The Daily - Trump Shut the Door on Migrants. Will Biden Open It?

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

Caitlin Dickerson, an immigration reporter for The Times, says there is one word that sums up the Trump administration’s approach to border crossing: deterrence. For nearly four years, the U.S. government has tried to discourage migrants, with reinforced walls, family separation policies and threats of deportation.Those policies have led to the appearance of a makeshift asylum-seeker camp of frayed tents and filthy conditions within walking distance of the United States.Today, we ask: What will the legacy of President Trump’s immigration policies be? And will anything change next year?Guest: Caitlin Dickerson, an immigration reporter for The New York Times.For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Read the latest edition here.Background reading: This is what we saw inside the tent camp on the U.S.-Mexico border.The Trump administration’s immigration policies have not deterred pregnant women from trying to enter the United States. Here are some of their experiences.A federal judge last week ordered the Trump administration to fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program designed to shield young, undocumented immigrants from deportation.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Late last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully reinstate DACA. But much of the president's agenda on immigration remains in place, shutting out large groups of migrants. My colleague, Caitlin Dickerson, on what that legacy will mean for immigration during the Biden administration.

It's Tuesday, December 8th. Caitlin, you recently traveled to the Mexican border, and I wonder if you can describe what you saw there. When I went to Mexico this past fall, I visited, you know, this area right on the edge of the Rio Grande in the city of Matamoros. It's within eye shot actually of Texas. Buenos dias. Buenos dias. I visited this tent camp. Como esta?

Muy bien. It's behind a chain link fence and it's teeming with different colored tents. A lot of them are kind of in tatters now. And after the sun came up and the day began, people lined up and started waiting for a warm meal. warm meal. I think the first one that I saw was basically beans and rice and some syrupy sweet juice that little kids were drinking. You know, eventually this makeshift village just came to life. Tent residents here are waiting in line for firewood that they can use to cook in the

ovens they've set up inside their tents. I saw people lined up at wash stations, you know, holding to children's onesies and socks, trying to hand wash their clothing. You see laundry that's kind of muddied, hanging from trees to dry, that's gotten wet from hurricane rains. Another thing that really stuck out to me was the stench. It smells really bad. It's clear that there's no real formal system for sanitation. You saw porta-potties that I think were both not enough in terms of their numbers and also just hadn't been cleaned out in a really long time.

And so it was really inescapable, even though you're right by the water, that smell and then the heat just kind of hangs over you. And Caitlin, who are the people living in what seems like pretty squalid conditions here? These are migrants from, for the most part, Central and Latin America. Certainly a lot of people come from places that have been pretty terrorized by gang violence and lawlessness. And so, you know, a lot of people in the camp have personally experienced extortion attempts, have personally had loved ones and family members killed, and they've requested asylum in the United States, and they've been turned back into Mexico under this policy known as Remain in Mexico that's been in place since the

very beginning of 2019. There are hundreds of people living in this camp, but it's one of several that have popped up along the border. And they've grown into what are essentially refugee camps right on America's doorstep, which, you know, is a historical first. The country has never seen anything like this before. And Caitlin, what was the rationale from the Trump administration for the remain in Mexico policy? I have to assume the Trump administration understood on some level that sending people who are seeking asylum for these kinds of horrible conditions back to Mexico would mean putting them in very difficult situations. So what was the

argument for the original policy? I think if you use one word to sum up the Trump administration's approach to border crossing and trying to shut off border crossing, it's deterrence, right? It's this idea of discouraging people from coming to the United States and especially those who don't qualify. So President Trump and his administration felt there were so many people applying for asylum, you know, for whom this program was never intended, that they had to create a deterrent effect. They had to create circumstances that would be so difficult that it would discourage anybody who didn't absolutely have to try to get into the United States from making that attempt. So when we think about this policy that I know we've talked about a lot on the show in kind of theoretical terms.

You know, remain in Mexico. Don't stay in the United States. Do your waiting for asylum in Mexico. This is what it looks like, these pretty awful conditions inside this camp. This is what it looks like, right. And what I think is so interesting about visiting the camp in Matamoros, I've been there several times since it first popped up, is that it's really kind of a physical manifestation of the policy changes of the last four years. Americans can debate policies in conceptual terms and decide whether they think that, you know, this group or that group should be allowed into the United States. When you visit the camp, you really see the faces of the people whose lives kind of hang in the balance during those debates. Is there anyone who stands out

from your interviews in this camp? Yeah. One person who stood out to me right away because I was drawn to her tent by music that I heard playing from the inside. Her name is Antonia Maldonado. She's 41 years old. She's from Honduras, but she actually grew up most of her life in Guatemala. And her tent, it turns out, is kind of a watering hole in the camp. Her tent, it turns out, is kind of a watering hole in the camp. She and her partner sort of scrap together this makeshift kitchen based on donated items and trash. And so it's hospitable, you know, it's got rickety chairs where people can come and sit down and she cooks over an open flame.

And so I was drawn over to her tent right away because I noticed that people were gathering there and she just kind of started to tell me her story. And what is her story? How did she end up in this camp? So she described being from a city in Guatemala that has been pretty overrun by gang violence and where people were subject to indiscriminate and seemingly random attacks. And she was no exception. She said that several times, you know, after gang members kind of targeted her,

she was sexually assaulted. You know, they identified her and then approached her and attacked her multiple times. And eventually she, of course, decided that she couldn't handle it anymore. And so she and her teenage son left their home country in 2018. So they've been on the run for more than two years at this point. And they're waiting to find out whether they're going to get asylum or not. And in your conversation with her, how does she describe the experience of living in this very strange place? She's really beaten down.

She's exhausted like everybody else in the camp. But at the same time, she has this really strong personality and this energy of kind of perseverance that I think really draws people in. You know, just in the few hours I spent in her tent over several days, I saw young moms would come in to ask her for advice. One who had a newborn,

she actually asked Antonia to help her bathe the baby, and Antonia found a bowl that they used to hand-bathe the baby, and when she was done, she held the baby up by its feet, upside down, kind of like, you know, some bananas or something like that. It was just...

Yeah, she's just so confident, and, you know, there was this teen mom looking up at her like, oh, my God, I could never do that. Mm. Sounds like she's kind of a den mother in this camp. She really is. But, you know, she has her own family, and she did say that the hardest part of any of this experience

has been its impact on her son. He just turned 18, you know, and he normally would be in high school. But not only is he not going out to school, he's not, you know, spending time with friends. And she feels like, you know, those last snatches of innocence that, you know, a person has in their late teenage years for him are gone. You have to grow up really quick living in a place like this. It just requires so much resilience and self-sufficiency. And while we were talking, she actually realized that it was her partner's birthday. So the two of them had met in the camp, connected right away because they're both, yeah, they're both really religious. And we were talking about timelines and dates and all of a sudden it hits her and they all start laughing and she gives him a big hug.

And everybody has big smiles on at first. big smiles on at first. But then the mood kind of changes and she started talking about how when you live in a place like this, you really lose yourself. You lose track of time. You lose track of your goals. Just the parameters that tend to define life, they all go out the window when you're in this perpetual state of waiting. And so I think letting go of or forgetting about that to them is kind of symbolic of everything that they've had to let go of or forget about while they're stuck here. And Caitlin, while Antonia is living in this camp, what kind of communication does she receive from the U.S. government? What's the status of her asylum case? What are they telling her?

How frequently are they telling her anything? So all Antonia has to lay out her path forward here is some documents that she got from the United States government when they sent her back into Mexico with a court date. But then the coronavirus hit, the border was completely shut down, and so she's been stuck in Mexico kind of with no word ever since because those courts have been shut down. So she's waiting now, like everybody in the camp, for the courts to reopen.

And in the meantime, she's really maintained a faith that if she continues to do everything right, that her case will eventually be granted. She kept saying, you know, we don't mean any harm. We don't want to do anything bad. And we're not asking for riches. We're not asking for any kind of fancy accommodations. You know, she just kept saying, we just want an opportunity to work and to live with dignity.

Caitlin, given the time period when you were in the camp, as the U.S. presidential election was well underway, I have to imagine that the people in this camp, people like Antonia, understood that a decision was about to be made of great consequence in the United States that could have a real bearing on their lives. Oh, absolutely. real bearing on their lives. Oh, absolutely. I think that people in the camp were following the 2020 presidential election even more closely than, you know, Americans in some parts of the United States that I visited leading up to it. Everybody in the camp seemed to believe that their fate hung in the balance and that if Joe Biden were elected, that they had a shot at safety and opportunity, and that if he weren't, you know, just a real sense of hopelessness if that were to result. And of course, now we know how that ended, and people in the camp have really celebrated, even though their lives have yet to meaningfully change.

though their lives have yet to meaningfully change. Well, I mean, were they right to be rooting for Joe Biden in this election? Were they right in thinking that their circumstances would change now that he has won? They're right that Joe Biden is their best shot of getting into the United States. Throughout his campaign and even in a debate, he talked about this remain in Mexico policy as being an unprecedented injustice and has said he'll eliminate the policy right away. But of course, saying that you're going to get rid of a policy like that is one thing. Actually doing it, especially in the middle of a pandemic, is much more difficult. So the future is anything but clear. The Biden administration still has a

lot of work to do to figure out how to address the situations of people living in these camps. Right. So whatever happens to people like Antonia in this camp, it will not happen quickly. No, I don't think that we can expect their lives to change overnight after his inauguration. We'll be right back. So, Caitlin, you started to hint at this a moment ago. Joe Biden will enter the White House seemingly determined to unwind a fair amount of Donald Trump's legacy on immigration. But as you said, when it comes to remain in Mexico, that will not be simple. It will not be just flipping a switch. It will be messy.

It will be slow. And beyond that, Biden himself is a pretty complicated figure when it comes to immigration, right? He's not somebody who campaigned on a message of fundamentally rewriting the rules of immigration. I think of him as a moderate figure on this subject. Is that right? He is a moderate. You know, I think that there are policies that he can sort of quickly and uncontroversially eliminate. But I think there is a lot more that he's going to have to reckon with that is not going to necessarily be easy for him, where he's not going to just eagerly go back on what President Trump did on day one. Mm hmm. Well, so let's talk about the most important Trump era immigration policies that Biden is going to have to quickly reckon with and your understanding of what exactly, given his approach to immigration, he is likely to do with them as president. And I wonder if we can go one by one through those policies. Where do you think we should start? through those policies. Where do you think we should start? Well, I think it makes sense to start with the travel ban. That was President Trump's first big executive order on immigration,

which he introduced within weeks of taking office. And it really gave us a taste, I think, of what the next four years were going to look like. And after several legal challenges, the ban is now in its third iteration. So it blocks people from 12 different countries, including Iran and Libya, as well as Nigeria and Venezuela, from entering the United States. And President-elect Biden has said he'll rescind that policy very soon after taking office. And that will reopen the doors to the United States for people from all those countries. reopen the doors to the United States for people from all those countries. But of course, hundreds of thousands were kept out of the United States during the last four years. And all those lives were put on hold. But after January 20th, Biden can lift that ban in those 12 countries basically with the flick of his pen.

Exactly, yes. Okay. So what is the next major immigration policy from the Trump era that Biden will have to contend with? So next, I think it makes sense to talk about a set of policies that determine who's allowed into the United States on kind of humanitarian grounds. So first you have asylum, and beyond the remain in Mexico policy that we talked about,

you've also seen the Trump administration find ways of carving out individual types of claims and making those ineligible for asylum over the last few years. For example, people who are seeking asylum based on the fact that they've been subjected to gang violence or to domestic violence. Those are categories that were eliminated at some point during the Trump administration. Then you have refugee resettlement, which we saw go from a historic high number under President Obama in his last term in office to a historic low. Huge numbers of people who are not allowed into the United States under President Trump. And all of these categories of humanitarian protection in different forms, President-elect Biden has said he's going to try to reverse and put back into place very quickly after he takes office. And he can do that pretty much right away as president?

It's not going to happen overnight. It's not just one stroke of the pen in all these cases. But it seems clear that President-elect Biden will be able to get all these changes made likely within his first year in office. Okay, so Caitlin, what about Joe Biden's plans for dealing with family separation, the practice of deliberately separating parents and children who cross the border illegally in the eyes of the Trump administration to discourage those crossings? That policy, as you have told us in past episodes, is no longer in practice. It actually ended, but the ramifications of it we know still exist. And Biden has to confront those ramifications. What do we know about his plan for doing that? Right.

So a big question for President-elect Biden, one that has not been answered, is whether some sort of reparation will be provided to separated families. Huh. That's under discussion. families. I think that's under discussion. It's actually a key facet of this ongoing federal court case, which you and I have talked about before related to family separations. One of the things that the ACLU has pushed for in court and that yet remains unresolved is whether or not the U.S. government is going to have to provide mental health care and counseling for all the trauma that by now we well know was inflicted by this policy. And President-elect Biden has not yet spoken to whether or not he would proactively provide that kind of support. And I think maybe an even tougher question for him

as president is, what about parents who were deported without their kids and whose kids remain in the United States? There's no real avenue for them to try to seek re-entry and reunification with their kids. And finally, of course, we haven't yet mentioned DACA. This is the policy that allows undocumented children brought to the United States, most by their parents, to live and work in the United States. It was created under President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. It was rescinded by President Trump, and there was just some major news about it from the court system. abat it from the court system. That's right. So President-elect Biden had already said that he planned to reinstate DACA, which offers two years of temporary protection from deportation to anybody who qualifies. And a federal judge last Friday basically did that work for him and

reinstated the program. So now up to 1.1 million people can benefit. But, you know, in some ways that was the easy work. And Joe Biden is going to face additional pressure because we've seen that this program is vulnerable, that it's temporary, it's precarious, and it's really subject to whatever political winds are blowing at any given moment. Right. And so has Biden talked publicly about something more permanent, basically a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, for DREAMers?

Certainly, President-elect Biden has made clear that he favors a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers. But the problem is that he doesn't have a way of creating one as of right now. Right, that's Congress's job. Exactly. And he himself has been part of many attempts at comprehensive immigration reform that have failed. And at this point, that's what it's looking like would happen if it were attempted in the next four years. And of course, if we're being honest about the politics of this moment,

a major immigration overhaul affecting DACA, creating a path to citizenship for DREAMers, doesn't seem all that likely in the middle of a pandemic. That's right. The pandemic has complicated all of these issues. And in fact, it led the Trump administration to put into place what's arguably the most restrictive border policy of the last four years, one we haven't even talked about yet. Which is what? embedded within the federal code regarding health and human services, to make this argument that allowing people to cross into the United States right now increases the risk of the spread of

the coronavirus. And as a result, the borders have effectively been closed. Wow. It's a very sweeping policy and in some ways is the biggest complication for President-elect Biden, because a policy this powerful has the potential to actually encourage a huge spike in migration. If President-elect Biden eliminates or even says he's going to eliminate this policy, you could anticipate thousands, even tens of thousands of people rushing to the border because they see an opening coming. And so Biden's going to face a lot of pressure to eliminate the policy, but he's also going to have to balance that with, you know, trying to anticipate what

the repercussions of it might be. Kaitlin, how much of Biden's decision-making here do you think will be based on the fact that no matter what you think of President Trump's approach, that it did discourage undocumented border crossings, that it did keep people from coming into the United States? How much do you think that will be weighing on President Biden? I think it'll weigh on President Biden a lot, especially because the last time he was in the White House, I think the biggest criticism when it came to immigration policy that he and President Obama faced was that they were too careful. They were too cautious. They really spent a lot of time trying to think about how Republicans were going to feel about their immigration policies, trying to compromise and make concessions. feel about their immigration policies, trying to compromise and make concessions. And it really, in the end, amounted to very little. And then you have President Trump come into office and take the opposite approach of, you know, laying out a very specific goal and throwing every possible resource at achieving it without any concern for how people who disagreed might react. And so I think we will see a bolder President Biden.

I don't know how much he'll take after President Trump, but I think at least a little bit, because you're right, there's no denying that this current administration set out to achieve something very specific, and in many ways it has. So what do you think the U.S. immigration system will ultimately look like under President Joe Biden? I think Joe Biden really has some soul-searching and determination to do, you know, along with the rest of us before we could even begin to answer that question.

You know, as we mentioned, he's been through several attempts to reform the system. They've often failed. And I've come to believe that that's in part because Americans really don't agree at a basic level about whether the system exists to allow people into the United States or whether it exists primarily to keep them out? Is it about people who are fleeing violence, whose lives are in danger, or who just need an opportunity and a leg up in life? Is it about helping them or is it about protecting Americans from people who are criminals, people who are in some way dangerous. We're so conflicted as a country, and I've just seen that over and over again in the time that I've spent covering this issue. And I've also seen how, in many ways, Americans kind of see the system as failing on both ends. So I think that just until we reach some degree of consensus as a country, there's always going to be that internal struggle and strife over what it is that we're doing and what our goals are for a functioning immigration system.

Well, Caitlin, I want to thank you, not just for this conversation, but for four years' worth of conversations that we have had with you on this show. Because to our great sadness, you are leaving the Times for the Atlantic, and they are very lucky to have you. And we are grateful for everything that you have done to tell the story of immigration during this historic period, especially on The Daily, where you were also a guest host, for which I am enormously grateful. So we wish you the absolute best and we're really going to miss you. Thank you so much, Michael. That really means a lot. It's been an honor and a privilege to be able to work with you guys. And I'll miss you too. Cheers. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

The Times reports that the Trump administration passed up the chance to purchase additional doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine over the summer. As a result, Pfizer may not be able to provide more of its vaccine to the U.S. until June because of commitments it made to other countries. Trump is expected to sign an executive order today requiring that the U.S. prioritize getting the vaccine to American citizens

before sending it to foreign countries. But it's unclear how, if at all, that order would impact a company like Pfizer. Ann. It's been a long 34 days since the election on November 3rd. We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged.

On Monday, Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, recertified the results of the presidential election. After another recount, reaffirmed Joe Biden's victory there. The third time that the results showed that Trump had lost the state. Disinformation regarding election administration should be condemned and rejected. Integrity matters. Truth matters. Trump has refused to accept defeat in Georgia, prompting his supporters to harass and threaten the state's election workers.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.