Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 144

00:00:00.000 Hello, Relatable listeners. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

00:00:05.040 Today, we are going to talk about a hot topic. We're going to talk about

00:00:08.860 immigration. Of course, that includes illegal immigration. But as we have done with all of

00:00:14.120 these episodes, I really want to give you the basics. I want to lay a good foundation

00:00:17.980 of this topic of immigration by telling you a little bit about our immigration system,

00:00:24.720 the problems with our immigration system, what's going on with illegal immigration,

00:00:28.620 part of why that happens in some solutions that have been offered to fix our immigration system.

00:00:36.260 You have probably heard several times from both Democrats and Republicans that our immigration

00:00:41.180 system is broken. Now, both sides kind of have different perspectives and different definitions

00:00:45.920 of what that brokenness actually is and how to fix it. But there's pretty much a consensus that

00:00:52.460 our immigration system as it is right now is not working. And I don't know about you,

00:00:57.780 but I've been wondering for a while, well, what do people mean? What do people mean when they say

00:01:02.380 that our immigration system is broken? So I dug into that to see what people are talking about

00:01:08.360 when they talk about this brokenness. But I kind of want to back up, of course, and give us a little

00:01:13.540 bit of context, as I always do. You've heard Donald Trump talk about the wall. You've been hearing

00:01:20.680 rhetoric lately in the past couple of years about kids in cages. But this debate really has been

00:01:26.680 happening for several decades. Almost every president, Republican, Democrat, since at least,

00:01:33.860 at the very least, the 1980s, has something to say or has had something to say about illegal

00:01:39.700 immigration and how it needs to be solved. Yes, even Barack Obama, 2009. And then I think, again,

00:01:46.600 as recently as 2013, I've seen a clip circulate stating that we need to rein in illegal immigration.

00:01:54.020 We need to figure it out. We need to make sure that this isn't happening at the rampant levels

00:01:58.940 that it is happening right now. A lot of Democrats actually called Barack Obama the deporter in

00:02:04.020 chief. Now, they kind of said this under their breaths. This wasn't like a nickname that he had

00:02:08.700 in the media, but he was known for deporting a lot of illegal immigrants and illegal immigrant

00:02:13.500 criminals. Also, the whole kids in cages thing that you have heard about so much over the past

00:02:19.940 year or so in regards to President Trump was happening under Barack Obama. So all of a lot

00:02:26.040 of the problems that we see right now have been happening for a while and have been discussed for

00:02:30.720 a while on both sides of the aisle. These problems have existed and have several different reasons why

00:02:38.520 they have persisted for so long. And that's kind of what we are going to get into. It might be partly

00:02:46.200 Trump's fault. I'm not going to say that the president of the United States doesn't take

00:02:49.580 any blame whatsoever. But this narrative that you've been hearing that this is all new,

00:02:54.420 that these problems are new, that they've arisen under the Trump administration, and that

00:02:58.380 it's his fault for enacting draconian laws against illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.

00:03:04.540 That is just not true. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's an important topic for

00:03:10.060 conservatives, of course, to know about and to be thinking about, but especially conservative

00:03:15.260 Christians, because this is a topic that is going to be brought up to you by people on the other side

00:03:20.360 of the aisle who say, how can you support Republicans or how can you be a conservative

00:03:24.900 when they're the ones that are treating immigrants so badly? How can you not be more compassionate

00:03:31.340 towards immigrants? How can you turn people away who are fleeing crime? Well, the reality is much

00:03:37.720 more complex, but we have to dig a little bit deeper to really understand that complexity. So we'll look at

00:03:43.680 the facts and then we'll discuss what we need to think of this stuff from a conservative perspective

00:03:51.580 or just from a really not even as conservative perspective, but in light of the facts, what we

00:03:56.700 can make of all of this and the solutions that actually need to be enacted. So immigration is one of

00:04:04.300 the things that this is not a bipartisan statement. Immigration is one of the things that makes America

00:04:10.860 unique. You hear that more from the left than the right. But the fact of the matter is, it's true.

00:04:16.120 Immigration does make America unique. When the first English settlers landed in Jamestown, Virginia in

00:04:21.580 1607, we were then a land of foreigners, just a few foreigners, but we became a colony, not a colony, but

00:04:30.620 a land of foreigners at that point. That's not the only thing or the primary thing that has made us

00:04:36.560 unique, of course, but it is one of the things. It's not just, though, that we are diverse, that we are

00:04:42.500 a land of foreigners, that we come from all kinds or all nations. We are people of all different

00:04:48.580 nationalities. It is that in our diverse culture and in our diverse nationality that America represents,

00:04:57.540 we are and should be united in desire, united in values, and united in purpose. That was really the vision for

00:05:07.400 the United States that the settlers and the founders had, that yes, we would be a land that welcomes

00:05:14.660 immigrants, welcomes people no matter where they come from, but that we would be united in purpose and vision

00:05:20.500 in values. This is an idea that is so ingrained into our society that during the Constitutional

00:05:26.840 Convention of 1787, James Madison stated this, that his wish was for the United States to invite

00:05:33.980 foreigners of merit and Republican principles among us. America was indebted to immigration for her

00:05:41.360 settlement and prosperity, and that's absolutely true. The idea that people of all different backgrounds

00:05:47.380 could build a country not based on their original nationality or their ethnicity or their lineage

00:05:54.520 or the color of their skin, whatever, but on shared values was really radical at the time. It was new.

00:06:01.100 There was virtually no other country in the world that was doing the same thing, that was seeking to

00:06:06.360 build a republic based on ideas rather than based on the supremacy or the unity of a particular kind of

00:06:14.740 people. It was on an idea. And this is why the founders made sure to explicitly state in the Declaration of

00:06:22.140 Independence that this is a country that recognizes that all men are created equal, given certain inalienable

00:06:28.880 rights by the same creator, that among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, we know,

00:06:36.380 of course, that this idea has been very imperfectly implemented throughout America's history, even by the

00:06:42.900 founders themselves. But that has not changed the fact that it was a good, a true, and a revolutionary

00:06:48.360 idea. So revolutionary that it actually sparked a literal revolution in which blood was shed for the

00:06:56.380 sake of it, for the sake of the liberty to seek opportunity to speak and to worship according to

00:07:02.060 individual conscience, rather than according to the will of a monarchical tyrant. It was, it might be

00:07:09.440 monarchical, is it monarchical? I'm not, I'm not exactly sure. But you guys know what I'm talking

00:07:15.240 about. Under the tyrannical rule of a monarch, I'll say that. It was this pursuit that united

00:07:21.840 foreigners of all backgrounds who came to our shores. Today, there is this idea, particularly on the left,

00:07:30.300 you hear this a lot, that diversity is our strength. You hear people also say that our country is a country

00:07:38.280 of immigrants. But both of these assertions, when left by themselves, get it wrong, at least partly.

00:07:45.740 So first of all, diversity of nationality, of ethnicity, of belief systems, etc. is only strength.

00:07:53.560 It is only our strength when these diverse groups are united together in values and a purpose. Then

00:08:01.220 diversity really is a strength, offering a variety of perspectives from different walks of life.

00:08:07.160 But when it's just diversity, when diversity leads to tribalism, where the tribe that you belong to,

00:08:14.360 according to your skin color or nationality, or whatever it is, has its own set of competing values

00:08:19.960 and interests, values and interests that are opposed to the values and interests of the whole country,

00:08:25.180 then that diversity is not strength. Then diversity is actually weakness. It's actually

00:08:30.320 division. It is chaos. It is polarization. It is anarchy.

00:08:34.120 This is why I always take a second to clarify when someone says they value diversity or prioritize

00:08:41.920 diversity in their organization or in their church or in their business. It's such an easy thing to say.

00:08:47.360 It makes us sound good. It makes us sound righteous or inclusive or woke or kind. But the question

00:08:52.320 that should be asked when you hear someone say that is why? Is it because you value different

00:08:58.420 perspectives united behind a singular purpose or set of values? Okay, that's great. So do I.

00:09:04.820 I think that in that case, it can be important. But often I find that people say that they value

00:09:11.560 diversity just because they think that having people with a different skin color makes them seem like

00:09:17.080 better people themselves. Superficial diversity has very little, if any, value at all. But a diversity

00:09:24.620 of perspectives united towards a shared goal or a value system, that is very beneficial. And that is

00:09:31.060 what America was meant to be. Now, second, when people say, and again, this is typically on the left,

00:09:37.140 that we are a nation of immigrants. Yes, we are. But that is it's not that characteristic that makes us

00:09:44.900 unique. Primarily, what makes us unique is that we were founded on the idea that men and women of all

00:09:52.540 backgrounds, all nationalities were created in the image of God, and therefore should have the freedom

00:09:59.300 to pursue opportunity as they see fit and should be given the privilege or given the right, the founders

00:10:06.400 believed, to self-governance. That is what makes America unique and great. Immigration of people who do

00:10:14.240 not share the values of liberty, of equality and justice, a respect for the United States, a respect for our

00:10:21.700 laws and our values do not actually strengthen our country. So it is overly simplistic and incorrect

00:10:29.580 to say that we are a nation of immigrants, period. No, we are or we should be a nation of immigrants who

00:10:37.420 share common cause for freedom, who share the same basic fundamental values. That doesn't mean that we

00:10:45.140 have to agree on everything. That doesn't mean our politics are going to be the same. One of the values

00:10:49.480 that we have is free speech and is the freedom of debate to exchange ideas. That doesn't mean we

00:10:56.200 have to agree, but one of the values that we have is free speech because one of the most basic values

00:11:02.280 that we have is freedom. We need to at least be able to agree on those things, including when we're

00:11:09.100 talking about immigration. You've probably heard the lines of the poem that was added to the base of the

00:11:15.240 Statue of Liberty. Many years. It was years after the statue was actually unveiled. This has been

00:11:21.580 recited on cable news again, usually by Democrats or members on the left. It is a poem by Emma Lazarus

00:11:28.980 and it's called The New Colossus. So these are the lines that are typically recited. Give me your tired,

00:11:35.960 your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

00:11:41.120 Send these the homeless tempest toss to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. We've heard Jim

00:11:48.560 Acosta and others use this line as pushback against the Trump administration who draws a hard line or

00:11:55.640 has tried to draw a hard line on illegal immigration. It's really unfortunate that it's been misused and

00:12:00.820 really exploited in this way because these are beautiful, true lines that I believe do speak to

00:12:06.060 the heart of America, who is a country who is, despite our many flaws, the most compassionate,

00:12:13.960 the most welcoming country in the history of the world. We accept millions of immigrants every year.

00:12:19.280 Any list that you look at online that says, you know, what is the most welcoming country for

00:12:25.180 immigrants or who accepts the most immigrants every year? It's going to be us. We also welcome

00:12:30.300 thousands of asylum seekers. Pew Research has America at the number one country or the country

00:12:36.760 that accepts most immigrants every year. That's amazing. When you look at that and you hear people

00:12:45.720 still say that we are an unwelcoming racist or white supremacist country, we accept more immigrants

00:12:52.360 than anyone else in the entire world. And we are the greatest economic superpower in the entire world.

00:13:00.040 We are also not even the largest country in the entire world. And yet we continue to add people

00:13:06.560 in, not out of, and you'll see this in a little bit, not out of getting any economic benefit from

00:13:13.180 it, but truly simply from a place of we want to, simply from a place of being generous. It's amazing

00:13:20.140 that someone could still accuse America of collectively being xenophobic in light of that statistic.

00:13:26.200 Uh, we have offered protection and amnesty to millions, millions of immigrants, uh, who came

00:13:33.960 here illegally, thus showing no respect for the rule of law. America would have been perfectly

00:13:40.480 justified and is perfectly justified to deport all illegal immigrants. They are illegal. They did break

00:13:45.620 the law. Um, but instead of the 1980s, the Reagan administration granted millions of illegal immigrants

00:13:52.260 amnesty rather than telling them to leave or making them leave. Uh, we are abundantly, I think too much

00:13:59.760 so. And we'll get to that abundantly gracious towards people who cross our borders illegally for the most

00:14:06.700 part. And we are, and this part is good. We are gracious towards outsiders. Um, the author of the

00:14:13.720 poem that I was reading that is now at the base of the statue of Liberty, uh, she would not have

00:14:20.300 intended for her poem to be used as a justification for open borders or justification for loose illegal

00:14:29.380 immigration laws. That's not what this poem is about. And I think it's very disrespectful to the

00:14:34.800 immigrants and the true asylum seekers and the true refugees that have come to America for freedom

00:14:41.460 legally. Americans who were present at the reading of this poem and Americans, uh, who were alive at

00:14:47.720 the inscription of this poem on the base of the statue of Liberty would have never construed these

00:14:53.420 lines to me that we should let everyone in no matter what for going borders and the sovereignty of our

00:14:58.940 country, which is, and we will get to essentially what Democrats are, are desiring. Um, that line of

00:15:07.320 thinking would have been so incredibly offensive to the men and women who themselves or whose parents

00:15:13.180 came to America at that time to make something of themselves, who adopted the American dream and

00:15:18.300 followed American laws. They would have never accepted the idea, uh, that anyone, no matter what,

00:15:26.140 especially anyone who has animus towards our country and its value should be allowed in without

00:15:30.480 discretion. Never. Uh, so understand that. Yes, we are a nation of immigrants, which is unique and can

00:15:37.680 offer a wonderful richness to any country when this diversity is united in values and united in purpose,

00:15:45.860 but we are not and should not be a nation of illegal immigrants. And the immigration that we do have

00:15:53.140 should be limited to those who want to be here because they have respect for American values of liberty,

00:15:59.560 of tolerance, of equality, and of hard work. Uh, that is what the founders meant when they envisioned a nation

00:16:05.900 of immigrants. That is the heart of the poem added to the base of the statue of liberty. Um, but the left and

00:16:12.920 the right do not agree on this anymore. Uh, this is somehow to the left become a racial issue where they

00:16:20.820 believe that those who think laws should be enforced at the border or who believe that illegal immigration

00:16:26.600 should be punished and immigration should be merit based are white supremacists. That's, that's what

00:16:32.320 they're purporting. Uh, this didn't used to be the case. Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama,

00:16:37.600 Joe Biden, even Bernie Sanders at one point spoke out, uh, about the dangers of illegal immigrants or

00:16:44.160 illegal, illegal immigration and the importance of stopping or at least limiting the entry of illegal

00:16:50.100 immigrants. Uh, so now we are totally unable because it's become this crazy racial emotional issue.

00:16:57.180 We are totally unable to have a logical conversation about it because anyone who stands for any kind of

00:17:02.640 border security is not just wrong, but they're bad. They're a racist. They're some imperialist

00:17:08.580 colonialist person who wants children to die. So a little bit though, let's just take a step back

00:17:15.540 from all of that ridiculous hyperbolic rhetoric that has no grounding in reality whatsoever.

00:17:20.100 And let's just look at the facts of the United States current border policy. Uh, so the law, uh,

00:17:26.300 governing current immigration policy is the immigration and nationalization act. Uh, I in a,

00:17:32.720 the policy allows for an annual 675,000 permanent immigrants, uh, with certain exceptions for close family

00:17:40.080 members, uh, Congress and the president determined a separate number for refugee admissions every year.

00:17:45.540 According to the American immigration council, our immigration policy is based on these principles,

00:17:50.800 uh, the reunification of families, admitting immigrants with skills that are valuable to the

00:17:55.500 U S economy, protecting refugees and promoting diversity. And we can see that in the immigration

00:18:01.480 act of 1990 that was signed into law by George HW Bush, which was very monumental, uh, that did the

00:18:07.340 following. It created a family-based immigration visa. It created five distinct employment based visas.

00:18:13.420 It categorized, uh, by cat that were categorized by occupation and a diversity, uh, visa program that

00:18:20.800 created a lottery to admit immigrants from low admittance countries. And it's the last point that

00:18:26.780 a lot of people, conservatives, at least have a problem with this visa lottery system and the

00:18:32.460 priority of promoting diversity for no other reason than to just promote blanket diversity. Uh, the

00:18:39.160 visa lottery system is run by the state department. It makes available about 50,000 immigrant visas

00:18:44.740 annually and aims to diversify the immigrant population in the United States. Uh, it selects

00:18:49.920 applicants from countries with low numbers of immigrants, uh, in the previous five years,

00:18:55.240 as of 2017, around 20 million people apply for the lottery every year, 20 million people. That's crazy.

00:19:01.540 Uh, a lot of people find this to be contradictory. A lot of conservatives find this to be contradictory

00:19:07.480 to the founder's vision of immigration, which was, as we already talked about one that was based on

00:19:12.420 values and merit. Uh, why does it matter? A lot of people ask why, why does it matter what country

00:19:18.680 someone comes from? Why does it matter that we get more immigrants from India than Ethiopia? Why should

00:19:23.880 someone who loves America, no matter where they're from and has skills to offer be denied so that the

00:19:30.280 country, our country can meet a quota for diversity. It doesn't make any sense. Now that said,

00:19:36.280 this makes up a really small percentage of people who are granted permanent, permanent citizenship.

00:19:41.080 And of course, this is not the only problem that conservatives are concerned with when it comes

00:19:46.100 to immigration, but this is one of them. Uh, so besides those who are granted visas from the visa

00:19:51.220 lottery system, uh, America also has a family reunification based immigration. Those who qualify

00:19:57.680 for this, uh, include spouses of citizens or green card holders, unmarried minor children of green card

00:20:03.960 holders and parents, uh, of green card holders or, uh, citizens and parents of citizens for people under

00:20:11.240 the age of 21. There are a lot, as you can already tell, there are a lot of people who qualify for this

00:20:18.660 kind of immigration. Uh, you've also got employment based immigration where certain immigrants may be

00:20:23.440 prioritized for the skills they offer. If an immigrant is applying for a temporary work visa, he or she has

00:20:29.160 to be sponsored by a United States based employer that will petition on their behalf. Uh, the United

00:20:35.100 States limits the amount of permanent or the number of permanent employment based immigrants to 140,000

00:20:40.620 per year. And that number also includes families of the employee. Uh, and then of course, we also accept

00:20:47.780 refugees and asylum seekers. Those two things are different. Refugees are defined as people who are

00:20:52.740 admitted to the United States based on an inability to return to their home, uh, to their home countries

00:20:58.000 because of a well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, their membership at a particular social

00:21:03.220 group, political opinion, religion, or national origin. Uh, admission for refugees is based off

00:21:08.680 various factors from the risk they face, uh, to the amount of people at risk in their specifically

00:21:14.100 targeted group. The president, uh, consults Congress and they determine the number of refugees that they

00:21:20.360 are going to accept every year. Uh, asylum seekers, that's a little bit different. An asylum seeker

00:21:25.800 is similar to refugee status in that the visa status is granted off a fear of harm from where

00:21:32.020 they come from, but they can apply at any point of entry, uh, at any time that they seek admission.

00:21:37.060 There's no limit on the number of individuals who may be granted an asylum status. Uh, being granted

00:21:42.660 asylum though, is really not easy to do. It's not easy to accomplish. It's a process that a lot of times

00:21:48.480 takes many years and it usually involves some kind of detainment while this process is going on.

00:21:54.000 It requires interviews. It requires documentation of, uh, the immigrants prior suffering and the odds

00:22:02.680 just aren't really great that you will be granted asylum status. There's just a lot that has to go

00:22:08.880 into that. Um, but both refugees and asylum seekers are available, uh, to become lawful permanent

00:22:15.660 residents one year after admission to the United States. And we do admit a lot. It might be a difficult

00:22:22.220 process for some of them, but we do admit a lot. Um, there's also a temporary protected status given

00:22:29.240 to migrants, immigrants who enter the U S and are in danger if they returned to their home due to

00:22:35.840 a national disaster or war. Um, and then of course, immigrants have the ability to become U S citizens.

00:22:44.100 So if someone has LPR status, uh, a green card for at least five years as lawful permanent resident

00:22:52.240 status, so a green card for at least five years, then they can qualify for consideration for

00:22:57.260 citizenship. Now there are exceptions to this five-year rule. If you were serving in the U S military,

00:23:02.320 for example, so people who apply for U S citizenship have to be 18 years old. They have to demonstrate

00:23:08.140 continuous residency. They have to demonstrate good moral character. Of course, that's pretty subjective.

00:23:13.480 They have to pass English and, uh, U S history and civics exams with certain exceptions to that.

00:23:19.920 And they have to pay an application fee among other requirements. Um, so the vast majority of

00:23:25.980 immigrants in the United States, despite maybe what you've heard, uh, are here legally. There are

00:23:32.300 millions of immigrants here illegally, but most immigrants in the United States are here legally.

00:23:38.760 Uh, a lot of people say that the reason why we do still have so many people here

00:23:43.220 illegally millions and millions is because our legal system of immigration is insufficient and

00:23:49.720 insufficient and ineffective. Uh, that's not completely true. That's not the only reason why

00:23:55.940 we have so much illegal immigration, but it is partly to blame for sure. There's no question about

00:24:01.040 that. So you've probably heard it said from both sides of the aisle, as we already addressed at the top,

00:24:05.620 that our immigration system is broken. Uh, Republicans and Democrats look at that a little bit

00:24:10.820 differently, but here, here's the reality of our immigration system. Uh, this is according to the

00:24:16.640 department of Homeland security in 2016, the United States, uh, granted nearly 1.2 million individuals,

00:24:22.680 legal permanent residency. That's a lot more than two thirds of these more than two thirds of these 1.2

00:24:29.420 million people, uh, were admitted based on family reunification. So the vast majority of people who are

00:24:36.460 granted this permanent residency status are family members of people who were already here. Uh, this is

00:24:42.240 what people mean when they say chain migration or the problem of chain migration. So our current system

00:24:48.660 is so bogged down, uh, by the acceptance of people through family reunification, which we already covered

00:24:54.800 who that includes. That's a pretty wide circle of people that that includes for the person who is already

00:24:59.440 here. Uh, it's so bogged down because these people, these family members are prioritized over people who were

00:25:06.340 highly skilled. In 2017, there were, uh, more than 4 million applicants on the state department's

00:25:12.560 waiting list for, uh, for immigrant visas because of this bogged down system. So, uh, even though the

00:25:19.340 emphasis on the family sounds like a good thing, and in some ways it is, it also leaves a lot of other

00:25:25.020 people in a really long, really extensive waiting period. Uh, it also limits those who may want to come to

00:25:31.420 the United States, uh, off the basis of their own merit. In fact, it does do this a lot. Uh, so for

00:25:38.240 example, if you were a single, a single person living in Australia, you got your, uh, you got your

00:25:44.900 degree from the university of Australia, you are highly skilled. You want to come to the United States.

00:25:49.640 You want to immigrate to the United States. You want a new start. Uh, you get approved for a temporary

00:25:55.420 work visa and are in the States for several years. And then you hope to become a citizen. Now imagine

00:26:01.240 that there is an immigrant in the United States who wants his family to come over from wherever he's

00:26:06.500 from. Say that he wants to bring his dad over, say his dad has no skills, uh, whatsoever and won't be

00:26:12.600 supported by his son, but he wants to come to America anyway, to be close to his son, uh, in our

00:26:18.220 current system, that dad of a permanent resident over here, uh, even after the relatives of the father,

00:26:23.820 uh, who even, even after that, the relatives of that father who is now in the United States,

00:26:29.900 they all have a higher likelihood of being allowed into the United States than you do

00:26:34.780 a single person with credentials and with skills. So that is the state of our current system. Uh,

00:26:41.760 another reason why an immigrant who has a high skills, uh, might be held up as the limit that

00:26:48.020 countries have on receiving green cards. So immigrants from countries with large number,

00:26:52.420 with a large number of applicants often wait for years to receive a green card because a single

00:26:57.980 country can account for no more than 7% of all green cards issued annually. That's a rule that we

00:27:03.260 have, uh, according to the U S chamber of commerce, this is one of the biggest reasons why our system

00:27:09.100 hasn't been able to keep up with the changing world economy. Uh, we have hundreds of unfilled jobs

00:27:15.360 that could easily be filled with very qualified people, very qualified immigrants, but our system

00:27:20.400 welcomes some immigrants who are not highly skilled while blocking the entry of others with higher

00:27:26.140 skills. Uh, so it's disorganized. It's a delayed process. It leads to, it can lead to more illegal

00:27:34.020 immigration for people who maybe wouldn't have sought these pathways, but feel like it's just too

00:27:39.920 complicated and it's just going to take too long. Uh, there is no global right to migration.

00:27:46.120 Like we just need to make that clear. A country has a right to sovereignty. There is no right for a

00:27:52.840 person to migrate to a company or to a company, to a country. And so a country has its own right to

00:27:59.840 manage who crosses its borders. Uh, that is central to a state's sovereignty. A lot of people believe that

00:28:07.080 if we created a more efficient process for legal immigration, uh, it would lessen the amount of

00:28:13.200 illegal immigrants coming into our country. And then we're also dealing with what feels like an

00:28:18.700 overflow of asylum seekers. Uh, the mass migration of thousands of people, uh, from central America

00:28:27.140 this past year, uh, because of that, our asylum process has been completely flooded, uh, with, uh,

00:28:33.960 the scope of asylum seekers. The Trump administration really did, whether you like them or not,

00:28:39.700 they really did everything they could, uh, to fix this or to make sure that this didn't happen.

00:28:45.880 They even tried to discourage potential asylum seekers, which I know sounds like it lacks

00:28:50.980 compassion, but when your system is so overwhelmed and so bogged down that you can't help the people

00:28:56.820 that have already applied and who really need it, you've got to do something to disincentivize

00:29:02.020 more people from coming. Uh, the immigration courts are currently faced with the backlog of 850,000

00:29:09.440 cases of those seeking asylum. So when people say, well, we should just accept people, we can't turn

00:29:16.040 anyone away. Uh, what's the problem? Why is Donald Trump disincentivizing these asylum seekers? Well,

00:29:21.820 we already have 850,000 cases that are currently being dealt with. Like, can you even wrap your mind

00:29:29.700 around that? I cannot. And so it is about being able to focus on the people who have already applied

00:29:35.840 for help and being able to do so effectively. Uh, we are finite human beings. That means that finite

00:29:42.400 human beings make up our systems, which make our systems finite. And so we can't just infinitely take

00:29:48.860 people no matter what we have to deal with the problems that we have at hand. Uh, a lot of the

00:29:53.840 applicants, asylum applicants are waiting up to five years to have their cases heard. Uh, that's

00:29:59.660 a big deal if you are fleeing from harm, if you are fleeing from danger. And in order to do this in

00:30:08.360 any kind of organized or systematic way, we have to be able to limit the people who are applying. We

00:30:14.120 just do. Uh, according to the white house, a hundred thousand immigrants began asylum proceedings last

00:30:19.540 year. That is a record high, a hundred thousand, uh, asylum denials also hit a record high last year's

00:30:26.200 immigration judges rejected 65% of asylum claims, but that means they still accepted a large percentage

00:30:33.040 of asylum claims. And so again, this might sound heartless or callous, but it's not about turning

00:30:40.540 people away. It's the necessity of turning people away so we can effectively help the people who most

00:30:46.720 need it. That's just necessary. Uh, asylum seekers showed up to their court dates about 89% of the

00:30:52.660 time in the fiscal year ending in September 30th, uh, 2017. So that's a pretty high percentage.

00:30:59.620 A lot of the policies that aim to reduce unlawful immigration focus on enforced border security.

00:31:06.040 But the reality is people who arrive in the United States legally, uh, and then overstay their visas,

00:31:11.800 making them then illegal. Uh, they actually make up a really high percentage, a really significant

00:31:17.860 portion of the illegal population in the United States. And so it's not wrong, uh, for us to want

00:31:24.880 to secure the border. But the reality is that's a whole other problem that people are overstaying

00:31:29.420 their visas. This is according to the heritage foundation. Illegal immigrants today are mostly

00:31:35.620 coming from South America and they're usually families or partial families are claiming to be

00:31:40.400 families anyway. Um, Oh, that was it. Sorry. That wasn't a quote. That was actually my notes. So I don't

00:31:45.180 want to, I don't want to miss quote the heritage foundation. This is from the heritage foundation

00:31:50.260 when they are stopped or caught, uh, all are given court dates and then released into the U S uh,

00:31:56.280 most fail to show up to their court hearings. They just stay and hope the system never catches up with

00:32:01.920 them. Almost inevitably it doesn't of those caught entering the country illegally in fiscal year,

00:32:06.900 2017, either as family units or unaccompanied minors, 98% remain in the U S today of those who pass

00:32:15.040 a credible fear hearing and are released 40% never file for asylum. So the courts are overwhelmed

00:32:23.300 and the whole catch and release, you hear a lot of people talk about catch and release. That's what

00:32:27.300 they're talking about. That's the problem. You detain people because they came illegally.

00:32:31.420 They apply for asylum. They have to show up for a court date, um, or they don't apply for asylum.

00:32:37.280 They still have to show up for a court date. They're released into the United States and they never

00:32:41.640 show up and they just hope that they're able to survive here illegally and that the system never

00:32:46.280 catches them and deports them. And for a lot of people it works. So that's what people are talking

00:32:51.840 about with, uh, with the corruption of catch and release and why we have such a broken system.

00:32:56.900 The courts are overwhelmed. Our border patrol agents are overwhelmed too. Uh, agents are actually

00:33:01.600 quitting their jobs at record, at record high, uh, at a record high because they just can't deal with it

00:33:07.720 anymore. They're not getting properly supported. There are too many people trying to get in,

00:33:12.460 uh, and they've really hit a breaking point. And this isn't just because of a mass migration

00:33:19.220 due to poverty, due to corruption in Central America and Mexico, but it's also because of our

00:33:26.160 terrible systems and backlogged systems of being able to process these people. Uh, they're overwhelmed,

00:33:32.840 which has led us to detaining these immigrants and keeping them in facilities that really

00:33:36.720 weren't made to be able to keep them there for the amount of time that they have to.

00:33:40.940 So when you read about these kids in cages, uh, which are really kids sleeping inside,

00:33:45.160 like these chain linked fenced cubicles, if you've ever seen it, understand that this is not

00:33:49.880 happening because Trump is cruel and wants to mistreat these kids. Uh, that doesn't help anyone

00:33:55.860 like that wouldn't help. Who does that benefit? That doesn't benefit anyone. I mean, Trump knows that

00:34:00.840 people are going to find out about that. Why would he do that deliberately? It doesn't even make

00:34:04.300 political sense. Even if you were to say that Trump is a completely callous person who is an

00:34:09.620 idiot. If, even if that's your position, it wouldn't make any sense, even politically for him to say,

00:34:15.840 well, I'm going to deliberately mistreat these kids and put kids in cages. No, not at all. Uh,

00:34:21.360 the exact same thing, the whole kids in cages rhetoric that you're hearing, the exact same thing

00:34:25.840 happened under Obama. This was originally reported in 2014. Uh, most of the media said nothing about it.

00:34:32.500 If you remember, there was a picture of these kids in so-called cages that went viral on Twitter,

00:34:37.940 people saying, Oh my gosh, this is the Trump administration. Well, that picture was actually

00:34:42.660 from the time of the Obama administration. And so just remember that when you're hearing that kind

00:34:49.720 of conversation going on, uh, my parents have been to the border. They visited these facilities.

00:34:54.980 They have talked to the agents. They've talked to officials there. There are a lot of detention

00:35:00.780 centers that are awesome, that are great, that are top notch, that offer schooling for the kids

00:35:04.840 that are there. Other centers just don't have as many resources, but the border agents work from what

00:35:11.300 we know. They work unbelievably hard to make sure that these people are being taken care of. You hear

00:35:16.680 these horrible, tragic stories about kids dying at the border. Um, and that's, that's horrific.

00:35:22.840 Our hearts should break over that, but that is not due to the deliberate neglect of the agents.

00:35:28.660 They would lose their job over that. Uh, maybe in, in, you know, one-off cases that we don't know

00:35:34.860 of, of course, there are bad apples everywhere and bad situations and negligence that happens

00:35:39.820 everywhere. So I'm not saying that's completely impossible, but by and large, it's not because

00:35:45.000 of deliberate negligence. When you dig deeper past these headlines that the media really truly takes

00:35:50.980 evil, great joy and reporting. And you realize that these kids have just made a long track forced

00:35:57.540 by their parents without food or water and have perhaps a suffered abuse along the way. You realize

00:36:03.020 that this really isn't the fault of border patrol and that they're probably in the vast majority of

00:36:08.320 cases doing the best work that they can. Uh, in addition to the long track that these kids are

00:36:15.560 being forced to make a large percentage of girls who make this journey are raped. Uh, it is not safe.

00:36:22.040 It is not safe for anyone. Now I'm not saying that these people, and especially these parents don't

00:36:26.740 have good reason to try. I know that they're fleeing very real problems, but, uh, the sickness

00:36:32.620 and the death of these kids in the care of border patrol, things that should break our hearts, by the

00:36:37.480 way, uh, are not because border patrol isn't doing everything that they can to help. That is their job.

00:36:44.260 That is what they do. They help these families as much as they can while protecting our borders. And they

00:36:49.700 are overwhelmed. They don't have enough manpower. They don't have enough resources. They don't have

00:36:55.380 enough room. Uh, they can't do all of the work that they're supposed to do to take care of these

00:37:00.860 people sufficiently because they are overwhelmed. Uh, you'll also hear a lot that everyone at the

00:37:07.200 border is an asylum seeker. That's not true as we've already gone over. Uh, there are legal points,

00:37:13.000 uh, a port ports of entry or points of entry to, uh, where people can file for asylum. The problem is,

00:37:19.340 uh, according to the heritage foundation that the number trying to claim asylum, uh, also has been

00:37:24.420 rising steadily. It's now commonplace for those who are apprehended crossing illegally to then,

00:37:29.900 uh, and then they're denied entry of course, uh, to then apply for asylum. So not everyone there

00:37:36.620 truly is applying for asylum. Yes. They're coming here for a better life. That doesn't qualify you

00:37:42.080 as a refugee or an asylum seeker. Everyone who comes to America is coming for a better life and no one

00:37:47.060 has a right to come to the country. No one does. So don't listen to the people who say that

00:37:54.040 conservatives, Republicans, Donald Trump don't care about immigrants. Don't care about people

00:37:59.220 at the border, uh, that what's happening there is like the Holocaust. The people who are saying that

00:38:04.420 have never been there. And I guarantee you, they don't know anyone who has actually been there.

00:38:08.580 They are lying to you. They are exaggerating for the purpose of politics. They are using this as a

00:38:13.600 weapon. Uh, and the fact of the matter is they think that a lot of them think, not all of them,

00:38:18.760 but the AOCs, the Rashida Tlaibs, the Ilhan Omar's, they think that we should have open borders. Ilhan

00:38:23.960 Omar has specifically called for this. Uh, Democrats will continue to, uh, this is what they say. This is

00:38:30.940 what they say. Democrats will continue to work towards comprehensive immigration reform that fixes our

00:38:36.740 nation's broken immigration system, improves border security, prioritizes enforcement. So we are

00:38:41.980 targeting criminals, not families, keeps families together and strengthens our economy. Yeah, that

00:38:46.620 sounds great. But in recent years, have Democrats laid out any policy positions, any clear policy

00:38:53.520 proposals whatsoever, uh, other than just saying that Donald Trump is mean, have they offered any

00:39:00.020 solutions whatsoever to this? I haven't heard it. Uh, speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi stated that a

00:39:05.820 wall on the U S Southern border is an immorality. So I don't really understand how that

00:39:11.640 qualifies is them offering solutions to improve on border security. Something they say is a priority

00:39:17.420 for them. Okay. If a wall is an immorality, our borders and immorality, why is a wall more of an

00:39:23.300 immorality than offense than anything else? It's just more effective. Is it more immoral because it's

00:39:29.140 more effective? So you're saying that we shouldn't be keeping illegal immigrants out. Isn't it more

00:39:33.800 compassionate to disincentivize a journey that we know is dangerous? I just don't understand it. Um,

00:39:39.960 of course, Stacey Abrams, democratic up and comer who lost the governorship in Georgia. Uh, she gave

00:39:46.860 that a state of the union address 2019. Um, she said that she's actually not opposed to illegal

00:39:53.700 immigrants voting in local elections. Uh, this year, uh, bill de Blasio, he is a candidate for the

00:40:01.160 president of the United States. He announced, uh, his plan to give 300,000 illegal immigrants in New

00:40:06.580 York city access to free healthcare, which of course is going to cost taxpayers a lot of money.

00:40:11.940 And then you've got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Uh, she recently voted against a bill to reopen the

00:40:17.920 government because it funded immigration and customs enforcement or ice. She has compared ice.

00:40:24.040 I'm pretty sure to Nazis, um, calling them inhumane. I'm pretty sure that she made that comparison.

00:40:29.720 You can correct me if I'm wrong, but she of course has opposed ice as if, uh, ice deporting

00:40:36.140 criminals or helping to deport criminals is somehow evil and not actually a contribution to the common

00:40:41.900 good. And then of course, you've got the danger of, uh, illegal immigrant crime, uh, criminals and

00:40:47.120 crime rings. MS-13, this is according to the Washington Post, uh, has about 50,000 to 70,000

00:40:53.440 members most concentrated in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, known as the Central American Northern

00:40:59.440 Triangle. And, uh, Central America and South America is where the majority of illegal immigrants

00:41:05.920 are now coming from. And this is where MS-13 really has its hotbed. According to 2009 FBI

00:41:12.420 statistics, the latest official estimates, the United States has about 8,000 to 10,000 MS-13

00:41:18.420 members. Um, this was a story back in May in town hall that was written by Katie Pavlich.

00:41:24.080 She said two illegal aliens who came to the United States in 2015 as part of a quote family unit. So

00:41:30.920 there's that, uh, phrase that we were talking about earlier. There's that idea that we were talking

00:41:35.120 about earlier and the other accompanied unaccompanied in 2016 were released by the Prince George's

00:41:41.580 County police department that's in Baltimore after being charged with attempted first degree

00:41:46.360 murder and other crimes. Upon release, they killed 14 year old girl, Ariana, uh, Funes Diaz

00:41:53.420 and dumped her body in a Creek. Prince George's County, which contains Baltimore is a sanctuary for

00:41:59.160 illegal aliens. Both are members. These murderers of the extremely violent gang MS-13. I mean,

00:42:05.480 the stories that you hear about MS-13, just how brutal they are in their murders and how heartless

00:42:11.000 and ruthless they are. And they are often, uh, finding refuge in these sanctuary cities who refuse

00:42:17.460 to comply with ICE, who don't want illegal immigrants deported. Why? Because of all that stuff we talk about

00:42:22.920 so much intersectionality, seeing the world through the lens of the oppressed versus oppressor.

00:42:28.260 We're not allowed to say that some illegal immigrants are criminals, um, and we're not

00:42:33.140 allowed to deport them. These sanctuary cities are, uh, sources of danger many times. And if it wasn't

00:42:40.260 for the sanctuary city, if it wasn't for our terrible immigration laws that allowed these two people to

00:42:45.520 come into our country, uh, Ariana, this 14 year old girl who was murdered would still be alive. So don't

00:42:51.900 tell me that illegal immigration and allowing everyone in who wants to come in is compassionate. It's

00:42:57.120 clearly not. I would love for you to tell that to the parents of this girl who was killed. Uh,

00:43:02.680 Democrats have offered nothing since Trump has become president in the way of suggestions

00:43:07.440 for immigration reform. Absolutely nothing. Look, they know that this is a hot button issue that is

00:43:13.720 going to get Christian suburban moms who want to be woke all in a tizzy and who will probably vote for

00:43:20.700 them based on this terrible erroneous idea that doing so is technically under the umbrella of being

00:43:27.220 pro-life. Uh, so here's a couple of things about the democratic position on the border. They had no

00:43:34.260 problem with deportations, with kids in so-called cages under Obama. They only care now because they

00:43:39.800 don't like Donald Trump and it's convenient for them to then position themselves as the compassionate

00:43:44.140 party. Uh, they probably realized that these people are going to eventually be able to vote and

00:43:49.040 they're probably going to vote for them. Um, and since Democrats are aborting all of their children,

00:43:53.420 they'd probably like some new voters. Uh, and speaking of abortion, they realized that this,

00:43:59.460 that the whole kids in cages rhetoric that they've been perpetuating, this is their humanitarian issue.

00:44:05.580 So while conservatives can point to Democrats as the people who condone killing babies,

00:44:09.960 uh, Democrats can point to conservatives where they think they can as the ones who put kids in

00:44:14.480 cages and who hates everyone at the border and who are racist white supremacists. Well,

00:44:18.460 the problem is Democrats really are the ones who condone and glorify, uh, killing unborn children,

00:44:23.540 but conservatives aren't actually condoning or glorifying any kind of cruel treatment of

00:44:30.040 immigrants. So one accusation from conservatives to liberals is correct. The accusation going the

00:44:36.420 other direction is not at all. So in May, Trump revealed a plan to help the immigration system and

00:44:43.100 to fix some of these problems. So this is according to the white house, the steps of his plan, uh,

00:44:48.000 one fully secure, securing the border. The plan would create a permanent self-sustaining border

00:44:52.780 security fund. This fund would help the completion of the barrier construction and strategic locations

00:44:58.100 and combat visa overstays through legal and infrastructural enhancements. So he's tackling

00:45:03.360 two problems. They're attempting to, um, he is saying that we're going to secure the border. So we have

00:45:08.180 fewer illegal crossings, but we're always also going to take care of visa overstays, which like we said,

00:45:13.940 account for the large majority of illegal immigrants in the country. Second thing,

00:45:18.840 restore integrity to America's exploited asylum process, help seal the loopholes and the immigration

00:45:24.260 laws that drive the flood of people coming into the U S as well as the human smuggling that is

00:45:29.260 occurring at our Southern border. Uh, third thing, modernize the legal immigration process to protect

00:45:35.020 American workers. So the president, uh, hopes to develop a point-based merit system that increases the

00:45:40.780 number of legal immigrants selected on skill, uh, rather than from family or visa lottery status.

00:45:46.300 So that's a part of the huge problem that we were talking about that two thirds of people who are

00:45:51.140 granted, uh, permanent legal status are from these families are because of chain migration and they're

00:45:57.860 taking priority over skilled workers. So this would help solve that, uh, promote national unity. The,

00:46:03.860 the president's plan, uh, hopes to attract people who want to come to the United States to

00:46:09.180 integrate into our melting pot to assimilate. So to do this, applicants have to pass a U S civics exam,

00:46:15.720 demonstrate English proficiency. Now we kind of already have this. Um, it also pulls in a focus

00:46:21.500 to younger people so that they can be here longer. Um, prior. So the next thing is prioritize the

00:46:27.660 immediate families of U S citizens and new immigrants. This would be a shift to just spouses

00:46:33.540 and children rather than the extended family, uh, problem that we're having right now. And then

00:46:39.400 the last thing is to increase diversity and equality. And here's what he means by that though.

00:46:44.820 He's calling this the build America visa. Uh, so this visa would be awarded on a point-based

00:46:50.680 criteria, one that prizes extraordinary achievement and potential, uh, to contribute to our nation to

00:46:56.300 determine who should be issued a green card for permanent residents in the United States. And so this is a

00:47:02.080 little bit different than the diversity and equality of George H W Bush's, uh, 1990 act. For example,

00:47:09.120 this is based on merit actually, and not just country of origin, which like we said,

00:47:14.480 doesn't necessarily in and of itself add value without any merit or shared purpose or, um, value

00:47:21.460 system. So after the release of Trump's new plan, he said, many of the Democrats have claimed to be for

00:47:26.900 these concepts at different times in their careers. And in many cases, in very recent history,

00:47:31.440 this is true. And I hope that they will end up joining me and all of the people gathered together

00:47:35.800 today and putting politics aside, putting security and wages first and pursuing these historic reforms.

00:47:41.820 He's absolutely right in saying that, uh, there has not been substantial immigration reform passed

00:47:46.720 for more than four, uh, 50 years. President Obama, uh, took a lot of different actions to provide

00:47:51.700 temporary legal relief to illegal immigrants. Uh, in 2012, his administration passed the deferred action

00:47:58.940 for childhood arrivals, uh, that is DACA or DACA, depending on how you pronounced it, that offered

00:48:05.340 renewable, uh, two-year deportation deferrals. So protection from deportation and work permits to

00:48:11.580 illegal immigrants, uh, who had arrived to the United States as children, uh, and had no criminal records.

00:48:17.560 Obama's hope was that this would be a stopgap measure and only be for a short amount of time

00:48:23.300 until some kind of law could actually be passed. A lot of people called this unconstitutional. It was

00:48:27.700 very controversial, uh, more than 800,000. This is as of 2018, more than 800,000 had taken advantage

00:48:36.280 of DACA. And that's still something that is ongoing. And so that is, we've had a long, we've had a long

00:48:45.340 podcast episode this time because there's so much to talk about when it comes, uh, to immigration,

00:48:50.960 but I hope I gave you a good idea of what is actually going on. There's so much more that

00:48:55.160 we could talk about. We could talk about the ins and outs of, uh, sanctuary cities. We could talk

00:49:00.100 about illegal immigrant crime versus non-illegal immigrant crime, uh, versus just citizen crime and

00:49:06.040 what all of that means. We could go back and forth on the rhetoric that we're hearing what's true and

00:49:09.760 what's not, but I wanted to give you a primer on all of this to clear up some confusion that maybe you

00:49:14.440 had so that maybe it just piques your interest and you can look more into this. Of course,

00:49:18.700 if you have any feedback for me, let me know if you have any questions or corrections, let me know

00:49:22.760 ally at the conservative millennial blog.com. If you are enjoying these podcast episodes at all,

00:49:27.880 please give me a five-star review on iTunes. That would mean a lot to me. And I will see you guys soon.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 31, 2019

Ep 144 ｜ Illegal Immigration

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