The Daily Signal - What You Need to Know About Biden Administration’s Illegal Immigration Claims

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

The Department of Homeland Security said two weeks ago that illegal border crossings are on pace to reach their highest level in two decades. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's administration is making claims such as that border crises happen every year and that former President Donald Trump’s policies didn’t reduce illegal crossings. Lora Ries, senior research fellow for homeland security at The Heritage Foundation, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss those claims. We also cover these stories: The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, warned Americans that a fourth coronavirus surge could be on the way if more precautions aren’t taken. The CDC said in a new study that the Moderna and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines prevent about 90% of infections.  In the opening arguments of the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, prosecutors said that he “betrayed” his badge by using unnecessary force on George Floyd, who died in police custody last May. 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, March 30th. I'm Jared Stetman. And I'm Rachel Del Dutis. President Joe Biden's administration has recently made false and misleading statements about the current crisis at the southern border with Mexico. What is the truth of the situation? Laura Rees, Senior Research Fellow for Homeland Security at the Heritage Foundation, joins me on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss.

Don't forget. If you're joining this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Centers for Disease Control Director, Rochelle Walensky, warned Americans that a fourth coronavirus surge could be on the way if more precautions aren't taken. I'm going to lose the script and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom, Melinsky said at a White House briefing on Monday.

We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential where we are, and so much reason for hope, but right now I'm scared. Wellensky said that the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases has increased by 10% since the previous week, and is around 60,000 cases per day. Of the states that have been hit hardest by the uptick, New York and New Jersey rank at the top. According to ABC 7, New York, New Jersey has been reporting about 647 new cases for every 100,000 residents over the past 14 days. New York has averaged 548. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent in a new study that the Mediarrantia, and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines prevent about 90% of infections. The study published Monday, which examined

3,950 health care personnel and other essential and frontline workers, found the vaccine was 90% effective against COVID-19, regardless of symptom status, according to the CDC's study. In the opening statements at the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, prosecutor said that he betrayed his badge by using unnecessary force on George Ford. Floyd, who died in police custody last May. Chauvin used excessive and unnecessary force on the body of Mr. George Floyd when he put his knees upon his neck and back, grinding and crushing him until the very life was squeezed out of him, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell said in court on Monday, according to the

Washington Examiner, you will learn that Chauvin was aware that Mr. Floyd was unarmed and that Mr. Floyd did not threaten anyone. Blackwell acknowledged that Floyd struggled with an opioid addiction for many years, but said that the precedents of narcotics in his system at the time of death could be misleading, since habitual users often develop a tolerance of the drug. The prosecution in the Chauvin case is seeking two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter for the death of Floyd. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Laura Reese on fact-checking the claims made by the Biden administration about the border. This is Virginia Allen, host of the Daily Signal podcast.

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I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Laura Brees. She's a senior research fellow for Homeland Security at the Heritage Foundation. Laura, it's great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks for having me back on. Well, it's great to have you with us. So your immigration team at Heritage responded to a lot of the different claims made by the Biden administration about what's happening with illegal immigration right now. So I want to go through this fact check your team did. And so first off, I wanted to ask, you looked at the claim that the border crisis happens every year.

What did you find when you looked at this claim made by the Biden administration? Well, there's a big difference between a seasonal flow with respect to immigration and a border crisis. And so for the Biden administration to say, well, a border crisis happens every year, then by definition would not make that a crisis. And so they are really conflating two very different things. And if you look at the numbers, it is certainly not a seasonal flow that we are seeing right now. For example, 69,000 illegal aliens were apprehended in November of 2020. But just in February of this year, over 100,000 have been apprehended. And that's expected to go up to over 120,000 for March.

And then in contrast, the November to March numbers under President Trump in the 2019 to 2020 actually decreased. And from March of 2020 to March of this year, Customs of Board Protection anticipates a 263% increase in illegal crossings. Well, can we go through that second claim that President Trump's policies didn't reduce illegal crossings? Well, they absolutely did. So in 2019, we did see a border crisis. And the Trump administration began two critical programs that were real game changers. One was the Remain in Mexico program,

which allowed asylum seekers to still apply for asylum, but they had to wait in Mexico while their proceedings took place. And when would-be migrants realized that claiming a fear, was no longer going to be their ticket to get into the U.S. to then disappear, they stopped coming. And the numbers quickly started to decline. The other key aspect of that was the agreements that the Trump administration made with the governments of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. And for the first time, the Trump administration used the leverage that the U.S. has with respect

to these countries and said, if you want to continue to get foreign aid from us, we have. expect some cooperation in return, particularly with respect to immigration. And so those countries agreed and they enforced their own respective borders. They built up their own respective asylum systems and they took nationals back who traversed through their countries but didn't seek asylum until they got to the U.S. And so those numbers quickly decreased. At the height of the 2019 crisis, 140,000 illegal aliens were caught trying to cross the border. That went down to 42,000 in November of 2019. And then by March of 2020, apprehensions were down to about 33,000 for the month.

Well, there was another claim that was made that the Remain in Mexico policy was inhumane. So, Laura, can you first tell us about that policy and then whether or not it was actually inhumane? So the Trump administration negotiated with government of Mexico to house migrants on the Mexico side of the border who wanted to continue to pursue an asylum claim with the U.S. And Mexico offered housing as well as jobs. And the claims that President Biden made during his press conference last week bizarrely claimed that the Trump, administration left illegal aliens sitting on the edge of the Rio Grande, that there wasn't enough to eat. There's no evidence to support that. But he also claimed that the Trump administration sent kids back to Mexico to starve. Now, not only is that ridiculous, but the Biden administration is returning Mexican nationals back to Mexico.

So they're not being honest about what they themselves are doing in the current crisis. We got a recent piece published for heritage.org, and it's called Biden administration's new ICE guidance turns America into a sanctuary country. Can you tell us, Laura, about the new guidelines for immigration and customs enforcement that those agents are subject to now under the Biden administration? Yeah, so everything old is new again. Under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security put out a ICE or immigration and customs enforcement priorities. memo and it narrowed the types of cases that ICE could arrest people, detain them, or remove them. And so under the Trump administration, that Priorities Memo was rescinded.

Now under the Biden administration, not only do they return to this notion of a Priorities Memo, but they greatly restrict who ICE can apprehend and remove far beyond what the Obama administration did. So the memo that was issued in February of this year by this administration basically lists three priorities. Terrorists, spies, and convicted, aggravated felons. And that leaves out a large number of very serious criminals. If you think of driving under the influence or domestic abuse, child abuse, molestation, crimes like that, very serious crimes, that would not be considered a priority for this administration. And finally, the memo also lists anyone who illegally entered the U.S. after November 1 of 2020,

but I don't give that one much credence because anyone can purchase a document to show that they've been in the U.S. by whatever date is necessary. So this restricts ICE's caseload by about 90%. And it really does make the U.S. a sanctuary country. So it tells future migrants come into the U.S. and we are not going to deport you. Well, you had mentioned that these new guidelines really do restrict or, I guess, take off about 90% of ICE agents' workload.

Can you talk a little bit more about what they would usually, be doing and how this new so-called guidance really keeps them from doing their job? So there are several grounds in the Immigration and Nationality Act that makes someone either inadmissible into the U.S. or removable from the U.S. when they're here. Anything from if they illegally across the border without being inspected, if they entered with a visa and overstayed the terms of those visas, a number of crimes, et cetera. And so many of those then are taken off the table for ICE agents to put someone into removal proceedings or to seek their removal.

And what is even more ridiculous about this memo, it says if an ICE agent wishes to pursue someone with a case that doesn't fall into these three priorities that I mentioned, they have to go first get prior approval from a supervisor, and they have to write a descriptive narrative justification each week to pursue such cases. So this administration is clearly telling ICE agents, don't do your job. So, Laura, something else you had fact checked was a claim made by President Biden, which really has blamed the Trump administration for the border crisis. And you said that this claim doesn't have credibility. Why is that the case? Well, the most obvious evidence is that the Trump administration did not have a border crisis in 2020, because following the 2019 border

crisis, the Trump administration had implemented those successful programs I had mentioned earlier. The Remain in Mexico program and the agreements with the Central American countries, which drastically reduced the illegal encounters at the border. And in 2020, those numbers continue to fall. Now, the career officials at Homeland Security had several meetings with the Biden transition team and warned the transition team that if they rescinded those programs or removed the operations, revoked those agreements, that they would quickly have a border crisis on their hands. And that's exactly what happened and what we are now experiencing. So the Biden administration has long tried to argue they don't have a crisis on their hands. That's obviously

false. Any American can see that. But by now trying to blame President Trump, it's a tacit acknowledgement by the Biden administration that they do, in fact, have a crisis on their hands. Well, Lori, it also fact-checked some claims from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And the claim that he had made was that, you know, we're expelling families, we're expelling single adults, we have communicated and will continue to communicate to the children, do not come. You had rated this claim as false. Why is that the case? Well, he continues to state that if unaccompanied children come to the border, that we will let them all in, which is an extremely dangerous statement to make because it just encourages traffickers

and smugglers to use children and for parents to send their children unaccompanied north to the border. This administration is returning some families back to Mexico, some single adults, particularly Mexican nationals. They are treating nationals from other countries, from non-contiguous countries differently. They are allowing them into the U.S. and to remain here. I have yet to have someone explained to me why they are treating Mexican nationals differently than all other nationals, they should all be returned to either Mexico or their home country. But with respect to the children in particular, the numbers of just shocking. I mean, every day it's jumping by the thousands.

It's now over 18,000 in detention. And it's the left's policies that have encouraged this by giving benefits to unaccompanied alien children. And it just encourages more parents to send them north. So the officials in this administration really need to pause and step back and realize they are, their policies are leading to more trafficking and not less. Well, and lastly, Laura, another claim made by Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Maracas was that border patrol agents are focused on operations, on securing the border, on addressing the needs of vulnerable children. And you had rated this claim as misleading. Why is it misleading? Agents are doing everything they can in terms of dealing with the large volumes of people who are crossing the border. The Secretary has transferred resources from the northern border to the southern border, but because of the large volumes,

many agents are pulled off the line and having to address children, whether that's the feeding and caring of them, changing diapers, And these agents, their hearts go out to these children, but it really affects the ability to secure the border, which is one of the reasons why we indeed have an open border right now and nationals from countries all over the world are exploiting it. Well, Laura, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Slinglingle podcast. It's always great having you with us. Thanks for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode.

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