John Donvan

This is Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. Hi, everybody. Today’s debate is on a topic that simultaneously unites us and that divides us. That topic is immigration. When I’m saying that it unites us, I’m referring to the personal history of so many Americans. Most of us are either descendants of immigrants or we are immigrants ourselves, and that represents something shared. It’s common ground, much of it from the past. But when it comes to the present, however, we are really at each other about how we view migrants, how we think the immigration system should operate, about who’s to blame for the system operating so poorly, by which is meant record numbers of unlawful crossings in the last few years, crowded detention centers, slow processing of requests for asylum, much confusion. Even the president has used the word chaotic in a comment on the situation.

What do Republicans want done? We know that because they have already passed a bill in the House that spells out the steps that they would take. They would grow that border wall that Donald Trump used to campaign on. They would expand the size of the border protection force. They would change the asylum rules to make it harder for migrants to claim asylum status, among many other steps. While this bill has little chance of becoming law as long as Biden is in the White House and the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, it does lay out specifically and comprehensively what immigration policy may look like if Republicans were to win big next year. So as we come up to International Migrant Day this month, here’s what we’re asking. Should Congress pass the Secure the Border Act?

So let’s meet our debaters. Answering yes to that question is Jessica Vaughan. Jessica is Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. Welcome, Jessica, to Open to Debate.

Jessica Vaughan

Thanks so much. I’m glad to be here.

John Donvan

And again, answering no to the question, which I’ll remind you is, should Congress pass the Secure Border Act, we have Kristie de Peña. Kristie is the Senior Vice President for Policy and the Director of Immigration Policy at the Niskanen Center. Welcome, Kristie.

Kristie de Peña

Pleasure to be here.

John Donvan

Before we start, I wanna get a sense of why even taking part in this debate matters to you. Where does your passion for this topic come from? Jessica, I’ll start with you, wha- what brings you to this debate today, other than our invitation?

Jessica Vaughan

Well, I started my career in immigration, um, with the State Department on the front lines of our borders as a consular officer. And so I’ve seen how our immigration system works and doesn’t work. Uh, I have, um, seen the motivations of immigrants, both legal and illegal, and you know, it’s a tough job.

John Donvan

Thank you for that. And Kristie, I wanna ask you the same question, just why you care about this topic. Where does your, where does your passion for it come from?

Kristie de Peña

I am myself a proud Texan from Corpus Christi, uh, a nearly border town. I’m also the product of immigrants from Mexico generationally that moved from a cobbler to a judge to a physician. But my interest in immigration really was sparked by studying the intersection between national security law and immigration law in a post-9/11 world and by working a lot within both the agencies and with a lot of immigrant applicants on many different kinds of ways to come into the US.

John Donvan

Okay. Thank you for that, Kristie. I see for, for both of you, it, uh, it, it’s been your life’s work, and we really appreciate that you’re bringing your expertise and your commitment to this debate. So let’s move on to opening statements. We wanna give each of you a chance to tell us why you’re answering yes or no to our question, which is again, should Congress pass the Secure the Borders Act? Jessica, you’re answering yes to that question. Here’s your chance, please, to tell us why.

Jessica Vaughan

Yes. Congress should pass H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, because it will enable us to regain control of the border and stop the massive influx of illegal migration that we’ve been experiencing in the last couple of years and give relief to the communities that have been affected by this, um, and also allow people who qualify for asylum in this country to receive it in a more timely manner. We are in the midst of a historic crisis at the border. Nearly 8 million people have been apprehended since 2021 and, um, almost 2 million people known, um, to have evaded the Border Patrol. And, and we’re, uh, for the first time in our history, we have more illegal migration than legal migration. We’re experiencing an explosion of human trafficking in several forms, especially child labor trafficking with, uh, reports of, um, of child labor cases exploding and other forms of exploitation of workers who’ve come in illegally.

And regardless of whether you think that this situation, this crisis at the border is because of misguided policies or international events that we can’t control or influence, the reality is that this unprecedented influx of illegal migrants is overwhelming and profoundly stressing many American communities. We literally have no place to put these new arrivals. Um, people are sleeping in the streets or in crowded sh- and, and unhealthy shelters in places like New York City, Arizona, San Diego, Chicago, even Massachusetts and Maine. And, uh, these communities are struggling to meet the needs of the migrants, uh, for food and clothing and healthcare and schooling. And we’ve been told that all that we need to do is increase legal pathways, but, but that has been tried, uh, since May and the illegal crossings have not slowed down. Even with more legal pathways available to prospective migrants, um, we’ve had 600,000 new illegal arrivals in just the last three months.

The asylum system in particular was built to accommodate, you know, Russian ballerinas or activists who are opposed to a dictator, not people fleeing collapsed economies or gang crime. Uh, most people coming to the border now are not truly asylum seekers in that sense. They’re coming because they’re seeking a better life, and they’re being allowed to enter now under, uh, the current system. H.R. 2 would help by, uh, providing more infrastructure and technology, including barriers, because they work. Um, and it would deter frivolous asylum seekers that are clogging the system for the genuine asylum seekers. Um, it would require a regional approach for the, for our government to work with other countries in the region to negotiate with them on dealing with this migration, keep families together at the border for speedier processing.

It would also address, go beyond the border and address the problem of visa overstays and take care of the job magnet, which after all, is why people are coming here illegally. They’re coming because they hope to be able to work and either send money home or support their families here because they’re able to do that. And this bill would address that problem as well. It’s not just throwing money at the border, it’s addressing the whole, uh, criminal infrastructure, uh, that underlies illegal migration that’s allowing this, um, this horrifying human trafficking to occur and also setting it up so that employers, um, will not be able to bypass American workers.

John Donvan

Okay. Thank you very much, Jessica. So Kristie, we want to give you your turn now. And again, reminding people that you are answering no specifically to the question of whether Congress should pass the Secure the Border Act. Here’s your chance, please, to tell us why.

Kristie de Peña

That’s right. You know, if the goal of Congress is to secure the border and improve our asylum system, which I would argue are good goals, the Secure Border Act accomplishes neither of them. The US is firmly rooted in a new era of migration that’s been spurred by global conflict, by local violence, by failed states, by weather and climate emergencies, and by deeply unreliable economies, to the point where people are unable to secure even their most basic needs. We’re talking about food, water, shelter. That is a powerful migration catalyst, particularly when we consider the impact to children.

Simultaneously, the US is enjoying a stable and growing economy, but economic growth can’t happen indefinitely without population growth that replaces workers who are aging out. For several years, the number of available jobs in US has hovered around 10 million. I think most recently it was about 9.6. But even the rosiest growth predictions rely on projections that more than half of population replacement through 2060 will come from international migration, and that includes asylum. The inevitability of enacting the sepur- the Secure Border Act, or the SBA, is to end asylum, an important component of this economic growth. The CBO projects that within a decade, its enactment would decrease the US population by 600,000 people and affect the legal status of an additional 4.4 million people.

This almost cessation of asylum would also end other widely cited and incontrovertible dividends that are paid by humanitarian migrants back to the US through taxes, through entrepreneurship, and the addition of valuable language skills, skills and education. Though asylum is often considered a purely humanitarian act, its strategic importance should not be forgotten either. How America chooses to respond to migrants fleeing worsening economic prospects and political repression also has significant repercussions in the intensifying geopolitical landscape. But ultimately, the vast majority of lawmakers, including many Republicans, understand that the radical approach that’s laid out in the SBA is a political nonstarter. It doesn’t reflect the kinds of policies that a majority of Americans want and need and perhaps most importantly, it’s not solving for the problems of our immigration system. It’s solely attempting to stall it.

In the most generous light, the bill can be seen as an opening bid to discuss a few of the real questions at hand. How do we efficiently identify and protect the individuals, especially children, who need asylum in the US and provide American employers with the employees they are so desperately seeking to ensure our continued growth as a nation? And how do we bolster adjudication and management capacities to accommodate the growing volume of people coming to our border so that our courts can efficiently move cases and ensure our border and interior enforcement officers aren’t constantly being asked to take on more responsibility with fewer resources? With very few exceptions, none of these questions are answered by the SBA, the passage of which will only further the status quo of a deeply under-resourced and continually overwhelmed system that fails to reflect the interests and values of most Americans.

John Donvan

Thank you very much, Kristie. So we’ve heard both of you lay out your reasons for being for or against this piece of legislation, the Secure the Border Act, which is shorthanded, I just want to point out, to SBA. It’s also referred to sometimes as H.B. 2, meaning House Bill number 2. So you may hear those terms throughout the program, which we are going to continue with a full-throated discussion when we come right back. I’m John Donvan. This is Open to Debate.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. We’re taking on this question, should Congress pass the Secure the Border Act? We’ve just heard opening statements from Jessica Vaughan and Kristie de Peña. Uh, and I wanna just give a sense of the tenor of the, of the discussion around the nation, uh, and, and the, and the sort of sense of mutual accusations about the situation at the border. First, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas talking about how he fills the Biden administration has performed so far on the issue of controlling immigration at the border.

Ted Cruz

We’ve introduced lots of legislative steps that can all make a difference, but none of it will work, zero will work as long as you have a president of the United States who defies the law, who simply says, “If you come to this country, we will let you go.”

John Donvan

Going to the notion, uh, often the accusation made that Democrats want open borders. That is something that the Democrats push back on. Here is the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, saying exactly that.

Alejandro Mayorkas

I want to be very clear, our borders are not open.

John Donvan

And he goes on to say that smugglers are spreading false information that the border is open and warns people not to come to the border.

Alejandro Mayorkas

Do not risk your life and your life savings only to be removed from the United States if and when you arrive here.

John Donvan

So, what we hear in that is the, the essential conflict is a philosophical conflict, and there’s a lot of politics going on, uh, over this issue. But we have two debaters who are helping us get beyond the politics and talk about the substance of this. So, we’ve heard your two opening statements. Um, you developed, uh, each of you, the themes of, um, of w- where asylum plays into this, um, w- we, I wanna get also to the point that was made about whether, um, immigrants are an important part of the future of the American economy, but we’d also like to talk through some of the specifics and the details of what the, uh, Republican bill is actually proposing.

So let’s start with the asylum issue. And Jessica, can you talk about some of the changes that would come into play if the bill were actually to pass? For example, the fact that the bill would require, um, migrants from third countries who, who cross through another country before getting to the United States to have asked for asylum in one of those other countries, what is the thinking behind that?

Jessica Vaughan

The thinking behind that is that, um, many of the people who have arrived at our border in recent years have been well established in other third countries even before they tried to come to the United States. For example, a lot of the people from Cuba and Haitians have been residing in countries like Brazil and Chile and even some Central American countries and have only just now come to the US border because they’ve heard that they will be allowed in.

John Donvan

The theory is then, Jessica, that because they reached a less threatening situation than the one they initially fled, that they resolved the main issue that caused them to leave their home country in the first place and that in a sense, they have asylum somewhere, so their case for asylum here is weakened. Is that, is that the thinking behind the idea?

Jessica Vaughan

Yeah. Uh, and, and I think I can explain this most succinctly by telling you what one of these migrants told one of my colleagues. Um, he, this migrant was from Haiti and my colleague asked him, “So, um, why did you flee to Brazil?” And he said, “Well, it was 10 times better in Brazil than in Haiti.” And he said, “Well, why are you coming to the United States?” And, “Well, it’s a thousand times better in the United States than it is in Haiti.” So it’s, it’s not that people are necessarily in need of protection. It’s just that they have decided that their options are better in the United States and they’re able to resettle here.

John Donvan

Okay. I, I, I, thank you. I just wanted to sort of understand what the principle was there, and I want to bring that, that to Kristie to see what your response to that is, Kristie. And, and you also made the point in your opening argument that the dynamics of, of immigration and asylum have changed, uh, over the last 40 years, as we heard from Jessica, she was talking about asylum was originally conceived of as a, really viewed as an ability to escape persecution with the emphasis, you know, if it’s Russian ballin- ballerina, political persecution and also physical persecution. And you’re saying it’s broader than that, and I’m, I’m wondering if that comes into how you would address the point that, uh, Jessica just made that if somebody is in Haiti and can get to Brazil, they’re… it may not be the United States, but they’re okay. They’ve got their asylum.

Kristie de Peña

Yeah. What the SBA does is sort of twofold in this bill. So, it changes the definition of how we think about a person who is firmly resettled, uh, in another country, uh, before coming to the US. If we were to pass SBA, using Jessica’s example, this person going to Brazil may only be allowed to stay in Brazil for three months or six months. That person would be considered firmly resettled in Brazil and would be barred from, uh, accessing asylum in the US. That also includes somebody that, uh, arrives in Brazil and is able to apply for some kind of, uh, either temporary or permanent, uh, protection status, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to have gotten it. Those people would effectively be barred from claiming asylum in the United States.

If anybody has traveled through what we would call a safe third country, and I’m gonna, uh, put safe in air quotes, um, it means that they would also be barred from seeking asylum in the US. And countries would be determined to be safe third countries whether or not any kind of formal agreement exists with the United States. I will be the first to concede that there are lots of people that are claiming asylum in the US that have no business claiming asylum in the US, but we have to build the capacity that allows us to make those determinations more quickly and thereby reduce the pull of the US. And part of that is to actually implement legal pathways that allow people to come and go from the US and work.

Jessica Vaughan

But you can’t have a, a swift system when you’re letting almost everyone in to, you know, have their day in court an- and appeal it and, and have that take five to seven years for these cases to be resolved. The people who deserve it aren’t gonna, aren’t gonna get it soon and, and they aren’t gonna be able to bring over family members who are in danger in their home country. And you’re gonna have, uh, uh, most people not qualifying. That’s what we have right now. So we have to change this system. It’s broken. We need to… What this bill would do is keep people in custody at the border and create a speedy process so that we can weed out the best cases and offer them protection.

And those who are simply taking advantage of it are either going to be offered a chance to relocate to a third country or they’re simply not gonna make the choice to pay a smuggler to bring them on a dangerous journey to the border. I agree, you know, we feel for people who are living in difficult situations, but they’re… It, it, it’s simply not sustainable to have their only other option be to come ask for asylum in the United States. I think we can do better than that as a region working with our neighbors.

John Donvan

I, I wanna bring that back to you, Kristie, your response to it. But in, in light of Jessica pointing out that the system is so backlogged with the numbers of people applying for asylum that sometimes it’s taking five to seven years to get a case, and I, I’ve read that the backlog is 2 million cases that immigration judges have to hear, which sounds like something that could potentially never get resolved. In light of that, what I hear Jessica making is a sort of, we have to do something very, very practical and that SBA offers, what she’s arguing, a practical solution. So, do you agree with her on the nature of the problem as well as disagreeing with her on the nature of the solution?

Kristie de Peña

I absolutely agree that we need to build the capacity to clear those backlogs and move through cases in a more, um expeditious fashion. And yet this bill says nothing about increasing the number of immigration judges, support staff to move these cases more quickly, USCIS asylum officers that are able to process more cases, and that is an enormous component of making sure that we are building the capacity to move through the larger volumes of people that we’re seeing. But what’s being unsaid is that that means you don’t have to build that capacity if you are to pa- if you were to pass the SBA because it effectively cuts off asylum for the vast majority of people who would otherwise be claiming it, uh, under our law as it exists now.

What it does do quite effectively is make, um, is force children through a significantly more expedited process and remove all the funding that, um, also has enjoyed bipartisan support for many years to provide children with either legal counsel or, at the very least, some kind of child advocate that can help them work through the process. That is a way that we can certainly move people, uh, children more expeditiously through the process, but by and large, everybody who has ever worked with any children on either an asylum case or an SIJ case has said that trying to move those cases through within 14 days, um, uh, removes the due process component that is so important to getting these immigration cases right.

John Donvan

Jessica, is the point that Kristie just made that the real purpose of the bill s- uh, stated or unstated, is to just cut back the number of people applying for asylum? And do you agree that the, with the assessment that that’s the goal of the, of this part of the bill?

Jessica Vaughan

Yes, because that is the most broken part of our immigration system right now, arguably. And, uh, even if you think that, um, we need to have more immigration, um, or, and better systems to process the kids who are arriving, you know, even if you want to allow more of the families who are coming here, I, you know, I would argue that the answer is not to have them waved in through an asylum system. Uh, it would be to fix other parts of the legal immigration system. Um, what this bill is trying to do is first gain control of our border and prevent the situation we have now where people are putting themselves in the hands of criminal smuggling organizations to get to the border to cross illegally so that they can be put into this dysfunctional asylum system that was never set up for this purpose.

We can’t even have a conversation about how the immigration courts work and policies to handle unaccompanied minors until we get the border under control and stop overwhelming the government agencies that are trying to deal with this and the communities where they’re ending up. It, it’s a completely broken system, and this is separate from any discussion about how many immigration judges to have or what the budget of USCIS should be. Uh, this is a crisis now.

John Donvan

I wanna bring in the backdrop that Kristie presented in the beginning to the benefits of immigration on the economy. And I want to do it in light of the fact that this bill would also, um, require employers to verify the immigration status of virtually their entire workforce, which I guess that would mean all of us would have to go through verification. So that’s clearly aimed at the employers’ part of this, uh, conversation. So if you can take that on.

Kristie de Peña

First, I, I just wanna say that, that I reject the notion that we can’t do a lot of smart, um, and effective things simultaneously. Congress has been working on this issue for many, many years. Most of the solutions that we need to at least get the ball rolling have already been written into bills introduced by both Republicans and Democrats. And I am confident that the United States, in all of its greatness, can, uh, can, uh, walk and chew gum at the same time. And I think it’s really important because, you know, when we’re talking about certainly legal immigration, it’s, it’s, uh, very easy to see that there are lots of economic benefits, uh, to having, uh, different kinds of legal immigrants come into the United States. Those have been well documented and well cited.

Less often cited but still incontrovertible based on, uh, many, many economic studies is that humanitarian migrants also give back quite a bit to the US economy through taxes, through entrepreneurship, through starting new businesses, and with the addition of very valuable language skills and educational backgrounds. This idea of the poor refugee who is, um, without an education and coming to the United States is entirely outdated, um, and we need people to fill jobs across the spectrum in the United States, from some of the lowest level jobs to the highest level jobs, especially when we are looking at, um, you know, job openings that are in the, uh, you know, 10 million mark. If employers are willing to employ people illegally, which they are

laughs), uh, in the United States, it’s because they are so desperate for employment.

In principle, E-Verify makes sense if the goal is to create, um, a system that reliably and thoroughly verifies federal authorization to work. And in fact, when you couple that with legalization components, that has enjoyed bipartisan support and impor- and support from employers for many, many years. But here, we’re not en- we’re not only not entertaining legalization, but we’re also dealing with an E-Verify system that really can’t verify much and is gonna end up costing employers and the federal government a lot of money in errors.

Jessica Vaughan

First of all, I think it’s important to recognize that, um, employers who are hiring illegal workers are not doing it because they’re desperate. They’re doing it because they can get away with it and they’re doing it because illegal workers, um, are, you know, they can pay them less, they can exploit them. And a lot of this is happening through these third-party labor contractors that are really just glorified labor traffickers. And that’s the kinda thing that we need to try to shut down by controlling immigration.

Ted Cruz

I don’t think that th- there is evidence that we have a labor shortage in the United States. We have at least 4 million Americans who have dropped out of the labor force who are of working age but are choosing not to work. We have one, the worst labor force participation rate that we’ve had in 20 years. And, uh, and allowing this influx of illegal migration is making it easier for employers to choose illegal workers instead of working to return Americans to the workforce.

Kristie de Peña

Well, certainly the Bureau of Labor Statistics and nearly every single economist who has looked at this would, would probably disagree with that assessment. Um-

Jessica Vaughan

(laughs)

Kristie de Peña

There is a huge labor need, but I do think Jessica’s making, um, a very common talking point, which is that we do need significantly more oversight of employers, um, especially those who are employing migrants in the United States. There is, uh, there is exploitation that goes on that needs to be stopped. And certainly, I think that the floor is wide open to entertain bipartisan discussions about how we can ensure that migrants both who are authorized to work and who are unauthorized to work are protected when they’re in the United States from that kind of exploitation.

John Donvan

Jessica, do you, do you fundamentally feel that, uh, the immigration inflow as we’ve seen it in the last few years is a boom or a burden to the US economy?

Jessica Vaughan

Right now, it’s not well-matched to the needs of our economy. Um, we, I, I would, uh, it’s simply not true that every economist agrees that we need to have, uh, you know, more labor through migration. That just is not true, and we have dozens of studies on our website to show that. But the illegal migration that we’ve experienced in the last several years is costly primarily to the local communities that, that are accommodating the migrants. They are literally going to have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to support the migrants with housing and education and healthcare. And these, the federal government is spending a lot of money, uh, processing and relocating these migrants and subsidizing the local governments that are receiving them. An- and this is because the migration that we’re experiencing is at odds with our economic needs.

John Donvan

Uh, last question for this section, I just want to talk about the fact that the, the bill calls for continuing to expand, uh, physical barriers across the southern border, which is 2,000 miles long, much of it river, but, uh, um, hundreds of miles overland. And we know that when President Biden took office, he immediately stopped the construction of the wall that President Trump had under construction. Ultimately, um, President Biden himself also ha- had to continue construction of, of what’s called the wall, although it’s made up of fences and barriers of various kinds. The bill wants to do more of that. I want to ask you, uh, Kristie, what do you think of that?

Kristie de Peña

Well, uh, uh, you know, at, at a high level, um, building a border wall does make sense in parts of the border, but there are, uh, quite a, quite a bit more places where we need to be making the kinds of investments in infrastructure and personnel, uh, and technology that are really going to actually improve security at the border and enable the people that are working there to do their jobs and to be resourced well to do those jobs.

John Donvan

All right, we’re gonna take a break right there, and when we come back, we’re gonna continue the discussion. And we’re also gonna invite some journalists who cover immigration to come in and become part of the conversation as well. I’m John Donvan. This is Open to Debate.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. I am joined by Jessica Vaughan and Kristie de Peña to debate this question, should Congress pass the Secure the Border Act? So now we wanna bring in some other voices, uh, members of the press corps who are subject matter experts in this topic because they cover it all of the time. And they’re gonna join us and ask some questions. First up, we have Ted Hesson. Uh, Ted covers immigration as a reporter at Reuters. Ted, thanks so much for joining us at Open to Debate and come on in with your question.

Ted Hesson

Thank you for having me. It’s been an interesting conversation. Um, when I look at this bill, this Republican border security bill, I’ve seen that in addition to taking steps to restrict asylum, it also su- uh, pretty strictly curtails, uh, the use of parole, which essentially, it’s a way to allow someone to lawfully come into the country on a temporary basis, um, for humanitarian or emergency reasons. Um, it’s been used in what many would say is a novel way by the Biden administration to bring, at this point, hundreds of thousands of people, uh, several hundred thousand people into the country, including, uh, people fleeing Ukraine, uh, conflict in, uh, Ukraine as well as, um, Afghanistan. And those people are entering through US airports, uh, going through a vetting process, and they’re given work permits when they come.

And I’m wondering, I mean this bill would basically shut those programs off. And, um, from Jessica’s point of view, I’m wondering why that, that’s paired with a bill that’s supposed to be targeting illegal immigration. And then, um, from Kristie’s point of view, I wonder if this bill didn’t have that and maybe had some legal immigration provisions, if you think it might have a better chance of attracting even some degree of Democratic support?

John Donvan

Jessica, you’re up first with that question.

Jessica Vaughan

Thanks, Ted. I, I think it’s important to be clear about the fact that this bill does not eliminate asylum or even parole, but the goal of it is to eliminate abuse of the asylum system, which is broken, as we’ve been discussing, and to eliminate abuse of the parole program, which is a loophole in our immigration law that was intended by Congress to be used in, uh, very sparingly and not to apply to huge groups of people as has been the case in recent years. So, um, that’s, that’s the objective, um, eh, eh, is to, uh, regain border security and control of illegal immigration by addressing the weaknesses in the law that are being exploited by people at this moment in time and to update our immigration system, um, to, to accomplish our, our goals as a nation for immigration, not to allow rampant illegal immigration that we have right now.

Ted Hesson

I would like to zero in on the question of the parole program because, um, I think we, we are blurring lines here. And when the bill talks about illegal immigration and border security, I think many people aren’t envisioning shutting down programs where people coming from abroad are essentially applying and giving their information to the US government, going through a vetting process, um, having to show they have a plane ticket, and then coming through an airport and joining a US sponsor in the US. I’m curious why you think, um, that needs to be paired with this and, and does it speak to the bill being more against immigration in a wholesale manner and not just about people who are crossing the border?

Jessica Vaughan

No, I don’t think it’s about, uh, restricting immigration generally. Look, why do we need a, a, a system of parole when we have a legal immigration system where someone can sponsor an immigrant and bring them in on an airplane with a visa? What parole is now doing is bypassing our legal immigration system and allowing for the entry of people categorically that Congress does not agree should be allowed to enter the country in this way. And, and the justification for it, it, it hasn’t worked. We were told by the Biden administration that if more legal pathways were set up such as they’re doing through parole, that would end the incentives for people to come illegally. Well, it hasn’t worked. It’s only gotten worse with illegal entries since the establishment of these parole programs. So they’re a, a complete failure in, in terms of how they were sold to Americans.

John Donvan

So, Kristie, your response to what Jessica has just said?

Kristie de Peña

Yeah. I think it’s important to be very clear about what this bill does to parole and what it does not do. It, it is essentially paring back the executive authority to use this tool, which many, many administrations have used in the past, uh, for many different kinds of populations. Not only that, but it is paired with a bar against allowing anybody coming, um, to receive work authorization, and this kind of gets back to, um, some of the criticisms that, that Jessica was voicing earlier about, um, how unfair it is to put fiscal burdens on some of the cities that are welcoming, uh, people coming in through these legal pathways. By not allowing them to work, I think we can, uh, all agree that they are going to be a larger fiscal burden on, uh, any welcoming city.

Of course, I think that if we were to really look at the programs that we need to better match employment opportunities with people who are unlikely going to be able to succeed with an asylum claim and open up those opportunities so people can come and work in the United States and leave the United States when they want to, that is absolutely an olive branch to Democrats to talk about, um, you know, how this bill can be amended so that it could enjoy potential bipartisan support. But I think Republicans made it abundantly clear that that is not the goal of this legislation when, um, during negotiations Democrats bought, brought 40-ish amendments to the bill, um, many of which were, uh, I would argue, pretty pragmatic, like ensuring CBP has access to body cameras that can protect them from, uh, claims of harassment, um, or illegal treatment. Um, they voted every single one of those 40 amendments down unilaterally. Uh, this, this bill isn’t meant to be that negotiation.

John Donvan

Thank you. Kristie. And Ted, thank you for your question as well. I wanna bring in our next journalist, and that is Stephen Groves. And Stephen is with the Associated Press. Steven, thank you so much for joining us and come on in with your question, please.

Stephen Groves

Yeah, thank you. Um, my question is, you know, the, the thesis of H.R. 2 as well as much of recent American border security policy seems to be that if you make it more difficult to enter and stay in the US, that will reduce the number of people arriving at the border. Um, but you know, still we see migrants are taking massive risks, arduous journeys to make it to the southern border. And so, my question is, how would H.R. 2 change this situation or the message to potential migrants, uh, before they begin those journeys, or what policies would prevent people from embarking on those migration journeys in the first place?

Jessica Vaughan

Well, the message that it sends is that, uh, the US government is finally going to get serious about controlling the border and give the government agencies the tools that it needs to do that and that you won’t be able to come and, um, take advantage of a broken asylum system to be allowed, uh, into the country indefinitely. Um, and it does that by not only the barriers in technology, but changing the policies that are incentivizing people to spend this money to put themselves in debt bondage to a criminal smuggling organization to get here. It says that, you know, you’re simply not gonna be allowed in based on asking for asylum, that you’re going to be held, um, in the border area o- or in, uh, a contiguous country like Mexico or Canada until your case is processed. And your case will be processed swiftly.

So what we know from talking to migrants is that if they know that they are unlikely to succeed, uh, with a claim for asylum, they’re not going to bother spending their life savings and handing it over to a criminal smuggler to try to do that because they’re probably not gonna be allowed to enter the United States.

John Donvan

So long term, short term, actually, Jessica, you’re saying the message that the, the bill’s passage would s- would send is it’s not worth getting, it’s not worth starting the journey in many, many cases, so don’t do it?

Jessica Vaughan

Right. And that happens in the short term from the messaging of the bill, but in the long term because of, uh, the changes it makes to the law in how people who come illegally are handled.

John Donvan

Okay. And Stephen, how do you wanna adapt that question for Kristie?

Stephen Groves

Sure. Uh, I, I’d be curious to hear what policies would change the situation to in-home countries, uh, to, to make migration, uh, less necessary or, um, or less likely?

John Donvan

So Stephen, I, I wanna… It’s interesting, I was saving that question for myself near the end, so, uh, you, you’ve put it on the table, but you’re asking, what is it the United States can be doing to influence si- situations in the countries from which people are, are departing where there’s state collapse, social collapse, economic collapse, sometimes environmental disasters. Your question is what can the US do about the situation in those countries? I’ve got that? Okay.

Stephen Groves

Yeah.

John Donvan

Kristie, it’s yours.

Stephen Groves

Thank you.

Kristie de Peña

Sure. There, there’s a lot to respond to. Um, you know, I think first and foremost, the short-term message about how the US is or is not processing anybody coming to the border is an important one. Um, but people are smart, and they will read into the passage of a bill that doesn’t have any funding at all, um, uh, that we need for, uh, CBP, for infrastructure, for interior enforcement, for adjudications and processing cases. And they’re gonna understand that the effective outcome of this bill is to really just shut down asylum, not really message that it is difficult to get in the United States.

What we’ve also seen for decades is that deterrence policies alone just don’t work. And we have tried this sort of strong-arm approach to migration for many, many years, both Republicans and Democrats have tried it, and it has just flat out failed to work. What we need to start thinking about is a way of doing it differently. Um, I think the administration is making some of the right moves. Standing up Safe Mobility Offices in countries in Latin America and South America is, um, a first small step in the right direction. Increasing the number of refugee determinants that can come out of Latin America is also, um, a welcome change to refugee policy. And certainly, standing up more private sponsorship opportunities for people that want to name potential, um, refugees or vulnerable populations to come to the United States with a fiscal sponsor is also a step in the right direction.

But if we think as a nation that we can rely on some of these outdated, inefficient and unworkable legal pathways that exist now in order to answer the call of American employers for more employees and also answer the need of so many of these people that are seeking new economic opportunities, then we’re, we’re teasing ourselves. We need to really think about what the needs are in the US and how we can match them with the needs that we’re seeing in our own hemisphere. And certainly, I think that that requires a conversation that includes some of our other regional partners, including Canada and Mexico, but we have to start those dialogs from a place of, you know, an earnest discussion of the facts on the ground and really how people move. We can’t will them into behaving the way that we want them to behave. People will always seek opportunity. It is the basis of the American dream.

John Donvan

Thank you, Kristie. And Stephen, thank you for your question. So we’re going down the home stretch now. We’re gonna move into our closing statements round, and that’s where each of our two debaters has one last chance to make their case, uh, and persuade you that their argument to vote yes or no on this question, uh, is the correct argument, is the co- correct position. So, uh, one more time, the question is, should Congress pass the Secure the Border Act? Uh, Jessica, you were, uh, strong yes throughout this and you have one more chance to tell us why.

Jessica Vaughan

So, even if you think we need more immigration than we have now through our legal process, you can’t defend the way this migration is occurring now at our border. It is simply inhumane and I think immoral to entice people to put themselves in the hands of criminal smugglers and become indebted to traffickers to come here illegally. It, and it’s further, not fair to the American communities that are overwhelmed in trying to help these migrants. It’s not fair to the Americans who are potentially displaced from job opportunities or even worse, uh, who are victimized by migrants tha- that, uh, a small number of people who are getting in who are not just seeking a better life, but here to cause harm.

Americans welcome immigrants and want to have a legal immigration system, not one that’s run by cartels and human traffickers. And it’s not fair to legal immigrants. We have 4 million people who are on the waiting list for legal immigration who’ve been sponsored by a family member or an employer who are waiting their turn to come here legally. Uh, whe- and these people who are legal immigrants are among the people who are the most upset about the situation we have now and the lack of control at the border. If you talk to legal immigrants, they’re enraged at what is happening there. And the poll numbers bear out that, uh, an, an, an overwhelming majority of Americans are not satisfied with the illegal immigration that is happening right now.

Congress should pass H.R. 2. If they do, this, uh, reform to our system will be accomplished in a bipartisan way. The House has passed it. The Senate ought to take it up. They can amendment, amend it. They can vote on it and then take it to conference with the House of Representatives. We have, um, uh, a division of power between the two parties in Congress now, and that’s an opportunity for Congress to actually show Americans that they can deal with this crisis in a constructive way and make changes that are good for our country and preserve, uh, uh, uh, an immigration system that’s in our national interest.

John Donvan

Thank you, Jessica. And one more time, Kristie, your last chance. You get the final word here. And just reminding everybody that in answer to the question, should Congress pass the Secure Border Act, you are a strong no.

Kristie de Peña

With few exceptions, again, the problems that we have identified in this conversation aren’t even remotely solve by passing the Secure Border Act. It’s made abundantly clear by the refusal to even fund the necessary components of border processing that would allow for the kinds of, uh, deportation, detainment, um, and interdictions at the border that, that Jessica has been talking about for the vast majority of this conversation. There are a lot of issues that need to be dealt with, and yet we haven’t seen anything in this bill about trafficking of minors or, um, efforts to pass, uh, bills or portions of bills that have been introduced by Republicans to stop the flow of people and drugs across the United States.

The purpose of this bill is to limit immigration period, and its passage won’t do anything to secure the border. That said, there are bipartisan opportunities out there to begin having these discussions. The Dignity Act that was introduced by Republican Representative Salazar from Florida and Democratic, uh, Representative Escobar from El Paso, Texas, is a great jumping off point to begin some of these negotiations. Last week a friend of mine sent some pictures from camps that are cropping up on the US side of the border on private land. An elderly woman spent the night unsheltered in near-freezing temperatures in a wheelchair. A pregnant woman was left to stand for hours waiting for transport. And angry border patrol officers who were trying to do their best voiced a lot of frustration over constantly being vilified because they lacked the resources to do their jobs.

Regardless of your views on immigration, we can do better in this space, and I am confident that the US can build a system to work for everyone who wants it to work.

John Donvan

Thank you, Kristie, and thank you, Kristie and Jessica. That is a wrap on this debate. And I just wanna say to both of you how much we appreciate what you did in this conversation, that you were, first of all, open to debate this topic, to, to meet each other, uh, across a metaphorical table to talk this out, to tell us why you hold the positions you do, why you disagree with each other, but why you can do so with respect and civility. So thank you very much. That’s what we aim for here. Jessica, Kristie, thanks for joining us at Open to Debate.

Jessica Vaughan

Thank you.

Kristie de Peña

Thank you both. This was a, this was a really wonderful discussion. I appreciate the opportunity.

John Donvan

And I also want to thank our guests, Ted and Stephen, for, uh, asking those, uh, excellent journalism-based questions. They moved things in a really interesting direction for us as well. And I want to thank you, our audience, for tuning in to this episode of Open to Debate. As a nonprofit that is working to combat extreme polarization through what we just did, civil debate, Open to Debate is made possible by listeners like you and by the Rosenkranz Foundation and by supporters of Open to Debate. The show is generously funded by a grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Venture Philanthropy Fund.

Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman. Our CEO is Clea Conner. Lia Matthow is our chief content officer. This episode was produced by Alexis Pancrazi and Marlette Sandoval. Editorial and research by Gabriella Mayer. Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. The Open to Debate team also includes Gabrielle Iannucelli and Rachel Kemp. Damon Whittemore mixed this episode, and our theme music is by Alex Clement. And I’m your host, John Donvan. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.