Predictions for 2022

In the first episode of 2022, we discuss our predictions for migrant apprehension numbers and what the Biden administration and Congress might do (or not do) to address the growing immigration issues in the United States.

Show Notes

★ Support this podcast ★

What is FAIR Immigration | Understanding Immigration?

The Federation for American Immigration Reform's podcast bringing you the most important updates about U.S. immigration. Featuring special guests including members of Congress, journalists, and experts in the field.

Today on understanding immigration: Predictions for 2022

Matthew:
happy new year and welcome back to fair’s understanding immigration podcast I’m matthew tragesser fair’s communications manager and today I’m joined by spencer raley fair’s director of research we hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday we're very excited to bring you all many new episodes this upcoming year we're obviously gonna have a lot to talk about in 2022 and so today we're going to be discussing what we should expect in 2022 under the biden administration regarding immigration related matters of course president biden and his administration effectively dismantled nation's immigration apparatus in just one year not even southern border arrests rose to levels never seen before deportations and the rest of those unlawfully present in the country fell to historic lows and policies that kept the southern border secured and helped remove those here unlawfully were stripped almost immediately after the administration assumed the oval office what could have become a better issue for president biden especially with the democrat-controlled house and senate became his worst immigration became his kryptonite and tanked his approval ratings now that we're in 2022 the question becomes whether he and his administration will pursue new measures that can steer the ship in a better direction so spencer let's begin you know obviously one of the biggest stories of 2021 was the sheer number of people crossing our southern border unlawfully just unprecedented figures we saw more than 1.7 million illegal aliens apprehended in the previous fiscal year which was a 380% increase from fiscal year 2020 and the highest total for a fiscal year on record so should we can we expect similar figures this upcoming fiscal year

Spencer:
thanks matthew and yeah I mean if anything I think we can actually probably expect higher figures let's not forget that during fiscal year 2021 the first few months trump was still president you know the fiscal year starts you know a little bit before the physical year starts and so we saw these figures at 1.7 million for the entire year but you're talking three months or so where it was largely in the 70 thousands when president trump was in office and we saw for that same time to start fiscal year 2022 you know september october november and december these figures were closer to 200,000 so honestly I not only do I not think 2 million is out of the picture I think that's probably the most likely scenario we're going to see figures jump way up into those my team my research team just recently released a report where we looked at you know the border in 2021 we just found that with every single one of these things that president biden did dismantling immigration enforcement on the border such as halting wall construction to ending mpp then being required by a federal court to reinstate it but not really reinstating it (because they're slow walking it) yeah they're slow walking it and then of course you know terminating asylum cooperation agreements almost immediately reinstituting catch and release interior enforcement and just all these all these all these things and they're not done and so it should be expected that things are just gonna continue to get worse as we go into 2022 and yeah let's say we're on pace we are on pace at this point to see more than 2 million so the only question is whether at some point I guess you could say it naturally slows down because everyone who wanted to come here has gotten here but I don't think that's the case I think we're just going to continue to see this get worse

Matthew:
right and I mean you touched on this perfectly I mean there's been no indication that the administration is going to re-implement or bring back any of these trump era border immigration policies and you know what's happening right now is just continuing to encourage large waves of illegal immigration and you know you think about it think about how much covid has made an impact on countries around the world a lot of people are losing their jobs looking for better wages and you know those was going to serve as push factors for people to come here to the country more especially from you know northern triangle countries mexico and you know this brings me to my next question but you know we're kind of seeing some changes with the types of people who are crossing our southern border unlawfully especially in the past year you know what are the your thoughts on the types of people who are expected to cross the southern border in fiscal year 2022 typically it's been people from mexico the northern triangle but right now it's kind of expanding elsewhere

Spencer:
Right, right and you know in the past the vast majority of individuals coming to the united states were coming from mexico with smaller percentages making up the rest of it from primarily the northern triangle and now we're seeing those dynamics shift to where mexico might still be a plurality at most times but a far greater numbers are now coming from northern triangle and also south american countries but the other thing we're seeing increasing in alarming numbers is individuals coming from overseas they're realizing that especially with so many pauses on legal immigration right now it's easier to come illegally even if you could in the past probably get a lawful visa to come to come to the country so we're seeing a lot more individuals mostly economic migrants coming from other countries we're seeing from india from china a lot of significant increases from african nations and probably one area that's really concerning that we're seeing is just more and more reports of individuals with ties to terrorism now we don't know exactly how many because the biden administration has decided to stop even press releases about suspected terrorists being apprehended the southern border claiming that you know they need to not issue those for safety and investigative purposes when in reality the real reason we all know is that they don't want that negative press absolutely you know we saw issue we saw you know where a couple yemanis were apprehended last april and so a saudi individual just here in the last couple of weeks and there was a report in late 2021 from I believe it was the government of peru saying that they have seen like a significant increase in the number of individuals passing through that their intelligence services said had ties to terrorism in middle eastern countries and most of them that are apprehended would indicate if they indicated all that they're making their way to the united states so we're seeing we're seeing that and it's a concerning trend but it's not one that shouldn't have been predicted you know as it becomes easier to enter the united states via the southern border bad actors are going to do that they don't have to come up with big elaborate plans even to the scale of like what we saw with 9/11 or the ‘93 bombings and things like that they can just you know fly to mexico fly to you know a northern triangle country and then just come across the border like you know most economic migrants are doing you know one more interesting prediction I guess you could say that I have for this coming year is that I think we're gonna see a pretty significant increase in illegal aliens again probably coming across the southern or even the northern border at times but individuals flying over from afghanistan and relative countries just simply individuals that are related to the refugees and parolees that came to the united states from afghanistan during the evacuations that took part this year because for the most part most those individuals cannot at this time sponsor family members friends to come to the united states and as we saw that was a really chaotic process you often times had you know maybe a woman and child was able to get on an airplane but not a husband or you know maybe you know parents are going to want to come over so I would expect we're going to see a significant increase I think we already have to a small degree individuals trying to come to the united states that were maybe have family or friends that came over during that evacuation period and again there's some concern with that because there is there's no vetting at all that happens when illegal aliens come across the border and that's not to mention health and safety issues the covid pandemic surging to unprecedented numbers now with the omicron variant and of course while all essential and non-essential travel across the border lawfully individuals have to be vaccinated have tests etc none of that applies to illegal aliens and the administration has no plans to extend that to them

Matthew:
right and honestly the vitamin distribution has made it so easy for people to get into the country if they come here unlawfully and there's really no reason to apply for a visa and wait in line and spend all this money I mean you hop on a flight to mexico to a country in south america you meet with a human smuggler or you know they have these services where they bus you up to the u.s. mexico border and it's you know pay a couple thousand and you're in I mean catch release is fully backed reinstated as you mentioned earlier and yeah it it's no wonder that so many people from these extra continental countries are coming right now I mean it's right the time is now and you know people think oh well you know it's probably just a few dozen people from china russia india not a big number but these are thousands right thousands tens of thousands in some cases so it's not a small little thing that we're trying to blow up here it's a legitimate thing look at the data it's all online and it's becoming a bigger trend and I as you said too like I expect this to be a trend in fiscal year 2022 with this these surges and extra continental migration at our southern border you know changing gears a bit 2022 is obviously an even bigger year for the body administration and congressional democrats because of the midterms coming up you know last year congressional democrats of course with the guidance of the biden administration they attempted to inject a mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens and the nation's expensive build back better plan and yet the senate parliamentarian rejected these efforts three separate times so with that being said do you think that congressional democrats the biden administration will still make an amnesty of this size millions of illegal aliens do you think that will be a big priority for them in this upcoming year given that it's been struck down three separate times already

Spencer:
right well it seems right now at least for the short term that's been put on the back burner you know we're starting to see attention shift elsewhere you know such as ending the filibuster and a number of other smaller packages that are on democrats wishlist I think part of that is they see the polling they see it from their own agencies they see it from conservative agencies all pollsters are showing and you're lucky to get 20 percent of americans approving a mass amnesty at this time and barely 30 percent high 20s in some polls are showing americans supporting the biden administration's agenda on immigration supporting the moves made by congress so I think they realize they're in kind of this conundrum actually because they realize it's not popular with the american people but they also realize this is probably their last shot for a while most democrats see the writing on the wall when it comes to immigration and a mass amnesty of seven to ten million people or maybe even more would be the probably the quickest most effective way to fundamentally change the electorate in the united states long term and we've already seen this on a lot of proposals you know the initial wish was near immediate citizenship or permanent residency and voting rights within eight years some were pushing for four or five years and so you kind of see this full wish list and you know they tried to tone that down a little bit to maybe just parole them into the country but we all know where that leads there's no intention of stopping there right the next step would be citizenship you know kind of kind of a repeat of you know everything we've seen you know with the 2013 proposals of the gang of eight and the reagan-era amnesty before that so I guess I would expect to see them push it again at some point before the midterms just like a last ditch effort but it does seem like right now they are shifting kind of their immediate attention elsewhere (yeah) but I would be surprised this is the last we hear of it

Matthew:
yeah I completely agree with you here I mean it's obviously always going to be a priority for democrats to focus on amnesty efforts but just you know there's little momentum after the three strikes again against them with the economy tanking covid to address you know those are arguably I would imagine more important to voters (right) especially before these midterms

Spencer:
and what we're gonna what I would expect we might see again is one of these again one of these situations where they try to come up with something that's extremely popular to the american people or at least marginally popular maybe you know maybe sending out another covid check or something that seemed to get pretty widespread support and perhaps trying to add some immigration some of this amnesty or immigration angle to that was the intent with the reconciliation bill you know they saw that the infrastructure package while it wasn't widely popular it was one of president biden's more popular agenda items and so they were really hoping that this big wish list this big reconciliation package could kind of just be passed along with it as everyone kind of looking at the two as one of the same they got a little bit too greedy they got a little bit too excited they tried to put essentially everything from the biden administration's wish list to the far left's wish list into this one package and it didn't work and so it wouldn't surprise me if they try that same playbook again before we get to the midterms because again I think they see that this is their last chance for quite some time to try to make a move on pushing through some sort of amnesty

Matthew:
and you also have to wonder too you mentioned with this plan c that they had it was parole type of amnesty or that would lead to an amnesty but you know how much more water down can these amnesties be I mean the (right) plan a was you know completely a lot stronger than plan c and

Spencer:
yeah and then you're sending your paperwork whether you've committed a major crime or you know came here 30 years ago and now you're a citizen to plan c which is basically parole which in their mind again was like step one we'll get you paroled in then we'll you know extend that beyond the next year then we'll give you an application process

Matthew:
yeah so I don't know how much more it can be watered down to but it's we'll be watching it I just I think it's you know it's gonna be a story that's gonna make a lot of impacts in 2022 but I also want to talk about you know big potential stories in 2022 you know we've talked about border apprehension expectations the types of people who might be coming across the southern border this fiscal year amnesty efforts but you know there's still a lot of other things out there and you know one of them being controversial chris magnus a tucson police chief right he's now officially confirmed as the commissioner for customs and border protection and you know this is a guy who's clearly an anti-borders advocate we've done a couple podcasts on him and you know this is this could you know severely affect the morale of border patrol which is underneath cbp and the officers there and you know maybe he places more restraints on them and you know this is his year to be officially confirmed as commissioner and I don't know if you thought that's something that you think will be a problem specifically in fiscal year 2022 in terms of just his role as an official you know member now

Spencer:
yeah I think I think one thing and we've already seen this to a certain degree is I think we're just going to see border patrol agents probably resign in record numbers you're going to end up being left only with maybe the hiring of individuals who now realize that border patrol is going to turn into a welcome committee and so you're going to have kind of your mass immigration woke leftist brand of individuals start to apply when they realize they're not enforcing immigration laws they're acting as a welcoming agency but I think you're gonna have a lot of individuals who wish to protect the rule of law are going to resign your maybe one positive takeaway you could take with that is there's still a lot of good people that feel called to this work and they're going to stay and do what they can to make a positive impact and you know to continue to enforce the rule of law but it's going to become nearly impossible here we just saw a number of months ago the entire false story about border patrol agents supposedly whipping haitian migrants and secretary mayorkas president biden vice president harris you know the entire brass of the biden administration without any proof without even looking at the facts of this situation condemn border patrol agents who were when it was all said and done discovered to be doing their job and actually protecting these individuals from you know possible danger you're I think you're gonna see so much more of that because if there are individuals that are still willing to do their job you know commissioner magnus and the biden administration is gonna do what they can to break their spirit and you know just try to try to make this situation even worse for them and of course we're already seeing them continue to be pulled off of their border posts and you know put into processing centers and so I think that's just yeah you can you can expect for that to continue to intensify and

Matthew:
I think it's important for our listeners to realize or understand that you know he was not officially confirmed in this commissioner role until I believe just a few weeks ago maybe right ago right so you know he there was no one really in charge I guess they had I think it was troy miller (right) he was acting commissioner but this is…

Spencer:
there was still a lot of authority being placed on individuals who were in place even during the trump era so while they were extremely limited what they could do they still had a little bit of authority you know especially when you look at things like title 42 returning individuals who posed a health threat to the united states we haven't even really talked about that I would be extremely surprised if by the end of fiscal year 2022 title 42 was still in place or if it's in place I think instead of looking at you know hundreds of thousands of individuals being removed in the fiscal year you're looking at maybe tens or you know just eventually it turning into a trickle

Matthew:
and the biden administration has flirted with the idea of permanently removing it and then they realize you know how effective it is and they stop but there's been a couple of reports in the in the previous year that I’ve talked about you know they're just days away from removing it and you know let's talk about that a little bit more you know kind of the covid situation at our southern border you know covid is still rampant everywhere in our country around the world and you know you would think that there'd be some kind of protocols put in place for those arriving at our southern border unlawfully we barely saw anything this past year the first year under biden you know no vaccine requirements no covid testing requirements if you do test positive there's no self quarantine requirements in some cases like in mcallen this past summer there were about seven to eight thousand migrants who were or tested covered positive and then they were released into mcallen right they'd be having that so with that being said do you think that there would be any kind of covid strategy or protocols put in place this upcoming fiscal year with the biden administration

Spencer:
well the administration has already clearly stated no they don't have any intention as biden's press secretary falsely claimed that they're not intending to make any requirements testing or vaccination requirements because they she claimed that these individuals are only coming for a short period of time which is not true I mean we've seen that to be we've has been proven false time and time again in fact the only individuals that are coming for a short time are criminals drug traffickers human smuggling those individuals who are repeatedly coming across the border but just for a short period of time otherwise we see these individuals on average stay in the united states for years and beyond that again we just saw additional mandates for individuals that are just coming to conduct essential business and then go home in a matter of days time they're now requiring to at least be tested in most cases show proof of vaccinations so there is absolutely no intention it's just another area where it shows the hypocrisy of the biden administration on both immigration and quite frankly the entire covid issue because if they would require testing or if they would require vaccination for illegal aliens to come to the united states that might slow the whole process down a little bit and and their kind of their entire strategy at this point is don't do anything to slow down the sheer volume of people coming into the united states because again that was part of this whole two prong approach bring as many people in the country as you can get them amnesty get them eventually voting rights and kind of change the entire fabric of the country of the electorate if nothing else and so again just requiring common sense yeah procedures like that might threaten to slow down the process and so they don't want to do that

Matthew:
and you mentioned too you know for people who are arriving to our country lawfully whether you're a citizen you're I guess here for vacation you still go through covid protocols so for me why would they be exempted if they’re coming here unlawfully

Spencer:
it also serves a kind of sinister second value for the for the administration as well in that most of these individuals are crossing into the country in texas which is a state that has often pushed back against the administration's most strict covid policies so of course and we've seen this tens of thousands of individuals being released into the state of texas covid positive being sent to texas hospitals decreasing icu and bed capacities in these counties and then what does the biden demonstration do they don't go hey I’m sorry about that this is my bad I’m the one releasing all these illegal aliens into your state no they're turning around saying well if you just get on board with our covid policies you know this is this is why you need to kick these governors out of office you know it serves his political purpose two fold it allows him to criticize or you know he thinks it allows him to criticize conservative states like texas or even florida where we see you know a large number of possibly even a plurality of illegal aliens going to that state and it also allows him to achieve his goals when it comes to dismantling everything that has to do with immigration enforcement and I mean I would expect that we're going to see public approval for these things to just continue to decrease because if the last few months the last six months has shown us anything it's that the whole strategy of I’m the anti-trump just doesn't work anymore (no it doesn't) you know we saw that we saw that in virginia with mcauliffe trying to use that playbook and it doesn't work with the american people anymore because they actually care about actual progress they care about their interests being represented not just going you know dismantling everything that trump may have done because there's a lot of especially in immigration there's a lot of things that trump did that were quite beneficial that represented the american interest

Matthew:
absolutely and that's the biggest maybe thing to take away for 2022 is had the biden administration just not touching any of these trump era policies we wouldn't be in the situation now with the apprehension totals interior enforcement problems maybe they didn't like them but if they just left them be these policies right even being a situation and so you know I guess we'll be seeing if they steer the ship in a better direction and reverse course maybe but it just it's not looking like it I want to read you one more quote actually this is kind of related to the covid topic we were just talking about you mentioned a jen psaki quote but this is from dr tony fauci who of course you know is leading a lot of these covid efforts and he says “when you have 700,000 americans dead and millions and millions and millions of americans getting infected you don't want to look outside to the problem the problem is within our own country” so again this goes to show you that it's I don't know what it is I mean there's clearly just no understanding of wanting to have a stringent covid approach at our southern border and I mean this is the our top expert saying this and you know that if that's any indication that's probably what we're going to see in 2022 just no acknowledgment of that there's a covid issue at our southern border but I just wanted to share that I thought that was you know just unbelievable that he said this maybe a couple months ago but it's still very important for listeners to realize that and this is an issue that won't be going away at all in 2022 so you know I think that's kind of a good place to stop I don't know if you had any topics or ideas or stories that you know in 2022 you expect to be dominant

Spencer:
the only additional thing I would note is just it's easy for us I know for me and you especially I mean just it's easy for us to look at these apprehension numbers and think wow you know september was a really bad year this month was a really bad year we had a really bad month we had 200,000 apprehensions but I think it's I think something we're really going to realize in an alarming fashion in 2022 is that bad apprehension numbers are just the start of the problems you know because these individuals the majority of them and again we just released a report on this reviewing the record apprehension numbers and some of the peripheral issues because of that and found that just the migrants released into the country not talking about those that were deported and we're talking about just 2021 just those individuals released into the country are going to cost taxpayers in 2022 approximately six and a half billion dollars and if you again if you count in like cost of deportation and some of the other costs that go into that it's probably a whole lot more and that figure is going to go up by at least that much this year for those that come in 2022 and if you factor in that probably it's going to be even more apprehensions more individuals released in the country and fewer deportations via title 42 wouldn't shock me again if that number goes up over 10 billion for 2022 alone of course there's going to be a lower number of jobs available for those trying to enter the economy during a difficult time with a sluggish economy rent's going to keep on going up it's going to be an increased negative impact to the environment we've seen that time and time again we just recently did an analysis on florida looking at that how illegal immigration and unchecked legal immigration causes increased urban sprawl which is inefficient use of energy more traffic more carbon emissions all these things that you would think that the biden administration would care about a lot but they're just going to exasperate these issues and I think just 2022 is going to be kind of a year where we face the consequences for a lot of the bad policies put into place by the biden administration in 2021

Matthew:
and let's reiterate that this is the first full fiscal year president biden will be in charge of these border immigration policies as you said earlier he was only in charge of that for nine months and then the trump administration was in charge of those for the first three months so great stuff as always spencer I think that's a wrap for today we want to thank everyone listening at home we hope everyone enjoyed today's episode if you like this podcast be sure to subscribe leave us a review and share it with your friends and family we'll be releasing these episodes every other monday again for more information on fair and our mission please visit fairus.org or find us on twitter @FAIRmmigration and on facebook until next time this has been the understanding immigration podcast presented by fair