Andrew Selee of the Migration Policy Institute examines how the U.S. asylum system, shaped by the 1951 Refugee Convention, evolved under Trump’s policies—halting approvals for Afghans like Khaled (who served with U.S. forces 2016–2021) and pausing 1.7M pending cases while blocking filings from 19 countries. Border asylum was suspended in July 2024, slashing arrivals from ~100K to ~7.5K annually, despite immigration’s proven economic and societal benefits. Selee counters welfare fraud claims (e.g., Somalis in Massachusetts) with legal barriers and highlights systemic tensions between enforcement and America’s demographic needs, framing asylum as a tool for selective protection amid broader immigration debates. [Automatically generated summary]
A conversation now on the U.S. asylum process and how last week's attack on National Guard members in D.C. has upended that system.
Our guest is Andrew Seely, president of the Migration Policy Institute here in Washington, D.C.
And for those who aren't familiar, just begin with what the Migration Policy Institute's mission is, how you're funded.
unidentified
Sure.
We are a think tick, a nonpartisan independent think tank.
We're based here in Washington, D.C.
We have an office in Brussels and a sister organization there.
We work on issues of migration.
We do a lot of data work.
We do a lot of trying to explain immigration systems and a lot of thinking about how you make immigration work for the larger society, both in the U.S., but we actually work internationally quite a bit, probably a little over half our works international these days.
And we're funded by mostly by foundations.
We have a few companies that have been very generous and a number of individuals who've been very generous as well.
On explaining immigration, can you explain the asylum system and how it works generally in the United States?
And let's start with the process before the changes that came last week in the wake of that National Guard shooting.
Sure.
I mean, so the history of asylum, the history of protection, what we call humanitarian protection, is out of a 1951, I know I'm going way back here, but 1951 convention on refugees, you know, led by the U.S. and European governments after World War II, trying to create ways that people who are running for their lives could get protection, recognizing a lot of people had not been able to get out of Europe during World War II and that other people were getting trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
And so asylum is part of this.
Asylum, which is now in U.S. law as well, says if you get to the United States or any country, you have the right to apply for protection.
They have to see if you have a real, a well-founded fear of persecution in your country.
If determined yes, you have to let them in and give them a chance to stay.
If not, you can return them to their country.
Historically, there have been two ways of doing this in the U.S. You can get asylum at the border.
That has largely been suspended since the Biden, since July, actually, in the Biden administration, the last year.
There is some exceptions, but very few.
And then if you get into the United States, you can also apply for asylum.
And so there are people who either have come in on tourist visas, student visas, or in the case of Afghans, were relocated in, given temporary parole to come in, humanitarian permission, and then applied for asylum once they got here.
Is there immigration caps on this issue of asylum?
Can we only let in a certain amount of people seeking asylum each year?
There's not.
And that has been one of the criticisms of this, right?
Is that it's sort of open-ended, particularly at the border.
It became a huge issue.
And it's a debate in Europe and many other countries as well is, you know, can anyone show up and ask for asylum and you have to process their claim.
The law says yes, but in reality, you know, both the Biden and now the Trump administration have found workarounds to stop that.
Inside the country, there's not a limit either.
What we have controlled in the past is the number of people who are resettled refugees.
So the third way of getting protection is, you know, the U.S. can determine that someone who's living in another country needs protection, bring them into the U.S. already with a refugee visa.
They don't have to go through the process in the U.S.
That has been, there were about 100,000 people in the last year of the Biden administration that came in.
We're looking at probably closer to 7,000 in the first year of the Trump administration.
I think they said it's 7,500, the limit.
So that they do have control over.
Let me come back to that open-ended comment that you made.
The idea of a well-founded fear of persecution.
How do you determine that?
Is that open-ended?
It is.
There's a lot of precedent on this.
There's a lot of law built up on this in the United States, as in most countries, because there have been cases litigated both in the immigration courts and in the federal courts around this.
You have to fit into one of five protected classes.
You have to show that your government wasn't able or willing to protect you.
Either they were persecuting you or there was another group like an organized crime group coming after you and the government wasn't willing to protect you.
Administrations do have some leeway over how they interpret asylum because the asylum is ultimately within the immigration court system that is part of the Justice Department.
So they do actually, the Attorney General has some ability to reinterpret what the grounds are.
We've seen some of that already in the Trump administration.
The first Trump administration limited the grounds.
The Biden administration opened it up.
The Trump administration is limited again.
What they can't do is get rid of asylum because it's both in international law but also in the Immigration Nationality Act.
Here's what we know about the alleged shooter of the National Guard members here in Washington, D.C. arrived in the United States in September of 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome and was granted humanitarian parole.
unidentified
I want to come back to that.
In December 2024, applied for asylum, arguing that he would face persecution if he returned to Afghanistan.
In April of this year, approved his asylum application under the Trump administration, obviously.
The changes to the asylum system and the immigration since those events.
A pause on immigration applications filed by immigrants from 19 countries around the world.
A reassessment of asylum approvals issued during the entire Biden administration and a pause on immigration applications filed by Afghan nationals and a halt on visas specifically for Afghans.
unidentified
What is the universe of people that that will impact?
And how many people does it leave in limbo currently in that process?
unidentified
So there are, if I'm not mistaken, about 1.6, 1.7 million people in the pipeline to get a decision on asylum.
I mean, they're mostly waiting for their court case.
I don't know how many people have gotten it in the past four years.
If they're talking about the four years of the Biden administration, how many years they're going to review.
But there are about 1.6, 1.7 million people waiting for a decision right now.
So all of those cases, we assume, are being paused for now.
They have been very cautious in not saying that they're suspending asylum because legally they do have to carry on asylum in some way, but they are arguing national security grounds for saying that they want to pause, reassess, look at the vetting criteria.
They have done an executive order previously on the 19 countries, and they were able to establish different reasons around national security or around immigration policy.
These are countries that either don't take back returnees if they get a negative decision on immigration or asylum, or their countries that are known sponsors of terrorism, or there's some other specific concern.
So that's why they've chosen those 19 countries, because they've already established, you know, some grounds, and it'll be litigated in court.
All this will be litigated in court but, but they already had previously, in june, established some, some reasons for those 19 countries.
The Afghans though, are an interesting question, because the Afghans that came to the U.s were primarily people that served in with the U.s forces in Afghanistan right, or they served with the U.s government in in some way, and they're a population that's probably been more vetted than other populations.
So I I think there's, you know, we're hearing now from some veterans groups and and probably some voices of retired military officers who are expressing a bit of concern that that's probably not the group to single out because, despite the terrible action of one person there, this is a group that we actually know a lot about, because they're folks that served with with the U.s.
I want to come back to that but uh, just first on on the pause and the reassessment.
unidentified
Has there ever been a pause and a reassessment of this system before?
Uh, has there any ever been anything kind of this big of a shake-up when it comes to the asylum system?
No no, not not of the asylum system in the United States.
We did see, under Biden, real restrictions on anyone applying for asylum who got to the border um, and and basically we haven't, since july of 2024, had any asylum access at the the U.s-mexico border.
So it is, that system has already been uh, and that's also being litigated and we'll see where that ends up.
But but basically it is incredibly hard, unless you are a very special case, to apply for asylum at the border.
No one had touched the system inside the country.
This is the first time, at least that I can remember, can asylum be rescinded once it is granted?
Yes, I mean anything can be rescinded in theory right, I mean you know any, anything other than even citizenship can be rescinded.
It's a harder process.
So I mean yes the, the?
U.s government has the ability to do it.
I think the grounds would be, you know litigated right, if it were rescinded based on a decision, you know, saying that people are no longer under threat, is it?
You know?
It's the the, the bar is usually you can't deport people back to their country of origin if they are likely to to continue to be persecuted right, if they're likely to continue to face the same danger.
So I think you're going to see litigation around that if they decide to to return people or or strip people of of asylum, but it isn't impossible to to think about how you do that.
Andrew Sealy's our guest in this 45 minutes of the Migration Policy Institute, a very good person to ask your immigration, your asylum questions to phone numbers for you to call in split as usual.
unidentified
Republicans, it's 2027 8001.
Democrats, 2027 88000.
Independents, 2027 88002 as people are calling in.
I would just point uh to this piece in today's USA.
Today you were talking about who is being targeted here and specifically uh, Afghans and uh whether it would impact those who worked with the United States in the past.
Worked in Afghanistan in 2013 on a U.s military base in a civilian capacity.
But this is what he writes, we cannot walk away from those who picked Up a weapon on behalf of the Stars AND Stripes during wartime in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, along with being the right thing to do, supporting them, speaks to our willingness to protect those who aid us.
unidentified
If you want to read that piece, it is in today's USA Today.
Your phone calls.
This is Horace Up First out of Philadelphia.
Democrat, Horace, you're on with Andrew Sealy.
Good morning, young man.
Good morning, sir.
And we're going to break away from this event and get you live back to the Kennedy Center, where the President of Mexico is currently making remarks.
And if I can ask you to come in front here for another photo with the paper on El Papelito por favor.
There, here where you can see the voila here for another photo so that everyone can see what you're drawn.
Here we are.
Thank you very much.
Well done.
Congratulations.
Great assistance.
If I may take a selfie with the three of you.
unidentified
Oh, okay, we can.
Come, come.
Let's go.
You've been watching live coverage.
We return now to our scheduled program.
We joined it in progress.
Six months time.
The vetting does start, and you'd have to prove who you are.
Me good, Ron, in New Hampshire.
Democrat, good morning.
Go ahead.
Hey, good morning.
I hope you're on amend, and I'm very honored to speak with your guest this morning.
And I have a comment and a question.
The question is for all the folks out there, but I'll make my comment first.
It's about immigration, asylum seekers.
I think, if I'm not mistaken, during World War II, after during World War II, the United States made a commitment that we would never turn away a legitimate asylum seeker, people who are legitimately seeking asylum from this country.
And that's been on the law books and stuff.
And I think, you know, a nice medium like having more immigration judges and things of that nature around the border and stuff like that, more enforcement would be just fine.
But this administration in particular has taken a complete anti-immigrant stance.
Donald Trump right now says Washington is the safest place in the country.
Perhaps it is, you know, if you're a white male.
But if you're brown, if you speak with an accent, it's not a safe place at all.
You know, and I just, I would like to know just how these supposedly religious Republicans can say anything nicely religious about Donald Trump and what this administration is doing.
Explain what immigration looks like and what enforcement looks like right now.
unidentified
So I think we're seeing some real tectonic shifts with the Trump administration, much more than the first Trump administration.
And, you know, one of them is the enforcement side.
I mean, very much building up an enforcement apparatus to be able to deport people who are in the country illegally.
And in some cases, actually taking away status.
We saw this with a number of students early on who had been involved in protests or made statements or had criminal convictions, some of the minor, some of the major.
But there is, you know, there's a lot of money in the Big Beautiful bill, which is going into immigration enforcement.
We're seeing a huge increase in capacity over time.
Right now, the numbers are not as big as they seem.
The administration is definitely going out and targeting certain cities, but they are, you know, it's increasing from where it was under the Biden administration.
It's not yet probably quite back to where it was under early Obama and late Bush administrations, but it's getting there.
And I'm quite certain it'll get there by next year, right?
They will be able to detain and deport more people.
Are they going to hit the million person goal that they talked about?
No, not this year.
They may in second year, third year, certainly, but not yet.
But it comes with a caveat, which is, you know, originally the idea, President Trump was saying we're going after criminals.
We're going after people who are doing damage to American society.
The larger they throw the net, the fewer and fewer people that they're getting actually have criminal records or any interaction at all with the criminal justice system.
So at the beginning of the Trump administration, most of the people who they were trying to detain and deport actually had criminal records or they already had an order for deportation that they hadn't obeyed.
Now we're starting to see more and more people who don't fit that.
The majority no longer have a criminal record, the vast majority in one of the countries.
Crime means simply being in this country illegally.
Be in this country illegally.
Some of them do have deportation orders.
Most reasonable people can agree, you know, unless there's some extenuating circumstance, if you went through the process and you didn't, and you got a deportation order, you know, there are many sympathetic cases, but in the end, you know, you're probably going to have to leave the country.
But we're seeing it go further and further away from that and increasingly, you know, getting up in the net people who in fact may not be illegally here as well.
So there have been a number of people who've been picked up and then released eventually because they turn out to have legal status.
So I do think there's not a lot of disagreement that there should be more enforcement in the past.
I think there is broad disagreement on how big that net should be and whether it really should be prioritized on criminals and people who've had their due process or you're really trying to get rid of everyone.
And then on the border itself, this is from the Washington Times today.
The border saw another record month of calm in November.
They write, Border Patrol agents apprehended about 7,350 illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.
According to data shared with the Washington Times, agents averaged just 245 apprehensions a day across the border.
By contrast, the Biden administration averaged more than 5,100 apprehensions a day across its four years.
And during the worst month in December 2023, agents averaged more than 8,000 apprehensions a day.
unidentified
Yes.
I think President Trump gets positive ratings from the American public on the border.
Not everyone, obviously, but generally when we look at the polls, we do see that he does get positive numbers on that.
He's getting less positive numbers on some of the things they're doing to go after people in the country already because interior enforcement.
Because in interior enforcement, I think there's more disagreement on how broad you throw this net, right?
I mean, do you actually, do you target criminals?
Most people don't disagree with that.
Do you target people that have already had their due process?
Very few people disagree with that.
Or do you just try and get rid of everyone?
And there, I think you do have reasonable disagreement among Americans, and it doesn't look quite as popular.
And I think we have to see where this ends up down the road.
Just about 20 minutes left with Andrew Seely of the Migration Policy Institute.
It is migrationpolicy.org if you want to see that report that we just talked about and all their work.
This is Rachel in Maryland, Independent.
Good morning.
Morning, Rachel.
Hi, good morning.
Excuse me.
Can you hear me all right?
Yes, ma'am.
Great.
I just wanted to comment that as a Jewish woman, seeing ICE stop people and demand that they show their papers is an incredibly triggering thing to have to deal with on a daily basis.
It's incredibly depressing what is happening to this country, and it's enraging to think about the Statue of Liberty standing there saying, give us, you're tired, you're poor, you're huddled masses, and we're spitting in her face.
I don't know that I really have a question, but I just had to get that discussed out there.
That's Rachel in Maryland.
Let me, I mean, you know, say a couple things based on what you said.
I mean, one is actually, as one of the earlier callers said, I mean, the asylum system and the refugee system really develops because of the failure of the U.S. and other countries to respond to the Holocaust, right?
That was the sort of triggering moment added to people wanting to leave Eastern Europe.
So there's a continuity in history, and there's been a history in the U.S. of wanting to make sure we give people fleeing for their lives some sort of protection.
Now, reasonable people can disagree about whether we can give it to everyone, how broad that should be, what the criteria are, but we have had a history of, and I'm not sure even the Trump administration completely disagrees with that.
I mean, they are continuing some refugee resettlement.
It's a pause to asylum.
I think we'll see a return to some asylum here.
But certainly, I think most Americans believe that the U.S. is a beacon of freedom and that there's at least some people who we need to let into this country and give protection.
I do think one of the issues on the table right now is, you know, if you're an immigrant to this country, are you always a guest?
Or at one point when you get legal status, are you pretty much part of the country?
And historically in the U.S., we've always had debates on immigration, but the sense has been if you're legally in the country, you know, once you get status in this country, you're here to stay.
And we want you to be fully part of this country.
And what is that?
A status green card?
A green card.
I think that's one of the things we're debating, right?
Because in the past, it's been, you know, if you get refugee staff, if you get asylum and you have refugee status, you know.
Now we're reassessing those.
We're reassessing those.
You know, if you have a student visa, you know, you're probably temporary, but, you know, you might stay down the road.
Those are looking more temporary now.
You can have it revoked more easily.
If you have a green card, can that be revoked?
It's always been revocable, right?
You can revoke it for people who've lied.
You can revoke it on their application for people who commit some sort of atrocious crime.
So what's the next level?
The next level is citizenship.
It's citizenship.
And we can also revoke citizenship for people who obtain it dishonestly, right?
Who lie in their application.
But that's always been one person a year, one person every two years.
It's always been very small numbers.
I mean, it's a few people who were involved with the Nazi Party who lied on their application to get in.
It's been a very high standard to revoke someone's citizenship in the past.
So I do think we're at one of the debates that's going on underneath the policy decisions, underneath sort of the noise is, you know, at one point do we say you're in this country to stay, we want you to be an equal member of the society, or you are on probation until you become a citizen, right?
And if you're on probation, what does that look like and how tenuous is your situation, right?
I mean, and look, that has huge implications in the future.
We're a country where about 15% of people are born in another country.
About one in four children has an immigrant parent.
You know, we all have an immigrant experience in this country in one way or another, right?
I mean, and we all know people who have an immigrant experience.
Immigrants are really diverse.
Most immigrants are legal here, by the way.
Most immigrants, three-quarters, have legal status.
Immigrants are often quite well-off.
But I think we're at a debate a little bit about what does it mean to be an immigrant in this country right now.
And that's something that I think the American people will be debating for a long time.
Let me go to Virginia.
This is Khaled Independent.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
Good morning to you all and to the guests.
Thank you so much for offering this opportunity.
I'm an Afghan who have served about six years with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
And I came here about four years ago when Afghanistan fell.
I just wanted to say, I know there were people who called and were asking how these immigrants show up here.
For someone like me to be able to get a proper documentation, I have served six years with Americans.
I have been polygraphed at least four times and been through all this restricted bidding process that they had back in Afghanistan.
But then I just got my documents on January this year.
So for those of the callers and audience who doesn't know, it's just not an overnight decision for an immigrant to get their documentation.
And then I don't know what has happened, but for a country that is built by immigrants, why we want to get into a situation where we want to traumatize the whole population and people who have a dream, people who have a wish to come here and build a life with dignity and respect.
I mean, when I talk about myself and my experience, when Afghanistan fell, because of my service with Americans, I had no other choice.
I had no other choice.
I lost my father in that fight, and I lost many friends, many teammates, more than I could count.
And I didn't have a choice.
I just had got married and I couldn't stay because I knew that I would be handed by those groups that take over Afghanistan.
And we came here.
We came here with the hope, with the dream that we will rebuild our life and will live in peace and with dignity and respect that we all deserve as humans, right?
And two years ago, we welcomed our first child, our daughter.
And every morning when I wake up, it's just a day with new trauma and problem that you see the system is causing to this whole population.
Yes, I know that there might be illegal immigrants here.
Yes, I know that there might be people with bad intention, but it doesn't mean that the whole population should be traumatized.
What was your reaction last week after the shooting and the information that's come out about the alleged shooter and how he came to this country?
unidentified
What was your reaction and what was your reaction in the communities that you're in touch with?
I mean, for Sarah and for the other National Guardsmen who were shot, it felt like one of our own.
For me, it felt so personal.
It felt someone from my family or from my teammate who was shot.
It's that personal.
And from the Afghans that I have been communicating, they exactly have been saying the same thing.
They were they were so shocked, they were so sad um, but again uh, we had our condolences.
We, the whole like population from Afghans, we condemned what happened in in Washington Dc.
It's, it's a tra, it was a tragic event, but again, this shouldn't be generalized.
Um, there are Afghans who who have fought that 20 years of war alongside American um service members in Afghanistan and they're here now.
They're, they're loyal, they pay taxes they, they like I work seven day a week.
I'm a student, I work seven day a week.
My wife is a student and she does like work seven day a week and it's, it's a lot of other Afghans I know like that, it's a lot of other immigrants I know uh with with the same status, and our hope is that we again build, build a life uh with dignity and and be welcomed here um and not be seen as as strangers, as somebody who wants to hurt this country.
No we, we want to be a healthy um part of this society and and help this, this new society and this new community.
Are you worried at all about your status in this country in in the wake of the, the reviews that have been announced after that shooting last week absolutely, as as mentioned uh, there is no, there is no night I go, I go to bed, not not being worried about myself, about my wife and my family and my child.
Um we, we've been through a lot, we Afghans have been through a lot.
Uh, but to take another migration, I don't think we can.
Um, it's just uh yeah, it's very, um hard, it's very difficult.
And then Khaled, before you go, what years did you, did you work with the U.s in Afghanistan?
And and how did you, how and when did you get out?
Sorry, can you repeat this question?
What years did you?
You work with the?
U.s in Afghanistan and how and when did you get out of Afghanistan I?
I served, uh from 2016 all the way to 15 august 2021, when Afghanistan fell and I uh came here, um on end of august 2021.
Andrew Saley, any questions?
First of all, Khaled.
Well Khaled, I know, I think thank you for sharing.
I mean, I think that's that's really important.
Um yeah and, and you have a U.s-born child, I gather as well, I do yeah, I do.
That's wonderful.
Um great, I?
I you know, I think it's very important.
What you said actually about feeling, I mean, when you saw this, your first reaction isn't, you know, the the sympathy with the shooter.
Your first reaction is the sympathy with the person who, who is shocked because these are the people you served with and I?
I think this is getting lost in the conversation right, that the most of the Afghans that came to this country served like you did with, you know, with U.s forces.
Right, this was very much a?
A you know, a deep relationship with the U.s military and U.s organizations and the?
U.s embassy throughout, and the deep bond and the?
U.s responded by making sure that those who were in danger got out, or at least many of those who were in danger got out.
I'm not sure everyone got out um, but yeah, college thanks for for sharing your story in Virginia this morning.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, that was great, I mean.
I let me say one thing about.
I mean we're spending a lot of time in this country talking about the problems with immigration and certainly what happened at the border was the vast numbers of people that came across the border.
Um was a loss of control of the immigration system right and, and it undermined the faith of Americans in immigration.
But we should talk about what works on immigration in this country, because people want to come here, people want to come and live in this country, because immigrants do really well.
You know, the statistics tell us they're more likely to work than native-born Americans, they're less likely to commit crimes and his wife working seven days a week, working seven days a week and going to school, they're less likely to commit crimes.
Actually it doesn't mean there aren't criminals who are, who are immigrants, but but actually on average they commit many fewer crimes than native born Americans, mostly because they're trying to work and get ahead right um, and again, doesn't mean that if someone commits a crime they shouldn't be sent back home, but but I mean, on average, immigrants here are came here to work, to succeed.
Um, the second generation does particularly well.
What we know is the children of immigrants do better, generally speaking, in terms of education and income, than the children of the native born, if you look at the same starting level of the parents.
Immigrant children of immigrants do incredibly well in this country.
Um, mostly they are English dominant.
They often forget the language of their parents and and yes, you know, a lot of parents get upset with that, but they become incredible.
We have an incredible ability to make people you know become part of this country.
It is a template we've had for, you know, 250 years.
But but really people do become American and about a quarter of patents in the U.s have an immigrant patent holder.
Big part of our innovation process, immigrants twice as likely to start a small business than native born Americans.
I mean this is, you know, we're getting a lot of the best of the world to this country people like our caller who just called in, and we're getting a lot of great people.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't take care of the problems.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't make sure people are coming in the right way and doesn't mean we shouldn't get rid of people who either commit a serious crime or have had their due process, came in illegally, had their due process and were told to leave, because those are things we should be doing.
But we shouldn't forget how much immigration has been part of building the country we know and making us innovative, competitive and a solid society, and we all have the relationship with with this in one way or another in our families.
Time for a few more calls with Andrew Sealy of the Migration Policy Institute.
unidentified
This is Adriana out of Baltimore.
Good morning yes yes, good morning.
Thank you so much for taking my call and Andrew, it is an honor to speak with you.
I've heard you speak before on NPR, so thank you so much both of you for taking my call.
I am a first generation uh, American.
My family was politically exiled from Cuba.
My mom was literally carried running into one of the last slaves that left Cuba right before Batista fell.
Um, I am also born in Puerto Rico, which is very interesting.
That uh, you guys were just a few minutes ago talking about um, the idea of when do you become American enough as a born Puerto Rican who is a United States citizen, I have constantly had to validate my Americanness, the fact that I am a United States Citizen.
So, you know, I would really like to get an understanding from the general public, from people who feel like they are true, quote-unquote, Americans.
What am I American enough?
When is my family American enough?
And then finally, I really just want to add: I am a former social security employee.
I can tell you it is extremely difficult for anybody, even just a regular citizen, to get a new social security card because you need to be able to prove your information.
And for an immigrant, it's three times worse.
They still need to be able to provide their information.
They still need to be able to provide their birth certificate.
And if they can't, they have to go through multiple hoops to be able to get it.
And even then, there's no guarantee they ever will.
So it's very frustrating to hear a lot of the conversations from, you know, a lot of the callers.
But I do also want to thank Caleb.
I think it was Caleb.
I do apologize if I said it wrong.
You're totally a caller.
Yes, Khaleb, thank you so much for your service.
And yeah, like I said, I just, it's very frustrating.
Oh, and finally, to our Secretary of State, Mr. Marco Rubio, espero coste separate so familia, sugarcestros, famirando están esperando.
I'm so sorry.
That was in Spanish, letting me know his ancestors are watching him from the other side and are waiting for him.
That's Adriana.
Andrew Seely.
Adriana, thanks for sharing that.
I think, you know, it is one of the questions we're debating.
I mean, this is a country that, you know, immigration has been fundamental.
Certainly there were native inhabitants here.
Some people were forced to come here as slaves, and not all immigration was a beautiful story.
But almost everyone has an immigration story in this country, right?
I mean, this is a country that has been built through immigration more than many other countries around the world.
You know, you can name a couple others like Australia and Canada.
But we're a little unusual in this, actually.
And we've made it work.
And it's part of what has made this country great.
And I hope what we don't lose in the conversation.
You know, right now we're at the moment of tightening up after some years where the immigration system wasn't seen as being credible and people were getting around it.
You know, we're in the moment of tightening up, but I'm afraid we might go down the road where we really start questioning whether immigration should be part of who we are.
And it is such part of the essence in the United States.
And it's happening, interestingly enough, at a moment where we're getting older as a society.
So the U.S., right, we are no longer, you know, like most industrial countries, right?
We're no longer at replacement rate, what they call replacement rate, where, you know, you have more than two babies, more than 2.1 is usually the statistic, right, for family per couple.
That's when population grows.
We're now at the point about 1.6.
That means our population, if we don't have immigration, will start to shrink.
It is not the end of the world if that happens, but we have seen the consequences of that, say in Japan.
Japan has managed to, you know, is now actually leaning into immigration because of this, because they realize that they spent 20, 30 years somewhat stagnated after an incredible rise.
They spent 20, 30 years stagnated in large part because their labor market wasn't growing.
And we're at a point where we're going to actually have to think, you know, simply for issues of our labor market, for issues of competitiveness, competing with China and other countries, you know, where does immigration fit into our economic policies?
And actually, you know, I think we have a good template for doing this.
We're a country that people still want to come to, and we're pretty good at people integrating and become part of it.
We want to tighten up the system and we don't want people to abuse the system, but we don't want to lose the good stuff in the meantime.
A couple minutes left with Andrew Seely.
Let me try to get in.
One more phone call.
This is Debbie in Kentucky, Republican.
Debbie, good morning.
Good morning to you guys.
I am a Republican.
I voted for Trump because of the open border policy of Biden.
There were too many people coming in.
This country is in financial straits right now.
We have a really high deficit that we need to balance in this country.
I think the problem that most people are having now is the welfare system in this country.
There are so many immigrants on the welfare system that people are, it's causing state taxes to go up.
It's a burden on our federal government right now having to subsidize these states.
That's been my concern, and that's why I voted for Trump.
Now, I'm going to ask Andrew here.
In Massachusetts, there's been over $1 billion in fraud by the Somalia community.
I'm going to ask him, what are the crimes that is breaking the law with fraud a reason to deport?
Andrew Seely.
I think that's a, you know, I think that's something that could be debated.
First of all, those people should be put, you know, they should be tried if they're found guilty as in Minnesota.
They should be, you know, they should be put in jail and they should serve their time.
But I think there's a legitimate question.
Is that the kind of crime for which we send people back?
I think many Americans would agree with you that that's something we do, right?
That if someone committed a major crime that is not a violent crime, but is a crime that really defrauded the American taxpayer, they probably have, you know, overstayed their welcome.
But I do think that, you know, that will be litigated in the courts.
We'll see whether the first and foremost thing is the same as any American who, and there are lots of Americans who have committed fraud against the U.S. government.
They should be tried.
They should be convicted if guilty, and they should be, and they should serve their time, right?
In the final minute or two, immigrants on welfare, illegal immigrants, whether they get welfare.
unidentified
Can you just address that issue?
So illegal immigrants do not get welfare.
They have no access to welfare.
And actually, legal immigrants in their first five years of arriving also have no access to welfare.
The big cost, however, which the caller's point is, is not actually welfare, it's education.
And so what we do see, and with a large number of people that came in under the Biden administration, for example, is that many of them, because they're younger and they're working age, they're also in marriage and childbearing age, right?
And so often you do see then children entering the education system.
So the cost is really not on welfare.
That's actually immigrants don't have much access to that.
Native born, U.S.-born kids may have access to food stamps, but that's about it.
But education is costly and it costs, you know, particularly local jurisdictions in taxes.
He is a senior fellow for health policy studies at the Cato Institute, here to talk about the fentanyl crisis in the United States.
Dr. Singer, let's just begin with what is fentanyl.
unidentified
Well, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.
In other words, it's not derived from the opium plant.
It's completely made in the lab.
It's been around since, I think, the early 1970s and is used very frequently, commonly in medical practice, both in anesthesia and pain management and critical care patients.