The NPR Politics Podcast - Biden Faces Scrutiny Over Surge of Haitian Migrants

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

The Biden administration is expelling hundreds of Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, after thousands arrived at a crossing near Del Rio, Texas this weekend. Photos of groups in makeshift campsites and of border patrol agents aggressively confronting the migrants on horseback sparked outrage. Now, Biden is facing pressure from all sides: many Republicans say he needs to be tougher on border security, while many Democrats say deporting the migrants, without the option to apply for asylum, is cruel. This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Franco Ordonez, and national immigration correspondent Joel Rose. Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Aloha, this is Tracy calling from Maui, Hawaii, where I've just finished teaching five classes of third graders on the xylophones and metallophones. This podcast was recorded at 1.08 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, September 22nd. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. E nānei a i kaha i o lelo. Enjoy the show. Three, four. That's some impressive xylophoning skills. I currently have a two-year-old who all he does is like bang the xylophone. No coordinated order. I would love to see that concert in person. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.

And I'm Franco Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And today on the show, we've got a special guest, Joel Rose, who covers immigration for NPR. Joel, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today. Hey, you're welcome. Thanks for having me. So, Joel, we asked you to come on the show in part because we saw some really dramatic and frankly alarming images coming from the U.S.-Mexico border over the weekend. Thousands of Haitian migrants at this makeshift camp in Texas border town. The U.S. government has, of course, begun to move those Haitians out of those makeshift camps at this point. But first, can you explain the context?

Why are a number of Haitians trying to gain entry into the United States right now? Well, sure. You know, many of these people are originally from Haiti. But from what we understand that many of them have been living in South America in places like Brazil and Chile, and had been for a very long time, some of them maybe since, you know, a major earthquake in Haiti back in 2010. So, you know, we've been seeing more and more Haitians arriving at the US border for several years now. And then you throw in sort of recent events in Haiti, where there's growing political and economic instability, after the assassination of the president, and a major earthquake, another major earthquake this year. So for some reason, which I think is

still not entirely clear, a lot of them started arriving all at once in this one small section of the border in Del Rio, Texas. Basically, you know, thousands of them walked across the Rio Grande into Del Rio, Texas. 15,000 at one point were in this sort of makeshift encampment under the international bridge there. it just became a flashpoint because you've got so many thousands of migrants in one place, and it's more than U.S. government immigration authorities could handle. It's a mess. You know, for those of you listening, you've probably seen some of these images.

There was one in particular that went viral on social media of a white border patrol agent using, I guess, what appeared to be reins against a black Haitian man. Right. Yeah. These photos have gone massively viral showing, you know, Border Patrol agents on horseback, you know, apparently trying to prevent migrants from crossing the river back into Del Rio, Texas. A lot of the migrants appear to be carrying bags of food, because I think what was happening was that there wasn't any food in this camp, and the migrants were crossing back over the river to buy food in Mexico and then return maybe to their traveling partners or their

families in the camp. And the Border Patrol agents appear to be trying to stop them, and they're on horseback. So you've got the image of these black migrants in the river and white men on horseback with these long reins that are not whips, but kind of look like whips. And as you say, it has really produced a lot of shock and outrage. And that's really continuing to reverberate, I think, around Washington and around the country. Vice President Kamala Harris, you know, is just one of several top officials who said she was deeply troubled by the images. Here's a little bit of what she said. What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback treating human beings the way they were is horrible.

And I fully support what is happening right now, which is a thorough investigation into exactly what is going on there. But human beings should never be treated that way. And I'm deeply troubled about it. And I'll also be talking with Secretary Menorcas today. The vice president, of course, is leading the White House's efforts to stem the flow of migration at the southern border. But Franco, you know this. I mean, the White House at the same time, that it is very concerned about the horrific images and the need to deal with this humanitarian crisis is also telling migrants and repeatedly reiterating that they should not be coming right now. How do you feel like the president's team is balancing those concerns? I mean, it feels like a very difficult message to simultaneously convey these two things.

Yeah, I mean, the vice president, as we just heard, and Press Secretary Jen Psaki, they've really tried to distance themselves from the actions of the border agents. You know, calling, as we heard, calling it horrible and that humans shouldn't be treated that way. The Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has initiated an investigation. He actually tweeted out earlier that he expects the results of that investigation to be made next week, and he promised to make that public. And the officers who were caught in those images have also been pulled and are no longer interacting with migrants, he says. And, you know, as you know, it is really just another example of how the administration has had a hard time trying to balance that humanitarian approach while still continuing to say that the border is secure. On the one hand, some of the policies that the Biden administration

has pushed, including, you know, extended temporary protected status for Haitians, you know, has led to criticism that the Biden administration is soft on the border. At the same time, the Biden team is saying, don't come. Don't come to the United States. You will be sent back. And the fact is, the Biden administration is deporting a lot of people, including Haitians. And they're doing so using a very highly controversial, actually, public health rule known as Title 42. And that's allowed the administration to remove people basically without processing them and without allowing them to apply for asylum. Lots more questions on that Title 42, and we'll talk about that in a little bit.

But Joel, I wanted to make sure I understand exactly what's happening right now. You said that the United States has been removing a number of these Haitians from the makeshift camp. You know, am I understanding correctly that the government is flying people back to Haiti? And I guess I'm confused by that, because a number of these people had not actually been living in Haiti prior to coming to the United States. Yeah, no, I think you have that right. I mean, the administration says it's ramping up expulsion flights to Haiti and to other destinations in the hemisphere, which they haven't specified yet. But yeah, some of these people who have perhaps not been in Haiti for

years are going to find themselves back there when they get off of these planes. I mean, I think the administration, you know, Franco mentioned the sort of balance that they're trying to strike. They're trying to send this message of deterrence by putting some of these people on planes and flying them out of the U.S. But on the other hand, you know, many of these folks may wind up being allowed into the U.S. to make asylum claims. I mean, the U.S. has been expelling single adults under this Title 42 policy that Franco laid out, but they've been allowing a lot of families, parents traveling with children into the U.S. to apply for asylum and seek protection here. And I think we're going to see that playing out in Del Rio as well. You know,

there are already reports that lots of families are being allowed in and released into the U.S. to make their asylum claims. So, again, I think it's this balancing act, right, where they're trying to send a message of deterrence like, don't come now, we will expel you. But the reality is more complicated. I mean, they can't fly them all out. There aren't enough flights to fly out 15,000 people in the timeframe that they're talking about. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk more about the political pressure the president has been facing over this situation.

And we're back. So the explanation the White House gives for these mass expulsions is something you referenced earlier, Franco, called Title 42. It's actually an immigration policy that's a vestige of the former president, former President Donald Trump. So can you just start by explaining what Title 42 does? Yeah, sure. I mean, kind of like you noted, it was invoked by the Trump administration early in the COVID-19 pandemic. And the Trump administration argued that it was justified to prevent certain groups to come to the United States in, quote, the interests of public health. And basically what it does is it allows border agents to quickly remove tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers arriving at the border without a hearing, without starting their asylum case.

And this use, which the Biden administration has continued, has given them time to grapple with, you know, basically the largest surge of migrants to the border in recent history. Just to put the Title 42 numbers in context, over 400,000 migrants were removed via Title 42 by the Trump administration. And Biden or the Biden administration has already removed over 700,000 migrants via Title 42. Oh, wow. So you're talking about almost double. Yeah, I mean, it is a lot of people. Now, there are a lot of reasons for that. There are more migrants coming. And, you know, we could talk more about that. There are a lot of reasons for that. But the reality is that migrants are arriving in higher numbers than they have in many years. I mean, just in July, border officials encountered migrants 213,000 times.

That's the highest single month total in years. And just one caveat to that, though, is these are encounters and not individual migrants. So some of these people may be coming and trying to cross multiple times. So I understand what you're saying, Franco. You're describing a situation where the Biden White House has expelled more people than President Trump did under this provision, Title 42. But you're also saying there are more migrants right now trying to cross the border this year than there had been in previous years. Yeah, the United States goes through these waves of migration every few years, and you've certainly seen a larger wave in 2021. Now, you can chalk that up to different reasons, but I think one of those reasons, at least according to critics of the

Biden administration, is that these humanitarian policies, you know, changing the policies to allow more migrants and changing so that Title 42 is not used for children. There are a bunch of things that the Trump administration put in place that made things a lot harder. Now, right or wrong, certain migrants may have felt, and the Biden administration admitted this, that there was a lot of pent up demand and feeling that the Biden administration would be more welcoming. But also there are just historical, you know, trends that kind of cause this as well. And, you know, the Biden administration will tell you that the numbers were already ticking up before the Biden administration took office months in advance. Yeah, there are reasons that the numbers are going up that may not have anything to do

with the Biden administration's policies. I mean, there were these devastating hurricanes last year in Central America that, you know, may have led a lot of people to flee their homes there. There are lots of other factors, push factors, as the way immigrant advocates talk about them, you know, violence and poverty in the, you know, in the countries where people are fleeing. You know, I covered Joe Biden's presidential campaign. And the central message of his candidacy was that he would be the opposite of President Trump. And yet, this is one very clear example of him maintaining a Trump era policy. That's right. And I mean, I think when I talk to immigration advocates, increasingly, what I'm hearing is disappointment. Like you said, I mean, they thought that the Biden

administration would come in and provide a humane alternative. Certainly, that was the messaging and continues to be the messaging, right? And in some ways that has happened. The Biden administration rolled back some of the harshest immigration policies of the Trump administration, or at least it has tried to when it hasn't that hasn't been held up in the courts. But there are some holdovers like this Title 42 policy that immigrant advocates hated and fought in court when it was the Trump administration, you know, implementing it. And they're fighting it now that the Biden administration is implementing it. And Franco, you mentioned that the president is facing pressure from Republicans over the need to secure the border. But it's not, you know, just Republicans where he's facing pressure on immigration. I will say you Democrats have been saying that some of these policies are cruel,

that he needs to do something. I feel like there is a sort of strange bipartisan consensus that the situation at the border needs to get under control. And yet I don't see a clear vision from President Biden on immigration. I mean, Franco, you cover this all more than I do. I mean, do you feel like there is a real tangible next step from this White House? You know, Asma, that's really unclear. I mean, the Biden administration, the White House had put a lot of hopes that immigration would be included in Congress's reconciliation package. That was a kind of a way for Congress to pass immigration as part of some of this budget work just by a majority vote.

But that the parliamentarian ruled against that and said that that would not be allowed. So it's really left the Biden White House and Congress with very little options. And that has increased frustration on the left. And we're hearing that from leaders on the left, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws. All right, we are going to leave it there for today.

Joel, thank you so much for coming on the show and helping us make sense of this story. Glad to do it. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.