Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Immigration Works

Episode Date: March 30, 2019

Immigration systems regulate the flow of foreign immigrants into any given country. But why is immigration such a controversial topic, especially in the United States? In this episode, Josh and Chuck delve into the details and debate behind immigration. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello there, it's me, Josh, and for this week's S-Y-S-K Selects, I've chosen our classic episode, How Immigration Works, because I feel like we could all brush up on the nuts and bolts and the reasons why of immigration.

Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HouseTuffWorks.com. ["How Immigration Works"] Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, seated across from me. As always, as it should be, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hi.

And that makes the stuff you should know, the podcast, the dream, the legend. Yeah. The classic podcast, classic audio. Yeah, look at us, yeah. We were called pioneers before on iTunes, do you remember that? In year one?

We were like the Milton Burl of podcasts. And now we're already classics. I wonder next year, it'll be on the way out. So you're just die already. Has been. I think that's what it'll be called. Well, you're referring to, we were named the number seven podcast of the year

in the classics category. We were. The head of, or behind Ira Glass. Well, as always. You know, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't feel comfortable being head of Ira Glass, you know? I just feel like I'm walking around with a big target on my back or something.

Well, no one does. No one is. No, he stands alone. So Chuck. Yes. We should probably mention, while we're at the top of the podcast, Facebook, stuff you should know on Facebook,

come join us, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, give yourself a little Christmas treat. Yeah, and on Twitter. Follow Josh's Twitter feed. S-Y-S-K podcast. Yeah, but you run the show there for the most part. You do a good job of filling in the blanks, buddy. Rarely, but thank you.

Chuck, Josh. Hey, have you ever heard of the DREAM Act? I have. As of, I mean, not as of today, but today, big news. Yes, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Miners Act, which is basically like S-Chip for illegal immigrant kids, but without the health care.

Right. Yeah, yeah. It was passed in the house today by a vote of 216 to 198, and that's kind of a big deal. It moves on to the Senate. Well, let's get a little hinky, because the Senate may kill this thing. Oh, yeah?

Well, I mean, this is like breaking news, so who knows what's gonna happen in the next hour after we record, but that's the word on the street. Wow. But basically, this act provides a path to citizenship for kids who were brought to the United States as illegal immigrants, and have grown up here. Well, yeah, and who qualify in certain ways,

like they've been here five years, they've obtained a high school diploma, or a GED, and demonstrate a good moral character, so they're not just willy-nilly hand-announced citizenship. No, and if you're a little kid right now, and you were brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, go start volunteering at nursing homes that can only help your kids.

I would imagine so. And the nursing home people will enjoy it as well. Well, this one guy they mentioned in here quickly, Cesar Vargas is, of course, they pick out like the one shining star as their example, but he's gonna graduate law school with a 3.8 GPA and wants to serve in the U.S. military, and potentially this is blocked,

he won't be allowed to do so. No, which is, you know, it's kind of sad. We need willing and able bodies, smart guys and gals, hard workers. We do need them, and actually, most of our immigration laws, as I understand from researching this article, are kind of structured around the economy. Yeah.

Like, are the order of preference for the types of immigrants that we give visas to, are kind of like, how's your back? Right, right. You know, you're feeling strong? Come on in. Yeah, well, they did say that the Dream Act, the Congressional Budget Office said it would actually

cut the federal deficit by $1.4 billion. Yeah, how? And increase revenues. I would guess by adding- Oh, taxes. People, taxes and people to the workforce. Gotcha. Will increase revenues.

That's what they say at least over a decade. And that's with offering them tuition, in-state tuition to college, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty big. Okay, Chuck, let's talk immigration, shall we? Yeah, this is way more dense than I thought it was gonna be. It is really dense.

I knew it was gonna be sort of complicated because becoming a citizen is sort of complicated, but I didn't know there were so many ways to do so. We should say, spoiler alert here, naturalization isn't even in this podcast, and it's that dense. Yeah, I wondered about that. There's no citizenship classes, there's no nothing.

The word green card doesn't appear in here either. Uh-uh. Just immigration. That is correct, my friend. Remember happiness, one of the characters was an immigration naturalization teacher? That's your favorite movie ever. I love that movie.

Well, Chuck, let's start at the beginning. Okay. Back in the 1770s, there was a guy named Samuel Ellis, and he owned a little island in New York Harbor. Yeah. It was very important in 1812. Yeah. It was an important defensive position.

After the British left, we said, you know what, let's just use this to immigrate people. Let's just funnel them through here, build up a nice little building, and change everybody's names. And that was Ellis Island. Yep, and from 1892 to 1954, dude, 12 million immigrants passed through that tiny little island,

and 40% of our population in this country can be traced back to an immigrant from Ellis Island. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, and I think without slanting anything or leaning one way or the other, I think it behooves all of us, while we're listening to this podcast,

to kind of bear that in mind. Maybe your relatives were immigrants at one point. Yeah. Yeah. So Chuck, let's talk immigration. How do you do this? Let's talk legal immigration first. Yeah, well, we should point out beforehand though,

when you said that we should bear in mind that a lot of our ancestors were immigrants, there are nativists that believe that like, you shouldn't let any people into the country anymore. Right, and those aren't to be confused with Native Americans, who are actually the ones who were here originally. Big difference.

These are people who are descended from immigrants who are saying that we shouldn't let anybody in the country. Yeah, but I would encourage any nativist to attend a naturalization ceremony. That's all I'm gonna say. I've been to one. Have you really?

Yeah, I worked on a little documentary on Jane Seymour's naturalization. What? Dr. Quinn, medicine woman. Oh, she was naturalized. I thought she made a documentary called naturalization. No, no, no, she was naturalized and they hired a camera crew to follow her around

and I worked on that. And I went to a ceremony in Los Angeles and it was, it's easy to get down on this country when you hear about dosing citizens with LSD and other hinky science human experimentation and stuff. But you go to one of these things and it's a genuine reminder and I don't get hokey like this much

but I was misty-eyed for sure. Yeah. I mean, an auditorium full of people at the Congress, Congress Center? What's it called in the LA? Staple Center. No, it wasn't the Staple Center. The Hollywood Bowl.

Yeah, so the Hollywood Bowl. Jerry Zucker's house. But all these kids and adults just, you could just see it on their faces. They were so happy to be citizens of the U.S. and took, you know, said the allegiance and it was really, really cool. Yeah, you're like, those people know more about civics

than the average person who is born here right now. Darn straight. All right, so let's go ahead. Jane Seymour, class act, Chuck. And before we move on, one of Dave Letterman's top 10 signs, you're in a bad fraternity. Every Saturday night is Dr. Quinn medicine woman night. Is that for real?

That's good. So Chuck, you done? You ready to actually talk about legal immigration? That's my mini rant against people that say close up shop. I like your rants. They're very non-offensive. Thank you. There are a few agencies that are charged with immigration.

And let's make the distinction, Chuck. You've heard of immigration and immigration. With an I or an E. Right, so immigration with an I means that you are going into a country. Emigrating means that you are leaving a country. Or exiting with an E. That's how I'd remember it. That's a good one.

I remember it like I am nauseous to you, Chuck, because I make you feel nauseated. That's how I keep immigrant and immigrant separate. That's an interesting mnemonic device. Do you like that? So it used to be INS, who is in charge of immigration. And these days, it's Department of Homeland Security, right? Pretty much ever since 2001, and the Department of Homeland

Security was organized after that. INS is pretty much taking a back seat if they're even still around, right? And under the Homeland Security is obviously the border protection US Customs and Border Protection and the US Citizenship and Immigration Service. They handle a lot of the paperwork, right? Customs and Border Protection handles like the law enforcement

aspect of it, right? That Congress passes the laws. Right, and Congress is up to, they're in charge of all immigration policy. The president can have an agenda that he tries to push through Congress, but it's up to Congress. The one thing the president does have a direct hand in is creating refugee policy, and we'll

talk a little bit about refugees, but I propose right here and now that we do a podcast on refugees at some point in time. Yeah, we'll handle immigration, and we'll do refugees later. Yeah, agreed. It's a lay office. Chuck. Yes. There are plenty of different aliens.

Yeah. There's the illegal alien, which we've heard of. There's the legal alien, the most famous one being Sting and Englishman in New York. Yeah. And there's a lot of other words that get bandied about. I get the impression that alien is not quite acceptable, as it once was.

It's more, it's just immigrant now. But it's not an offensive word. It's actually still a very, it's a legitimate word to use. Yeah, you have a resident alien who is, you're not a citizen or national, but you have the right to live and work here. Or a non-resident alien is like if you have a travel visa and you're here for a short, you know, you're an Australian.

You're allowed to live here for a little while. You're an Australian. Let's face it. Naturalized, not to be confused with spiritualized, but naturalized means that you are a citizen, but you became a citizen after birth. You weren't a born citizen. Like Jane Seymour.

Right, class act. Yes. You know who she's married to, by the way? Stacey Keach's brother. Todd Keach? No, or was it Stacey Keach? No, Stacey Keach's brother. Todd?

No, it's not Todd. I can't remember. But that's her husband, who's a filmmaker. And he made the film about her becoming a citizen. That's awesome. Yeah, well, let's start to bring that up. So basically they rode off about six months of their life. Yeah, and he acted for a short time.

He was in vacation. Remember when the officer pulls him over for killing the dog, dragging the dog? Yeah. That's him. That's him, huh? That's Keach. James Keach.

Really? Yeah. OK. Full circle. Yeah, that's good stuff, Chuck. All right. There is the end-all-be-all of before being naturalized, the lawful permanent resident, which is basically like,

kick back, relax, get a job, have a drink, chill out, do whatever you want, just apply something here or there. But you're allowed to live here for the rest of your life. You're not necessarily a citizen. So don't try and vote. Don't you dare try and serve on a jury. But pretty much everything else is fine. All right.

All right? OK, thanks for watching. The All-Home Actors on the podcast, Hey Dude! The 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude! Bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker

necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude! as our jumping off point. But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

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on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, ya everybody,

about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So how do people get here? Well, you have to apply for a visa. That's the first step in all of these processes

is the old visa. Yeah, and it depends on where you are, right? Where you go apply. Yeah, or what your status is, right? Well, sure. If you, well, if you are in a country, let's say you're Swedish and you're like, I am so sick of this minimalist furniture crap.

I want to get to the US. And then no crime in the gorgeous scenery. This place is so boring. And the women that are blonde and tall. I want to leave all that. And move to Detroit. Yes, you want to move to Detroit. What you would do is you would go to the US consulate

in Stockholm or wherever. You'd find the closest one to you in your country of origin and say, I want to move to Detroit. And after a few minutes of them like thinking you're joking to finally convince them you're telling the truth, they're going to start the process of applying for a visa, right? Yeah, and this is to become a permanent resident.

This isn't like a work visa or a student visa. Those are all temporary. This is if you want to stay here forever in Detroit. But this visa is not, this is basically your ticket to get from your country to a port. Yeah, not even in the United States, which is confusing to me a little bit. And you're setting yourself up for an almost immediate letdown

because the consular officer who's going to eventually interview you after you fill out your application can say, sorry, we don't want your type in Detroit. Yeah, or they could interview you and say, great. And then you could have another awkward encounter when you get to the port of entry because they don't have to let you in either.

No, the port authority agent can be like, no, no, I don't really like the looks of you. I don't like your mustache. I don't like that cable knit sweater. Go back to Sweden. Yeah, I hate IKEA. Yeah. Is that Swedish?

Yes. OK, I always think it's Swiss for some reason. Everything over there that's over here. Swedish. OK. So let's say you do get here to the port of entry. They will ask you a few questions when you get to that port of entry, like where you're from,

what do you want to do here? Is anyone sponsoring you? Do you have family here, that kind of thing? Right, and there are different kinds of visas. I get the impression that there's the wink, wink, nudge, nudge, let the sweet in. He wants to go to Detroit, no criminal background, just let him in type of visa.

Down to the, we're not entirely certain that this guy is not a criminal visa. So really scrutinize him, right? Yeah, they give out 480,000 permanent resident visas every year. That's for family. Yeah, if you want to join a family member that's in the country.

Right. Sorry. Right, so maybe you got married to an American Joe or something like that during the war? Or Jane. Sure. Or you have dual citizenship, because you were born somewhere with two different parents from two different

countries, so you have dual citizenship. You chose the other country, now you want to move to the US, and your parent lives here. That's probably pretty easy, especially, again, with the economics, if you're 21 and unmarried. Right. Because you're going to come over here, probably make babies with an American girl, so you're going to take care of her.

And you are going to get a good job, so you're going to spend money raising your kid here, and you are going to do nothing but be an economic driver rather than a drain. Yes. Well put. So let's say you do have a family member here, you need to prove your relationship,

I would guess, beyond just saying, I promise you, it's my father. And you need, like you have to have an affidavit of support that says that you can support this person at 125% above the poverty line. Which is like 19 grand. Yeah, it's not much. It's basically saying you're not going to be a drain on the system.

You'll barely eek by, if nothing else. But as long as you can eek by. As long as you can eek by. Yeah. Then it's got to get approved by the US CIS. Yes, again, the kind of the bureaucratic arm of immigration. Right. Then the Department of State checks

to see if a visa number is available. If you might already be in the US, so you can apply to have your status changed to that awesome lawful permanent resident after you get a number. Or if you're outside and you get a number, you go to the US to where they tell you to go. Well, you go to the consulate and finish the process there. In Detroit.

Right. And no, in your country still, if you're outside. So basically, the whole key to immigration is down the middle. Whether you're doing this outside the country or inside the country, there's basically two different sets of, it's like a choose your own adventure book. Yeah.

Right? If you're inside the US, turn to page 32. Right. And then apply for lawful permanent resident status. If you're still in Sweden, go to page 12 and go to the consulate. It really does get a little convoluted. And I don't think they make it hard on purpose. But I think we should totally see a way.

This is in no way legal advice to anybody who is listening to us in Australia or Sweden, especially. We're just using you as an example. If you actually do want to immigrate to the US, we hope this inspires you to do it lawfully and to go contract an immigration attorney. Or at least do a lot of heavy lifting research on Department of State, the Department of Homeland

Security's websites. Or the very least by immigration for dummies. Right. Just don't guarantee is out there. Just do something in addition to listening to this show. Yes. That's what I say. Or if you do just listen to this show

and you become a lawful citizen from it, we want an email from you about that. Yeah, and friend us on Facebook. Yeah. That's so cheap. So where are we here? The family sponsorship. Should we go through that?

The preferences? Yeah, we talked about the preferences. So let's spell them out. Provided you're at least 21. Parents, spouses, and unmarried children of US citizens, you don't have to wait. If they are citizens, you don't have to wait for that visa number.

No, if your visa is approved, or if your petition for alien relative is approved, you can just come on over and become a lawful permanent resident. Right? Yeah, and that's if they're a citizen, if you're relative is a citizen. Right. If one of your relatives has made it over

and has become a lawful permanent resident, then you can start to come over too. Right. But there's different preferences for that. It's a spouse or an unmarried son or daughter, again, probably of 21 years of age or older. Yeah, that's first preference. But not too old.

Right. The second preference is spouses of lawful permanent residents. They're under 21 unmarried children and unmarried children of lawful permanent residences. Right. I'm sorry, residents. Third preference, married children of citizens.

And fourth preference, siblings of adult citizens. What's that? Yeah, siblings of adult citizens. It's like, I guess, we've got a bunch of visas left over. You really need your brother over here? I mean, really? Yeah. You're 30, and you've got to have your brother over here.

Right. Or you're 70. Right. So yeah, it gets a little convoluted for sure. Chuckers, there are other ways to do this. If you were the first of your family and you are starting on the path to citizenship, there are some other ways to get in the country

to get the ball rolling. Number one, one of the best ways to do this is through the diversity lottery program. Yeah, hit the lottery. That means that you are living in a country where immigration to the US is really not that bulky. Sure. Not a lot of Swedes coming over to the US necessarily.

Yeah, they probably have a good shot at it. And so the State Department sets aside 55,000 visas, visa numbers every year. And actually, 110,000 is what they really set aside, because a lot of people don't complete the process. They basically say, hey, you want to come to the US? Not too many people are coming over from your country. We are the great melting pot over here.

We're missing a little bit of your spice. So how about applying, huh? Yeah. And the Kentucky Consular Bureau is responsible for this. Really? And in 2011, Chuck, did you know that nine new Caledonians and one Licton-Stinian were among the 55,000 who came over? Really?

One Licton-Stinian? Yep. Wow. And one person from the French Arctic lands, which I... I don't even know what that is. And if you're lucky enough to hit this lottery, Josh, you can live here and work here forever. And bring your family.

Yeah, you can bring your family. You can bring your unmarried children. If they're under 21, if they're over 21, then they're on their own. Right. You become a lawful permanent resident who can become a citizen under that. But it's like a huge... Not just like... It's like the express lane.

Yeah, you're in there. Another way to do it is through employment, right? Yeah, I didn't know about this one or the next one. No, this is a big one. I'll go ahead and admit that. This is how we got the Nazis over here to start our rocket program through Operation Paperclip, immigration through employment. Gotcha.

Yeah. So yeah, that's when the employer kind of sponsors you and they submit a labor certification, request certification. You like that? I like that. What was the other one you said, too? The residences and... I'm all over the place.

Oh, affid... Anaphated or something besides affidavit. Yeah, I'm all thick-tongued today. In honor of you. That's my stick. So you submit that to the Department of Labor. If it is granted, then the employer then files for petition for alien worker considered by the US use SCIS again.

Then if that's approved, then you can get the immigrant a visa number from the State Department and basically say, go to work. But that's... Read the little qualifications there. Like the types of workers, the preferences? Yeah. So you've got EB1, which is priority workers, which is... We need a rocket program to get to the moon fast.

EB2 is professionals with advanced degrees or persons with exceptional abilities. Basically, if you live in Bangalore, India right now, that's you. You're coming over here. No problems. EB3, skilled or professional workers. I think a lot of people... That's a strong back, probably. A lot of...

Yes, a lot of roofers made their way into Florida, I imagine, through that immigration status. And there's EB4, special immigrants. Do you know what that is? I have no idea. I can't even begin to think of what kind of job that would be. No. We need someone on the inside, if you know, if you work for the State Department.

Let us know what a special immigrant is. Yes. And then there is what you could call the yellow brick road to citizenship. Yeah, this is the chair on top. Basically, if you have some money, you want to throw around and invest in the American dream. You can buy your visa. Yeah, you can buy your visa. It's 10,000 investor visas every year made available.

And you have to... There's a few different ways to do it. You have to prove, basically, that you are going to make an investment in a commercial endeavor that's approved and that you're going to create 10 or more jobs through this endeavor. Right. And this is... Half of those 10,000 investor visas are set aside for this pilot project called Regional Centers. Yeah.

Which is basically, it's a rural area, struggling business. Sure. It's a part of the U.S. that needs some investment, needs some new businesses, right? Detroit. Here we go again. You can also get that same visa, Josh, by starting a business or purchasing a business that's not doing so hot. You can also... Yeah, if you purchase a business, you can't just purchase it.

You have to show that you can inflate its revenues by 140% and keep everybody on staff. Right. Or the golden ticket, if you just have a lot of money. If you have half a million dollars, you can say, I'm going to invest that in a rural area. Or if you have a million dollars, you can just invest in some other venture. Anything. And the best part is, if you invest that million dollars correctly, not only do you buy your visa, you might make a substantial amount of money back on your investment.

Yeah. So, yeah, if you've got a lot of dough, then you can become an American citizen. Yeah, come on in. Spend your money, right? Yeah, and I have to say, I know you don't print out the pictures. You're missing out on this one. There are some cool maps that are inflated and exaggerated and anemic and colorful. The United States looks bloated.

Based on immigration to countries. Interesting. And then there's also one where refugees are. It's really neat. I recommend going and checking this out. Boy, South and Central America are skinny. America is bloated. Yeah, that is cool.

So is the Middle East. Very, very big. That was it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road.

Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. So let's talk about asylum. This is pretty convoluted as well, actually. Yeah. If you remember one thing from this podcast, a person seeking asylum is called an asylum. That's it.

Can we just stop there? Yes. Let's go to sleep. You know what asylum is, Josh? It's obviously, it's when you're protected from, if you're fleeing persecution from your country, you can come here and say, I need asylum because I live in Sudan. Oh, do you remember in the Rules of War podcast, we were talking about World War II changed everything? Basically brought the whole world together to say, we need to come up with some rules, not just for war, but for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was passed or ratified in 1948. Countries of the world said, as a human being, people have the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum for persecution.

Which is basically like, if some horrible stuff's going on over here, you have to take these people if they come to your country. That's a basic human right to be free from that, because there's other parts of the world, yeah? Yeah, or at the very least, in the case of the United States, you can go to another country that we have a deal with, an asylum deal like, hey, you might like Canada. Right, not only that. If they come to the US and they're like, I'm seeking asylum, we can be like, you are approved for Canada, and we can just take you there. Like, we'll give you a bus ticket even, but yeah, it's kind of funny because we have asylum treaties with other countries. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, there are no quotas or limits on this kind of visa, you just have to demonstrate a well-founded fear for your life, basically.

Yeah, of persecution in his or her home country, right? And you make that case at a point of entry, so basically, if you're seeking asylum, here's the difference between an asylum and a refugee, again, inside or outside of the country. Right. So let's say that you are fleeing Sudan, and you've made it to Egypt, right? You're like, I don't really want to stay in Africa any longer, I really want to seek asylum in the US, but I'm doing it from Egypt, you're a refugee. If you leave Egypt and come to the port of Savannah and say, I want asylum, you're an asylum, it's just where you're doing it, but it's the same thing for the same reasons. You're being persecuted in your home country, and you're seeking comfort and freedom from persecution in another country, got it? You know, you've heard of the, is it the Lost Boys of Sudan?

Is that right? The Child Soldiers? Is it, what am I thinking, is it the Lost Boys of Sudan? Is that right? It sounds right, yeah. One of those guys works at Twain's, Indicator. He's a former child soldier? I think so.

That's, wow. And he was just very happy to be busting tables at Twain's. I'm sure. I mean, everyone loved this guy. I don't know if he's still there, this has been a couple of years since I've been there, but it was really neat. I mean, he was, you know, the news stories all over the place about these guys, and he worked there and was one of the, God, what's the word I'm looking for? People loved him. He wasn't a mascot, but he was, he was almost like people would come to Twain's and like everyone said hi to him and he was, he's a very nice guy.

That's awesome. Mascot's not the right word, though. Save it for the refugee podcast, will you? Yeah. Because we're talking about asylum here. Yes. So, Chuck, if you're fleeing persecution that's kind of specific, you can't be like, no one in my home country likes me. Right.

That's not persecution, right? No, no, no. It's persecution based on race, politics, nationality, religion, membership in a social group. So, if like the U.S. turned on the Knights of Columbus, they could go to like Europe and seek asylum, or if you're in a book club. Yeah, I'm not sure what that means. It's a social group. Okay. There are two types of asylum joshers, affirmative and defensive asylum.

And from what I get, affirmative is when you arrive here at a port of entry, you within a year of being here, you submit your application, it's filed, and you have an interview. They call it non-adversarial. It basically means it doesn't take place in court. Right. It's going to take place in a friendly office and everybody's going to be smiling. And they're not detained. You can live here while your case is being considered, but you can't work. Isn't that right?

I believe that is right. And actually, if you do this the right way, like the U.S. has set up, we actually have an act from 1980 called the Refugee Act. And anybody can ask for asylum no matter what your alien status is. And we actually have mechanizations, mechanisms. We'll go with that one in place to kind of hasten this process. So, if you do this correctly, you can have this whole thing buttoned up in 60 days and be kicking back in Detroit. Yeah, if it never goes to before a judge and it just stays nice and affirmative. And non-adversarial.

Yeah, then you're in Flint in no time. Right. So, basically what you want to do is, within a year of landing in the U.S., you want to go to a port and ask for asylum. Yeah, I would do that on day two. Why not? After I've gone out and seen what nightlife has to offer. Woo, I love America. And then there's defensive asylum and that is when you are in danger of being deported and you're trying to get asylum.

Yes. So, that's not like you came here and you filed all the correct paperwork. That means you're saying, now you need to go home and you're like, no, I don't want to go. Right, that means like if you waited two years and you go, they're going to be like, oh, well, now you're in defensive asylum, dummy. Why don't you do this a year ago? Right, or if you weren't granted asylum, you can still try and get in through defensive asylum. Right, if you've gone through, if you went through affirmative asylum and were denied, your next step would be going through defensive asylum, which is adversarial, meaning it's in a court.

Everybody's a little stern, talking to you a little mean, there's lawyers and all that stuff. And we should say here, if you were caught without correct documentation, if you forfeited your alien status, anything like that, it doesn't just apply to illegal immigrants, it applies to illegal immigrants who can, again, demonstrate a, quote, credible fear of persecution or torture. Right. This is asylum, it just applies to those people. Yes. Right? Yes.

And then there's expedited removal, Chuck. Yeah, that's if you're busted, basically, with no documentation. Coming in. Coming in, and you're just like, oh, I just thought you needed a plane ticket. Is that not good enough? No. Here's my luggage receipt. And actually, this is pretty cool.

The immigration officials, which I imagine includes the customs agency, right? Yeah. Which we did a podcast on then, didn't we? Yeah, surely. OK. They have to ask four questions of anyone they catch trying to make it into the US illegally. Yeah. Right?

They have to ask, why did you leave your home country? Yeah. Why, or do you have any fear or concern about being returned to your home country? Would you be harmed if you were returned to your home country? Do you have any questions? Yeah. Anything else you'd like to add that's actually in here? Yeah.

So basically, anybody who wants to seek asylum can say, I'm seeking asylum, and that's going to start off this process. They're not going to be like, no. Yeah. Anyone, if you come here and you want asylum, you're at least going to be able to speak with someone about that. Right. You're not just going to be turned away at the door.

But if you're busted getting in, you're going straight to defensive asylum. Right. If you make it through and then go to a port, right, and say, I'm seeking asylum, that'll be affirmative asylum. Yeah, people like I was are probably like, what? So confusing. Yeah. Just go to a port and say asylum, and that'll kickstart something interesting in your life.

That'll start the process for sure. So we're not going to talk too much about refugees, but the 2009 World Refugee Survey puts that number at about 13.6 million worldwide refugees. And then last year. God, that's up a lot, because this article was written, I think, in like 2007. Yeah, it was not until. And Silverman, did you notice Jacob Silverman made a Bruno reference? I did.

Yeah. He said that in 2005, there were 9.5 million refugees at the beginning of that year. We're up to 13 million. That's what it said. Wow. And last year, the US admitted 60,191 refugees. And the next closest was Canada at about 11,000. And then the Aussies at about 9,000.

Wow. There's refugees from Canada? No, refugees that Canada said, why don't you come on here to the great right north, and we'll let you know. They admitted the refugee. And that's, you know, refugees are looking for at the very least temporary protected status. Right. And that's when you're like, all right, we'll take care of you for now.

Right. And then we'll work this whole thing out in a minute. Right. But you're safe. Is that all on refugees? And do you want to do a podcast on it? Yeah, let's do one later. All right, well, let's move on to the sexiest business of all of this.

Yeah, the controversy. Illegal immigration. Yeah, it's hard to say, obviously, how many there are. The numbers are kind of all over. But the Department of Homeland Security said that there were 10.8 million last year, which is down a full million from 08. And that's the largest drop in 30 years. Yeah, well, we're in the middle of a pretty big recession.

Yeah. Times are tough here. Yeah, I didn't really think about that. That's exactly why. I would still think that it'd be better than being in Juarez. Well, I'm glad you brought up Juarez because I had a question about that, about Ciudad Juarez. You like my Spanish? Yeah, but I was talking about Juarez, the place.

But go ahead. That's what I'm talking about, too. Oh, is that the full name of it? Yeah, it means Juarez City. No, no. You're like, I wasn't talking about Ciudad Juarez. I was talking about Juarez City. I don't know who that dude is.

But think about it. Like, I think more than 6,000 people have died. In July, this past July, it hit the 6,000 mark. Not have died. We're killed. Right, OK, we're killed. In Juarez alone, since January 2008, because of the real deal drug war, right? Oh, yeah.

So if you're fleeing that across the US border, how can you not seek asylum? Is it that you could conceivably go south, deeper into your home country, and be relatively safe? Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know. I was hoping you would. Yeah, I don't know if asylum is just for, yeah, I mean, that would definitely constitute a fear of fearing for your life, for sure, for your persecution. For sure.

That's a good point. But that does kind of pose a problem for people in Juarez fleeing north, you know? Because US is right there. Juarez is in the middle of a real drug war, and it's a very dangerous place right now. Maybe they don't think asylum. They just think, you know, cross illegally, and so much would clue them in. Yeah, and before, you were talking about the controversy with illegal immigration, and we mentioned the recession.

It seems like that's pretty much, I don't think too many people have problems with peaceful refugees seeking asylum in the US. It's when economics are brought into it that people go nuts, right? Yeah, yeah. That always goes back to money. Right, it does. But I think first we should kind of, we're up here like, oh, well, they're coming in down south in the border, right?

We should probably point out that for a lot of people who are making these border crossings illegally, it's extremely dangerous, right? Oh, sure. Silverman, who wrote this article, cited 3,000 people who've died since 1994 trying to make the trek between the Mexico-California border. Oh, just Mexico-California? Yeah, since we erected the fence there. Interesting.

Yeah. Also, coyotes, who you pay to get you across the border, especially if you're coming out of Juarez, they basically double as drug transporters. They use illegal immigrants as mules, basically like, well, here, carry some drugs and I won't charge you, and the person will say, well, no, I'll just pay you, and the guy pulls out a gun and goes, no, you're going to carry these drugs. So these people are not just getting busted coming into the country, they're getting busted with tons of dope on them, and they're going to prison.

Well, and then that gives the argument to the native of C&C, they're just coming in here bringing drugs when it may be traced back to this one drug runner making these hundreds of people smuggle in their drugs. Yes. And I think there's a lot of confusion going on, but yes, it's not good down there right now. No, it's not. So illegal immigrants, as most people know, a lot of times will come to this country, join

up with some of their family who may be here already, legally, and do jobs that Americans don't want to do for low wages. That happens a lot of times. It's not legal. You're not supposed to hire these people, but it happens. Yeah, wasn't there, I think Colbert did it. There's a group in New York state who were offering this farm hand, like I think fruit harvesting job.

Oh, really? To anybody who wanted it, any American, born American who wanted it, and no one took them up on it. Yeah. Well, that kind of goes to the guest worker program, which is something George W. was in favor of, and that has not been approved, but it's been bandied about a lot, and basically that means if you can't find any American to do a job that you want to hire someone for, then hire a foreigner for about, there'd be a term limit, like three years, track them

through the system, make them pay some taxes while they're here, and then give them an incentive to return home, like, hey, we'll even give you retirement benefits, which you can collect in Juarez after your term is done, after you've worked for three years. And I didn't know this. I did a little digging. There was actually a program from 1942 to 1964 called the Bracero program that Roosevelt put in, and it was basically that. We need a lot of labor, so let's get some of the Mexican people up here to do this work,

and it was a nice exchange. But in the middle of this, then we were like, everybody get out. Well, it was until 1964, but in 1954, in the middle of this program, the INS ran a program, no lie, called Operation Wetback. What? That was the name of it. What? And their goal was to round up 1,000 aliens per day and get them out, and in the end, more

than one million Mexican nationals were taken back to Mexico, courtesy of the US, and not just taken back to Mexico, but 800 to 1,000 miles deep into Mexico to discourage them coming back to the US. Was this program headed up by Don Johnson? I don't know, man, but that was the name of it. You can Google it. So anyway, that's part of our lovely history, too, here. Wow.

But until the guest worker program is for real, then it's just an idea that some people say might not be a bad one. If they're here working, why not see if we can, because the reason a lot of people get mad, we should explain, is like... This is fun. I'm watching you tat dance. Is A, they're not paying taxes, is what the people against us say, and B, they most times are sending money straight back to their home.

Yeah, remittances. Yeah, so they're not even putting money into the economy, the local economy. Remember when we were in Guatemala, we found out that tourism, number two, agriculture, number three, remittances was the number one driver of their economy while we were there. Unbelievable. That ticks a lot of people off, right? But I think that that's kind of a flash point for, I don't think it encapsulates the whole thing.

It's not the beginning and the end of the problem with immigration. No, of course not. Right? Yeah. Chuck, a lot of people say, you want to guest worker program, path to citizenship? That is amnesty, and we don't do that in the U.S., right? Yeah. Actually, we do.

Amnesty? Yeah, we've given amnesty to a lot of people. Oh, yeah. In 1980, Fidel Castro opened up the Marielle Port in Havana. Yeah, yeah. And 125,000 Cubans said, see you later, and showed up en masse in Miami. Yeah, amnesty seems to have gone in big waves here. Yeah.

Which is what a lot of people say, that's why we shouldn't do it, because it just encourages people to come here illegally in hopes that there will be another big amnesty. Right. It rewards illegal behavior. It's federally mandated rewards for illegal behavior. I totally understand that argument. It's a slap in the face to all the people who came here illegally and went through this hard, kind of grueling process, legally, and all the other problems as well.

But I guess my point is, we have given amnesty to people before, and it hasn't been the end of the country. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's a good point. And by the way, that Cuban migration in 1980, that's what Scarface starts out as. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

And the Delta Force came to Atlanta, actually, because a lot of the immigrants were moved to federal prisons just to hold for a while until the government figured out what to do with them. They're in turn. They're living in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, and the Delta Force showed up to quell it. Wow. Well, that's kind of what happened in Scarface, right? Wasn't there a big uprising in their internment camp?

Yes. Yes. Great movie. So obviously, we didn't really talk about the Border Patrol. We could do a whole podcast on that. Well, yeah, we did with Customs. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that.

We can say that that virtual border fence that was controversial and full of technical issues and delays, Obama put an end to that in March and said, this thing is, we could use our money better than this. It's not working. But there is a fence. There's 580 miles of 21-foot fence along the border, pedestrian and vehicle fencing. So, I mean, they're working on it. I don't know.

I mean, they can clearly never build a fence along the entire border. But the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps is trying to do it on their own. Not very successfully, though. They talk a lot. But apparently, they did a report on their fence and they basically said it's a cattle fence. I once interviewed the guy who founded that. Oh, really?

I can't remember his name right now, but I talked to him on the phone and you just start him talking and he'll talk. It was very interesting, very interesting conversation to just basically sit there and take notes on. Well, I mean, I guess I see what they're trying to prove, but their goal was a 10-mile stretch of fence. Come on, 10 miles, I mean, you can walk that in an hour and go around it. 10 miles an hour.

You're going to have to be jogging, perhaps, running. Okay, two hours. Okay. What do you walk about? Four miles an hour instead of an hour? I walk about a mile and a half an hour because I stop a lot and lay down. Well, you're a stroller. What else, dude?

Well, that's it. Amnesty. You want to talk about some more highlights of amnesty? 1997, about a million Nicaraguans were given amnesty through the Central American Relief Act. 1998, 125,000 Haitian refugees were granted amnesty en masse. And all of that is because of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which gave amnesty to about 2.8 million illegal immigrants.

And the president who did that won Ronald Reagan. Lucky there. Yeah. It's funny how things work. He was such a dichotomous president. Oh, yeah. Man. Yeah.

Okay. There's nothing else. I don't either. I think that's the end of immigration. We don't ever have to talk about it again. Yeah. We can do refugees. We can do naturalization at some point.

Yeah, we could. Well, just how about this? We'll just play selected clips from Jane Seymour's naturalization documentary and just be like, hmm. Oh, wow. All right. God, that is something. And then we'll make sure to get a lot of you crying.

Yes. Okay. If anybody wants to learn more about immigration, very dense article, well written by one Jacob Silverman who used to work here. You can type in immigration. That's two M's in the handy search bar at howstuffworks.com, which means it's time now for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this a shout out request that we don't grant often, but we are in this

case. Oh, this is a big one. Don't we get paid for these now? No. In karma, we do. Guys, my name is Eric Erickson, and I've been listening to your show for some time now. I was actually shown them by my friend, how would you pronounce I-L-O-N-A, Ilona? Ilona.

Ilona. It's like Ilona, which is why I'm actually emailing you guys. For her birthday this year, I'm trying to do something really, really special. I've been emailing her favorite actors and musicians to see if they could send an autograph or a short message. So far, I've gotten messages back from Andrew Byrd, who I'm a fan of, and Priscilla Ahn, who was another singer who I don't know. And they both got back.

So I felt that's the only reason I did this. I thought, well, we can't be the jerks who don't do it. Dude, do you know how many of these we're going to get now? No, don't bother. We're going to have to do like a happy birthday segment. No. I figured it'd be really awesome if you two could maybe give a shout out to her and listen to her mail section.

So that's what we're doing here, Eric. It would mean a lot to me if you could do this. It doesn't matter when he didn't tell us when her birthday was. I'm just hoping she doesn't listen to it before I give her the rest of the things, and he still doesn't tell me when her birthday is. So if we're ruining this for you, Ilona, then I'm very sorry. If you could get back to me sometime, it would be super awesome. Is this us getting back to him?

Yeah, I just want to tell you why Ilona means so much to me. So that is very sweet, Eric, with a CK. I hope this gets you whatever you're seeking. This is an Eric with a CK. You can't trust Eric's to spell her names with a C and a K. It's one or the other. You should just throw a T on the end of that. He's very middle of the road, I'll bet. Yeah.

You can see your side, but I can also see your side. I'll bet this immigration podcast is made as headaches. Well, clearly neither one of them are going to get through this, so I'll just think that we blew him off. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot. If you want to say happy birthday to somebody, apparently the border is open and everybody's streaming through.

It's not. Let us know why we should say happy birthday to somebody. Wrap it up in an email and send it to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The HowstuffWorks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.

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