Omicron Shutdown and 2021 in Review

In this episode, we discuss the new Covid variant, Omicron, and the Biden administration's hypocritical travel bans. We reflect on the most significant immigration policies and news from 2021 as well.

Show Notes

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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.

Preston:
hello and welcome back to another episode of fair's understanding immigration podcast I’m preston huennekens fair's government relations manager and I’m joined today by matthew tragesser fair’s communications manager we hope everyone had a filling and safe thanksgiving holiday today we're going to be talking about the new omicron variant of covid19 that led president biden to restrict travel from southern africa and then we're going to dive into some of the biggest moments in immigration news from 2021 so matthew let's go ahead and start with this new variant of covid this appeared over the past few weeks in countries in southern africa which prompted president joe biden to take some familiar actions how did the u.s respond to the new emergence of this variant

Matthew:
so earlier this week president biden issued an executive order that barred the entry of foreign nationals from eight african countries and these include south africa botswana zimbabwe just name a few and uh they bar foreign nationals but they don't borrow u.s citizens or lawful permanent residents and you know the biggest thing to take away from this is obviously the blatant hypocrisy you know when joe biden or when president trump issued a similar uh travel ban in 2020 in response to cover 19 outbreaks in china uh president biden was vehemently opposed to this he scrutinized president trump in fact he tweeted quote we need to lead the way with science not donald trump's record of hysteria xenophobia and fear-mongering he's the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency I mean just outright blatant hypocrisy and it's just astonishing when this travel ban also came out earlier this week you saw the legacy media outlets also protect joe biden and the travel ban um you know cnn ran a headline for instance uh and I’ll read it here it says u.s imposes travel restrictions as new variant spreads obviously a very vanilla plain title no mention of xenophobia bigotry and these types of outlets obviously did that when president trump issued similar bans um so this is a much needed ban obviously this region and the southern portion of africa is experiencing a large number of cases and you know it's a good first step to help reduce and mitigate the chances of this variant spreading uh in our own country

Preston:
yeah you know and I think what's important to remember as well is that this isn't something that only the united states does uh israel completely shut down its borders over this variant even though they're one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world there's been other countries very similarly that have done this uh I believe austria and the eu has had shutdowns canada so it's it's very rich to imagine that the us is this horribly xenophobic country that is the only major country that's ever shut down its borders because of covid that's simply not true and I think you brought up a good point where when trump did this it was xenophobic it was monstrous it was racist but when joe biden does this it's just business as usual

Matthew:
right um and what's also interesting about this too is if they really are concerned about the threat of covid from foreign nationals or it proliferating um you know why isn't there more importance or more of a strategy out of southern border again we're having hundreds of thousands of people arrive at our southern border unlawfully many of them are not covert tested they're released into the country even after testing positive for covid there's no vaccine requirements no self-quarantine requirements um and so if they're gonna do a travel ban like this because they fear of the variant spreading you know why aren't some similar restrictions applied to you know those coming at a southern border and there's really not

Preston:
exactly and it's it's really only a matter of time before this variant spreads throughout the world and starts entering the united states if it hasn't already I’m sure it already has um but you're absolutely right we're doing nothing at the southern border to stop the flow of covid into the country we're still using title 42 to expel some migrants from the border but that doesn't apply to unaccompanied children it doesn't apply to family units so there are still plenty of people getting in we know this because of the asylum applications that we're seeing through uscis so it's only a matter of time um for covid to come in whether it's through planes from other countries or whether it's from you know illegal aliens crossing the border it obviously covid doesn't discriminate so it's you know it's going to enter the country one way or the other but it does seem that we have a really glaring issue at the southern border particularly where people are entering in conditions where they're not able to socially distance very few of them have masks they're coming from countries that don't really have access to vaccines so I think this is a huge issue that we're we're going to see um the consequences of in the next few weeks

Matthew:
right and if you look at the apprehension data from the uh the fall months september especially you know there are people from africa being apprehended uh in at the southern border especially from you know this kind of sub-saharan african region so you know it's definitely possible that this uh omicron variant could come through the southern border if it hasn't already um so yeah you know we'd like to see that from the administration to kind of have more of a stringent approach with covid and these variants at our southern border and uh I guess we'll be watching to see if that actually happens

Preston:
yeah well I want to end um on this kind of last question for you as long as covid is in our lives and as long as we're still reacting to it the way that we do are there any other immigration related measures that the u.s can take to prevent the spread of covid um travel bans have obviously been the biggest one but better is there anything else off the top of your head you can think of that we could be doing more in the sphere of immigration to limit our exposure to covid as a country

Matthew:
well I’ll tell you what you can't do is what's happening at the southern border with the limited covid testing no vaccine requirements uh and basically just allowing anyone who arrives at our southern border unlawfully to be released into our country there has to be more of a protocol these are minor steps people who are american citizens who are law abiding citizens have to go through certain requirements in our country even here in dc with mask mandates uh you know vaccination cards and public places um and so you know if people are coming here unlawfully or they're an asylum seeker you know there has to be some type of mechanism set in place to determine if someone's going to be carrying covid into our country and if they are testing positive you know they shouldn't be released into the interior we saw this there was an article this summer in mcallen texas where there were thousands I think it's like 7,000 or so released into uh the city of mcallen after testing positive and that's you can't be doing that um but yeah I know I think that's kind of at least for the southern border again these travel bans you know they're not the panacea to disease outbreaks they can help delay uh the spread of diseases um this impactful uh but no one is saying this is the only solution uh to help mitigate the spread of covid around the world it's it's to delay it's to give us more time to reassess the situation um and it's a good first step

Preston:
absolutely so let's transition now to the second part of our segment today uh just going over the year in review 2021 um it's been a big year for immigration policy um for changes uh in immigration uh what we've seen at the border uh you know president biden took over on january 20th 2021 and in his first week made a series of changes that were you know he obviously is a very different president than president donald trump so uh matthew what do you think has been the biggest story in immigration this year

Matthew:
I would say without a doubt the border apprehensions that we saw at our southern border this fiscal year 1.7 million that is a historic high and you know you compare that to the uh so-called border crisis in 2019 under president trump and we saw about a million apprehensions this is nearly double uh and the sad reality about this is that this is all self-inflicted president biden dismantled everything president trump did with immigration with our southern border security with halting wall construction ending the mpp program uh terminating our asylum cooperation agreements with the northern triangle then you look at the interior immigration enforcement kind of stuff and you know he made it he made um ice or he made it difficult more difficult for ice to apprehend and remove individuals those totals fell at historic lows in the spring and so combined yeah you know it's without question that these policies encourage more people to come here unlawfully and when you have this large number of people coming unlawfully obviously that presents a number of issues public health issues there's the criminal component cultural component and also it strains the border patrol and immigration authorities out of southern border and you know maybe they should you know when they're focusing on these large totals you know maybe their attention is being diverted from more serious matters and so it's just uh I would say without a doubt the number of people that are crossing here unlawfully again this is year one not even year one underneath (exactly yeah) so can you imagine the next two three uh four years so we'll be monitoring that but without a doubt the number of people who are trying to come here unlawfully in just a year

Preston:
yeah I would say as well like you said the and the number is directly reflective of biden's policies uh it you know we did not see this under president trump and in fact the one year where there was a serious border crisis under president trump in 2019 it was largely taken care of because of policies put in place by the trump administration that the biden administration subsequently got rid of or curtailed or seriously scaled back you brought up the migrant protection protocols those were huge in keeping our apprehension numbers down they really hadn't gone into full effect yet but the agreements that we had with the northern triangle countries to address asylum among the three of them in region and not bringing them bringing people to the us those would have been massive in curbing asylum abuse in this country and so when you remove those you're absolutely right it just led to a swelling of the number of people who correctly thought that they could get to the u.s and stay and the biden administration has done really nothing to show otherwise that they're serious about taking control of the southern border and like you said this has only been year one I can't imagine what years two through four are going to look like right

Matthew:
and also another huge thing that needs to be discussed from this year is the afghan refugee debacle you know I don't even know where to begin with that but you know we brought in tens of thousands of people from afghanistan who were unvetted we left behind american citizens left uh behind siv recipients or those who helped uh the us military in afghanistan in some capacity you know interpreters drivers what have you and now they're being resettled all across our country kind of really losing track of where they are who they are a lot of taxpayer funding to fund this we never looked at regional refugee resettlement at all and so you know that was I mean if you recall that was such a big story now I feel like it kind of vanished um but that was certainly a big failure on behalf of the biden administration and I that was something very notable from this year

Preston:
and it was interesting too because politically outside of the immigration sphere the the withdrawal from afghanistan was when you started seeing a lot of polling start turning south for biden I remember seeing where that was the one of the first times where in the real clear politics polling average of his favorability more people across numerous polls very quickly started saying that they had an unfavorable view of joe biden and I think a lot of that does have to do with the images of people you know crowding into the kabul airport crowding onto not even passenger planes onto you know military planes flying them to the us and then we're holding them in you know military bases uh we're holding them at an abandoned mall in northern virginia and people start seeing the news stories of wow none of these people were vetted um some of them sexually assaulted other either refugees or members of the military that happened in fort mccoy in wisconsin and you know people started to look around and say wow if they messed up on this to this degree you know have they been doing this with other policies and you start looking around and again this is this goes beyond immigration but people really started looking at other aspects of the biden presidency and started really scratching their heads

Matthew:
absolutely and going on uh kind of that topic is let's not forget the role that dhs secretary alejandro mayorkas had this entire year I mean you look at him conducting media interviews testifying in front of congress I mean this guy was a slick guy and no matter what he said you know he would make it seem like nothing bad was happening immigration or homeland security related it seemed like the way he spun things he misled the american public it just he was so good at wording things and just deflecting and to see that time after time after time it's like look you got a historic border crisis you got the afghan refugee crisis you've got all kinds of crises occurring under you and you're sitting here calm cool and collecting like nothing's happening and that was just really interesting to see I mean he's been the architect of a lot of these immigration um proposals and executing them um and you know he he's been here for a long time he is a mastermind and he's an open borders advocate and he's not gonna be stopping anytime soon

Preston:
yeah and again he's he's a smart guy and that's how he's been able to navigate this area so well is that he is very experienced he you know he was at uscis under the obama administration he's um a pretty good lawyer and that definitely comes out during some of the senate and house hearings where you see how he's able to really deftly defer on questions that he probably knows the answer to but doesn't want to you know give it away um another of these you know immigration lieutenants that I think we have to hit on because it was such a story in 2021 was the appointment of kamala harris as the border czar yeah although she always claimed no I really wasn't the border czar I was just in charge of addressing root causes of migration she had that disastrous trip to guatemala where you know she stepped off the plane and there were people protesting and telling her to go home um she that she had the infamous you know um you know do not come do not come to the united states which of course is the complete opposite of what they were saying throughout the campaign and even here domestically uh what a just nightmare for the vice president

Matthew:
yeah you know also she visited the border I believe el paso um was nowhere near the epicenter in mcallen uh it just you know obviously uh president biden still hasn't been to the border uh just I don't even know what exactly her role has been over the past year it certainly hasn't helped a situation in fact it's probably fractured relations with these governments in the northern triangle and mexico um but certainly just not a good person to have there

Preston:
no definitely not and it's certainly hurt her politically as she might try to run in 2024 assuming that joe biden uh opts to just retire um one another thing that I think we have to talk about it seems like it's you know a distant memory now but you know the house of representatives passed two massive actually now three um given that they passed the build back better act but um earlier in the year they passed two massive amnesties that would give citizenship to millions of illegal aliens the first of those was hr6 the american dream and promise act which covered tps recipients it covered daca recipients have covered anyone that ever qualified for daca it um it included you know critical infrastructure workers that um that was the you know the big term of the day at the beginning of or at the tail end of covid rather so they passed that and then a month or so later they passed h.r 1603 the farm workforce modernization act which essentially created a system of indentured servitude for farm workers it expanded the h the already unlimited h2a program and it was really just a giveaway to big agriculture uh these were you know these are two bills that have periodically come up they were passed in the last congress but died in the senate uh interestingly enough the senate even though it's controlled by democrats never took these up uh even though they fell right in their lap and I would imagine that there's probably even manchin and sinema probably agree with what's in these bills um but it's just from you know it's remarkable to see what happens when you do change control of the chambers you know these are bills that would never pass under uh republican house of representatives and yet this was one of the democrats big priorities when they first came in

Matthew:
yeah and just the concept of amnesty of course during a historic border crisis is just unbelievable I mean what kind of message is that sending to people from other countries it's saying that you know if you come here unlawfully break our laws we're going to reward you with you know pathway to citizenship or even in you know recently with the house uh bbb uh act uh parole which is gonna serve as an amnesty it's just you have to question how is this even a remote priority of democrats right now it's just unbelievable

Preston:
well in line with what they're trying to push through the build back better act through reconciliation you know some of this may come back to hurt some of these moderates and these centrists who are running in districts that either normally skew republican or in recent elections have become more and more republican I think immediately of someone like um abigail spanberger from virginia's seventh district she's in a I think the cook pvi for that district is r plus three and in the governor's election I want to say that glenn younkin won that district by 10 points so she's got to be terrified right now and yet she's she voted for the build back better amnesty she voted for hr6 and she voted for h.r 1603. you know you have to ask yourself is she going to answer for some of these really unpopular bills um particularly with immigration when we have an out-of-control crisis at the southern border her and a number of other um of these democratic moderates who were first elected in 2018 I think are really looking at the map in 2022 and are probably pretty scared about their re-election prospects

Matthew:
no and it shows you how I guess far to the left some of these democrats have become or at least received pressure from these open borders uh lobbyists advocates and you know I think that they're essentially doing things that you know a couple years ago they wouldn't be in favor of um but I guess we'll see in 2022 uh what democrats do with you know their amnesty uh efforts and you know it's going to be again a long uh a long year with the by administration also obviously still uh pressuring them and working with them daily

Preston:
right so I think um the last thing that really stands out to me about 2021 has been the build back better plan joe biden said from the onset that he wanted to pass infrastructure spending and we've already done that and that was signed into law with the bipartisan infrastructure framework but now they're moving this 1.8 trillion dollar tax and spend bill that includes an amnesty for seven million people it doesn't give them a pathway to citizenship but it gives them work authorization it protects them from deportation it gives them access to some social spending and welfare and even though it's temporary it only lasts for 10 years there is nothing more permanent in immigration than a temporary solution there is no way that a congress 10 years from now is going to strip these protections from these people we've seen that with tps we've seen how hard it was for president trump to try to even end daca which was barely four years old and so this is how the democrats are ending 2021 in the house they've already passed this and they're currently working through it as we speak in the senate uh this is something we've obviously had a podcast episode about we're probably going to be talking about it in the future as the senate either passes it or you know the parliamentarian could still strip out the immigration language we just don't know but um it's incredible that now the in the house there have been three votes on amnesty this would have been unthinkable even 10-15 years ago

Matthew:
yeah and you know I think it's important to reiterate here that even though it's a parole situation for 10 years as we've seen with tps for decades now uh it just can be renewed renewed renewed there's gonna be virtually no way to remove these folks um so it really serves as an amnesty I mean again you look at tps and you know a number of central american countries uh countries in africa and you know they in like the 90s they would you know experience an earthquake or some kind of crazy circumstance and you know since then it just this tps designation gets renewed renewed renewed and you know it's just basically an amnesty it's a way to stay here permanently like you said uh work authorization um and other perks that basically make them almost you know like an american citizen

Preston:
exactly and then the whole goal is to just get them here illegally and then keep them in this limbo and that's what they've done with daca and soon enough the calls from activists and whatnot to legalize them will grow stronger and stronger and that's their end goal is to eventually give citizenship to these people it might not might not happen in the 117th congress but who's to say it won't happen a few you know a few sessions from now we just don't know and that's I think a calculation on the part of the democrats to make that happen so I think that's a great point to end our discussion on for everyone listening at home we hope that you enjoyed today's episode if you like this podcast we ask you to please subscribe leave us a review and share it with your friends and family for more information on fair and our mission please visit fairus.org or find us on twitter @FAIRImmigration and on facebook until next time this has been the understanding immigration podcast presented by fair