The NPR Politics Podcast - Ukrainian Refugees Could Convince Biden To End Pandemic Asylum Restrictions

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

For more than a year, immigration activists have been frustrated that the White House has used the pandemic as a reason to turn away hundreds of thousands of migrants before they can make a request for asylum in the United States.Now, pressure created by the three million Ukrainian refugees could create enough political pressure to force Biden to revisit the policy.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and correspondent Joel Rose.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.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

Hello, everyone. This is Sarah calling from Vermont. I'm sitting in my middle school math classroom right now, enjoying the fact that today is the first day we've been mask optional. I just finished teaching sixth grade, and I was so happy to see all my students' smiling faces. This podcast was recorded at 11.33 a.m. on Thursday, March 17th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, enjoy the show. I love that. My kids just, or my son just got to go to school without his mask on, and he was pumped,

and his sister is very jealous. Oh, I know. There's a totally different world, I feel like, when teachers can see kids' faces, and the kids can see the teachers' faces. A whole new world. I know. There's a totally different world, I feel like, when teachers can see kids' faces and the kids can see the teachers' faces. A whole new world. I know. Let's knock on wood that this world stays. I hope so. Well, hey there. This is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And today on the show, special guest Joel Rose is joining us. He covers immigration for NPR. Joel, thank you, as always, for coming on. We really appreciate it. Hey, happy to be here. And Joel, I'm particularly

excited that you're here because today we're going to talk about immigration and more specifically, the refugee crisis with Ukrainians. More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled their country. Most of those, almost 2 million, have gone to Poland. And Poland does not have the infrastructure to deal with so many refugees on a long-term basis. In fact, mayors of the country's two largest cities have said that they are starting to feel overwhelmed. So, Franco, before we get into the nitty-gritty specifics of what is going on with this refugee crisis and numbers, I want you to help give us a lay of the land in terms of what the Biden White House

is specifically doing to try to alleviate this problem. You know, the State Department just on Tuesday announced that it's going to provide $186 million in humanitarian assistance to support Ukraine refugees. And Biden says the U.S. also is ready to accept refugees. But officials have also kind of, you know, added that Europe should be the primary destination. Even at a Democratic retreat last week, Biden said that, you know, the United States is going to welcome refugees with open arms. But he added, in fact, if they come all the way here. And it was an interesting caveat that caught some people's attention because the reality is it's hard to get to the United States. There are not many avenues for folks to get to the United States. Just on refugees, you know, the United States has a cap of 125,000, but only 6,500 refugees have been admitted through February.

So it's, you know, they're way short. So advocates and actually some democratic lawmakers are calling for the administration to kind of give Ukraine refugees or Ukrainians humanitarian parole like they did with the Afghan refugees. I was traveling with Vice President Harris last week in Poland. And at this joint press conference, the Polish president told us that he explicitly had asked Vice President Harris for the United States to expedite the processing of Ukrainians who are in Poland who want to continue on to the United States. I said that the assistance of the United States in this respect is invaluable to us, and we would be very much grateful if we could use this assistance as soon as possible. I thought it was very interesting that he publicly said this during a press conference. The vice president did not confirm what the U.S. may do on that front, but it was certainly a desire that the Polish president expressed out loud.

And as you said, Harris was very careful. You know, she kind of carried the company line, promising to help where they could, noting TPS, temporary protected status for those who were already in the United States and, you know, giving them some protection, but also saying, again, that most of the Ukraine refugees would like to stay in Europe. So, Joel, I want to bring you into the conversation to follow up on a couple of things Franco mentioned there. One, we're going to talk about in a second, this issue of TPS, temporary protected status. But at the same time, Joel, I want to get a sense from you of what some of the restrictions have been for Ukrainians who are trying to make their way to the United States.

It seems like some of them are finding themselves hampered by these sweeping pandemic border restrictions that are still in place nearly two years after they were put in place. Yeah, exactly. I mean, even Ukrainians who have made it all the way to the doorstep of the US have found that these restrictions are still in place. And these are, you know, the restrictions known as Title 42 that were put in place almost exactly two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic. And they give immigration authorities the power to quickly expel migrants from the U.S. without giving them a chance to ask for asylum. There have been some exceptions under the Biden administration, but largely they've kept this Title 42 in place, and they've used it to expel migrants well over a million times. And we're now starting to see Title 42 used on these Ukrainian refugees and families that are fleeing the Russian

invasion. Some of those families have started to show up at the port of entry between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego. And I talked to a lawyer named Blaine Bookie with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies in California, who represented one of these Ukrainian families last week as they tried to get into the U.S., but were at first turned away under Title 42. The fact that we're using COVID as an excuse to keep out asylum seekers at this moment in time, it's just becoming more and more absurd and untenable for the administration to be taking this position. Bookie says that this family was

later allowed into the U.S. to join relatives in California, but immigrant advocates argue that it has long since been time to end Title 42 and allow all migrants a chance to seek asylum. There is a lot of concern that Title 42, or maybe allegations from advocacy groups, that Title 42 is being used more as a way to kind of try and control migration as opposed to a public health threat, because there are public health officials who feel like those risks could be managed, particularly now as kind of the numbers start to get more in control. And there's been some talk, you know, maybe it's a little early, but that the sympathy

for Ukrainians could actually be something that might push this debate a little bit over the edge and may lead to the end of Title 42. So I think it's something that we're going to need to be watching very closely over the next few months as the war, if the war, you know, continues to see how this, you know, this plays out. Yeah, I should point out that the Secretary of Homeland Security is holding an event today with reporters. So we may get a little bit more insight from that into, you know, how the administration plans to handle the eventual end of Title 42. But you know, this is going to be a political liability. I mean, Republicans have been bashing the Biden administration all year for what they claim are open border policies, you know, even though there have been more than a million

migrant expulsions. So, you know, I think we have to assume those attacks are going to continue, you know, and could really intensify if there is another big wave of migration when Title 42 ends. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back. And Joel, I want to change gears with you for a moment, because as much as we've been talking about refugees coming in from Ukraine, there's another refugee crisis really that the United States has been dealing with for months involving a war that the U.S. was engaged in for 20 years, and that's Afghanistan. The U.S. took in some 76,000 Afghan refugees after the country fell to the Taliban

amid the U.S. withdrawal from the country last year. And many of those refugees were initially living on military bases. But I know that you have done some reporting, catching up on where they are now and what their status is. So fill us in on that. Yeah, well, so all of those Afghans who were evacuated last summer are now off the military bases as of the end of February. And a lot of them are resettled in permanent housing around the country. But we found that a significant number are still not in permanent housing. In fact, are still living in hotels, some of them for months, you know, while they wait to be placed in long term housing. It's not clear exactly how many we're talking about. The federal agencies in

charge of this say they are not tracking that information. But some of the states are. And from my reporting with states and with resettlement agencies, but some of the states are. And from my reporting with states and with resettlement agencies, the number of Afghans who are still in hotels is probably well into the thousands nationwide. And the big reason is the shortage of affordable housing all over the country. Rents are high. And landlords don't want to rent to people with no credit history. So it's been a real challenge to find permanent homes for these people. And, you know, many of them are still waiting. Joel, just speaking of the hotels, I was curious, how much did the four years of Trump kind of play into that?

And the fact that so many refugee groups kind of they shrunk their numbers and some of their infrastructure kind of was reduced because of all the changes that went into place. Does that play into this? Yeah, no doubt that that plays a role here. You know, refugee resettlement agencies really cut to the bone during the Trump years, because there were so few refugees coming in. And that forced them to, you know, to lay off staff and to get lean. And they've really tried to rebuild on the fly as the Biden administration has raised the ceiling for the number of refugees who are allowed in. But they really were unprepared for this enormous influx of Afghans all at the same time. You know, it's the kind of thing that's only happened once or twice in US history that we've had to find,

you know, housing for that many refugees all at once. So, you know, I think even at full strength, they would have been tested by that. And they were at nowhere near full strength, as you point out, because of the Trump administration's cuts. I want to ask you both about something, Franco, that you mentioned earlier when we were discussing the Ukrainian refugees, and that's a program called TPS, Temporary Protected Status. It's a program that the Biden administration has extended to Ukrainian refugees. And in fact, just yesterday, I saw news from the Department of Homeland Security that it is also granting TPS, Temporary Protected Status, to Afghan nationals who are living in the United States as of March 15th of this year. And I guess I just want to understand how TPS fits into the

broader refugee resettlement conversation, because it is a temporary program. And so it feels in some ways like duct tape that's holding together this somewhat clunky immigration system. The impact is fairly limited. I mean, particularly for the Ukrainians who are already in the U.S., you know, before the beginning of March. I've seen estimates that as low as 35,000, you know, for the number of people who actually would be eligible. It does provide protection from deportation, you know, and it does allow people to work legally. But in a lot of cases, they would have had that option anyway, through some other kind of visa or status. You know, and TPS does not lead to permanent legal

status. And it doesn't do anything for folks who are not in the US when it's declared. So, you know, that that would include the vast majority of those 3 million Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion. Doesn't do anything for them. For the Afghans, I think it's maybe a little bit more significant because, you know, you're to happen at the end of two years, you know, there's a possibility that TPS could be extended, and that that would that would be a meaningful kind of protection for them some security. So, you know, we've spent this entire podcast talking about immigration and the refugee system. And I will say, as a White House correspondent, you know, Franco, it's not a topic we routinely hear about at White House press briefings. but it seems like it has been a pain point for the president. And I'm curious how much you think we'll continue to hear about it in the months ahead, specifically as we look to the midterm elections. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely been a pain point.

And I expect that we're going to hear more about it, perhaps a lot more. The reality is polls show immigration is Biden's, one of Biden's, you know, weakest areas. And Republicans are really using this as a way to kind of gain momentum in the midterms. You know, I was just talking with a Republican strategist a little bit ago, who says it's a way for Republicans to draw a clear line between, you know, Republican approach to immigration and the Democratic approach. And I'll just add that even some moderate supporters are concerned about this as well. The reasoning being that many Americans did not like Trump's harsh treatment of immigrants and perhaps even voted against him for it. But they also have some concerns about the rising numbers at the border that we're all talking about today.

All right. Well, Joel Rose, thank you very much for joining us. We always appreciate having you on the podcast. Sure. Glad to be here. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Franco Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.