This is the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution.

I'm your host Tom Church, and the Libertarian is Professor Richard Epstein.

Richard is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford senior fellow here at the Hoover Institution.

He's the Lawrence A Tish Professor of Law at NYU,

and he's a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

Richard, President Biden's poll numbers have steadily fallen since entering office

and one of the problem spots remains the southern border.

One statistic I'll note is that in fiscal year 2021,

the Border Patrol made almost 1.7 million arrests

of unauthorized immigrants.

That was the highest number ever recorded.

In 2019, there were 850,000 under President Trump.

Monthly arrests which were around 50,000 during Trump's term are up to 175,000 per month starting this summer.

What do you think explains the difference in migratory flows?

Oh my God, I wish I were more of an expert,

but generally speaking, if you decide to say that coming to the United States is a risky

adventure and you'll be worse off if you do it than not, it will reduce the number of people

who want to come. If on the other hand what you do is you make

it pretty clear that if you start to come to this country you will get a warm

reception of one form or another defined strictly and solely at being allowed to stay in this country

under some particular status until your case is fully determined.

So to give you the kind of differences, the Trump people put out a fairly harsh

...