The mask slipped with Trump's "shithole" comments, and Matt and Dara take a hard look at what lies beneath it. Content warning: explicit policy discussions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Man is having the time of his life over. Here, like he was born in the womb, making perfect Dixie. Second copies,
allow and welcomed the reeds on the box media podcast network. I'm Dara lined with me as covers matter glaziers, and we were going to take this
so early on Thursday. Because we thought that there was going to be so much immigration news that we couldn't wait to send
all of it to you and I'm super glad. We did not do that because, on Thursday night it was reported,
that in a meeting in which she appears to have shot down a deal that a bipartisan group of some
as has been working on immigration. Donald Trump complained about: U S: taking people from Quote Shithole countries close quote
and that has dominated the media cycle since then, in the kind of way that the press
This tendency to make ridiculous com
and does, but also when the president says the quiet part loud yeah, witches
We can see that that he says why not,
I mean I. I am I'm glad that this
I came out. I'm I'm glad we didn't miss it because also. My hope point was going to be that the sort of details-
sharing over and the extensive all sticking points its own so far, there is, of course, important I mean in matters what what the policy as, but that, like the thing you have to understand is that the core issue here is not really about the ins and outs of temporary protected status, but is about the president's desire to reshape or prevent from being reshape the ethnic make up
of the United States and that that is what we know I mean it's a gets paradoxical: arms, hunrad, trumpet immigration, because he's he's not up a detailed policy guy on this subject or in any other subject
but immigration is clearly a topic that he has strong feelings which is different from health care, or even
You know surveillance, I mean a million other things that happen where he says things that dont quite make sense. He
he has a real commitment here and emotional level on an intellectual level, even you would say in it. It comes through in these kinds of remarks and it's a it's like it's a bit,
whoa block to a deal on this kind of thing, both because it's hard to translate into policy terms, let's get rid of people from shithole countries.
There was a new times reported a couple weeks ago that he felt that everyone here from Haiti had AIDS, so we should get rid of them all the ministers and denied that at the time I mean, I think it's it's clean.
That that that's what he said that that's when he asked what he thing that was again, and that was in the context of here
Being mad that we had let so many people on legal immigrant visas into the Eu S you're right, it's not it's, not something that can be easily transmuted into well. He just wants us to get the illegals out.
Right away to mean exactly amend. That's been, I was a cross twenty seventeen him, and we saw that with the term right that in here
ways had some of these policy. Commitments ran legal immigration in the campaign, but the rhetoric of the rhetorical focus was on. You know his
position to amnesty bills.
The border wall, which
I mean you- can understand- is a wall but also clearly a symbol about illegal immigration and about control and security.
and about the sends out an emotional level right D. The illegal immigration issue is, in part simply about the sense that you want to have a situation of control. He would say we ve got to have border
in this country and I M needs- is a common trope. Did you hear from people that, if the
a non zero number of people living without permission in the United States that equivalent to the country having no borders at All- and I mean I don't think that's right, but that sort of that the feeling that attacks on too, but we really moved in this stock at abate
hoard demands. I mean actually a willingness to sort of give a pass to a certain number of people who came here illegally. If, in exchange, you can have a really big change to legal immigration. That concept of control is super important and I want a kind of put opinion that, because I think that you're describing
you're at least a world view that has come out of the White House. Vit, sometimes has been voiced by Donald Trump, but that has not always been forty right on it from right like if we had taped this on on Wednesday after the Tuesday televised immigration meeting, we would be talking
a how everybody in that meeting other than Donald Trump understood very well, the Donald from
no idea what policy was being deliberated but be that Donald Trump appeared to be interested in getting a deal and didn't appear to appear to care terribly about the content of that deal
both tuesday- and I think our reports on Thursday people like you and me who are not super committed to the question of what is Donald
Pumps policy determinations, our kind of you know taking the president's own words with a grain of salt, but the big question out of this immigration negotiation is
and continues to be an Thursdays meeting, while it was definitely
you know a big reversal for the White House in a big setback.
It's not necessarily the end of it literally. The senators who came up with that deal after the White House shut it down, announced to the
look that they had a deal and are now trying to see how many votes they have for in Congress. So it's not like you know. It's not like the fight is over, but the big
still remains Donald,
clearly on some level wants to say he got a win yes
Donald Trump. Clearly, on some level has these field.
is that are easily tapped into about. We shouldn't be letting people from bad countries into the United States. We know
that Stephen Miller is tapping into the latter. Set of sentiments
hard, unlike even Republicans, have been grousing to reporters. That Stephen Miller is the person who is
to throw rent in these negotiations. We don't know,
who's on the other side. Right, we don't know. If there's any one in the White House is actually telling Donald Trump look. If you want a deal you're going to have to just say you got a win
even if you don't get literally everything that Stephen Miller Watts and that day
I make is not yet resolved. Rightly gets not. This president does not have the gene other politicians,
where once they have said something that becomes public, they feel the need to back it up. Let's, let's said reboot set set the stage for for the policy agreement whereby Mfa right, so you have the deferred action for childhood rifles programme abandoned
restoration walls it out years ago. It goes not as the subject of super hot controversy. Donald Trump comes in. Faced with the threat of litigation from some of the more conservative state attorney general, he cancels the programme
This creates a rolling bad consequences for the Dhaka recipients
right and he what he does is he starts shutting the
Graham down immediately with the programme getting shut down over the course of six months and then turns around them
as I am giving Congress six months to right, because this is a critical thing I mean
is reversed a lot of Obama arab things just like hither any on and typically what he'll do is he'll say I'm pulling out of the Paris climate accords because they are bad,
I just like fundamentally disagree with the policy objective. That was there we're going in a different direction,
we had net neutrality regulations, I'm getting rid of them because they were a bad idea. He didn't say that about doc right he did not come out and say this protected. Seven hundred thousand be borne reputation. I think that was a mistake. I think we should round up as many of those people as possible and deport them right. He said he had legal clams objections.
he wanted Congress to work out a deal he wanted. You you wanted legislation grounded and even of eight. He didn't even make the illegal coms argument. He sent Jeff sessions out to do that and, of course knows
actions that this was a big wind for sessions within the Trump administration. Despite all the you know, palace intrigue reporting about trumped up concessions, but trumpets
sessions out to be the bad guy and then got on Twitter and said the dreamers, a great people. We should help the right so so that the rhetoric was. The signal to Congress was always a bill that helps the dreamers is something that trump well.
Then, it sort of quickly started dribbling out that it was like Trump was
happy to sign a bill that help dreamers. But he wanted like unspecified pound of flesh on immigration issues, as is price for it, and we think it first after the sort of bought.
To check and Nancy meeting. It seemed like. Maybe he was open to a pretty easy deal, which was Democrats in the context of government funding bill would kick up some money for some stuff
related to the border, that there would be some
quibbling as to whether or not that constituted wall
yeah I mean so. I think, like this is what this is. What I have been saying for months. A deal could easily look like, but I think it's worth saying that you know a few weeks after the Chuck Nancy Meeting
after the chimpanzee meeting and then the one area where they came at a touch him and anti policy came out saying the President has agreed
Annabelle just to legalise dreamers. The White House said no. We didn't that. That point
members of Congress in both parties, a lot of whom had like been mobilized right after the in over right after the president,
who was ending docketed to come up with a bill so that they could have something ready in the next six months said to the White House.
You need to know what Billy will sign. Tell us what you need and earlier to MID October
the White House put out this several page wishlist. That was, you know. It said
our framework, we're not saying that any of these are demands. We're not saying that any of these aren't demands, but like this is what we think is important.
the only I'm basically the entire Trump Administration immigration policy. Jerry was inundated. It was basically the rays act that that trumpets endorse the Tom Cotton and others have proposed Stephen Miller worked on, which would cut illegal immigration and to the? U S and half over the next ten years, plus massive
of border infrastructure, investment plus an overhaul of asylum laws which have kind of come under the rubric of border security, given how many people coming and now our central american children family, seeking asylum plus mandatory verify, which is kind of the big Rock on interior and
workmen, especially if you're not going to legalise you know all
the eight million unauthorized immigrants in the workforce, so it was
no one, but no one in Congress said. Oh, this is serious starting point. The right of all pretended it didn't happen, and so that's kind of when it snapped back to
will clearly the White House, isn't ready to come to the table yet, but when they do come to that,
able they'll just be they'll just say we want to walk that, put Congress
position of trying to play a guessing game for a while and that clearly stalled out negotiations. So
January in December, they tried again and said to John Kelly. Tell us what you want. John tell you didn't respond, so
in Miller did in January by literally re sending that document plus a name
billion dollar ten year proposal for them also lake the assumption of what the White House will ultimately too.
Has been based on this idea that their negotiations thus far had been in such obvious bad faith that if they
ever wanted to deal. They were going to have to settle for something that they could just nominally
a win that didn't have any hard sticking
Well, because I mean this is I mean, there's a conceptual distinction right between like a negotiating effort and
poison pill left right and that sort of what we keep, I would say, ambiguous waiting between in the in the trunk White House
Why did the dreamers the darker? The fate of the dreamers, is important too Democrats they would clearly give Trump something for help here and trump in his consistent public statements has always indicated that he is not averse to helping dreamers
so taking the situation at face value it suggested there should be a deep and I like what deal I mean who know swipe. It suggests that tromp has the opportunity to ask Democrats for something that they would not ordinarily do, but that they will do in order to deliver away.
on the dreamers to their constituents, and so it seems like what you would want at four trumps perspective is some kind of a wind for trump. But then you get to the problem. That Trump has never are tick.
Lay dead, a real negotiating strategy right part of I. I love the buck getting to you ass, a great book about about negotiations and
part of how you have a successful negotiation at that. They say that book and I think it's true as you. You discuss principles rather than discussing positions right, so you would want to hear from the trunk Whitehouse something like
look we understand. These are sympathetic cases. We are happy to help them, but we don't want to do anything,
that increases unauthorized immigration a net, and we also don't want to do anything. We understand that we just have a disagreement about legal immigration, but we don't want. You drastically increase the volume of illegal immigration by low skilled latin american people, and so then you could say. Ok right! I mean, though that's hazy but like we can
work. Something out need suggests some kind of border security measures so that you can say ok, we're, maybe going to encourage more people to come, but also we're gonna. Do offsetting discard ban an exodus, something like the terms of the agreement that the senators worked out with.
to put try to put some kind of restrictions on the amount of new people who can be sponsored as a result of this and that
That is where the Senate framework comes from. It comes from a place of trying to imagine a deal.
why? Exactly as specifically, it comes from a place of trying to work backwards, not from principles but from sound
Well, I don't mean soundbites envy lake, often for Prince for politicians principle.
sound bites interchangeable, but Donald Trump seized on a couple of words.
Did he really thinks are a mean bad things, and so its view, the Senate bill. This ideal represents an attempt to work back.
from what can we say, stops this bad thing, so we should probably get in here. So I policy. Can we let's? Let's, let's? Let's take a break and then let's, let's describe what was in the steel, so I am typically not the kind of person who pays fifty dollars for church, and usually I don't do that, because I am sceptical that a t shirt that cost seven dollars to make us
worth fifty dollars, which is why I'm super pleased about ever Lane, because ever lean never requires you to over pay for the quality closed they make. They only make premium
central they're using the finest materials and they don't use traditional mark ups to inflate the cost of the clothing. Instead, there telling
their real costs. So you know you're, not overpaying. You know that the money the
spending is going to the quality materials they use and the ethical factories that they work with their radically transparent about every step in the process and because there
selling directly they dont need to charge you as much as other retailers. Their prices are thirty to fifty percent lower than traditional retailers so bottom line. They look better, they cost less. They last longer. There super comfortable their simple, stylish there made from polluting materials. I am a big fan of their fruit, tee shirts. I am also look
yet some of their Denham options. I would I have my eye on that boyfriend genes. If
You are also included in the market for timeless essential
highly recommended there, no frills just polity, and if you are in the market, you can go to ever lean dot com, slash weeds and get free shipping on your first order, so that its ever lean dot, com, slash, reads: overlean, dot, com, slash, weeds, free shipping, first order, no frills, excellent clothes; okay, so a bipartisan group of senators reach to deal the deal did not meet with the White House to stamp of approval. That's we ve been talking about, but but but what was what was in the deal? What did it say so?
I think the way to understand this deal is that Trump has enow trumpets, always hazards. There said soon after he announced an end to the doktor programme, I want to help dreamers, but we gotta have the wall. Then after there was the attempted terrorist attack in New York in November, it became
we want out the dreamers we got to have the wall. We got to end chain migration and we got an end of use a lottery, and so I think we have to kind of discuss what it's never been clear, whether Trump understands how either of those things work, but in order to figure out
In our view, these senators in trying to figure out what could be done. That would theoretically satisfy those demands which have actually continued and worthy
of what the White House said was actually resolved in the Tuesday televised negotiating meeting was oh, we decided that we
focus on dreamers. The wall chain, migration in the lottery, which was what any of us
been following the negotiations so far knew they were already focusing on by that's. You know
whatever they wanted to get away out of it so white. I
going to talk about the visa lottery. Firstly, because it's their relations
between what it actually is, what Trump thinks it is a little more straightforward. That's the there's a way it's called the diversity
there are fifty thousand visas, are available to people who come from countries that the? U S doesn't allow. A lot of people doesn't typically have a lot of immigrants from
and so these visas are Alex
it by. If you meet certain requirements, you can just sign. You can put your name in. They draw fifty thousand in out names based off in part on in a country's representation,
out of a hat essentially, and then they say: hey you ve been given the opportunity to apply to come to the less s you now have to go through all the vetting steps that we let that be for everyone else
but where otherwise, you have literally no way to try to emigrate to the? U s. Now you got to
to me, this is critical, just just to underline its biggest trump portrays this as if the lottery is the last straw,
when I asked a lottery. Is the is the first outbreak of that
Secondly, what we are saying is that, if you are, you know what
You live in Malaysia, you dont have a close family connection to the United States. You don't qualify for any of the special work visas. You can enter the lottery and you win a chance to come to the,
it states of America. The lottery does not get you out of security vetting.
right? It's like, I know in it, and it doesn't get you out of the typical, like you have to prove that you won't be a public charge. If you come to the United States, which means you have
prove that you won't cost us more in social services, then you generate income tax, basically wet, so he eats
It's a way of letting some people in outside the norm
more system of selection criteria, but it doesn't.
it's not like. It's like a loophole in the basic screening process. Emigrants summary and drop ended. The lottery portion of it is really what trope appears be fixated on.
It is. He has this idea, or at least he said in speeches that he has this idea, that country's deliberately select their worst people for
them into this lottery, and then they just come to the? U S so its logic.
Oh, you know I and everyone else looked at that. What oh Donald Trump doesn't think that a lottery is a good way to have people selected to come to the United States.
This bears some resemblance to what some Republicans have been saying for a while that this is kind of a waste of visa slots. Even Democrats were willing to get rid of the diversity visa lottery and the twenty thirteen comprehensive immigration bill. There might be a deal
and so on the diversity visa. Why the Senate deal that was reached this week proposes is that there will no longer be a lottery, but those
fifty thousand visas a year will still be given out. It won't reduce overall legal immigration with allowances,
go to his. There will be some slots, it'll be reserved for people coming to the? U S from under represented countries. So it won't say you know these the any
country that doesn't already have a lot of people in the. U S, you're, you know, but just out of luck,
two dresses the concerns that the progression of black caucus. How do you keep your diversity right, but you get rid of a lot right right and you know the the reason that this is a sea BC issues, because african countries are big
fishing areas, that diversity is a lottery because they have an all
he's had easy ways to get to the? U S by other means and the rest of those slots. Third, the fifty thousand slots that get free
by getting rid of the lottery would go to people who are key.
We in the EU ass to have been in the EU?
four years on temporary protected status, which is the program that from the Trump Administration has been cut.
Winding down for various countries, including most recently, El Salvador, which has two hundred and sixty thousand people who have been in the? U S. First, seventeen plus years after a twenty one, earthquake vet.
They, the trumpet ministrations, said well it supposed to be temporary. This has been too long at the countries better. Now you should go home. The Senate, that group of
There's working on this deal sidewalk. Well what? If we agree that temporary protected status? Wasn't the right way to do this, but
People have been in the: U S, they haven't been able to apply for green cards. You can apply for a green card just through having teepee s. So
make them able to apply for green cards. They ve been here seventeen years. They should stick so
this is where we get back to the ship holes. They re because it subjects
reporting has made it clear that this was the point in the meeting about the bipartisan Senate, deal where Donald Trump, you no kind of lost his lost his shit, and
reporting by Jake Tapir Friday morning, is kind of clarified that what happened was the senators were running through the list of countries that had temporary protected status and they got to Haiti, and
said: why do we need more Haitians in the country take them out, which is not its not more Haitians, because there are already in the? U S, but
whatever and then when they were discussing the fact that, while the diversity visa lottery would be killed, there would still be these diversity considerations in inner this thing that were
Some of these visas that were being given out- and they mentioned Africa
countries. He rejected the idea that we would take any one from Africa from these african countries because he's at their shit hole countries. So that's kind of that's the context in which Donald Trump said: Shithole Countries
and it gives us a very different lens- to see what his problem with the visa lottery was, because it doesn't appear that this problem was the lottery at all. It up- or maybe that was also a problem, but it appears that Donald Trump also has an ocean with the idea of taking immigrants from african countries, and this is where I mean this is again where principles versus positions makes a difference right, because the problem with taking the lottery the position Trump articulated- was consistent,
the proposal that was in this deal, but it turns out that trumps principle is that he does not favour the immigration to the United States from Africa Right
because the previous understanding about this
B C likes the diesel, the diversity visa lottery, because it allows for Africans, states emigrated United States and trumpet doesn't like it.
He doesn't like that ran on our right, so they reached an accord. They met both peoples principles. If the actual principle is black. People are bad
I didn't know
conciliation that you're gonna reach and it's the same thing with the Haitians white, where they were trying to do something where there were saying. Ok, we're going to answer the objection that this misuse of temporary protected status, but we're gonna meet the objective at the the goal of helping patients right wing of the actual objection to tv aspirations. Is that their haitian, rather that their anti bs then there's no form of health.
Haitians that that is acceptable. I think that this is also relevant when you think about the ways act. That's been put on the table because the reason itself has
Few big moving parts right I mean one- is a switch of this sort of basis of how you get a visa
the other is cutting the number of visas in half a natural thing for like a policy want person to say, is that, like ok, Tom Cotton, has this vision for changing our immigration works, but a lot of people myself included, think that he just
underwrites how valuable immigration is to the United States. So we should work for something that's along the lines of this system, but keep the total number of visas at city at much higher. It turns out tat if you look at the profile of african immigrants to the United States. They are
more highly educated than the average emigrant there. In fact, more highly educated, the native born Americans. They have less english proficiency, the native born Americans, but more english proficiency than now.
Native Africans and their younger than the immigrant population is hall,
so younger English speaking highly educated immigrants is actually who the Rays ACT selects for
So the implication is that if you did the Rays act, but without the cutting legal immigration flows and half you can end up with more immigrants from Africa, not fewer
And so if your policy goal is to reduce immigration from Africa, which it sounds like its. But Donald Trump wants to do then, like that's, a non starter right, an end to an extent,
How is it worth wasting time? It is always worth talking about these options, but when
understand the basic objective as grounded in ways and ethnicity
it means that the specific proposals mean something very different from what you what you had thought.
There is no way to reconcile humanitarian sympathy with Haitians or
gills, based assessment of who is likely to assist the american labour market with the goal of just keeping black people writ large out of the United States of America and, like those are much more fundamentally at odds, then some of the kind of legal list it concerns that you have been a fish
we put forward by the trapped administration. So I think that there is another kind of root disagreement here and that's the question in the question of top line immigration numbers that you're talking about whether we are going to have fewer emigrants coming.
The? U S or whether you are going to have the same number of immigrants coming into the Eu S, but select them differently, and this is where I think the Trump Administration has been most disingenuous.
Because usually the problem? The problem with talking about getting rid of the diversity visa has never been well. There are a lot of people who are super, invest in the way. This works right now, like by definition, there aren't huge political constituencies for people from countries that don't send a lot of people to the United States
She has always been what what do you replace it with undue, replace it with anything at all, because politicians are gender
the very loath to expand than
or of slots available for people to come to the United States without any offsets. But people have different ideas about what kinds of people should be more easily aloud
under the country, so once you get rid of a programme like the diversity visa lottery that no quorum quote, frees up these visas, which is kind of why in it, which is why?
you see that solution being worked out in the
in the Senate to take on this. Like fallacy sin call
for years. Nobody is standing around saying like I love this programme, exactly as it exists, but is ever.
idea. If, if anyone has some notion of like, I won
get some visas for this purpose the proposed offset is always
cut down or eliminate diversity visas. But then that means that everyone who has something else that they would like to do with those visas
has an incentive to block the change. So this thing out the
regions of the diversity of programme are funny, but no longer
nobody. Nobody is really for it, but they are often against chain.
right, exactly and and that gets even more complicated. When you talk about changing
My family based visas are allocated which is kind of the other question. That is, that is at odds in this negotiation, but the thing is that there are people who want to get rid of the diversity visa programme and not replace it with anything, because they want fewer immigrants to the United States. This
much more contentious in. Oh it's, the idea that
Everybody in the? U S supports legal immigration has been proven pretty conclusively over last couple of years, not true, and there really is a segment of the republican base that just wants fewer emigrants. So the thing that I think has been kind of
under rate aid. In the reporting of yesterday's meeting. Is that Dick Durban
Lindsey Gram went into this meeting with Trump thinking they were meeting with Trump and instead they are meeting with Trump and Bob Good LAD of the House and Tom cotton of the Senate and those two are big,
immigration hardliners, and so it became clear that people had trumps ear, who were less amenable to a deal than they thought he was going to be, and in particular in cotton in particular, has been the biggest persons
We need fewer illegal immigrants coming to the? U S. So when trumped says we
need more Haitians. We don't need more people from shithole countries. He is wrong on the policy in both regards right, like by definition, this annabel isn't Senate dealers and talking about having any more people, it's about reallocating
but if he is, if he means we don't we don't, we don't want to have a more people come again like we haven't.
we don't need any more. That's a very different stance in its obviously a much harder
dance to reconcile with anything that Congress would be able to get to a deal on that gets even worse when you're talking about the question of more haitians- and this is what I
really upsets me personally about the way the Trump Administration has dealt with this, because in the call
call Monday when they announced that they were ending temporary protected status for El Salvador senior administration officials said the exact same thing that they said when they announced they were ending teepee S for Haiti when they were ending tv.
four Nicaragua. I ve said we this
The temporary programme- it's not our fault- that this temporary programme has been misused, we're call it. We need Congress to pass a permanent solution for these people if a permanent solution is going to happen,
We are seeing Congress needs to give these people green cars, but they were saying it's com.
His job to find a permanent solution. Congress found a permanent solution and done
Tromp is not only rejecting the permanent solution, but is saying we don't.
More Haitians coming into this country, as if the Haitians
would be given green cards under this deal are people who have lived. There are people who have lived in the? U S for eight years as if the people who would be the salvadorans who would be given
cars under this deal, are people who have lived in the? U S for seventeen to twenty years. It's at times the minutes
This view has been not only that there should be fewer people coming into the country from abroad, but it has
this insistent, this insistence on treating people who are here who have been here who are living here as if they are just coming into
who ass and pretending that they can decide who gets to stay and who gets to go? Who asked to go as easily as if they were just selecting people from us
Did these years you have put into the? U S, don't matter that your roots, don't matter that the fact that you ve
learned, English and raise children raised you, a citizen, children doesn't matter and its. It makes the fact that they,
about assimilation more than any previous administration in recent memory is hotspot assimilation, a joke. It means that they dont understand that they don't actually care about the difference between immigrants who are confirmed.
two american communities, unquote unquote bad embrace and it makes it extremely difficult to take. The prince
that they're trying to espouse on immigration seriously as a matter of caring about the America that they say they can
In the meantime, I would apply this too to the the the
criticism of the family. Migration says that the so called chain- immigration
I mean. On the one hand, I dont want to say that this is something that should be off the table for discussion and there's a finite issuance of visas and its reasonable to talk about how you do
at the same time, if you're talking about America first and american interests, I mean
The reason that a person gets preferential treatment in the immigration system for having close family ties to american citizens is that that's a way of
taking the american citizen interests into account. Right, I mean
you know it matters more people what happens to their dad than it matter.
Two like corporation acts, who is trying to optimize, for you know whatever their filling some accountant vacancies, rightly that that is the idea of it.
and the you know the dehumanizing tone and language of the chain: migration trope. It's based on the idea that the past cohorts of immigrants who
Sponsoring new potential immigrants are themselves not authentically american, and so their interest in their family members is less valid.
then a longer settled persons taking an interest in their family members. Right I mean I did you know,
ah severe whatever in school. I mean this. This is always a good question. Ethics, right, like like,
How legitimate is it to care more about your cousin, then like a completely random person, but we just we all the time, except that, like people are gonna care more about the people who are close to them and like part of evaluating american interests, is that you know the people who were present in America have taken
actual interest in their relatives who are not present. Not everybody is coming to the United States under the current system under any feasible system. I mean it's not. He isn't like per se absurd to say we need to give fewer visas to close relatives of relatively recent immigrants. The United States and more visas to people who meet some kind of urgent economic policy need
but the depiction, maybe you'd literally see it in their little graphics right. It's like that. The presumption is that you don't actually become an American,
right by emigrating here by applying
naturalisation way
You were me in ineradicable, foreign and so
by pulling more foreigners in its like us, sneaky foreign invasion,
yeah, like you, I really want to underline that lake when, when present
from says chain migration. It is not clear what he means when
immigration. You know hawks who actually care about policy talk about immigration there talking in specific about
the lower preference family visas that you know it's is much there are these
more easily allocated to you, know your spouse, when you, when you emigrate to minor children, it then kind of, as the relationship gets more you no more distinct, that the preferences go down and there talking in particular about adult children.
and siblings, because in both of those cases, if you have
system, where you can, you know you can
over your married adult child, they have a spouse who can then bring over their parents and their siblings, and that kind of that's the chain and chain migration right. Those lower preferences only kicking
you're. U S, citizens so yeah! There's I mean I think that philosophically varies
absolutely and a question to be raised about
If you are coming to the EU
ass. You know it probably improve the quality of life
ability to be settled in the? U S to have your spouse and minor children. It probably improves our quality of life, to have your parents at Enow,
as it does it really matter that you can have all of your adult children here, does it really matter they even have all your siblings here. I think that, philosophically those questions, but it's worth noting, that those are questions that only matter once you have the only thing that the Eu
government gives you to say you're in american robotic.
you're, a U S, citizen that makes you every bit as american as anybody else as far as you know, either
the law or any non racist view of American. This is concerned, weighty, exactly when
no, I mean the issue is like there. There is a trade off being proposed in terms of a family based or an economic base, migration, but either way you are talking about american citizens interests right, and I think it's not like. We all the time ask some America
citizens to sacrifice some kinds of interests for the good of other american citizens, but they are discussing
ass, as if an american citizen trying to sponsor a visa
for a relative is not really in a man,
right, you know- and I don't I don't wanna like kings the whole argument about everything just on this point, but it is useful way,
when the mask slips around the shit halls. Its useful to get
going because has been driving me crazy throughout the year that there's a refusal and once it with you, I think there's been a reluctance to accept that the proposals coming forward from Trump and the Trump zone and immigration are closely linked to trumps habit of making. I guess what they typically will call
press recently charged remarks about this, or that you know like this is a guy who
recent surveys and suffering you see, he's not allow a lot of by people in the United States are not comfortable with the idea that the United States is becoming a majority non white country, and they would like immigration policy to reflect their press
says on that score. It's certainly not a new idea that american immigration policy should be based. Conscious right, I mean that the chinese Exclusion ACT. I think it has
that there's something about chinese people there rather than about the labour market writ large ray. I mean the
american immigration system cared about what country you are coming from more than anything else from in eighteen. Eighty, two, nineteen sixty five from nineteen sixty five on it is cared ostensibly about your ties to the: U S through in a family or work or humanitarian considerations. More then you're the country are coming
from although it there are a kind of some asterisks there, so really we're talking about eighty five years verses. Fifty two years, it's historically the not being racially contrast, is the exception waiting.
I think you know, and I think it is fair to say that the was in eighteen sixty two sixty four sixty five thither
changed. The ethnic balance of immigration, not more than I think people at the time may have fully appreciated what was happy
right yeah, I think that I think it was something that I dont think that it was the unintended consequence
typically think of unintended policy consequences? I think that there was
an understanding that the old that the existing system was unforgivable erase s wet, and I think that the fact that the kind of changes that have occurred were like
asian immigration to the EU. S was basically not a thing. Pre. Sixty five african immigration had has been kind of slowly increasing as a result of that
but that this is also what makes the chain migration debate politically fraught right, and I think that the other reason why talking of
the moments where the mask slips is that the argument for real,
meaning the family based immigration system. Exactly as it is, is lesson
argument about it is really important for siblings, of United States citizens to have preference
coming than it is Asian Americans in particular, feel that very
eighty five years where they were banned from coming to the U S and that they have been able to put down roots
America in large part because of this family based immigration system. It is something that the vat is
regarded as an important way that the United States has made up for a historic wrong, castrato wrong. So that's kind of moments: Lake, where it becomes apparent that the President of the United States has
racist views and that those are informing his opinion of the immigration
system, are the kind of thing that make it extremely difficult for democratic law makers to get on board with
reducing the number of family based visas, because they
stand that
you know that many of their constituents feel personally invested in that system as a way that has helped their communities out put down roots in the. U S. Weight in
in its obviously. Also if you, if you look at that, the timing, why did not a coincidence that sixty five immigration ACT happens the same year as the Voting Rights ACT in a year
The civil rights act. Right I mean this is a civil rights
era measure that was taken to reverse decades of super duper race, conscious immigration policy and try to make it in some sense, racially neutral. Although different countries are still treated very differently,
under the current system and in some ways I think that the disease
and around. This is where you get at just the question of ok: do we need to sharply limit the quantity of evil
patient right, and this has been an interesting trump era phenomenon. If you look at the gallop pause, there has been as far back as they go a large minority of the population like a really large. What like forty percent, you know enough to have a political parties worth that has been saying. We should have less immigration to the United States, but the political d, like overt argument in Congress, has always bids
Rick Lee about unauthorized immigration. At a time when there was a large volume of unauthorized immigration
calm down an unauthorized immigration was a perfectly reasonable way to produce the total volume of immigration.
and but something we ve seen as unauthorized immigration, has, has slowed down and has produced a lot it in recent years? Is that.
That has, rather than that meeting the demand of restriction- s its accelerated, the demand,
as the less unauthorized immigration? There is the harder it is to credibly promise that border security is, can reduce the amount of aggregate immigration right. If you want to reduce immigration to the United States, you have to reduce legal immigration and that something that a lot of people have wanted to see for us
long time, men through it Donald Trump, inchoate way and in time cottons like much more.
to Harvard LAW school- and I know what I was lying about way like this- is what his bubbled to the top of the Republican Party policy agenda right, but it's
The mass opinion I think, as far as we can tell had been fairly constant, but the light actual congressional politics have become very very,
different right, even like Mitt Romney and in twenty twelve, was not saying anything bad about legal immigrants to the United States. But you know that's really changed now the Trump administration position
is that lots of people? You know some people who are here under cheap, yes, like they are here legally, but he wants to yank their permission. Now they become part of the unauthorized immigration problem because he is on authorized.
I, whereas you know, Bush Obama we're both kind of like a little
she goosey with right- I mean they would they would give
you permission and then say well, there's no problem. You had permission outlined at from
wants to be stingy right. He wants to like not have all these people from shithole countries in the United States.
and sees the legal, the demon
in law process as a way to constrain yeah. I think that the idea that the pointer making it the Trump administration doesn't think of themselves as unauthorized tp S holders they think of themselves as well. Once your permission is revoked, you have to leave that's just the way it works
and the kind of other thing that's got. That's shifted subtly over the last ten fifteen years. The immigration debate is the valence. That's been been put on the idea of people settling in the? U S right, if you think about the way that be you know, guest worker programmes were described during Bush era. Emigration reforms there were concerns on both the right and the left that
not only would guest worker programmes do more to reduce american wages than just legalizing emigrants, but that you would create a class of people who didn't have ties to the EU
see we're just kind of coming here for a paycheck and then leaving that that money,
stay in the? U s that those people, wouldn't you know it put down roots and adopt a? U s. It
american values and have any reason to love the flag and that idea doesn't appear as much anymore. It's way
we have policy. Wise is generally the harder it becomes to get to a country. The longer people are likely to stay, because if you know that you, you won't be able to come back if you leave you're, not gonna leave so legal immigration from countries like Mexico is actually become much more circular than it was a generation ago, while unauthorized him
seven intends to will result in people settling teepee S, because it was a matter of your country.
Not safe enough to go back to has become a matter of people settling. You know. People certainly have left and gone back to Haiti or El Salvador during the time. I've had to be s, but
those are those is by definition, the people who are still here after seventeen years at the people who have built lives here. So the idea that those people don't havoc
aim to american Ness or aren't likely to become.
Americans or can never become full Americans isn't something that you would have heard ten fifteen years ago, when the emphasis was really on. While we want people to die
America fully it's now. This idea that the? U S government, can
Tell you whether or not your american and you have no hope but to comply.
So when the administration is turning a blind eye to the extremely likely fact that, once it pulls GPS from fifty seven thousand Haitians and two hundred and sixty two thousand salvadorans,
that their most many of those are likely to stay in the. U S is unauthorized immigrants they're not going to pack up on mass what there
doing there is their undermining the the idea of assimilation, but they're doing it by saying how long you ve been here does not matter and that something that isn't compatible with a cultural list view of what it means to be an American that isn't Rachel Ized, but
is compatible with a cultural issue. That is right, and I think this you know, there's a fundamental sort of non who prey.
It is amendment because its
beyond this sort of specific interests of the people involved. Here you know if you just think firmer America. First, whatever perspective ripe, the immigration system has the capacities that it has swear to me. You ve talked about the backlog and emigration cords, there's only so many ice agents. There are a lot of undertakings
people in the United States from a practical, basic, practical standpoint, you know that if you gang teepee as from all these people from they, mostly, they mostly aren't going to pack their bags and leave, and the total volume of people that ice is able to apprehend and pointed depredation processes
not increase, and we also have a lot of economic research that have you take people's legal status, away, their negative consequences for them for that. But this also just very negative consequences for capital formation right because, like you can operate a business legally, you can't you can. If you have job skills, you can't use them to their maximum potential, so you're gonna? U reducing the productivity of the american economy, reducing level
investment. You are encouraging those people. While they stay to export trade, whatever financial assets they may have to make preparations for the eventuality that they may be forced to leave. So that's all just back it's it's all just net negatives, for
the american economy to no real purpose. Unless you just really think that it's bad to have patience in the United States of America because it's not like
zero. That molly right, you, don't you get it if you, if you really just profoundly, think it's like really bad,
for there to be Haitians in the United States, this will end up with fewer haitian,
it is then you had previously, but it's like in no other way like there are not many Haitians living in the washing DC area. This is not have super concrete impact.
The lives of me or people who live in in this than we are, and but let me lots Salvador is, but I mean it's just it's a net loss for the American
economy and american Labour market buddy lets you do poured a certain number of people. It will intimidate out a certain amount,
other people and will make a symbolic claim about what America is and and who we are all
about. But it's just not it's not
in any way like putting the sort of concrete interests of the typical American. First, it's putting a very idiot view of
like what the nature of American. This is. First and that's I mean if it's what significant and and regulatory about that should hold country yeah I mean I I just want to make one last point, which is that why you're describing Matt is the theory of self deportation were and
see the idea that, if you use many different avenues to make the lives of people who are here in the U S and do not have a have lost authorization that they will leave, that's
both idiot logical argument about that. You know who should be in America and an empirical argument about what happens when you make people's lives answerable and as an empirical argument,
Neither I dont think either of us. We disagree that some number of people will in fact leave bed.
There isn't a lot of evidence that the volume of people in that like you're, going to get to half of the year the people whose lives and written miserable are going to leave the
from the reporting I've dine. I right after Trump got elected. It seems like there was a lot of talk about people kind of going back to their home countries self deporting essentially, and while there have been no, there have been some cases of that. It sounds like that. Talk is kind of on hold because people are
being that there you know that I can't come to everybody's door every morning the risk is elevated, but there
This is not so high that it's actually, you know forcing them to move its, forcing them to change their behaviour in other ways.
And its forcing them to live with this ambient anxiety. So the question for me is, if you think of this, you know, even if you grant that it would be a good idea
two, without spending lots of money to deport, people shrink the population of people who you think shouldn't be here. What are the costs of that you're willing to bear to?
unauthorized immigrants to their. U S innocent children, to their communities, to the businesses that employ them, et Cetera, Et Cetera in
in order to get some unspecified and possibly small, number of people ten years ago.
I mean it is worth understanding that, because Trump keeps its stuffing more people into the DE portable
Category right I mean there are if, if Dhaka goes away in twenty eighty, in which looks in a plausible
that is adding more people to the deplorable population at the
we have let him seventeen will be deported right right
that you're bridge meaningfully. Reducing the odds that eight non dhaka undocumented immigrants.
Would be apprehended, and do I mean it didn't Enzo? It depends on what ice does, but the they keep with. These Tpa
was with darker ready. They keep growing. The denominator gets without doing anything particularly
on the other side and there's a
reasons for that, and also, I think, they're not tat bright in terms of their their thinking about these things. But you know part of the sort of converse theory of comprehensive immigration
what was that by legalizing the bulk of the unauthorized population, you make it much more realistic to either deport or self deport. The remainder cause you're now talking about a small class of people from keeps growing. The universe of the deplorable, which is
add for them. It makes it. I mean it's, it's bad, psychologically, its. It has a lot of negative practical consequences, because you need to safeguard yourself, but we
see any reason to believe. Like the de total. U S, population do not drop suddenly at twenty seventy that people do not flee on mass yeah. This gets really hard. I think, when one of the things that I struggled with most over the last year as
Racial porter is that I consider one of the most important functions that I serve to be giving people accurate information about the risk of deportation and that's been very difficult, partly because this administration didn't super transparent about whether their prey
rising certain groups of people, partly because they are being transparent, that they're not prioritizing certain groups of people and it's up to individualised agents in the field, but also because it's really differ
lt to tell someone that they should feel less afraid. That can be it. It can be really. You know condescending for me as a white native born you, a citizen to do that and theirs
very fine line between her, not panicking people- and you know, by giving them kind of an accurate reed on here,
who is more likely to get apprehended right now, here's in a white veal, here's what it
it means that they are growing the number of people they can support and not growing the resources allocated to deport them and not recognising that people who
used to a state of vulnerability that that's it very difficult to keep note to not have do not
I highlight all the time, even under Obama, you know, even in the late
The Obama administration, all it took, was one set of raids targeted at central american families who had come very recently. The those raids were in fact targeted
Everybody who was unauthorized was freaking out it way beyond the number of people who are actually
because it's a vulnerable situation to be an, and so I think that if the Trump Administrations goal really is to shrink the number of unauthorized immigrants and the country you're right, there
that bright. There is growing the denominator: they're, not growing the numerator, if you
We understand, as we ve been saying, that they feel that certain types of people do not and should not have a claim to being Americans forcing them to go through life. Understanding that this country does not
them and is trying to get them out, is not necessarily a loss right
it's not necessarily and unintended consequence. That is quite possibly the victory.
Of an administrator
and that has spent a lot of time, telling people that they should be afraid and with that, I think we should let loose
you and the listening public out of the deep casting shithole thanks
thanks. Dora has been a great discussion help. Everyone has a happy man with the king a weekend we were back with with more weeds on Tuesday,
to think things over whose whose listening thanks said Sony Herrero for producing this episode- and we will see you next week.
Transcript generated on 2021-09-12.