The U.S. immigration crisis through the eyes of a border town mayor

On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

WBUR

News, On Point, Npr, Talk Show, Daily

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Until recently Bruno Lozano was the mayor of Del Rio, Texas. Once seen as a rising star in the Democratic party, he’s now a fierce critic of President Biden’s handling of the southern border.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is on point, a Magna Chacrabardi.
0:03.3	The southwestern Texas city of Del Rio
0:05.8	sits on the banks of the Rio Grande.
0:08.3	It's a border town and until recently
0:11.2	a relatively quiet one.
0:13.8	But from 2007 to 2018, US Customs and Border Protection
0:18.0	reported only about 20,000 border encounters
0:21.8	each year at the Del Rio sector.
0:24.6	Border Patrol defines an encounter as an apprehension
0:28.0	or determination of inadmissibility of a non-US citizen.
0:33.2	And then, in 2019, the number of illegal border crossings
0:38.3	in Del Rio jumped dramatically to 57,000.
0:42.7	In 2021, it was up to 259,000 encounters.
0:47.2	And in 2022, that number stood at 480,000.
0:52.4	That's 14 times Del Rio's population of roughly 34,500.
0:58.3	Now, it's unclear how many of those 480,000 were the same people
1:02.2	trying to cross multiple times.
1:04.2	Customs and border protection does not track the numbers that way.
1:08.3	But no matter how the numbers are tracked,
1:10.7	the mayor of Del Rio pleaded with the Biden administration,
1:14.4	saying his city was overwhelmed.
1:17.2	Mr. President, my name is Bruno Lozano,
	...

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