Tangle - Biden's border wall.

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Biden's border wall. Last week, the Biden administration said that it was waiving 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow new border wall construction. The move is Biden’s first use of executive power to pave the way for more barriers along the border, something that was a common tactic during the Trump administration.You can read today's podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠, today’s Under the Radar story ⁠⁠here⁠⁠, and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. You can also check out our latest YouTube video ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.Today’s clickables: A note about our piece on Israel (0:42), Quick hits (2:49), Today’s story (4:59), Right’s take (7:44), Left’s take (11:59), Isaac’s take (15:52), Listener question (20:28), Under the Radar (22:26), Numbers (23:16), Have a nice day (24:39)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the Biden border wall, the construction of the border wall the Biden administration announced last week, what exactly happened, and where to go from there. Before we jump in, obviously, yesterday we

published a very intense, controversial, complicated piece on what's happening in Israel right now. As I expected, the post drove a massive response. Actually, it's being widely circulated on Twitter right now. Elon Musk tweeted at me. We got a bunch of people like the president of TED Talks retweeting my take and sharing it and lots of attention and my inbox is flooded. I am trying to keep up with everything. We got a ton of reader responses. There's tons of comments on the article. There was a lot of thoughtful criticism, some high praise, and of course, some harsh words. I am trying to respond to everyone best I can, and I've already started to put together

Friday's edition, which will be a compilation of some reader feedback. But I wanted to share some samples of a range of responses just to show you kind of what it looks like for me. Obviously, a lot of people sent me some very long emails, but I'm just going to share a few sentences of the kinds of responses I got. One reader wrote in and said, well done. You capture a terrible and complicated situation with intelligence and heart. I will personally underwrite any subscription that is canceled because of this piece. Another reader said, I found this my take to be the best thing you've ever written in Tangle. The last few paragraphs

especially brought me almost to tears. Another reader said, as always, parts of this I love and parts of this I find incredibly problematic. Another reader said, what can I say? Despite your time in Israel, you were either ill-informed or ideologically blinkered. Finally, another reader said, the hate you must have for yourself is enormous. You should never be welcome in a Jewish community again. As always in times like this, if you want to support our work and give a nod to what we're doing, you can do that by becoming a subscriber at readtangle.com forward slash membership, or if you already are a subscriber, just spread the word. Now's a great time to share Tangle with friends. We'd really appreciate it. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to jump into our quick hits.

First up, President Biden confirmed that American citizens were among the hostages captured in Israel. Separately, the German-Israeli woman, who is seen being driven through Gaza in a pickup truck, is reportedly alive and hospitalized. Number two, more than 260,000 Gazans have fled their homes, some trying to escape Egypt as Israeli forces launch new rounds of airstrikes which have killed at least 1,055 Palestinians. At least 1,200 Israelis and 14 Americans, mostly civilians, were killed during the Hamas attack. Number three, Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda Research, testified against Sam Bankman-Fried in court yesterday, saying she was a key participant in Bankman-Fried's scam of using customer deposits on the crypto exchange FTX to

pad Alameda's balance sheet. Number four, Representative George Santos, the Republican from New York, is facing 10 new federal charges, including wire fraud, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy. And finally, number five, House Republicans held a closed-door debate on their next candidate for speaker, and will start a GOP conference vote on Wednesday. President Biden tonight facing blowback from his own party over his administration's intent to build new wall sections along the Texas-Mexico border. The president insisting he has not changed his opposition to the wall, but that his hands are tied to stop the expenditure,

given the project was funded before he became president. Faced with a surge in illegal crossings, the Biden administration has announced it is waiving more than two dozen federal laws to add on to the border wall in southern Texas. The decision is an abrupt reversal on his campaign pledge to stop border wall construction. The White House is waiving more than two dozen federal laws in southern Texas, many of which pertain to environmental and wildlife protection, to try and pave the way for this border wall construction. Last week, the Biden administration said that it was waiving 26 federal laws in South Texas

to allow new border wall construction. The move is Biden's first use of executive power to pave the way for more barriers along the border, something that was a common tactic during the Trump administration. In September, the Border Patrol reported apprehending over 200,000 people, including a record-shattering 50,000 migrants from Venezuela. The Department of Homeland Security announced plans to build the wall in the area around Starr County in South Texas, a county that has a population of about 66,000 people and has seen high levels of unauthorized migrants crossing into the U.S. Border Patrol has recorded roughly 245,000 illegal entries in the area during this fiscal year alone. A growing surge of migrants that

has now overwhelmed border towns and even some cities in Chicago and New York is forcing the administration's hand. Biden's executive action is a major reversal from his campaign pledge not to build a single new foot of border wall. He plans to use funding from a 2019 congressional appropriation for the border wall and had to waive the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act to allow for its construction. The wall is expected to add roughly 20 miles of existing border barrier into the area. Democrats, immigrant rights groups, and environmental groups condemn the announcement. A border wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. It will not bolster border security in Stark County, Representative Henry Queller, the Democrat from Texas, said in a statement. I continue to stand against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective

border wall. Like in Jordal, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity called it a horrific step backwards for the borderlands, noting that it would stop wildfire migrations dead in their tracks and destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. Meanwhile, many Republicans criticized Biden for taking so long to give the border proper attention and said that he only approved construction because blue cities began to face the reality of what is happening on the border. Former President Trump saw the construction of about 450 miles of border wall in the southwest during his term. Building more wall in Starr County will also require incursions in the privately owned land, which has drawn criticism from some local residents. The Biden administration

has defended the move, saying the money for the wall construction was already allocated by Congress. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there is an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border wall. Today, we're going to share some views from the left and the right, and then my tape. Before we do, I want to just point out some areas of agreement. There is a surprising amount of agreement on this issue, at least in the sense that many pundits on the left and the right criticized the decision as a political stunt. While Republicans view it as a move that is more symbolic than effective, Democrats argue that Biden is trying to appease immigration restrictionists.

So let's jump in with what the right is saying. The right criticizes the move as an empty political act. Some argue Biden is trying and failing to maintain credibility with his base while also appearing tough on immigration. Others say the wall is too limited in scope and will have no meaningful effect on the migrant crisis. In National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy said Biden is lying about the border wall. The Biden administration is feeling the heat from Blue State and big city Democrats on whom it had never dawned that preening as a sanctuary would require, you know, actually providing sanctuary, McCarthy said. It is that political reality and nothing else that has forced Biden's grudging concession to the need for border wall construction. Naturally, reality is not welcomed by the Democrats' transnational progressive base,

which does not believe the United States should have borders or be a nation, and which is used to having its way with our senescent chief executive. The left is in revolt over Biden's sudden conversion to border wall construction. So, as it's wont to happen on those rare occasions when reality intrudes on utopia, Biden is lying. While seeking credit from the country at large for building some, but not nearly enough, border barrier, Biden is telling his base that he had no choice, McCarthy said. Biden has been cornered into half-hearted border wall construction, choice, McCarthy said. Biden has been cornered into half-hearted border wall construction not by the Congress whose laws he habitually flouts, but by his 55% disapproval rating heading into

the 2024 election campaign. So he poses toward the right as a born-again border cop and toward the left as a victim whose heart is still in the right place. And Biden being Biden, no one believes a word he says. The New York Post editorial board called the move just another deceptive stunt. Make no mistake, Team Biden wanted word to go out that it's building a wall. News of Mayorkas' obscure filing broke too fast for it to be otherwise. The brain trust noticed that the president's polls on this issues are deep underwater, while big city mayors and the liberal governors of Democratic-run states like New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts are screaming. So it ordered a stunt, a move that's literally about setting up a talking point. We're doing everything we can, even building some wall,

the board wrote. Yet, this wall is destined for one small area, Star County, Texas. It won't change anything on the other 1,900-plus miles of the border. Not for tiny, overwhelmed Eagle Pass or swamped El Paso, let alone Arizona's border towns. More important, it doesn't change the Biden wave-them-in policy. Potential illegal migrants know because they hear it from those who've already come across that they've got an excellent chance of being let in, the board said. That won't change until they hear that it's not worth it, you'll just get turned away. The Biden administration has yet to lift a finger to make that happen. In the Wall Street Journal, Jason L. Riley wrote that Biden is learning Trump supporters aren't the only voters who care about illegal immigration. This is tacit acknowledgement from Democrats that

we're dealing mainly with economic migrants in search of a better life and not refugees fleeing persecution back home, which is how liberals in the media have been framing the crisis. Mr. Biden has spent much of his presidency contrasting himself with his immediate predecessor, especially when it comes to immigration policy. How it must have pained him to go back on his pledge in 2020 that there will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration. Biden is fully aware that building another 20 miles of border wall will do practically nothing, Riley said. Immigrants don't respond to suggestions as well as they respond to incentives. Wall or no wall, so long as the administration allows people to enter the U.S. illegally and stay, we can expect them to keep coming illegally. The president may not care about border integrity,

but he does care about being re-elected. That means he must at least make a show of doing something about a problem that has worsened demonstrably on his watch and could jeopardize his shot at a second term. All right, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left is also opposed to the move, arguing that it's a serious political mistake for Biden. Some say a border wall won't address any of the underlying problems with the U.S. immigration system that's causing the current crisis. Others suggest that the decision could cost Biden support from Latino voters in the 2024 election. In New York Magazine, Eric Levitz outlined why a wall won't keep Biden's border problem at bay. Given the rapidly growing political backlash to this year's influx of asylum

seekers, it is hard not to suspect that Biden's action is a willful attempt to improve his electoral prospects. If it is a political tactic, however, then it's a dumb one, Levitt said. Building a wall on one small stretch of America's nearly 2,000-mile southern border will do essentially nothing to stem the tide of illegal entries, let alone to resolve the bottlenecks plaguing our nation's processing of lawful asylum seekers. If the aim is merely to project toughness on illegal immigration for messaging purposes, Biden's insistence that he actually opposes the border wall undercuts that gambit. In truth, the president has no great options for redressing the genuine political and substantive challenges posed by the asylum crisis.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Since the expiration of Title 42, an emergency authority that enabled the federal government to summarily turn back asylum seekers on public health grounds, the White House has embraced a carrot-and-stick approach to regulating migration. On the one hand, Biden has made it safer and

easier for asylum seekers from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to press their claims through orderly legal processes. On the other hand, the administration has made it much harder for migrants who cross the border illegally to advance asylum claims. In MSNBC, Julio Ricardo Varela suggested Biden's heel turn on the border wall could make some Latino voters question their support for his re-election. Despite vowing to be the opposite of Trump on immigration, Biden has been a lot more like his predecessor than he and his Democratic supporters want to admit, Varela said. From the looks of it, the Biden re-election campaign, led by Julia Chavez Rodriguez, a granddaughter of

the late labor leader Cesar Chavez, is banking on running two campaigns, one that is more Republican on the issue of immigration and another one that is more Republican on the issue of immigration and another one that is more Democratic in its attempts to cater to Latinos. The Biden campaign needs to understand how disconnected its outreach strategy is with its policy decisions. Polling from last month showed that the majority of Latino voters in key swing state districts want more extensions of legal protections and status for unauthorized immigrants, not just straight border security talk. Once again, Democrats are running the risk of taking Latino voters for granted. If Latino voters want to stop getting played, then there needs to be

more unity in criticizing Biden's immigration policy and holding him accountable. In Newsweek, Raul A. Reyes said Biden adopting Trump's wall is cynical, hypocritical, and a total betrayal of his values. To put this in the plainest language possible, Biden is now building the border wall, but he is pursuing a plan that is logistically and politically unsound, and it represents a major reversal from the president, who was once committed to undoing as many of Trump's immigration measures as possible. It will not help secure our border in any meaningful way and could actually endanger the lives of migrants, Reyes wrote.

There is no doubt that the situation at the southern border has become a crisis, but building more walls is not the solution. Just ask candidate Joe Biden. In 2020, he promised that not another foot of the wall would be built if he were elected. Shortly after he took office in 2021, Biden released a proclamation that said building a wall on the southern border is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security. He was his right then, as he is wrong now. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So there are two worthwhile lenses to view this decision through. One is through its politics. Why now and how will it be received? The other is through its policy implications. What will

the tangible impact of this be? Politically, Biden was in a lose-lose spot, and I don't think this changes his situation. The border crisis is being felt by more than just border towns now, and the friendly fire from Democrats means Biden has to at least look like he's doing something to address what is happening. There are simply too many people coming in and now being sent to cities up north for all of our humanitarian resources to handle them properly. At the same time, the issues on the border are fodder for Biden's detractors, Republicans who want more immigration restriction and independents who want to see tangible results from his policies. Biden doesn't have any legislative options unless Congress can come together and pass immigration reform, especially with a Republican majority in

the House of Representatives that cannot currently function. So executive action is basically all that is currently available to him. To Republicans and independents and Democratic detractors, Biden will say, look, we are doing everything we can. To progressives and liberals who abhor the idea of a wall, Biden will say, this money was appropriated. We had no choice. A lose-lose, a bad option due to dysfunction, empty posturing, welcome to Washington, D.C. Far more important are this move's practical implications as a piece of policy, and in that regard, I think it is effectively worthless. I've long opposed spending money on massive 2,000-mile border walls like the one Trump promised, not just because it requires the

government stealing swaths of privately owned land from American citizens, nor because it would require destroying millions of acres of the wild and rural southwest border towns that I love, but also because our money can be better spent elsewhere. Smaller sections of barrier have long been part of our border policies, and there are places along our border where they make sense, especially at rural spots that are tough for Border Patrol or technologies to monitor. Starr County doesn't seem like one of those places, though. I feel like I'm screaming into the void at this point, but here are a few points I'll keep reiterating. This administration apprehending millions of migrants isn't a sign of a porous border. It's a sign of an overwhelmed one.

The main issue for our overwhelmed border isn't drugs. The a porous border. It's a sign of an overwhelmed one. The main issue for our overwhelmed border isn't drugs. The vast majority of drugs coming into the U.S. and killing Americans in astonishing numbers come through legal ports of entry. It's also not illegal immigrants. The migrants are coming here illegally are mostly being found and apprehended. Many simply give themselves up. Our issue is not being unable to control the border in the sense that we can't spot and apprehend migrants coming through. It's that we can't do anything with so many of them once we do. We don't have the infrastructure to properly house or care for them. We don't have enough judges, lawyers, and officials to adjudicate their asylum claims and decide whether to deport

them or allow them to stay here illegally. And if we do make a decision, we don't have the resources to deport, incarcerate, or keep track of them if and often when we let them go. Every dollar we put into the construction of a physical wall could be put towards logistical problems and would be far better spent on those more effective solutions. If we genuinely want to increase the security of our border, we should increase the technologies and resources we know are good at spotting crossers, hiring more border agents, expanding surveillance of the border, and creating more checkpoints. That would actually help. 20 miles of wall in an already well-monitored area with plenty of citizens on the ground will only change crossing locations. Nobody is going to travel thousands of miles from Venezuela and turn around because of a 20-foot fence, not even if it's 20 miles long. It isn't going to stop or meaningfully change the flow of migration. And it's going to do harm to a lot of local people

along the way. Of course, one potentially helpful policy outcome here might be that the construction of the border wall, if properly publicized, sends a signal to would-be migrants about this administration's evolving posture toward immigration. It is very possible that could temporarily cause a downturn in the numbers, but I sincerely doubt it would have any meaningful impact for a long period of time. As has been true for decades now, any really meaningful border reforms will come from the president acting in concert with Congress. For Biden, using an executive action to build a bit of wall is a political loser. He's still getting credit from nobody and criticism from everyone. And it's a policy nothing burger.

All right. That is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from an anonymous reader in Tokyo, Japan. They said, I get that the Speaker of House is the leader in the House of Representatives, but I don't really know what that means, and I feel like I'm supposed to know. What does the Speaker actually do? So something that you can probably learn quickly is that the Speaker of the House presides over floor debates, oversees accounting and procurement for the chamber, and collaborates

with the House Rules Committee to set processes. They're also the next in line for the presidency after the vice president and serve as the de facto leader of the majority party in the House, though not necessarily by rule. As we can see in real time right now, the entire chamber votes for the Speaker, and the candidates do not even need to be members of the House. Perhaps the most important role of the Speaker is to set the legislative agenda, that is, decide the order for voting bills the Speaker allows to get to the floor. Unlike in the Senate, the House does not have a filibuster rule, meaning that a simple majority can pass the bill in the lower chamber. This means that a speaker does not have to work across the aisle just to

have debates, which then means that an effective speaker knows how to align the priorities of the hundreds of representatives in the majority party and brings bills for debate that they can agree on as a block to pass. So, a speaker spends much of their time talking to members of their party and occasionally working across the aisle. In more recent years, we've seen leadership in Congress collaborate to create legislation behind closed doors, then try to lobby their respective caucuses to support those bills. That means talking not just to members of the House, but also Senate leaders to know that bills can pass Congress, the President to align priorities, and fundraisers, PACs, and organizers everywhere to help support members of their party. In short, the speaker does a lot of things on the House floor and behind closed doors.

Alright, next up is our under-the-radar section. Texas is scaling up its efforts to bus migrants from the southern borders to major U.S. cities, hoping to distribute some of their burden while also making the issue politically relevant for cities further into the U.S. interior. More than 50,000 migrants have already been bused from Texas to major U.S. cities, which is creating or exasperating some housing crises in some areas, while also increasing pressure from Democratic leaders on President Biden to take federal action on immigration. Chicago, New York, Washington,

D.C., Denver, and Los Angeles are now all seeing migrants arrive on the buses. Biden has responded by announcing a new section of border wall, which we covered today, and resuming the deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants. Axios has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of registered voters who view Donald Trump as better able to handle immigration and border security policy compared to President Biden is 52%, according to an October poll from Marquette Law School. The percentage of registered voters who view Biden as better able to handle immigration and border security is 28%. The number

of U.S. Border Patrol encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico Southwest land border in 2023 was 2.2 million as of August. The number of Border Patrol encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico Southwest land border over the same period in 2022 was 2.1 million. The number of U.S. Border Patrol encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico Southwest land border over the same period in 2021 was 1.5 million. The percentage of the Border Patrol's overall encounters along the Southwest border in August that involved individuals who had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months was 11%. The percentage of repeat encounters out of overall encounters in April 2023, the last month in which Title 42 public health order was fully in place, was 23%. The approximate number of individuals who have scheduled immigration

appointments using the CBP One app since the service was launched in January 2023 is 263,000. All right. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. Carla Thompson got a second chance to graduate high school at age 41, thanks to a Washington, D.C. charter school focused on educating students of all ages who dropped out of high school. She came to the Goodwill XL Center Adult Charter High School after one of her four children, ages 9 to 21, began asking about the point of finishing high school instead of dropping out and getting a job. My 14-year-old is questioning that part, she said. I can't be a hypocrite and say, you have to do it, and I don't have it. XL is the only adult charter school in the district that awards a real high school diploma

rather than a GED. And after seven years in operation, it boasts about 500 graduates. Reasons to be Cheerful has the story and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, go to readtangle.com forward slash membership and be sure to share Tangle with all the people you know. Now's a great time to do it. We're getting a lot of attention, covering a lot of important stuff, and we'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good Peace. was produced by Diet 75. For more on Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, Thanks for watching!