Dexter Filkins on the Dilemma at the Border

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dexter Filkins has reported on conflict situations around the world, and recently spent months reporting on the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. In a recent piece, Filkins tries to untangle how conditions around the globe, an abrupt change in executive direction from Trump to Biden, and an antiquated immigration system have created a chaotic situation. “It’s difficult to appreciate the scale and the magnitude of what’s happening there unless you see it,” Filkins tells David Remnick. Last year, during a surge at the border, local jurisdictions struggled to provide humanitarian support for thousands of migrants, leading Democratic politicians to openly criticize the Administration. While hardliners dream of a wall across the two-thousand-mile border, “they can’t build a border wall in the middle of a river,” Filkins notes. “So if you can get across the river, and you can get your foot on American soil, that’s all you need to do.” Migrants surrendering to Border Patrol and requesting asylum then enter a yearslong limbo as their claims work through an overburdened system. The last major overhaul of the immigration system took place in 1986, Filkins explains, and with Republicans and Democrats perpetually at loggerheads, there is no will to fix a system that both sides acknowledge as broken.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:13.5	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:17.6	In 2021, Joe Biden came into office determined to ease what he saw as the cruelty and indifference
0:25.6	of Donald Trump's immigration policies.
0:29.0	But with that came new problems each day last year, migrants arrived in record numbers
0:34.6	at the US-Mexico border, and Biden has been criticized on immigration from every angle
0:40.8	and all sides.
0:43.6	Republicans generally say that Biden prioritizes illegal immigrants over US citizens.
0:49.0	Donald Trump obviously wants more wall, and he's talked about the undocumented as a
0:54.0	kind of national poison.
0:56.7	And some big city democratic mayors too are complaining loudly about the surge of people
1:02.3	seeking asylum at the border.
1:04.9	They just don't have the resources they say to take care of them all.
1:09.1	And at the same time, the ACLU is suing the administration for new restrictions on the
1:14.1	asylum process.
1:16.6	Staff writer Dexter Filkins made numerous trips along the southern border while reporting
1:21.0	on the immigration surge.
1:22.9	And his story in The New Yorker this week is called Biden's dilemma at the border.
1:33.5	Dexter, for a long time, you've mainly been a foreign correspondent for us and for The
1:38.5	New York Times earlier, you've written about conflict in the Middle East, in Afghanistan,
1:44.1	all over the world.
1:45.4	And now you've spent months reporting on the border, the border between the United States
	...

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