Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan to the newsmakers line to discuss the ramifications of a broken immigration system and the political consequences for the Biden administration.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line now by Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.
And, Jessica, you have been with the center since 1992. Before that, you were a foreign service officer with the Department of State.
Have you ever seen the implementation of our immigration laws at the border so awful?
Vaughan: Good morning. No. This is really a historic time in a bad way for border security. Things are truly out of control. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed with people arriving illegally.
The policies today are encouraging people to show up here illegally, knowing that most of them are going to be allowed in. If they can get to you on U.S. soil, they will be allowed to stay here indefinitely with little threat of immigration enforcement under the policies of the Biden administration.
And they’ll get here one way or another. Some are searching down the Border Patrol to turn themselves in if they’ve come with a child because that child is a free pass into the country.
Others if they’re single adults or just trying over and over again in the vast areas of the border that do not have any barriers or where the Border Patrol is distracted by all of the child and family arrivals.
They just keep trying over and over again until they get in again, because, under the Biden policies, there is no threat of immigration enforcement.
Leahy: We’re talking with Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. A longtime expert on American immigration law. Now, Jessica, I am not an expert on immigration law.
I don’t play one on the radio, but when I look at this and I hear people say, well the Biden administration is just they’re just not doing it competently.
I look at this and I say, no, no, no. It doesn’t look like that to me at all. It looks like they are intentionally violating American immigration law. Do I have that right? Or is there a nuance that I’m missing?
Vaughan: (Chuckles) Well, I wouldn’t claim to have any special insight into the motivations of the current policymakers.
I just know that there are more than 100,000 people every single month who are arriving illegally and being allowed to stay here, and it’s going to be more than a million new illegal arrivals this year.
They’re in charge of the policy. They know that it’s happening. I think that there is probably a raging debate within the Biden administration about this.
I think that it’s probably along the lines of, well, this is a good thing for our country, and we feel good because we’re helping people from other countries get a better life.
A few others are saying we’re okay with this, but this is a political disaster so how can we kind of hide what’s happening? There are definitely, I think, are people who are aware that this is going to cause political problems.
I don’t think that there are many people within the Biden administration who understand that this is actually a problem for our country on many other levels, including the enormous burden on state and local taxpayers to provide services to these new arrivals.
The loss of job opportunities to Americans and legal immigrants at the lower end of the income scale who are going to be displaced from employment opportunities.
The public safety problems caused by letting in people that we don’t even know who they are. The potential national security implications.
Because we’re getting people now from all over the world, including the Middle East and African countries, as well as Haiti and parts of South America.
Not to mention just the integrity of our immigration system. One of the casualties of this is going to be that the public is going to not be interested in any of the mass amnesties that the Biden administration would like to enact for illegal immigrants that have been here for some time.
And we don’t have any integrity in our immigration system. Our border is simply porous right now, and I think that there is going to be real dissatisfaction among voters with the situation.
And I think that in the long run, the Biden administration’s political goals of more open legal immigration are not going to happen because they’re not controlling illegal immigration.
Leahy: Can you stay with us through the break? I got a big question I want to ask you about Alejandro Mayorkas.
Vaughan: Ok.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
