The NPR Politics Podcast - Kids Entering US Alone Present Challenge For Biden

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

Thousands of children are coming to the United States in search of a better life, many crossing into the country illegally along the southern border. The Biden administration has so far struggled to provide humane and appropriate shelter.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and congressional reporter Claudia Grisales.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

Hi, this is Katie from Chicago. Today, I'm celebrating my St. Patrick's Day birthday and my Irish roots. This podcast was recorded at... Well, happy birthday! Happy birthday, Katie. Very cool. This podcast was recorded at 2.25 p.m. on Wednesday, March 17th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be wearing the green and sipping some Irish whiskey. Sláinte. And now, here's the show. I might have to sip a little Irish whiskey tonight.

Yeah, that may help with the allergies, right? Yeah, that's a good cure for all that ails us. Irish whiskey? Problem solved. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Franco Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And I'm Claudia Grisales.

I cover Congress. So thousands of children are coming to the southern border of the U.S., hoping for a better, safer life here in the U.S. And like we talked about on Friday, that is putting a massive strain on detention and processing facilities and creating a real political headache for the Biden administration. So, I mean, there's a lot of debate about the terminology, whether this is a crisis or some other term. But Franco, you've been reporting on this a lot. Just how severe is that strain right now? You know, it's really severe. The U.S. government has more than 4,200 unaccompanied migrant children, that's children who were traveling without a parent or arrived without a parent in custody right now at border

facilities built for adults. They are spending an average of 117 hours in these facilities, which is far longer than the 72 hours that's allowed by law. And based on what I've learned from documents I've obtained, they're arriving around three times as fast, if not faster now, than they can find, than the administration can find them beds and proper shelters for children. So that means that number has the potential to keep rising and rising problem and a concern, the Biden administration has responded. They're sending in more agencies to help, right? Yeah, that's the big thing that they are doing that was announced this week, that they're going to send in FEMA to help. So for the next 90 days, these specialists, emergency specialists, are going to come in and help process the kids and help find them beds. You know, as you noted, you know, there's a lot of politics right now about

whether this is a crisis, how they're going to define the situation. But this action is a clear recognition by the administration that this is a very severe, going on right now, and it's something that the administration has no choice to deal with. Franco, you've also done some serious reporting here on the people that are directly affected by this issue, some recent reporting today. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, I can. I mean, what I'm reporting today is about some people who were extremely close to the last time there was a record number of kids in these jail-like facilities being cared for by law enforcement officers. This was two years ago, you know, and the worst actually happened. At least five children died who had been in custody in the United States.

And I spoke to the former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, John Sanders. He was in charge at the time, and he got emotional talking to me about his fears that that could actually happen again. My greatest fear and the hardest thing for me when I was at CBP was the death of children. And my greatest fear is children will die. And that's what I think we have to make sure never happens. Sorry. That's a very emotional thing. You know, his concerns obviously has emotional ideas, and he's not alone.

I mean, these are kids who are arriving at the border after weeks, if not months, of traveling under some really harrowing conditions. And they're being held in these, as I mentioned, jail-like facilities. These are not facilities for children, and they're staying longer and longer periods of time. This does make me wonder. These sort of surges of unaccompanied minors have happened multiple times. There was a surge in 2014. There was this one in 2019. This is happening again now. Are the risks always the same? Is it worse now? Is there something more to fear about the safety of these children?

Or is there something that's being done differently this time? Under the Trump administration, the focus was on enforcement. And there was more focus on the enforcement rather than the conditions that the children were in. You know, and in addition to that, the former president, you know, former President Donald Trump, he also was deporting many of these children. But the Biden administration has chosen not to deport children. It's, you know, they're taking a much more humane approach to this issue. They say they are not going to send children back after taking such a dangerous journey. I mean, that is a much different approach. But the challenge that they're facing, and it's a really

big one, is they're presenting this as saying they are going to take on a more humane approach. But they're also trying to say to the rest of the region, don't come and that this is not the time to come. And it's, you know, they admit that there's some conflicting messages there. All right. We are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, what Republicans in Congress are saying about all this. On NPR's Consider This podcast, we don't just help you keep up with the news, we help you make sense of what's happening. Like what the case about George Floyd's killing means for the ongoing fight for racial justice, or how to best navigate a pandemic that's changed life for all of us. All of that in 15 minutes every weekday. Listen now to Consider

This from NPR. And we're back. And Claudia, you have been following Republican reaction to this. And in fact, Republicans went to the border this week to really draw attention to what's going on there. Exactly. Yes, this is an area where Republicans are really digging in right now. For example, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led this House delegation of GOP members to the border to highlight this long list of grievances, if you will. And next week, we'll see Senate Republican senators from Texas, that's John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, lead yet another GOP delegation from the upper chamber to the border. And they'll be focusing more in that run and what we've heard in recent days on their concerns with Biden's policies. They're claiming the administration

is not doing enough to tackle this issue in this short window since the president took office. And they say that concerns have worsened at the border. And they say this is escalating security concerns for the U.S. along with this. They're also focusing on the wall idea that Trump initiated. For example, today, West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito led 40 Republican U.S. senators in a letter to a federal agency asking questions on whether Biden's stopping construction of a wall was done without lawful justification. And this is an issue we also heard McCarthy echo earlier this week, which was that they claim that the wall could have done more. Of course, we've heard different in terms of how a physical wall actually can deter migrants

from crossing. That said, Republicans are also focusing on fear tactics, trying to highlight that children and others are in danger as they make their journey to the U.S. And as Franco's noted in his reporting, this is cyclical and many Democrats are calling the situation serious, difficult, but they're stopping short in many cases of calling it a crisis. And we have to keep in mind there's a political calculation here for Republicans. They're trying to reestablish the party in a post-Trump presidency world. And they're very eager to change the subject from a very popular COVID relief bill that Democrats passed and signed into law recently. Yeah, I mean, I get the politics of this for

Republicans. Like, this is an issue that has worked for them before. Like, this is certainly talking about immigration, raising fears about the country being swamped. All of that, it's like, straight out of out of the Republican playbook. It's straight out of former President Donald Trump's playbook. I mean, this is something that he paved the way for back in 2016. He, you know, talked about it again in the 2020 campaign. And it certainly seems like certain members who are very aligned with President Trump, including McCarthy, have, you know, taken this mantle and they're using it in similar ways. I mean, some of the things that McCarthy was talking about on the border and, you know, describing this as a national security threat sounded a lot like words that President Trump would say.

Exactly. Okay. So, Franco, this is obviously a political problem for the Biden administration that the Biden administration wishes they didn't have. What are they doing about it? Well, in the short term, as we've kind of alluded to, they're sending in FEMA, they're building shelters, contracting with others to kind of move these kids out of these border facilities as fast as they can. On the longer term, the big picture is they want to create more legal avenues for people to come and seek asylum so they don't choose kind of like these illegal means. President Biden gave an interview on ABC yesterday where he talked about asylum in place. The administration is basically going to set up processing senators in the region so that people can apply for asylum closer to home.

And then if granted, they'll be brought to the United States. But it is really complicated. I mean, these things will help. I'm not going to say they won't. But it is an open question about how much. The reality remains that the majority of the people who are coming are coming for economic reasons. Most people actually who come are denied asylum. And this is something, you know, that the Biden administration is wrestling with it. I mean, frankly, the country has been wrestling with it for years, decades, is how open should the United States be to what, you know, some describe as these economic refugees.

So, Claudia, you are up on the Hill today, and so was the new Homeland Security Secretary, answering questions from lawmakers. This, of course, falls into his territory as part of the Department of Homeland Security. Did you learn anything? Did we learn anything? We did learn a few new things. Alejandro Mayorkas has not testified before Congress. This was his first appearance. He went before a House Homeland Security Committee, and he testified about the latest in terms of their efforts to grapple with these concerns at the border. For example, Republicans were very keen on pointing out that the Biden administration hasn't done enough to deter these migrants from coming to the border. And we heard Biden address

this yesterday, last night, in terms of, yes, we're sending that message that now is not the time to come. Mayorkas himself reiterated that. Let's take a listen. If you are speaking of individuals who are seeking to come to the southwest border, the message is do not come. And so this was much of the theme is him trying to address these concerns from Republicans. At the same time, Democrats were really keen to highlight how this is a new day, a new administration, a new Democratic-controlled Congress, and everything has changed here. For example, Democrats say they're going to be treating these children with more compassion. They're going to find more suitable places for these minors to be sheltered if and when they do get here. So this is the beginning of this conversation that we're seeing for the administration as they present their efforts before Congress and the two parties who are in this partisan battle, if you will, to claim the new narratives on where immigration is

today and how it has to be solved. All right, well, we will leave it there for now. And we will be back a little bit later than usual tomorrow because we are preparing something special for that podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Franco Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.