The Daily Signal - #348: The Latest Border Crisis Through the Eyes of Someone Who Visited Caravan

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

Did it have to come to tear gas? Why have asylum claims rocketed in recent years? David Inserra, a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation who focuses on immigration and homeland security, talks about this, as well as what he found out when he visited the caravan for himself in Mexico City recently, and what he learned from talking to migrants. Plus: The Daily Signal's Ginny Montalbano got a sneak peek of the White House's Christmas decorations, and shares what she saw.We also cover these stories:--President Trump threatened to close the border.--General Motors announces it will cut 14,000 jobs from its North American workforce.--Twitter permanently suspended Jesse Kelly, a conservative user and former congressional candidate. Twitter cited no example of any violations of the rules. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, November 27th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. The caravan controversy is coming to ahead as hundreds of migrants rushed the border over the weekend, only to be propelled back by tear gas. We'll talk to Heritage Immigration expert, David and Sarah, about what can and should be done to ensure border security. Plus, Christmas season is on at the White House.

We'll talk to one of our colleagues who attended the unveiling of Melania Trump's White House Christmas decor. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. President Donald Trump is ready to take action on the border where tensions are high over the caravan. He tweeted Monday, Mexico should move the flag-waving migrants, many of whom are stone-cold criminals back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it any way you want, but they are not coming into the USA. We will close the border permanently, if need be. Congress fund the wall. Well, the Mexican government says it will deport 98 foreigners who are involved in Sunday's clash at the border. These migrants are now officially disqualified from applying for asylum because they assaulted government agents,

though the Mexican government hasn't said whether they attacked U.S. or Mexican officials. Over the weekend, Russia sees three Ukrainian ships, and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley had strong words in response Monday. Quote, as President Trump has said many times, the United States would welcome a normal relationship with Russia. But outlaw actions like this one continue to make that impossible, said Haley, per Reuters. Haley added, quote, the United States will maintain its Crimea-related sanctions against Russia.

Further Russian escalation of this kind will only make matters worse. It will further undermine Russia's standing in the world. It will further sour Russia's relations with the U.S. and many other countries, end quote. Want to know more? The Daily Signals, Nolan Peterson, who has been reporting from Ukraine for several years, has an article up on our website, DailySignal.com. Well, some not so good news on the manufacturing front, General Motors has announced that it'll cut 14,000 jobs from its North American workforce, shuddering three plants and closing two other facilities. This would eliminate 15% of its salaried and salaried contract workforce. GM says the cuts are part of an effort to adapt to market demands for SUVs and fewer sedans and coups. Protests have raged over Paris in recent days over a diesel tax hike as the French government tries to promote green energy.

The Wall Street Journal reports, over the past two weeks, protesters clad in yellow reflective safety vests, have been storming French roadways and snarling traffic to vent their frustration with fuel tax increases. Two people have died and hundreds have been injured in clashes between protesters and both motorists and police. Well, Twitter over the weekend permanently suspended a conservative user named Jesse Kelly. Kelly is a combat marine veteran and a contributor to the Federalist. He was suspended for, quote, repeat violations of the Twitter rules. but Twitter cited no specific example of any violations. Daily Wire reporter Ryan Savedra said a Twitter spokesperson told him

that they would look into why the suspension took place. Their official response was, We have nothing to share on this account. A Chinese scientist, Ha Zhang Qui, is claiming he edited the genes of two twin girls so that they would be unable to get HIV. But the hospital, the scientist says was involved, is denying it. If the scientist is telling the truth, this would be the first time this has happened to human babies. Well, up next we'll talk about the caravan clash at the border with David and Sarah.

Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? I'm Rob Blewey, editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal, and I'm inviting you to share your thoughts with us. Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters atdailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily. Signal podcast. Was the use of tear gas of the border appropriate? Rodney Scott, Chief Patrol agent for the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol, gave an interview to CNN Monday on this topic.

Explain the decision to use the tear gas, because that is one question I think people have this morning. So one of our primary missions is to make sure that we keep the border safe and secure. I kind of challenged that this was a peaceful protest or the majority of these people were claiming asylum. We ended up making about 42 arrests, only 8. of those were females and there were only a few children involved. The vast majority of the people were dealing with their adult males. Similar to what we saw, the first wave of the caravan that came

up about a week or so ago, the group immediately started throwing rocks, a debris at our agents, taunting the agents. Once our agents were assaulted, and the numbers started growing. We had two or three agents at a time, initially facing hundreds of people at a time. They deployed tear gas to protect themselves and to protect the border. Were any of your agents hurt? So at least three agents were actually struck by rocks, but they were in tactical gear. So their helmets and their shields and their bulletproof vest actually protected them from the rocks. We did have a few vehicles that were damaged, some windows and quite a few dents. But none of the agents were seriously injured.

Joining us today is David and Sarah, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. David, let's start with the topic of the day. Was it here gas and pepper spray the right response to the border? How should the U.S. handle things, especially when people. come this aggressively? Yeah. So, I mean, I think we should differentiate also to a certain degree, like violent behavior versus like any other type of behavior. So even if you cross the border illegally, so you walked across the border and then you, as soon as a border patrol agent finds you, you put your hands up, okay, you've broken the law, but you've come peaceably.

That's quite a different thing than what we're hearing today in the news, which is that you're throwing rocks. I've seen the video of people throwing rocks, not just like one or two people, people throwing rocks, but a good number of people throwing rocks. Now we're talking about damage to U.S. property, damage to U.S. personnel. These are U.S. citizens and law enforcement who are being assaulted. And in face of that type of threat, you obviously don't want, I mean, people got all angry when President Trump talked about, for instance, you know, changing the rules of engagement to treat rocks and things as bullets and to fire back. And so obviously, we don't want to shoot back at these types of crowd control devices, pepper gas and tear gas, stuff like that,

that is the nonviolent way to try to disperse a crowd, which is trying to do harm to American property and American officials. Now, we heard a few weeks ago about military troops being sent to the border. Were they in this area? Has that helped the border patrol at all? Yeah. So I think I've seen some video, for instance, of helicopters or other things that were deployed. It's not clear whether those were military, but it could have been military vehicles that were deployed to sort of help do reconnaissance and sort of tell the Border Patrol what's going on.

But it's unclear if that was the military or just the Border Patrol. But what I would say is that the military can serve as sort of a force multiplier. So the military is not allowed to do direct law enforcement action when it is called up in a federal way. So federal law – federal military troops can't go out and just enforce the law. So what they generally are doing is supporting the Border Patrol, doing logistics work, doing transportation, doing construction or other types of support activities, not actually being on the front lines. And so that's why I think it's probably highly unlikely that the military was in any way directly involved on this. But it should be added, though, that when you do deploy the military, there's a significant cost to deploy the military. It costs more money to deploy the military to the border, for instance, per body than for instance, a border patrol agent.

And the border patrol agent could also do more than the military can do. So it's a temporary solution and unfortunately it's become sort of something which we've done a lot of in the past few years. And I think we need to start looking at what more permanent solutions are because these troops at the border is a pretty expensive way to do it. So David, you got the opportunity to actually go to the migrant caravan in Mexico City. You were there, of course, with the Heritage Foundation's Anna Quintana. And the Daily Signal is Nolan Peterson, who I just have to throw on a plug for Nolan. He wrote a great piece that you should check out on the Daily Signal. but David, what did you see when you were there?

What did you hear from the migrants you spoke to? Yeah, so I, you know, it was a very eye-opening experience. We, I feel like we learned a lot from our time down there. Anna and Nolan and myself were able to talk with probably about a dozen different folks down there in terms of people who are these migrants seeking, and most of whom are now at our borders. And we had an opportunity to talk. with them and there's a variety of different stories that you can hear. But one of the themes that

we really heard was that people were coming to the United States for a better life. They were desperate. They, you know, they didn't like the job opportunities they had. There might have been some, you know, society-wide violence, general violence in their society that they obviously no one will be happy about. And so they wanted jobs. They wanted a better life. But from the conversations that I heard, we probably only heard about one person who expressed what I thought would be a valid asylum claim, someone specifically talking about persecution because of their political beliefs. And he was actually from Nicaragua, not even from Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala. But that theme, that these are desperate people who were told, hey, join the caravan, we'll get you to the United States, and you'll get a better life.

Most of these people were not talking about asylum when we talk to them. That probably will change now because the reality is that there's also some political, elements to this. There's a political activist, propagandists who are there amongst the caravan telling them to reject the Mexican government offers, telling them to not trust the Mexican government, telling them to go north to the United States, and telling them how to, and supporting them and orienting them on how one seeks asylum in the United States and what that process looks like. And so you can sort of see how you have desperate people who really just want to go north for better life and then you have these enablers and these activists who are

pushing them to the border, pushing them to the United States, and then sort of telling them how to, what are the words you need to say to be able to get through the border, to get through that first to, it's called a credible fear hearing, to get through the first stage of an asylum process. Right. And actually, just a couple of things I want to clarify. First off, you refer to the Mexican offers. That, of course, was for asylum in Mexico, right? So if they wanted to avoid the violence in Nicaragua or Honduras, they could have stayed in Mexico. And then the second thing is, could you explain for our listeners, for these people who are applying for asylum, you mentioned that nationwide violence may not be enough to get it. What exactly do you need to get asylum in the

United States? Yeah, exactly. So people who want a better life, they want jobs or even just like, you know, the mafia or the mob or there's a gang or there's just, there's violence in your society. Those factors are not sufficient for asylum. The U.S. asylum system is based off of basically the same sort of criteria that we use for basically refugees, which is that you have to be someone who has been persecuted or you can prove that you fear persecution based on your race, your religion, your political beliefs, your nationality, or your membership in a social group. So those are the factors. And so, like I said, you have to face specific persecution. So an example I like to give is, let's say you're a business owner in El Salvador and you are, you know, the local

mob or gangs demands protection money from you every month. And they beat up people if they don't do it. Okay, that's definitely violence, right? The gangs are going to beat you up. But they're beating up or they're threatening anyone who doesn't pay them. It's not like they picked on you in particular. They just picked on everyone because they want money and they're willing to extort anyone because that's what criminals do.

Now, let's say you are a gay business owner in El Salvador. Well, once again, if they come to, to you and extort money from you because they just want money from you, well, just because you're a gay business owner doesn't mean you are deserving of persecution, are deserving of protection because you haven't been persecuted because you were gay. Now, if that same gang comes to you and specifically picks on you, and they say, we're doing this because you're homosexual. Okay, well, now you have an asylum, potential valid asylum claim. So the violence that you face, the persecution you face has to be specifically because of one of these characteristics. And it's not enough just to face

generalized violence or even to be one of these categories, but the violence has to be because of one of those categories. And that's not something that a lot of people from these countries face. The latest statistics are that I think it's less than 10 percent of people from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala will actually end up getting asylum because most of them don't have a valid claim. But they, I mean, if they can argue that they were getting assigned, I mean, obviously, it's the issue here that it's a loophole that they see that they have a better shot of getting into America through an asylum claim than through the regular, I am from poverty, I want a better life.

No, it's exactly right. And this is because there's a two-step process for how one gets asylum. The first step is called the credible fear hearing. Credible fear hearing just means that you have to prove that you might have faced persecution. It's a much lower bar. And so I think it's about 85% of folks will pass that credible fear hearing. So they know the right words to prove to an immigration officer, okay, this guy might have faced persecution. So then we, then you have to have your day in court to determine, well, did you actually face persecution to a reason to prove to us that you've actually have the relevant trademark, the benchmark?

And the answer is that like I said, only 10% will actually meet the final benchmark. But like I said, about 85% will reach that initial benchmark. So, yeah, exactly. You have people who will come in because they know if they can get in. A lot of them, if they say the right words, they'll be able to... They can game the system. And then do they ever show up at their next immigration court hearing? Even just in the immigration court system, it takes about two years to hear an immigration case at this point. On the average immigration case takes about two years from when you first get into the system to when you actually have your case heard. The result, I heard a statistic the other day, it's, I think it's about 2% of the families and children who cross. in the last fiscal year. Only 2% of them have been removed from the United States. So it's really slow. Most, like I said, most of them will not get asylum, but yet we haven't been able to remove them because they're stuck in this system. And most of them, we're not even detaining. We're doing catch and release because of these loopholes in our laws. So what can our lawmakers do, if anything, in the next couple months to address the issue of immigration? Yeah. So whether

it's these caravans, whether it's just the general problem right now that we face with increasing asylum claims, the increasing number of families and children. And that is a pretty new phenomenon, increasing families and children. One of the biggest things we can do is I think there are, I say there's three loopholes that we need to fix in our laws, laws that are weak that sometimes intentionally so, sometimes just it was an accident. Congress didn't realize or conditions have changed. The first thing we need to change. The first thing we need to change. is one law called TIFRA, the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Act. So it's meant to protect victims of human trafficking.

Obviously, a well-intentioned law. But there's one provision that basically says if you're an unaccompanied child, so if a child without their parents shows about the U.S. border, well, then we have to hand you over to HHS and we have to go through this very long immigration proceeding. But if you're a child who's unaccompanied from Mexico, oh, well, we can just return you to Mexico, no problem. So we have this double standard for countries like Mexico and Canada, but then everywhere else in the world, if you show up as an unaccompanied child, we have to, like, our hands are tied. We need to change that so that we can quickly return children from, say, El Salvador, quickly return

them to their family in El Salvador. Second loophole need to change is something called the Flores settlement. This is a law that was passed, sorry, a court case that was back in like 1997, but it was recently reinterpreted by the Ninth Circuit out in California, of all places, of course. We have the Fund Circuit. The Fund Circuit. They decided that this very, you know, 20-year-old court decision, the settlement, it should apply to a broader group of people. So basically what it says is that the original settlement said you can't detain children

who, you know, you can't attain children who are unaccompanied, is what the settlement said. in 2016, the court said, well, actually, you can't detain children, period, even if they're with their parents. This is what led to the separation of children from their parents issue, because basically DHS said, okay, look, people are crossing the border illegally. We want to arrest, we want to, you know, detain them so we can deport them, but we can't hold the children anymore because of this new decision. We're not allowed to hold them for more than 20 days. So they had to, so they decided to detain the parents, but they had to release the children. thus separating the families.

The best solution here is simply to say, look, keep families together, but quickly deport them. Don't have this long convoluted process. If you come as a family unit and you don't have a good case, allow for them to be detained together and removed together, rather than having this sort of like, oh, well, you have to treat the children different than the parents. Because the only solution, the only alternative solution right now is you just release both of them. You release the parents and the children. That's catch and release, and it's not working. The last thing we need to change is our asylum system.

Last question for you here. Earlier you mentioned the reason you talked about the root causes really that are driving this migrant crisis. I mean, a lot of folks I think are wondering, including myself, are wondering why now? I mean, if there's any president who was going to do anything he could to push back a migrant caravan, it's President Trump. Yeah. And clearly they're being told by other people that they can somehow get through. Yeah. But what is driving the migrant crisis at this particular moment?

Because there's been poverty in these countries forever. What's unique about this particular moment and what can be done policy-wise to address that root cause? Yeah. And this is where we get, I think, specifically to these loopholes. So what has changed? We have overall levels of illegal immigration are declining. But a certain subsect is increasing. family units and unaccompanied children.

Why are those units increasing? And asylum claims are like increasing like 20-fold. So why is immigration as a whole declining, but these specific groups and claims are increasing? And it comes back to these loopholes. Well, if you come with a child, they'll release you because of the forest settlement and the way it was determined and the way it was recently redetermined in 2016.

So it really is the courts that provoked this. So you have a new policy that says you can't hold family units with children. So everyone decides, hey, I'll come with a child because they can't arrest me. Then the family separation ends and yeah, we're just releasing people now. And if you claim asylum, and you claim, claiming asylum is pretty much always what happens in this process as well because that always slows the process down. So really what needs to change is those first two loopholes I mentioned, closing Tivra and the Forest Settlement, changing those so we can detain people and remove them quickly. But then also claiming changing the asylum system so that we can adjudicate these claims.

names faster, we can say, hey, why didn't you claim asylum in Mexico? Why maybe even add some new provisions like having them claim asylum at our embassies in Mexico City or our NTIA 1 at our consulates. That way, we're not to, we don't have to detain anyone if they're still on Mexican soil. We simply say, we're going to hear your cases there. And if you show up at our borders, we're going to hold you to a much higher standard. We're going to say, hey, why didn't you claim asylum, A, of the Mexican government, but B, why didn't you claim asylum in Mexico City, for example? Surely you would have preferred claiming asylum in Mexico City. Something tells me they're not going to take that deal and they just won't come at all. Many won't. But if they do come, like I said, it lets us quickly turn

them away. It also lets us then actually help the people like this gentleman from Nicaragua that I saw who has a legitimate claim, and he doesn't even have to go as far anymore. He doesn't have to make it to the U.S. to claim asylum. We're going to help him faster. But the people who don't have good claims, they're not going to get asylum. That's, I think, what all Americans should want, though. An asylum system that helps those who truly are persecuted, but better, you know, separates the wheat from the chaff in the sense that we say, you have a frivolous case. You're not getting through.

But this guy who's got a good case, we're going to help him faster than he's being helped right now. All right. Well, thank you, David. Always appreciate your explanations. Thank you. Want to get up to speed about the Supreme Court? Then subscribe to Scotus 101, a podcast about everything that's happening at the

the Supreme Court and what the justices are up to. Well, things are getting festive at the White House. It's traditional for the First Lady to unveil the Christmas decorations each year, and Melania Trump has not disappointed with her selections. We're joined now by Jenny Montalbano, who had somewhat of a fun outing at the White House recently to watch the unveiling of this year's Christmas decorations. Jenny, how was it?

Oh, it was phenomenal. It was really cool. I got to go in a group of other reporters who cover the first. First Lady and got to walk the route that the public tours will also take. These decorations were just unveiled this morning. And her theme this year is American Treasures. So there's tons of red to kind of play up valor and bravery. It was really cool to see. She did an excellent job. Definitely more color this year than last year. It seemed very well received. So were there any particular displays or festive notes that you really liked? So one tree that I really enjoyed is either

in the green room or the blue room. I can. There's so many rooms in the White House. So many rooms and you have 30 minutes and you're running around trying to see everything. But they have this huge tree and it was beautiful. They had these blue and gold embroidered kind of huge tassels with all the different state names. So naturally I found Texas and took a photo. It took me a little bit. But I thought that was a great touch kind of with the 50 states and whatnot.

But also when you're first walking in, she had just these giant red trees, which at first was kind of jarring. It was really something. Yeah, I saw those on the video. She tweeted out that video. And in that same hallway, I don't know if this door was supposed to be open, but the room to the White House theater was open. That was red too. So there was just a lot of red going on.

It was a great day. It was a bold color. Were there any Make America Great Again hats? You know, I did not. Did not see any. There was a soccer ball ornament. I think Barron plays soccer. And I was kind of expecting to see a hat.

That's a little on American. That's not optimal. Fitting. No Maga hats. No Manga hats yet. Maybe they'll change that. What about any ornaments on trees that were, you know, white housey or political or Trumpy? You know, I didn't see a ton of ornaments this year. Some of the trees they did, they have the

nativity seen out. So they changed up some things from last year. But it was to me, it was more about the color. They had a beautiful Marine Corps band playing, a beautiful nativity and whatnot. And you mentioned that the theme was America's Treasures. Did they talk at all about why that theme meant something to the First Lady? So I haven't heard specifically why she chose that, but I do know that she wanted to really emphasize patriotism. And so that ties into the red, that ties into the American treasures. They have a gold star family tree. It's one of the first trees that you see actually on the tour, which is really something.

And there will be a piece out soon on Daily Signal with lots of photos. Thalia Ramprasad took some great images. So if you can't be in D.C. to actually go tour it or bringing it to you. So I have to ask, did Melania, she was there, right? She was not. She wasn't there. No. I was going to ask if she said Merry Christmas.

Oh, I'm sure she would have had she been there. I have a feeling she'll maybe make a surprise appearance when the public tour start. I was hoping to see her, but she did a great job. There were 14,000 red ornaments, 14,000. See more than I have. Well, thank you so much, Jenny. Thanks for having me. And we'll leave there for today.

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