In Legal Limbo, Biden Has No Clear Path To An Immigration Fix
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.5 • 24.9K Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2022
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: politics correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and immigration correspondent Joel Rose.
This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Katherine Swartz.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Ryan and Los Angeles and I'm currently waiting for my flat tire to be fixed on my new e-bike. |
| 0:06.0 | This podcast was recorded at... |
| 0:08.0 | 107 PM on Wednesday, December 21st. |
| 0:11.0 | Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but hopefully I'll be cycling back home. Enjoy the show! |
| 0:20.0 | Oh, my husband wants an e-bike so bad. |
| 0:22.0 | I think it's rather amazing that folks take the time to send us a timestamp, you know, in the midst of a flat tire situation. |
| 0:30.0 | We're always on their minds. |
| 0:32.0 | Hey there, it's the MPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics. |
| 0:36.0 | And I'm Usma Khalid, I cover the White House. |
| 0:38.0 | An MPR's Joel Rose is here, he covers Immigration for Us, and he joins us from El Paso, hey Joel. |
| 0:43.0 | Hey, glad to be here. |
| 0:44.0 | So in the early days of the pandemic, President Trump used a provision that was known as Title 42 to expel migrants who had arrived across the southern border from Mexico. |
| 0:56.0 | Before they could make an asylum claim, it's a policy nominally related to public health, but it's remained in effect even as most other pandemic rules and regulations have fallen away. |
| 1:07.0 | So Joel, the Biden administration has tried to wind down this policy repeatedly to go back to processing these asylum claims when migrants are at the U.S. border. |
| 1:17.0 | It's been blocked by the courts, including the Supreme Court as recently as this week, so why is that? |
| 1:23.0 | Well, the first time the Biden administration tried, and Title 42 was back in the spring. |
| 1:28.0 | The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was no longer needed to protect public health, but a coalition of mostly Republican-led states came together. |
| 1:36.0 | It took the administration to federal court in Louisiana, arguing that Title 42 is needed to hold back a surge of illegal immigration, and they won. |
| 1:44.0 | They got an injunction that said the administration can't end Title 42 while that case plays out. |
| 1:49.0 | At the same time, the Biden administration has been fighting a separate case in Washington, D.C., against immigrant advocates, including the ACLU. |
| 1:55.0 | They argue that Title 42 was illegal to begin with because it blocked access to asylum. |
| 2:01.0 | They also won. Last month, the judge in Washington, D.C., said Title 42 was unlawful, and said the administration had to stop using it by today. |
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