Think about the immigration system, like a machine.

It's a machine that's been built by many different people over a long period of time.

It's old, it's creaky, but it's ours.

The machine is built to sort people, decide who can come into the country, and then who

can stay.

It's got levers, it's got buttons.

All this one and the border patrol can bounce out someone who crossed over illegally.

Press another one and an asylum officer, who are an ICE agent, might send you away.

And in many ways, what the current administration has been doing is it's been pulling all of

these different levers at once.

Jonathan Blitzer covers immigration for the New Yorker.

He says for a long time, there's been the problem of the machinery itself, how rusty it

is, how overheated.

You know, they're all of these, they're all of these different things, and this is a problem

that has not been addressed.

I mean, this problem obviously predates Trump, but he's playing on this problem.

And in many ways, making it much worse.

Well, because that's part of the idea, right?

The idea is, if you make it worse, if you make a asylum look not appealing, maybe people

just won't come.

Well, that's certainly the thinking.

And in that, the Trump administration isn't alone in being obsessed with this idea of

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