BORDER SHUTDOWN: Biden's Immigration Executive Action Shakes Up 2024 Election

It's an issue that is once again defining a presidential election. Immigration. It's time to wake up Washington because poll after poll shows immigration is a top priority among Americans. And while it's dropped below the economy, according to a recent Emerson College poll, it remains in the top five issues for voters. Last week, President Biden moved on this issue without Congress. Republicans have left me no choice. Today, I'm announcing actions to bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. The President's executive action would allow most asylum seekers to be turned away after the seven day average reaches more than 2500 people between ports of entry. That threshold has already been met. It comes after the Senate tried and failed twice to pass a bipartisan bill that included similar restrictions. Those votes failed in large part due to influence from former President Trump. But a new CBS News You Gov poll shows a whopping 70% of voters approve of the action, and that might have implications come November. Producer Georgina Miro hit the streets to talk to voters about their biggest concerns about immigration. How much of an issue is immigration for you? Very frustrating. I'm an immigrant, but I want things to do in order. Immigration should occur. I think that we were made on immigration. There's a policy and plan for people to get into this country in a very fairway. There's also an illegal way to come in. It's not something that can be solved quickly. It's been going on for every president. It's not fair to the people that have waited in line for years and have an American dream of coming here and working and contributing to society that now all of a sudden there's people that are they want to come over, let them come over. Joining us now from KVEO, South Texas correspondent for Nexstar Media's border report, Sandra Sanchez. Sandra, thank you so much for joining us here today. You know, you're based on the border in McAllen, TX. What has been happening on the ground since the executive action took effect? Have we seen any migrant crossings slowing at all? Well, thanks for having me. You know, here in South Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, our numbers are relatively low. Most of the migrants are crossing farther W the Nogales, AZ sector, San Diego sector. As you know, here we have about 200 crossings per day and that's stayed about relatively stable. I have been on the border. I've filmed and seen the apprehension of some women and children. Migrants are still coming across. But I did speak to a pastor, Abraham Verberry, who runs a church in Matamoros, Mexico, which is just across the border from Brownsville, and he says that they are advising migrants there to not cross the river any regular locations, to wait until they have their CBP 1 asylum appointment and cross at legal ports of entry. Part of that is because, as you know, if a migrant is encountered and they crossed irregularly and they are sent back, they could, it could be five years before they could try again and before they could be allowed to try again to claim asylum under this new executive order. So migrant advocates are highly encouraging them to not do that. And he says for the most part, most are listening to them. There's a camp by the river and it used to have in December, there were 507 hundred people there. He says there's 45 to 50 people now. The numbers have really dwindled. There are about 500 people waiting at a renovated hospital about 10 minutes inland and they but they all have CBP 1 asylum appointments and so they're just staying there. He says the other big trend that's happening is that migrants are not coming to the border and waiting in border towns. Instead, they're going to major cities in Mexico like Monterrey, which is about 100 miles SW. They're getting jobs. They're supporting themselves, and they're waiting for their CBP One appointment and then they're coming to the border. So. So we're seeing a kind of a different dynamic happening here right now. Yeah. The difference in those dynamics happening in border towns, you know, across the US southern borders. Interesting. And definitely worth pointing out, you know, here in Washington, we've seen the reaction from Republican and Democratic officials on Capitol Hill. But I'm curious, curious how are Republican and Democratic lawmakers and officials in Texas reacting to this executive action? Right. President Biden wasn't very popular with this announcement. Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat who represents Western, represents Cameron County, which is the Gulf Coast on. He was actually at the White House for the announcement. And, you know, he supports the president's action, but he did say he wished he would have done it before. Congressman Henry Mary Cuellar, Democrat who represents Starr County and Laredo, told me last week that he's been telling the Biden administration for three years that something like this needs to be implemented. The Hidalgo County Judge, Richard Cortez says we need law and order, we need border security, and we need more happening here to help border communities which are taking a brunt on the Republican side. Monica De La Cruz, congresswoman who represents McAllen, she today pointed out that 8 men who were on a terror watch list from Tajikistan actually entered the border. And she says it's just exemplifies the fact that we need tougher border security. As you know, Senators Cruz and Cornyn also panned the the order. So, you know, he's, he is taking a lot of criticism. I will say that Congressman Gonzalez had and, and Cuellar have often said that what we need are ways to minimize the push and pull factors further South that drive people. N So, Sandra, in addition to the recent executive action, the Biden administration is cracking down on human trafficking across the Darien Gap between South and Central America. Walk us through what's being done there and what it really means for the people who ultimately cross that gap, Right? It's called Joint Task Force Alpha, and it's an operation by the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department. It's been in existence for three years, and now they are expanding it to include Colombia and Panama. And that is the Darien Gap, the 60 miles of jungle, as you know, that migrants are being trafficked. And they're really targeting the leaders of the Clan de Golfo, which is a Colombian cartel organization that is primarily responsible for trafficking people across. They're even offering $8 million in rewards for information that could lead to the dismantling of the cartel or their financial operations. And, and so they said that, you know, this is the third anniversary of this task force they've been operating in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador. And now it's time to expand to this other area, which, as we mentioned, you know, is a real push pull factor for bringing people N to the border. And migrant advocates, lawmakers have long been saying we have to close down the Darien Gap. Sandra Sanchez joining us from McAllen, TX, thank you so much. Thank you. Here with a look at the bigger picture of immigration is the Hill staff writer and immigration expert, Rafael Bernal. Rafael, I think you and I don't get to chat a lot on this show, so very good to see you here. I want to jump right into it with this executive action from President Biden. How different is it and plan and how different is the plan for the border from what former President Trump was originally trying to do? It's always great to be here. And yeah, that is a great question. At their core, this order, this, this entire initiative is very similar to what Trump wanted to do. They they they basically both try to deter future migrants from coming by making asylum harder and sort of raising the bar. And when? When migrants don't make that bar, they they expel people to Mexico or they detain them or they deport them quicker. It's it's putting a lot of resources on getting people on, bouncing people out quickly rather than than the idea of of just processing more asylum claims. So they're very similar. They're sort of framed in a very different way. Let's remember, you know, former President Trump framed a lot of his asylum ban in in language connected to a so-called Muslim ban and that, you know, kind of language that you would never see from from a Democratic administration. So on that note of bouncing people out, we know that Biden's executive action calls for border suspension of entry after migrant encounters exceed the threshold. Rafael, is it possible to even shut down the border? And could it happen in reality? Yeah. So Biden started using that phrase, shutting down the border. He was going to shut down the border. It it's kind of politically it, it sounds great if you're trying to look tough on the border. But I've see, I've noticed the White House and DHS officials are kind of backtracking on that one because, no, it's not possible to shut down the border. The idea of shutting down the border makes one think of closing trade with Mexico, closing ports of entry. So obviously that's impossible. That would that would be economically disastrous. Probably When it's been attempted in the past, it hasn't really worked. He can shut down or greatly decrease asylum processing for people coming in between ports of entry. But even then, it's, it's pretty hard to, to fully shut down asylum. So I, I suspect we'll, we'll see less of that shut down language going forward. You know, was this move by Biden, who has been hammered on the border by Republicans and even has gotten some pressure from, you know, some Democrats, particularly Democrats in border districts and border states, You know, was this a political move by the White House? Was Biden thinking sort of in the same way as Trump was saying I need to figure out how move on the border will impact my own presidential chances? I mean, it's entirely political. And especially when you factor in and it was entirely political when Trump did it. And Trump's rhetoric has been entirely political in the sense that if you if you track immigration and especially border crossings over the last 25 years, you'll find, and there's studies here that immigration really responds more to economic indicators than to absolutely anything, any policy that the US government puts in place at the border. And that's a discussion that people have within the administration as it's been going on for decades within DHS. There are people on both sides of of that question whether whether US border policy makes any difference or whether it's just the economic imbalance between the United States and Latin America that's going to determine numbers. But it is political and there's there's a little bit of a glimmer of hope for the Biden administration that it might be working. The early polls I've seen, I've seen relatively high support, in some cases very high support from voters for this measure. I would also contend, and I'm pretty certain 99% of voters don't actually know what's in the package because it's technical, it's complicated. You know, not everybody can be expected to really dive into the weeds on immigration and border policy. So yes, it is political, but the entire conversation around immigration is political. And I think that's what the White House is, is just, that's the environment it's acting within. Yeah. So those of us, you know, north of the border are looking at this politically. But obviously, in Mexico, politicians and lawmakers are also looking at this situation. And there's been some major movement in terms of Mexico's politics. Major players are changing this year. You just did an in depth look at Mexico's new president. I want to take a look at that. Mexican president-elect Claudia Shanebaum has drawn massive media attention as the first woman and the first Jewish person elected to the top office. But when she takes office on October 1st, she is going to have to hit the ground running. One of her top challenges will be dealing with the United States and with the one issue that's engulfed US politics, migration. Shanebaum won the election on June 2nd in a massive landslide, promising to keep President Andrez Lopez Obrador's policies. Lopez Obrador has essentially become the continent's top migration cup. He's been cutting deals with both the Biden and Trump administration to limit how many migrants move north and to take some third country nationals back when they're expelled from the United States. So, similarities aside, Lopez Obrador spent his first two years fielding Trump's threats and the next four years talking it out with Biden. In a nutshell, Trump threatened Lopez Obrador to cooperate or else Biden. He used more orthodox diplomatic means. Now we'll never know if Trump would have followed up on his threats. The pandemic came, and migration basically froze. Shamebaum has said she wants the United States to invest serious money in development programs in Mexico's South and throughout Central America. She wants to take the jobs to would be migrants and not the other way around. That pitch might fly with the 2nd Biden administration, but if Trump is elected again, Shame Baum will almost certainly have to change her tune. But in the broader US Mexico relationship, migration is just the tip of the iceberg. For starters, the two countries have the single biggest bilateral trade relationship on Earth. In 2023, the two countries traded just under $800 billion. It's still short of the $817 billion of commerce between the United States and China in 2018, but US China trade has since dropped under 600 billion. US Mexico trade numbers are expected to keep going up as companies keep focus on nearshoring. That's setting up shop in Mexico instead of Asia. That sounds like great news for Shane Baum. But there are a series of bubbling trade disputes, many of them a direct consequence of Lopez Obrador policies, that promised to strain relations between the two countries and global financial markets. They aren't thrilled at her win, either. Shamebaum's landslide was huge. She basically beat the opposition candidate by a 2 to one ratio. Lopez Obrador's political party, Morena, also won big. And it might even get a constitutional supermajority. And that's what markets don't like. Lopez Obrador wants to pass a series of constitutional reforms to weaken the judiciary before he steps down. And that makes investors jittery. Since Shamebaum's election, the peso has dropped from 17 per dollar to 1840 per dollar. That'll make Mexican imports cheaper in the United States, but it'll make US made goods more expensive for Mexican families. That could drive more migration as it has in the past. Financial concerns aside, Shamebaum will also have to juggle bilateral cooperation on organized crime, including human, drug, and arms trafficking. How she juggles everything from October 1st onward will almost certainly have an effect on the US election in November, and the results of that election will determine if she needs to prepare for Trump or for Biden. O Rafael, it looks like it's going to be a very interesting year on both sides of the border. It is. And right now, although Mexico is, is looking inwards for its politics and, and that this, this reform, judiciary reform is the big deal down there. The big question for Claudia Shamebaum is going to be, is she going to have to deal with Trump or is she going to have to deal with Biden? The issues might be the same, but the style is going to be hugely different. Yeah, I guarantee you. She's preparing for both cases, both scenarios right now as she gets situated in her new role. Rafael Bernal, thank you so much for joining us. And let's do this again soon. Hey, always happy to come on.