people who are granted this permanent residency status are family members of people who were already here.

This is what people mean when they say chain migration or the problem of chain migration. So our current system is so bogged down by the acceptance of people through family reunification, which we already covered who that includes. That's a pretty wide circle of people that that includes for the person who is already here. It's so bogged down because these people, these family members are prioritized over people who were highly skilled. In 2017, there were more than four million. applicants on the State Department's waiting list for immigrant visas because of this bogged down system. So even though the emphasis on the family sounds like a good thing, and in some ways it is,

it also leaves a lot of other people in a really long, really extensive waiting period. It also limits those who may want to come to the United States off the basis of their own merit. In fact, it does do this a lot. So for example, if you were a single, a single person, person living in Australia. You got your, you got your degree from the University of Australia. You are highly skilled. You want to come to the United States. You want to immigrate to the United States. You want a new start. You get approved for a temporary work visa and are in the States for several years. And then you hope to become a citizen. Now, imagine that there is an immigrant in the United States who wants his family to come over from wherever he's from. Say that he wants to bring his dad over.

say his dad has no skills whatsoever and won't be supported by his son, but he wants to come to America anyway, to be close to his son in our current system. That dad of a permanent resident over here, even after the relatives of the father who, even after that, the relatives of that father who is now in the United States, they all have a higher likelihood of being allowed into the United States than you do, a single person with credentials and with skills. So that, is the state of our current system. Another reason why an immigrant who has high skills might be held up is the limit that countries have on receiving green cards. So immigrants from countries with a large number of applicants often wait for years to receive a green card because a single country can

account for no more than 7% of all green cards issued annually. That's a rule that we have. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, this is one of the biggest reasons why our system hasn't been able to keep up with the changing world economy. We have hundreds of unfilled jobs that could easily be filled with very qualified people, very qualified immigrants, but our system welcomes some immigrants who are not highly skilled while blocking the entry of others with higher skills. So it's disorganized. It's a delayed process.

It can lead to more illegal immigration for people who maybe wouldn't have sought these pathways but feel like it's just too complicated and it's just going to take too long. There is no global right to migration. Like we just need to make that clear. A country has a right to sovereignty. There is no right for a person to migrate to a company or to a company to a country. And so a country has its own right to manage who crosses its borders that is central to a state's sovereignty.

A lot of people believe that if we created, a more efficient process for legal immigration, it would lessen the amount of illegal immigrants coming into our country. And then we're also dealing with what feels like an overflow of asylum seekers. The mass migration of thousands of people from Central America this past year, because of that, our asylum process has been completely flooded with the scope of asylum seekers. The Trump administration really did, whether you like them or not, they really did everything they could to fix this or to make sure that this didn't happen. They even tried to discourage potential asylum seekers, which I know sounds like it lacks compassion. But when your system is so overwhelmed and so bogged down that you can't help the people that have already applied and who really need it, you've got to do something to disincentivize more people from coming.

The immigration courts are currently faced with the backlog of 850,000 cases of those seeking asylum. So when people say, well, we should just accept people, we can't turn anyone away. What's the problem? Why is Donald Trump disincentivizing these asylum seekers? Well, we already have 850,000 cases that are currently being dealt with. Like, can you even wrap your mind around that? I cannot. And so it is about being able to.

to focus on the people who have already applied for help and being able to do so effectively. We are finite human beings. That means that finite human beings make up our systems, which make our systems finite. And so we can't just infinitely take people no matter what. We have to deal with the problems that we have at hand. A lot of applicants, asylum applicants, are waiting up to five years to have their cases heard. That's a big deal if you are fleeing from harm. are fleeing from danger. And in order to do this in any kind of organized or systematic way, we have to be able to limit the people who are applying. We just do. According to the White House, 100,000 immigrants began asylum proceedings last year. That is a record high, 100,000.

Asylum denials also hit a record high last year's immigration judges rejected 65% of asylum claims. But that means they still accepted a large percentage of asylum. claims. And so again, this might sound heartless or callous, but it's not about turning people away. It's the necessity of turning people away so we can effectively help the people who most need it. That's just necessary. Asylum seekers showed up to their court dates about 89% of the time in the fiscal year ending in September 30th, 2017. So that's a pretty high percentage. A lot of the policies that aim to reduce unlawful immigration, focus on enforced border security. But the reality is people who arrive in the United States legally and then overstay their visas,

making them then illegal, they actually make up a really high percentage, a really significant portion of the illegal population in the United States. And so it's not wrong for us to want to secure the border. But the reality is that's a whole other problem that people are overseeing their visas. This is according to the Heritage Foundation. Illegal immigrants today are mostly coming from South America. And they're usually families or partial families or claiming to be families. Anyway, oh, that was it, sorry, that wasn't a quote.

That was actually my notes. So I don't want to miss quote the Heritage Foundation. This is from the Heritage Foundation. When they are stopped or caught, all are given court dates and then released into the U.S. Most fail to show up to their court hearings. They just stay and hope that. the system never catches up with them. Almost inevitably, it doesn't. Of those caught entering the country illegally in fiscal year 2017, either as family units or unaccompanied minors, 98% remain in the

U.S. today. Of those who pass a credible fear hearing and are released, 40% never file for asylum. So the courts are overwhelmed. And the whole catch and release, you hear a lot of people talk about catch and release. That's what they're talking about. That's the problem. You detain people because they came illegally. They apply for asylum. They have to show up for a court date. Or they don't apply for asylum. They still have to show up for a court date.

They're released into the United States. And they never show up. And they just hope that they're able to survive here illegally and the system never catches them and deports them. And for a lot of people, it works. So that's what people are talking about with the corruption of catch and release and why we have such a broken system. The courts are overwhelmed.

Our border patrol agents are overwhelmed too. agents are actually quitting their jobs at record high at a record high because they just can't deal with it anymore. They're not getting properly supported. There are too many people trying to get in and they've really hit a breaking point. And this isn't just because of mass migration due to poverty, due to corruption in Central American Mexico, but it's also because of our terrible systems and backlogged systems of being able to process these people. They're overwhelmed, which has led us to detaining these immigrants and keeping them in facilities that really weren't made to be able to keep them there for the amount of times that they have to.

So when you read about these kids in cages, which are really kids sleeping inside, like these chain-linked fenced cubicles, if you've ever seen it, understand that this is not happening because Trump is cruel and wants to mistreat these kids. that doesn't help anyone. Like that wouldn't help. Who does that benefit? That doesn't benefit anyone. I mean, Trump knows that people are going to find out about that.

Why would he do that deliberate? It doesn't even make political sense, even if you were to say that Trump is a completely callous person who is an idiot. Even if that's your position, it wouldn't make any sense even politically for him to say, well, I'm going to deliberately mistreat these kids and put kids in cages. No, not at all. The exact same thing, the whole kids in cages rhetoric that you're, you're hearing the exact same thing happened under Obama. This was originally reported in 2014.

Most of the media said nothing about it. If you remember, there was a picture of these kids in so-called cages that went viral on Twitter, people saying, oh my gosh, this is the Trump administration. Well, that picture was actually from the time of the Obama administration. And so just remember that when you're hearing that kind of conversation going on. My parents have been to the border. They've visited these facilities. They have talked to the agents. They've talked to officials there. There are a lot of detention centers that are awesome, that are great, that are top notch, that offer schooling for the kids that are there. Other centers just don't have as many resources. But the border agents work, from what we know, they work unbelievably hard to make sure that these people are being taken care of.

You hear these horrible, tragic stories about kids dying at the border. And that's horrific. Our hearts should breakover that, but that is not due to the deliberate neglect of the agents. They would lose their job over that. Maybe in, you know, one-off cases that we don't know of, of course, there are bad apples everywhere and bad situations and negligence that happens everywhere. So I'm not saying that's completely impossible. But by and large, it's not because of deliberate negligence. When you dig deeper past these headlines, that the media really truly takes evil, great joy in reporting and you realize that these kids have just made a long track forced by their parents without food or water and have perhaps a suffered abuse along the way you realize that this

really isn't the fault of border patrol and that they're probably in the vast majority of cases doing the best work that they can. In addition to the long track that these kids are being forced to make a large percentage of girls who make this journey are raped. It is not safe. It is not safe for anyone. Now, I'm not saying that these people and especially these parents don't have good reason to try. I know that they're fleeing very real problems, but the sickness and the death of these kids in the care of Border Patrol, things that should break our hearts, by the way, are not because Border Patrol isn't doing everything that they can to help. That is their job. That is what they do. They help these families as much as they can while protecting our borders. And they are

overwhelmed. They don't have enough manpower. They don't have enough resources. They don't have enough room. They can't do all of the work that they're supposed to do to take care of these people sufficiently because they are overwhelmed. You'll also hear a lot that everyone at the southern border is an asylum seeker. That's not true, as we've already gone over. There are legal points, ports of entry or points of entry to where people can file for asylum. The problem is, according to the Heritage Foundation that the number trying to claim asylum also has been rising steadily. It's now commonplace for those who are apprehended crossing illegally to then, and then they're denied entry, of course, to then apply for asylum. So not everyone there truly is applying for asylum.

Yes, they're coming here for a better life. That doesn't qualify you as a refugee or an asylum seeker. Everyone who comes to America is coming for a better life and no one has a right to come to the country. No one does. So don't listen to the people who say that conservatives, Republicans, Donald Trump, don't care about immigrants, don't care about people at the border, that what's happening there is like the Holocaust. The people who are saying that have never been there, and I guarantee you, they don't know anyone who has actually been there. They are lying to you. They are exaggerating for the purpose of politics. They are using this as a weapon. And the fact of the matter is they think that a lot of them think not all of them but the aoCs the rashita talibs the

ilhan omars they think that we should have open borders ilhan omar has specifically called for this uh democrats will continue to uh this is what they say this is what they say democrats will continue to work towards comprehensive immigration reform that fixes our nation's broken immigration system improves border security prioritizes enforcement so we are targeting criminals not families keeps families together and strengthen to our economy. Yeah, that sounds great. But in recent years, have Democrats laid out any policy positions, any clear policy proposals whatsoever other than just saying that Donald Trump is mean? Have they offered any solutions whatsoever to this? I haven't heard it. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi stated that a wall on the U.S. southern border is an immorality. So I don't really

understand how that qualifies is them offering solutions to improve on border security, something they say is a priority for them. Okay, if a wall is an immorality, are borders an immorality? Why is a wall more of an immorality than a fence than anything else? It's just more effective. Is it more immoral because it's more effective? So you're saying that we shouldn't be keeping illegal immigrants out? Isn't it more compassionate to disincentivize a journey that we know is dangerous? I just don't understand it. Of course, Stacey Abrams, Democratic up-and-comer who lost the governorship in Georgia. Georgia. She gave that a state of the union address, 2019. She said that she's actually not opposed

to illegal immigrants voting in local elections. This year, Bill de Blasio, he is a candidate for the president of the United States. He announced his plan to give 300,000 illegal immigrants in New York City access to free health care, which of course is going to cost taxpayers, a lot of money. and then you've got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She recently voted against a bill to reopen the government because it funded immigration and customs enforcement or ICE. She has compared ICE, I'm pretty sure, to Nazis, calling them inhumane. I'm pretty sure that she made that comparison.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but she, of course, has opposed ICE as if ICE deporting criminals or helping to deport criminals is somehow evil and not actually a contribution to the common good. And then of course, you've got the danger of illegal immigrant crimes criminals and crime rings. MS-13, this is according to the Washington Post, has about 50,000 to 70,000 members, most concentrated in El Salvador, Guatemala, in Honduras, known as the Central American Northern Triangle. And Central America and South America is where the majority of illegal immigrants are now coming from. And this is where MS-13 really has its hotbed. According to 2000, FBI statistics, the latest official estimates. The United States has about 8,000 to 10,000

MS-13 members. This was a story back in May in town hall that was written by Katie Pavlach. She said two illegal aliens who came to the United States in 2015 as part of a, quote, family unit. So there's that phrase that we were talking about earlier. There's that idea that we were talking about earlier. And the other accompanied, unaccompanied at 2016, were released by the Prince George's County Police Department that's in Baltimore after being charged with attempted first-degree murder and other crimes. Upon release, they killed 14-year-old girl Ariana Funez Diaz and dumped her body in a creek. Prince George's County, which contains Baltimore, is a sanctuary for illegal aliens. Both are members, these murders of the extremely violent gang MS-13. I mean, the

stories that you hear about MS-13, just how brutal they are in their murders and how heartless and ruthless they are, and they are often finding refuge in these sanctuary cities who refuse to comply with ICE, who don't want illegal immigrants deported. Why? Because of all that stuff we talk about so much intersectionality, seeing the world through the lens of the oppressed versus oppressor, we're not allowed to say that some illegal immigrants are criminals and we're not allowed to deport them. These sanctuary cities are sources of danger many times. And if it wasn't for the sanctuary city. If it wasn't for our terrible immigration laws that allowed these two people to come into our country, Ariana, this 14-year-old girl who was murdered, would still be alive. So don't tell me that

illegal immigration and allowing everyone in who wants to come in is compassionate. It's clearly not. I would love for you to tell that to the parents of this girl who was killed. Democrats have offered nothing since Trump has become president in the way of suggestions for immigration reform, absolutely nothing. Look, they know that this is a hot button issue that is going to get Christian suburban moms who want to be woke all in a tizzy and who will probably vote for them based on this terrible erroneous idea that doing so is technically under the umbrella of being pro-life. So here's a couple of things about the Democratic position on the border. They had no problem with deportations, with kids and so-called cages under Obama. They only

care now because they don't like Donald Trump and it's convenient for them to then position themselves as the compassionate party. They probably realize that these people are going to eventually be able to vote and they're probably going to vote for them. And since Democrats are aborting all of their children, they'd probably like some new voters. And speaking of abortion, they realize that this, that the whole kids in cages rhetoric that they've been perpetuating, this is their humanitarian issue. So while conservatives can point to Democrats as the people who condone killing babies. Democrats can point to conservatives where they think they can as the ones who put kids in cages and who hates everyone at the border and who racist, white supremacists. Well,

the problem is Democrats really are the ones who condone and glorify killing unborn children, but conservatives aren't actually condoning or glorifying any kind of cruel treatment of immigrants. So one accusation from conservatives to liberals is correct. The accusation going the other direction is not at all. So in May, Trump revealed a plan to help the immigration system and to fix some of these problems. So this is, according to the White House, the steps of his plan. One, fully securing the border. The plan would create a permanent self-sustaining border security fund. This fund would help the completion of the barrier construction and strategic locations and combat visa overstays through legal and infrastructural enhancement. So he's tackling two problems there or attempting to. He is saying that we're going to secure

the border. So we have fewer illegal crossings, but we're also going to take care of visa overstays, which, like we said, account for the large majority of illegal immigrants in the country. Second thing, restore integrity to America's exploited asylum process, help seal the loopholes and the immigration laws that drive the flood of people coming into the U.S., as well as the human smuggling that is occurring at our southern border. Third thing, modernize the legal immigration process to protect American workers. So the president, hopes to develop a point-based merit system that increases the number of legal immigrants selected on skill rather than from family or visa lottery status. So that's a part of the huge problem that we were talking about,

that two-thirds of people who are granted permanent legal status are from these families, are because of chain migration and they're taking priority over-skilled workers. So this would help solve that. Promote national unity. The president's plan hopes to attract, people who want to come to the United States to integrate into our melting pot to assimilate. So to do this, applicants have to pass a U.S. civics exam, demonstrate English proficiency. Now, we kind of already have this. It also pulls in a focus to younger people so that they can be here longer. So the next thing is prioritize the immediate families of U.S. citizens and new immigrants.

This would be a shift to just spouses and children rather than the extended family problem that we're having right now. And then the last thing is to increase diversity and equality. And here's what he means by that, though. He's calling this the Build America visa. So this visa would be awarded on a point-based criteria, one that prizes extraordinary achievement and potential to contribute to our nation to determine who should be issued a green card for permanent residents in the United States.

And so this is a little bit different than the diversity and equality of George H.W. Bush's 1990 act, for example. This is based on merit, actually, and not just country of origin, which, like we said, doesn't necessarily in and of itself add value without any merit or shared purpose or value system. So after the release of Trump's new plan, he said many of the Democrats have claimed to be for these concepts at different times in their careers and in many cases in very recent history. This is true. And I hope that they will end up joining me and all of the people gathered together today and putting politics aside, putting security and wages first, and pursuing these historic reforms. He's absolutely right in saying that. There has not been

substantial immigration reform passed more than 50 years. President Obama took a lot of different actions to provide temporary legal relief to illegal immigrants. In 2012, his administration passed the deferred action for childhood arrivals. That is DACA or DACA, depending on how you pronounced it that offered renewable two-year deportation deferrals, so protection from deportation and work permits to illegal immigrants who had arrived to the United States as children and had no criminal records. Obama's hope was that this would be a stopgap measure and only be for a short amount of time until some kind of law could actually be passed. A lot of people called this unconstitutional. It was very controversial. More than 800,000, this is as of 2018, more than 800,000. More than 800,000.

had taken advantage of DACA and that's still something that is ongoing. And so that is, we've had a long, we've had a long podcast episode this time because there's so much to talk about when it comes to immigration. But I hope I gave you a good idea of what is actually going on. There's so much more that we could talk about. We could talk about the ins and outs of sanctuary cities. We could talk about illegal immigrant crime versus non-illegal immigrant crime. versus just citizen crime and what all of that means. We could go back and forth on the rhetoric that we're hearing, what's true and what's not.

But I wanted to give you a primer on all of this to clear up some confusion that maybe you had so that maybe it just piques your interest and you can look more into this. Of course, if you have any feedback for me, let me know. If you have any questions or corrections, let me know, Alley, the conservative millennial blog.com.

If you are enjoying these podcast episodes at all, please give me a five-star review on iTunes. That would mean a lot to me. And I will see you guys soon.