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1:02

And this is going to be really hard to do in podcast form because podcasting is not RPG and coastline and highly visual medium

1:17

Hello,

1:17

welcome

1:17

to

1:17

another

1:17

episode

1:17

of

1:17

the

1:17

weeds

1:17

on

1:17

the

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box

1:17

media

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podcast

1:28

network. I'm Matthew glossiest here with ProPublica's Darren Blend

1:31

and Herman Lopez from box.com.

1:33

Really glad to have you here.

1:35

Her mom wanted to, to talk this week about Biden sort of early rollout of immigration ideas, which has included both a sort of official legislative proposal, which is interesting in its own terms and also a kind of big batch of, you know, early sort of administrative actions, executive orders, things like that.

1:58

I know dare you.

2:00

I think are annoyed by my desire to talk about this proposed legislation.

2:04

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, so when you first proposed this, like when the bill got ruled out on Wednesday or when they, when they announced the bill on Wednesday, the actual text of the bill has not been introduced yet, which is funny because they're already putting out social media graphics saying we introduced a day one bill.

2:19

But you know, at that time I was feeling a certain amount of disconnect from what I was hearing publicly because I was hearing a lot of stuff publicly.

2:31

That was, Oh my gosh, this is a huge legislative priority for president Biden as demonstrated by the fact that this is his day one bill.

2:38

And I'm like, I hadn't gotten any sense of that prior to like the week before the inauguration and in the intervening six days, I think the kind of public discourse has come around to what I suspected was happening in private the whole time, which is that a bill was introduced.

2:55

There's a lot of enthusiasm around the details of the bill as a like, yes, if this could, you know, in, in like immigration advocacy world to like, yes, if this could become law, this would be huge, but there is not a serious drive to get immigration reform done under reconciliation.

3:11

If there is no obvious or articulated path to getting 10 to Republican senators on board, and you're already beginning to see a little bit of, Oh, well like getting that bill to the president's desk, isn't the goal.

3:24

So it's an interesting illustration of the functions that a day one bill can serve that are not necessarily, you know, this is my top legislative priority because top legislative priority, as we discussed last week is the COVID relief package.

3:37

And there are questions as to what comes after that, but it's been an interesting illustration of where the Biden team thinks the immigration discussion is and who they think they need to have on board and who they need to placate.

3:51

But I think, you know, I would go further in some ways, right?

3:53

Activists are so enthusiastic about the content of this proposal in purpose nicely because it isn't a top Biden legislative weight, because if it's a top legislative priority, then it either needs to be something that fits a reconciliation framework, or you need some plausible story about how a dozen Republicans are voting for it.

4:15

But what Biden actually did was, was like, forget that because reconciliation and immigration don't go together that, that nicely, particularly in terms of like creating a path to citizenship for people, and you get Republicans on board for something by compromise and your view is so like this, we should, we should talk about what's in it, but it's like the immigration advocates would love for Joe Biden to sign this bill precisely because it's not like a good faith effort to get Jerry Moran to, to vote for it.

4:49

It's a, it's a, it's a proposal designed to like, say what Progressive's think about immigration policy, Right?

4:57

Like fundamentally the proposition made by this bill is what if we put together a bill that offered legalization with, you know, eventual possibility of citizenship to unauthorized immigrants currently in the U S like broadly on a slightly faster timeline than previous legalization proposals have.

5:18

And we didn't pair it with more immigration enforcement.

5:22

And, and that that's, I mean, where it is distinguished from the way the comprehensive immigration reform has conventionally been thought of it's distinguished from the 2006 2007 2013 immigration proposals.

5:36

And so like the, the kind of meta message you can argue that the bill sends, you know, even if, if you, if you think of it as like a message rather than a piece of proposed legislation is what if we, as the democratic party, didn't negotiate with ourselves first on immigrant, like on immigration, what if, you know, what if the democratic party said here is what we want.

6:01

We do not think that enforcement needs to be paired with legalization.

6:04

And if Republicans want to come to the table and say, here are the enforcement things we need, then we can, we would rather have that conversation with them than try to figure out what they're going to want in advance, which no one is actually making that argument.

6:19

I mean, maybe they're making it privately, right?

6:21

But that's not the way that the bill is being publicly defended.

6:24

The way the bill is being publicly defended is either is bad to try to pair legalization with enforcement.

6:29

That's not what we need. We've had increasing enforcement for the last 20 years without legalization.

6:35

We just need legalization to catch up to it, which substantively that's an awkward pairing.

6:42

It's a little bit hard to imagine how you get, you know, 10 Republicans on board with a bill without using some of the very voices who have been most enthusiastic about, yes, we finally have a bill that is legalization without enforcement, but the thing about proposing legislation that you don't think is going to immediately make it onto the president's desk is that there is a space between, Oh, this is just a messaging bill.

7:08

And this is an obvious no-brainer that everybody can vote for immediately.

7:13

Like there is some space for, okay, this was the opening shot in what we expect to be an ongoing volley, but you do have to have some sense of what the red lines are.

7:23

And that I think is what is still a little bit, you know, it's still a little bit murky on the administration's part on the advocacy side.

7:32

It's not that the PR the question is the red lines.

7:35

It's that the question is to what extent the priority is to do immigration separately versus trying to get legalization into everything else.

7:45

You're already seeing a certain amount of effort to talk about essential worker, like protecting essential workers as part of a COVID relief package, whether it's more moderate sense.

7:56

That's just making sure that unlike previous COVID relief packages, unauthorized immigrants like do get to share in the universal benefits of a COVID relief package, but you're also seeing a certain push to do some kind of legalization in a way that's going to work in a reconciliation package.

8:14

And the story that Democrats are now pushing is, Oh, maybe we can break this bill up into smaller legalization packages and try to get it done that way, which you know, again is probably it's, it's a strategy where you're more likely to get 60 votes out of some of this stuff.

8:34

You're more likely to get 60 votes on, you know, dream on TPS, legalizing people who currently have temporary protected status, which they're legal.

8:45

They don't have a way to get citizenship yet, but it also has an N it exists uneasily with this big Viden bill that sent so much enthusiasm.

8:56

And in the first 24 hours of the administration, I

9:00

think it's worth putting this in the context of like what Biden administration they were trying to do last week.

9:05

Cause I was in a few of their executive action calls.

9:07

They were pretty adamant about emphasizing like, look, we really want to move past the Trump administration.

9:18

And like you saw that in their early executive actions on like ending the travel ban, reinforcing DACA, like the immigration ones were really related to this, whether they're as like the reinforcing DACA one, like I was on that call and it's still unclear to me if it even does anything really.

9:36

But I think that their point is like, look, we are taking a step away from this administration.

9:42

That's their signature issue was immigration for a long time, at least the first two years.

9:47

And they really, really want to emphasize that they are no longer acting like Trump and the Orwell.

9:56

They were never acting like Trump, but they're not the Trump administration.

9:59

They are not going to take this hard line stance on immigration.

10:01

They're not going to try to pander to the scene of phobia or any of that stuff that the Trump administration was doing.

10:08

Yeah, that's a good point. And I actually think it's continuing in the spirit of like things that they're not saying publicly, but that would make sense if this is the way they're thinking about it.

10:17

Like, if you think about the executive actions as mostly undoing the things that Trump has done on doing the damage, the case you can make for introducing that bill on day one is, and we also have a positive vision for how to move forward.

10:31

It's not just about reinstating the 2017 status quo, but you're right, that the substance of those executive actions was like a little murkier.

10:41

The rolling back, the travel ban, which unfortunately like now that there are all of these other bands in place due to COVID saying the travel ban has become this totally analytically useless thing.

10:54

And, you know, yesterday the Biden administration actually expanded bans on people from countries, from particularly COVID hit countries from coming to the us.

11:04

There are still bands in place from last year that the Trump administration said we're supposed to help the economy recover that make it impossible for like most family members to sponsor people to come to the U S so a lot of the people who are, who were covered by the travel ban now still can't bring family members over because those other bands are still in place for now.

11:30

They may be getting rescinded at some point, but the other executive actions were like even less.

11:36

Well-defined the DACA one, the best way that I can explain that is that because there is pending litigation in Texas, in which the conservative judge who struck down the expansion of DACA and the parallel program for parents of American citizens back in 2014, 2014, 2015 is kind of on the cusp of ruling that DACA itself was illegal to begin with, which would then force the Biden administration to come up with some kind of alternative like legal pathway to protect that same population of people.

12:13

So the executive order was kind of a placeholder for if that happens, we will do something, but like, because that really hasn't happened yet, there didn't need to be any actual legal substance to it.

12:24

And then there was also an executive order on interior enforcement that didn't in its text really do a whole lot, but it was subsequently, subsequently prompted a memo from the acting secretary of the department of Homeland security that did kind of declare the a hundred day deportation moratorium that Joe Biden campaigned on it, the democratic primary.

12:50

And so it would be reasonable to see those executive actions as sending the message that the Trump era is over and beginning to put the pieces in place to reverse some of that.

13:04

I think that the question of what they're doing substantively is a little more complicated.

13:12

Well, he'll wait, Let's

13:14

draw a distinction, right? Because so, so Trump weight is very hawkish on immigration from the beginning of his administration through to the end.

13:23

Trump is also quite lax on COVID, right?

13:27

Like we got to open up, you know, like it's all going to be cured with hydroxy chloroquine and stuff like that.

13:33

But because many countries have sort of sealed or restricted movement as part of their COVID response, Trump while doing very little on COVID did a lot of COVID related immigration restriction, right?

13:54

So Biden runs against Trump promising to be much more hawkish on COVID.

14:00

Right. But also to be more welcoming of immigrants.

14:03

So when you look at these orders, you see a relaxing of a lot of Trump era things from pre 20, 20, many of which have been superseded by emergency co by COVID orders, which have not been pulled back.

14:22

Right. And so, and so there's a sort of defer, you know, so it's like, they're going to stop building the wall, but like, you actually can't get into the country from Mexico still.

14:32

But so, you know, conceptually speaking, this is like Biden is sticking with Trump's COVID actions, but rolling back a lot of the pre COVID immigration actions.

14:45

And then there's the third bucket of things, which is just like the functioning of the normal immigration enforcement apparatus, which is like where the Obama administration spent several years fighting with various people about did a big thing, got into court.

15:04

Right. And like, I, this, like, I think like the forward-looking focus is going to be like, what does that deputation moratorium amount to what happens on day a hundred?

15:13

And one, what happens when there's a confirmed secretary?

15:16

You know? Cause like an acting secretary can send whatever memos he wants.

15:20

Right. But we're, calcitrant frontline, immigration officers are not going to be responsive to a vaguely worded memo from an acting secretary.

15:32

That's just like that. That's not how, that's not how the world works, but I mean, it's not, I think like incoherent to say, well, we're really, you know, like we're, we're reversing the travel ban that was imposed in what was it?

15:47

2019. But so, so Biden is saying that the like pretextual terrorism travel restrictions he's getting rid of, but even though Trump was using Covid in a pretextual way, Biden is still like favors those, those kinds of things.

16:05

But then I think the question right, for by numb, all of this is like back to the legislation.

16:13

Right. I actually do want to, I want to, I think that that framework is mostly correct, but I, a lot of what Trump did in 2020 on immigration restriction was not with the, was not pre textually Covid it was protects dually or like we're intentionally letting immigrants in hurts the economy.

16:31

And we need to get the economy back on track.

16:33

That was the justification for the immigrant visa ban and for the ban on many kinds of non-immigrant visas work fees, isn't that kind of thing.

16:43

So like it's actually a lot harder, especially because there's ongoing litigation about literally everything Trump did on immigration.

16:49

It's, it's harder for the Biden DOJ to show up in court in these lawsuits and say, yes, we agree that it's fit.

16:56

We need to continue these policies because immigrants hurt our economy.

17:01

When Joe Biden is out here saying we need immigrants because if we're going to help our economy, like that's, that's the tricky road.

17:08

And that's where, you know, there is a sense that those bands are going to get rescinded there isn't, but they haven't, it's not clear, right?

17:19

Like there's going to be, it's, it's publicly known that there's going to be another batch of immigration, executive orders coming Friday.

17:24

It's not publicly known exactly what that's going to be.

17:27

I'm hearing different things about whether those kinds of like economy justified bands are going to be rescinded or not.

17:34

And so if they get rid of that part, then you're right, Matt, you know, they, they get the benefit of, you know, the, the COVID restrictionist parts of the Trump regime and are able to roll back everything else.

17:47

But so I wanted to ask you about that, about the legislation, Right.

17:50

Which is so it's, it's sort of, you know, amnesty without an enforcement swap.

17:55

Of course we don't call it that an earned path to legalization or whatever you're supposed to call it, but what, what does it say about like future immigration?

18:06

Right? There's something cause like I saw a bullet point that was like, we're going to clear the visa backlog, but I don't really know what that means.

18:14

I genuinely do not have an answer for you on this one because I have not been looking into the details of this legislation.

18:18

And I admit like future legal immigration is the place that, that holds and legislative politics right now is weird because it used to be seen as you know, in the kind of comprehensive immigration reform model, the political model is business really cares about future flows.

18:39

Labor really cares about like certain things related to future flows.

18:43

And so we're going to let those two stakeholders figure out what they can agree on.

18:47

And you know, now that like the idea that business and labor agree on something doesn't mean you get the Republican party on board with it, that's all been scrambled.

18:55

And you actually saw with in the last Congress, just how weird the politics of this have gotten because there was a bill that actually made it surprisingly far that would have taken a minor action that had big consequences on the legal immigration front, by getting rid of the provision in law that says no one country can get more than a certain percentage of the visas that are offered every year.

19:21

And that in practice would be a great boon for like China, India, the countries that you send a great deal of, you know, immigrant workers in particular to the U S by the time that actually got to the Senate floor, there had been like weird anti-China stuff, put into it, the fight to get it on the floor was really behind the scenes kind of vicious.

19:46

Like there were a lot of accusations flying around, you know, Dick Durbin hated Indian ones because he wasn't willing to back this bill forcefully that kind of thing.

19:54

Just some very weird stuff.

19:56

And it, I think made it kind of obvious that the politics of future legal immigration are fraught in a way that isn't necessarily related to the ways that the politics of legalizing unauthorized immigrants are fraught.

20:12

So like when I see a bill like this, that, you know, like the one Biden proposed that is like CIR without the enforcement, you know, I like, I don't know how seriously I should be taking that as an indication for what a future legal immigration bill would look like, because there is a lot of energy behind breaking off the legalization parts of this and passing those.

20:35

There is like a certain amount of energy and certainly some history in like the, Oh, we're going to invest in central America.

20:46

And we're going to develop a more regional approach, which is in that bill, but is also something that obviously Joe Biden was talking about as vice president, something that's been in other bills that were proposed during the Trump administration.

20:57

I don't think we have a good sense of what the politics of that are going forward in a world where there isn't necessarily the energy from Congress to tackle big issues on a non-emergency timeline.

21:10

And it's not being connected to something that a critical mass of people really want to push.

21:16

But so I think, right, this is my out of the box idea, free, free to use by members of the us Senate.

21:24

Right. But then if you take some of the new immigration Hawks, right, like a Tom cotton, or what's his name, David Perdue, and you combine them with some of the lefty, people who care a lot about enforcement and, you know, legalization, but don't really care about future flows or immigration policy at all.

21:44

But you're going to be, think of somebody like Bernie Sanders, who has always seemed like he's actually against immigration, but also wants to side with immigrant advocates.

21:55

Yeah. That instead of the traditional enforcement for legalization swap, you could have legalization for sharp reductions in future flows of legal immigrants, or, you know, a switch in the, in the composition.

22:11

Right. That, that could be just like a straight antibusiness compromise that combines what the restrictionist want, because getting fewer immigrants by like trying to like drain the pool of existing undocumented immigrants, right.

22:28

Is really difficult. We've, we've been not doing comprehensive reform and we've been ratcheting up enforcement, but like, it doesn't work, right.

22:35

It's like you're trying to drain the ocean with a thimble or whatever it is.

22:39

Whereas like reducing legal immigration, I do not favor, but like, I think would be efficacious in bending the demographic curve of the United States.

22:51

I don't know, as just a spectator who enjoys legislating.

22:53

I think, I think somebody should try that swap even though it's kind of a really bad idea.

23:00

I think the thing to be aware of there is that because we have been having a conversation about the immigration system is broadly broken and like needs to be fixed for a solid, at the most conservative accounting, 15 years.

23:16

In those 15 years, you have had polit you've, you've had kind of political stakeholders develop who weren't there, you know, a decade or 15 years ago, and like the growth of attention in certain progressive circles toward immigration enforcement and reducing it is certainly one component of that, that Democrats are now responding to.

23:36

But another component that you only saw crop up during the few abortive attempts, the Trump administration made to actually pass immigration legislation, is that Latinos in the U S people like Mexican-Americans people of other immigrant groups in the U S Latino immigrant groups in the U S and Asian Americans in the U S feel that they were, you know, historically shafted by the early 20th century immigration regime that the current immigration regime is like, what has allowed them to be in America?

24:08

What has allowed them to, you know, keep their families together or allow, or allow family members to migrate and that any change to the immigration system that hurts family based immigration, which is almost certainly what would get targeted in a reducing legal immigration proposal, because it is like most of the permanent immigration that we have would come under attack from those groups that would feel very concentrated harm.

24:33

Okay. Let's take a break and come back to some of this Over

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27:10

I mean, you said earlier that that like people could just kind of ignore and, and memo from the acting secretary, which I giggled at because a lot of the last six months of Trump administration litigation has been whether Chad Wolf signed a bunch of things illegally because he was never a legally appointed acting secretary to begin with.

27:28

I think you're right. There are really big questions over the next hundred days about what happens in the enforcement components at, at CVP and especially at ice.

27:36

But we do actually have some indications because this is all being fought in court still.

27:41

And again, and because it's a democratic administration, instead of being fought in California, it's now being fought in Texas because that's where you find the favorable, the ideologically favorable judges who are likely to sign nationwide injunctions of policies that you disagree with.

27:56

There is already a lawsuit in which Texas is using an agreement signed by the Trump DHS in its last days with the state of Texas saying that Texas gets to object to any immigration policy.

28:09

If they think it's not in their interests, which they're currently trying to invoke to stop the deportation moratorium, and that litigation is happening on a wildly expedited timeline.

28:21

So that we've already had a couple of like indications as to how the enforcement moratorium is or the deportation moratorium is going.

28:29

And it does seem that I think it is fair to say at this point that we do know that there wasn't a plan to ground, all deportation flights starting on Friday, the 22nd, there was at least one case in which it took a lot of kind of activist pressure on Sunday night to get a particular immigrant off the manifest for deportation flight.

28:54

And then that flight itself got canceled, but like, that's it, it's one of those things where that's the case that is publicly known.

29:01

We don't have, you know, they, they haven't said we have stopped all deportation flights and there's no, you know, we don't have evidence that, that is the case.

29:09

It raises questions about why advocacy pressure was needed if this moratorium is in fact in effect.

29:15

And meanwhile, Texas is out there using a Tucker Carlson segment to argue that all emerged.

29:24

There was a secret order to release all immigrants from detention, which we now know thanks to the Biden administration.

29:31

His reply was a email sent at a single site to release people who were at high risk of COVID, which was already something that was being litigated.

29:40

But there are real questions about how this is being implemented on the ground, not just in the, are people dragging their feet sense, but in the sense of are people, you know, trying to get out in front of this memo in the absence of more detailed guidance by kind of swinging back the other way aggressively and saying, well, if they don't want us to enforce things, then we'd better do exactly what they said for, you know, good faith reasons, bad faith reasons, whatever.

30:15

This is the kind of thing that we're not going to have a very good picture of in real time, the release them all immediately email that the Tucker Carlson story was based on actually to seeing that email was really wild to me personally, because it's like the most real-time transparency that we've gotten into ice in the entire history of the agency, but it is something that is very important to figure out.

30:40

And that I think maybe by the end of a hundred day period, we might have a better sense of what the enforcement situation has been, but I'm not seeing national attention to it.

30:52

And it is kind of making me think that the kind of attention politics of the issue are that a post-Trump America doesn't really care about immigration enforcement.

31:02

I mean, the two to that end one, one thing we have seen with Bon administration in the aftermath of all these orders is just like a lack of follow-up I think in public that is kind of striking to me because they put all this stuff out on the first day, and I know that more is coming out this Friday, but it seems like they were really ready to just like immediately move on this issue as quickly as possible.

31:30

And while we've seen some reporting, like you you've said it to me just really emphasizes that.

31:36

Like, I mean, it's kind of like, they've dumped this bill out there and these orders, and then they're like, all right, we know that this has, is contentious.

31:43

It kind of created Donald Trump.

31:46

Maybe we can say, we, we tried our best here and move on.

31:50

And like, that's, that's what, what I think about when I see the lack of transparency as to how all of this is working out.

31:57

I think it's deliberate. I don't think they want to really lean on this issue for the next few months.

32:04

I think they want to talk about the economy and how they're taking Covid seriously and climate change stuff.

32:11

But immigration is an issue that I don't think the bond administration really wants to focus on and make it their signature issue in the way that it was Trump's signature issue.

32:22

I definitely agree with that. Right. I mean, I think like the, the message of this bill, it's like a funny two-fold message, right?

32:28

Because this incredible narrative took hold in the immigration community that Obama had betrayed them by not releasing a specific and detailed proposal early in his, Because

32:40

that wasn't explicit promise that they demanded of him and he made, and I don't know.

32:44

I mean, I understand, but I mean like the prison Of

32:47

the anger over that broken promise is that had Obama done that like something good would have happened on policy.

32:54

Right. I mean, it's real. So it was cause like, I just don't think that that was ever true or plausible at any rate.

33:00

So like Obama's with the one hand being like, see, this is what you asked for a bill on day one, you've got it.

33:09

And then we are going to get a live fire demonstration of exactly how little difference that makes.

33:14

Right. Because it's like Biden is, is a Congress guy.

33:19

Right. And so it's like, here you go guys, and immigration reform proposal.

33:23

And then like, we shall see, like, I think Biden would love if a future gang of 16 senators came together and like had some kind of bipartisan immigration bill, I think almost regardless of content, right?

33:36

Like by like Love's, bi-partisan deals on things, but to her mom's point, right.

33:42

Obama by the end of his term.

33:46

Right. Very different from the beginning. But by the end of his term, Obama was embracing immigration as a cause that he wanted to be identified with.

33:55

You had white house staff talking about how like DAPA and stuff was like going to be part of his legacy and, and all these kinds of things.

34:04

And like Biden does not want that.

34:07

Right? Like these orders on immigration were not paired with like Joe Biden on camera doing interesting stuff right there weren't, there wasn't a, it was, there was some like, I am changing some of these policies.

34:21

It's not meaningless by any means, but there's not a desire to like, make a big deal about this, jump up and down and have an immigration focused national conversation.

34:33

They probably wish we weren't doing this podcast at all.

34:36

It's interesting because public opinion has become much friendlier to immigration than it was in 2013.

34:43

And certainly than it was in 2007, there's been a real sea change in public opinion.

34:51

But the congressional politics have gone a hundred percent in the opposite direction because it used to be that there was a significant pro reform block of Republicans, which meant that there was a guarantee of bi-partisan cover, which meant that a lot of Democrats who were responsive to sort of elite liberal views on immigration could feel comfortable with it.

35:15

Right? So like Joe Manchin was for the 2013 immigration bill, but immigration is not popular in West Virginia.

35:24

Right. But like bi-partisan deals are popular everywhere.

35:27

And so the polarization of the issue has suddenly made it much, much, much more difficult for the Democrats who represent rural States.

35:38

Right? So it's not just like the loss of a couple of Republican votes having lost the Republicans.

35:43

You now lose a ton of Democrats and create a like almost inseparable bar, unless something happens that makes Republicans want to engage with the legislative process.

35:57

But for all the reasons that Herman was outlining, like, I think Republicans will love to engage with the executive action process, right?

36:07

Like this scenario you outlined with like Tucker Carlson got some email that he then mis-characterized.

36:12

And like everybody yelled about that for 48 hours.

36:16

Like that's the kind of immigration politics that Republicans can get really excited about.

36:21

There's millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States on any given week.

36:26

One of them is going to do something bad.

36:29

And like, you could talk about that. You could have many news cycles about how, like this guy who threw some order ice was supposed to not do whatever was driving drunk and killed a nice white girl.

36:41

And you know, like, it's, it's a potential nightmare for Biden who like, I know doesn't want to deal with this, but like the absence of an affirmative immigration agenda doesn't make the topic go away.

36:57

And if your opponents like both like activists, you know, still want what they want to have to come up with something to ask for.

37:05

Cause that's their job. But like the opposition would really like to talk about different aspects of immigration enforcement going forward.

37:13

Like they don't want to get up there and be like, we're the party that's stopping you from getting a minimum wage increase.

37:18

Like that's what we're here in Washington to do.

37:20

Like that's terrible for Republicans.

37:22

Whereas saying that like, they're on the side of the ice agents trying to keep you safe.

37:28

Like that's what Trump taught them.

37:30

Right. Like I think when people talk about Trumpism without Trump it's gets pretty vague, but just like being really gung ho about immigration enforcement, because immigrants pose a physical threat to your security.

37:43

Like Trump didn't invent that, but he like took it to a high level.

37:48

And I think Republicans takeaway is that that worked.

37:52

So there's a bunch here and I do want to talk about that, but I want to talk a little bit first about the relationship between attentional politics and like substantive policy, because it's a loose relationship.

38:04

Right? And like, and Matt, this is a point that like you were making as often as anybody during the Trump years.

38:09

Is that just because Donald Trump wasn't talking about deregulation all the time didn't mean that his executive branch wasn't engaging and a fairly aggressive deregulation campaign, even though we now have a government that is less governed by the whims of a single person, it is still true that Joe Biden is not going to spend an equal amount of time talking about everything has administration is doing so in theory, just because Biden isn't out there, you know, like doing photo ops on the immigration executive orders, that doesn't necessarily give us a sense of how aggressive implementation is happening on the inside.

38:48

You know, what does raise questions is the fact that the Obama administration had to spend several years writing successive versions of memos on interior enforcement before they finally got it, got a formulation and a process that could meaningfully constrain the local discretion of ice field offices.

39:09

So like whether you can really go immediately back to that after four years of Trump is an open question and that's kind of where the, you know, what was going on with that Tucker Carlson email thing comes in, you know, it's, it's the, the good thing about that is that it takes awhile to get visibility there.

39:27

If the white house isn't making a big publicity push about it.

39:30

And so your it's going to take longer to get a critical mass of pressure from the left to do things more aggressively, especially because you can probably assume safely that there will be a little less appetite in the democratic coalition, more broadly for criticizing a democratic president on immigration enforcement.

39:50

That's not good for it.

39:52

I mean, it's really not good for journalists, but it's not good for transparency generally to not really know what's going on until you like can piece together a few, you know, like local Twitter threads, but it's a very common, you know, it was, it's how we've gotten to sensitive interior immigration enforcement for the last 10 years.

40:11

So I don't anticipate it changing any time soon.

40:14

Instinctually, I agree with you that Trumpism without Trump logically would be big on immigration.

40:19

Worry that if you think about the things that the Trump administration was pushing in the lame duck period, like they passed a bunch of really aggressive immigration regulations.

40:29

And they were talking about those Donald Trump was talking a lot about the 1619 project and, you know, section two 30 and a lot of issues that were culture, war issues, but weren't immigration related.

40:42

And that's the kind of thing that you see a lot of enthusiasm about.

40:45

Like you're not seeing Josh Hawley out here.

40:48

It's really, I mean, he did kind of substantively put a hold on the confirmation of alleyway orcas to be director, to be secretary of DHS because he was concerned that my orcas, his policies would be too dovish, but he's not like, that's not why he's talking, why he's going out on Fox news.

41:04

That's not why he, you know, writes in New York post op ed the news from this morning that Trump's former OMB director is going to start a, like, post-Trump think tank to keep his issues in the national conversation.

41:17

You like look through the list of things they're talking about.

41:20

And it's like friends, gender rights, critical race theory, tech monopolies, stifling, free speech.

41:26

It's all of the 2020 aeration of Trump's culture war rather than the 2016 to 2018.

41:33

And that makes me wonder if Republican the way that Republicans are actually approaching Trumpism without Trump is not the way that, you know, I would have assumed that this looked substantively three years ago.

41:46

Well, I think one thing that's, that's interesting about what you said is that if you put all this together Biden not really focusing on specific policy aspects, I think it's notable that a lot of these specific policies poll well, like they are popular among, among Americans, but when you start shifting to the culture, war, stuff of immigration, that's when you start getting into dicier territory, like that's, when you start getting, seeing the Republican base start getting riled up and conservatives getting riled up.

42:13

I mean, it's Tucker Carlson would love to spend his show on is just like, look at this undocumented immigrant.

42:20

They did this terrible thing. I mean, we saw a bunch of those stories during the Trump years and it's hard to like, remember even most of them for me, I'm sure you'd remember them Dar because like you were following this closely.

42:32

Yeah. But they're all recycled from like, it is going to be very interesting to see what happens when there is an actual news hole, because the one story that, you know, really created its own new cycles was the, the killing of Kate Stinely and that's it.

42:48

That's what, and that's not enough to really create, you know, that's not enough to like do a show every night on, so it's gonna be interesting to see how that develops.

42:55

Well, well, that's just like to like, kind of what I'm saying.

42:58

I'm like wondering if like buying strategies for like, not talking about this issue is even like a remotely good idea, because it does seem like this issue.

43:06

I mean, I've been looking at Breitbart's home page regularly.

43:09

They are still talking about immigration.

43:11

Tucker Carlson is still bringing up immigration.

43:13

Like I think if they do want to just like, say like, look, we tried on this issue and move on.

43:18

I don't think that's actually going to make the issue go away.

43:20

It's like a question of, if you, if you just try to ignore this issue, I think you just let the culture war people take over and start spinning it in a way that is going to bring it up again.

43:32

Maybe not during COVID, maybe not during an economic downturn as much, but eventually, I mean, I think we are going to start seeing Trumpism without Trump come right back to this issue.

43:43

Take a break. Talk about a white paper. If

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Yeah. This has been a hard time for pretty much everybody in the country and therapy is not just for the most acute crises.

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45:56

So the paper this week is called the effect of police layoffs on crime, a natural experiment involving new Jersey's two largest cities and it's from and VJ's Schylar.

46:08

I might be butchering those names, sorry if I am.

46:10

But basically what the paper did is back during the great recession and around 2008, 2009, a lot of police departments around the country were facing big budget constraints.

46:21

They had to decide, are we going to make cuts?

46:23

And in New Jersey Newark and Jersey city, the two biggest cities in the state took different paths.

46:30

Newark actually did end up laying off a sizable amount of its police force.

46:34

I think it added up to about 13%, whereas Jersey city ended up making a deal.

46:38

So there were some pay cuts and some, some benefits cuts, but they actually kept their police force in intact overall.

46:46

And what this paper looked at is like, look, this is a natural experiment to really go into the debate about like defund the police, like police force sides.

46:53

What are the ultimate effects on crime here?

46:56

When you decrease a police force significantly over a pretty rapid period.

46:59

And what the paper found is that in Newark where they did cut police crime was noticeably higher compared to Jersey city, especially violent crimes.

47:09

The effects of violent crime are about twice as high.

47:12

And this kind of matches what we've seen in some of the other research.

47:15

This, this paper does a good job, like highlighting some of the, the past literature on this area.

47:20

And like, it points out that like, this is kind of the effect you would expect when there are more cops, you do see less crime, but particularly less crime.

47:29

And I mean, that's what we saw here.

47:32

I think what really makes this paper interesting is that it is a bit of a natural experiment since it's not like these two cities were choosing, like to want to cut their police forces.

47:43

So like it's not something that they actively wanted to do, but it's something that at least one of them was forced to do.

47:49

And, and so, yeah, I think for, for, in terms of like this debate about like whether more cops are effective for fighting more crime, this is definitely another bit of evidence that like in fact, more cops do help reduce crime.

48:01

So harmonic, I am actually skeptical of the analysis in this paper in a way I'm I rarely am.

48:08

And I want, I, I'm hoping that you can kind of explain to me why I'm misunderstanding this, because if you look at the figure in this paper that compares crime rates in Newark before and after the point where they laid off a bunch of officers to prime rates in Jersey city before, and after that point as kind of the natural experiment comparison, what you see is that violent, both property and violent crime were trending downward in Jersey city before the point.

48:34

And both of them continue to trend downward more consistently in the case of property crime in particular.

48:40

But like it's, it's a trend that, you know, unsurprisingly layoffs happening in a different city does not change those trends.

48:47

But in Newark, even before the layoff point, violent crime was not going down violent crime was like flat to rising.

48:54

And so the fact that it continued to rise after the layoffs, which he's not addressed in the text of the paper is like, I'm not sure that I should credit the layoffs as being the difference, making factor here, property crime is going down before the layoffs and then like rises and then goes down again.

49:15

But I'm not sure that the takeaway here isn't that whatever Jersey city was doing in the late two thousands shouldn't have, you know, like, like that was good and whatever Newark was doing was bad, rather than that, the layoffs themselves were like led to higher crime.

49:30

I think that there are two ways to explain that one is crime data, as you know, is very noisy.

49:35

So even if you like smooth it out, and these kinds of charts, you will see like spikes that or trends that appear to be going in one direction, but it might be a result of like how you're smoothing this out overall.

49:49

So I think that's one thing that said, I mean, I, I think the paper does acknowledge that to some extent.

49:57

And th the research does show that it's not just the size of a police force that matters here.

50:02

And in fact, some of the interesting things here is that Newark, as a result of laying off such a sizeable portion of its police force actually stopped doing some like evidence-based hotspot, policing style stuff.

50:15

And more than whether it decreased or increased or changed the composition of its police or size of us police force that could explain the results we're here.

50:27

I think it's, what's still speak to like how much the size of a police force matters, because like, if you don't have extra cops around to like, be able to do hotspot policing, you still might see higher crime trends.

50:36

But it is just to say that that it's, it's true, that this is as unexplained.

50:40

Like the, I don't think the size of police force explains the entire effect we're seeing here.

50:44

But I mean, I think it's telling that the effect gets bigger as time goes on, too.

50:50

So like the, the split between New York and Jersey city just keeps growing a little more and more as time goes on, according to this paper, after the layoffs.

51:01

And so that, that to me suggests that like, look, this probably is having an effect, but you're right.

51:08

I, I wouldn't say it's like the whole whole thing I

51:10

do. So another paper Steven and Mello did it, did a paper looking at this same time period because the stimulus act from 2009 provided some funding to cities to sort of avert police layoffs, but it had one of these Congress likes to help researchers by incorporating largely arbitrary numerical, cutoffs and things.

51:33

So you can look at cities just above and just below the threshold.

51:37

You know, when he shows that the cities that got the extra money had lower crime in the intervening couple of years, it actually doesn't look in detail at what the cities did with the money.

51:49

I mean, the program is designed to make it so that you're supposed to avoid officer layoffs, but cities can sometimes do do mischief here, but that was the sort of the political context was different back then.

52:02

And so there was a, an Obama Biden administration initiative that was specifically focused on this question of, of police officer layoffs, which I think is fairly unlikely to recur, even though they are arguing about state and local financial aid in, in Congress, which would have that kind of impact there.

52:24

You know, I've been interested that like a lot of people have published on this subject over the years.

52:29

Oftentimes when things academics work on become relevant to the news, they get excited and eager to speak up.

52:37

That has not been my experience with people who have published in the police staffing research space, particularly those who did it, you know, five or 10 years ago, back when, I mean, to an extent like this finding used to be considered a liberal, find it right.

52:56

It was bill Clinton and Barack Obama had the two big federal like police hiring initiatives.

53:01

And most of the research on this basically confirms that democratic presidents did something good.

53:08

The valence of it kind of switched around to the left is wrong about police.

53:14

And certain people have like gone squirrelly on their own findings in this week.

53:20

But you know, when you think about a state and local, a purely decision, right?

53:26

I mean, the natural thing to follow up on here would be like, what's the, what's the other side of the trade off, right?

53:33

You got to lay off somebody, right?

53:35

So there's like probably bad effects of whoever you lay off.

53:40

And I case can be made that at the end of the day, you should lay off police officers.

53:46

I do think some people over the past summer wanted to talk themselves into the idea that that was like a free lunch, right.

53:54

In which like, you know, laying off librarians would be bad because people couldn't get books, but laying off police officers would have no negative consequences, But

54:02

it's, you know, it's like, it's Like any other public service, if you lay off the people, you don't get the outcome.

54:10

Well, I think another aspect here is that there is a cost to having more police officers as well, in the sense that there's actually, there was another study.

54:21

I can't remember for the life of me who published it, but there was another study that's like spoke to these issues and it kind of looks at the breakdown on race, on like the effect of having more police officers.

54:30

And it found that yes, having more police officers reduced homicide overall, but it also found that there were more arrests for like low level crimes, basically the kind of stuff that you would expect in like broken windows, policing, like misdemeanor, drug enforcement kind of stuff.

54:48

You see more of that, and that is a cost.

54:52

And I think it's notable that this paper does not look at that stuff, but I mean that as a cost, in the sense of like, that's the kind of stuff that makes a lot of people in minority communities feel harassed every day when they're being stopped for stuff that probably shouldn't be crimes in, in their eyes.

55:07

Like, like, should I really be getting stopped by a police officer for having loose cigarettes?

55:13

Or should somebody else be taking care of that problem?

55:15

Like, that's, that's I think what, what, what this paper is missing.

55:19

And I think it's a noticeable aspect of, it was the paper that you wrote about newsletter last week, right?

55:25

This is why people should subscribe to the weeds newsletter. Yes, that's right.

55:28

If you want to subscribe that vox.com/weeds-newsletter.

55:33

Anyway. But yeah, so that, that paper basically, like, it goes to show that like, like you have to balance this stuff out.

55:39

Like you, you can't hire more police officers, you can make them more effective.

55:43

But I think on his little point that like Matt has been making more broadly is like, you still want to do the reform stuff to hold cops accountable.

55:50

You still want to make sure that they're going after the right crimes.

55:53

And this paper seeks to it too. Like there are still more better evidence-based strategies to be focusing on in like whole neighborhoods or whole communities, but like certain segments that are more likely to be committing more crime, like the hotspot policing, the focus to turn strategies, those, those seem to be more effective on top of perhaps just having more cops around to actually be able to do those things.

56:15

Can you explain hotspot policing? Because I find the findings of this to be wild, right?

56:20

It's basically just that having cops around stops cry, like you're, you're.

56:25

I mean, if you just think about this, like really practically, if you're walking down the street and you see a cop on the other side of the street, you're probably not as likely to try to kill someone in front of that cop because you know, you're going to get caught.

56:38

And basically what this research does, it's like that the whole thing is you saturate these like certain blocks where you know, crime is, is unusually high relative to the rest of the city.

56:48

You saturate those areas with a lot of cops.

56:51

Like you have lots of cops patrolling, you have lots of cops and sometimes just sitting in police cars and it seems to work.

56:58

I think one of the big things here is it works by even just reducing the amount of arrests that cops actually can make in the end, because the, the presence of the cops is reducing crime.

57:10

So there's fewer crimes. So actually arrest people for.

57:13

So that's, that's one of the things that like makes us good.

57:18

If you want to stop like higher incarceration rates, it, it, it kinda sticks to the give and take here in terms of like hiring more cops versus more arrests, there actually might be a benefit to, to reducing mass incarceration by just hiring more cops and just saturating certain areas of a city with them.

57:36

Right. And then the question becomes like, if you hire a bunch of people, give them guns and legal justification to use deadly force, if they feel threatened and then tell them that their actual jobs to stand around and not do things, is that going to work?

57:50

And that's where we get into the kind of, you know, not just policing strategy, but like the relationship between strategy and the kind of organizational culture questions that, that, you know, you were alluding to earlier, Herman, that Matt has addressed the, the substance of what police are doing on a daily basis is really the fraught political thing and something where research can only give us a certain amount of indication as to how to move forward.

58:17

I think from the, from the public too, because I think when people see hotspot policing in action, it looks really stupid to them because you're literally talking about police officers standing still on a corner on the theory that a lot of crimes have happened on that block.

58:34

And I, and I remember around actually where J Janesville department, but before there was condos there, th there, there used to be a lot of crime there.

58:43

And at a certain point, the MPTC did a hotspot initiative.

58:46

They brought one of these really bright lights that they have, and they just like had a squad car, always be there.

58:52

And I remember people on the listserv were like, this is so stupid guys.

58:56

Like they could just do the crimes around the corner.

58:59

Like, you've got to go do something like people, people wanted to see the police.

59:03

I was just doing something about the gang violence problem, not sitting in their car at some corner where there had been a crime last week.

59:10

And I was like typing out.

59:12

I was like, there's actually good research for this.

59:14

Like, it's fine. You know?

59:16

So I don't know. I mean, I was not able to conduct a, you know, regression discontinuity study on that block, but it is what the research says you should do, right.

59:24

Is just send people to go to particular areas with high crime incidents and just kinda just kind of be there.

59:32

And I think it's a very unintuitive way to invest resources, right?

59:38

Both from the side of, of the officers, but also to the extent that the public wants to see like the mayor getting tough on crime and maybe they don't, right.

59:48

Maybe they want to see the mayor like reforming the police department.

59:51

But if people are upset about crime and they want to see you taking action, I think they want to see something that looks more like taking action, right?

59:58

There's no, there's no guns on the table because you don't arrest anybody.

1:00:03

Right. The idea is that people will say, Oh, there's cops there.

1:00:06

I just won't do the crimes, which is good.

1:00:09

Right? Like, that's a good outcome for society, but it's not a great, it doesn't have like the political drama that you're looking for.

1:00:17

Right. And I mean, the, the flip side of it is if cops are doing this stuff and then they're pressured or feel pressure to actually go and do stuff, then they might start harassing people for stupid nonsense.

1:00:27

So like, it kind of sticks to like that organizational structure that Dara was speaking to like the, what cops are expected to do, what we should expect cops to do.

1:00:36

And like what they're being held accountable for.

1:00:38

Because like, you could tell like these cops, as you're deploying them, like, look, please do not make these low-level arrests.

1:00:43

But if you're a police department, you don't, maybe you feel like you're, you've been too tough on your officers recently.

1:00:49

Like the unions telling you that you're, you're making them feel like their time is being wasted.

1:00:54

Like you might turn the other way.

1:00:55

Look, look the other way when, when they are actually doing hotspot policing, quote unquote, but in effect, just harassing a bunch of people in the neighborhood.

1:01:03

So it's just, again, there's a, there's a balancing act here.

1:01:06

And I don't think this study does enough to like, show that like, look the, that just, just because this might have happened in Jersey city versus Newark, like necessarily in every city, if you start doing hire more cops, even try and stuff like hotspot policing that'll work out as you, as you would want it.

1:01:25

All right. Thanks guys. Thanks for another exciting episode of the weeds.

1:01:29

Thanks to Herman for coming on with us today.

1:01:32

Thanks as always to our sponsors, our producer, Eric and is we'll be back

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And this is gonna be really hard to do in Cove. The stress canceling wearable with each 20 minute session, cov applies specific vibrations behind your ears to gently activate the part of your brain, that regulates podcast form because podcasting is not RFPG Lind highly visual medium. anxiety. So you can stress less and sleep better. It's like a hug for your mind. Cov is available exclusively at feel. cov.com that's F E L C O V Hello. Welcome to another episode with The Meets the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm 26 here with ProPublica Dara Lind This episode is brought to you by click up a no brainer new platform that streamlines your work to help you become just as productive as you claim to be in your and Germanrlopez from vox dot com. Really glad to have you hear her on. Wanted to to talk this week about Biden's sort of early rollout of immigration. Ideas, which has included both a sort of official legislative workspace. Join companies who love click up like Airbnb, Google, and [email protected] slash which is interesting in its own terms and also a kind of big batch of, you Vox. early sort of administrative here. It's totally free forever, and it's called click executive orders, things like that. I know, Dara you, up. I think, are annoyed by my desire to talk about this proposed No. And this is going to be really hard to do in podcast form because podcasting is not RPG and coastline and highly visual medium No. No. No. No. No. Well, so when you first proposed this, like, when the bill got ruled out on Wednesday or when they when they announced the bill on Wednesday. The actual text of the bill has not been introduced yet, which is funny because they're already putting out social media fixing. We introduced a day one build, but, you know, on at that time, I was feeling a certain amount of disconnect from what I was hearing publicly because I was hearing a lot of stuff publicly that was oh my gosh, this is a huge legislative priority for president Biden as demonstrated by the fact that this is his day one bill and I'm like, I hadn't gotten any sense of that prior to, like, the week before the inauguration. And in the intervening six days, I think the kind of public discourse has come around to what I suspected was happening in private the whole time, which is that a bill was introduced there's a lot of enthusiasm around the details of the bill as a, like, yes, if this could you know, in in, like, immigration advocacy world, like, yes, if this could become law, this would be huge. But there is not a serious drive to get immigration reform done under reconciliation. If there is no obvious or articulated path getting ten ProPublica senators on board. And you're already beginning to see a little bit of, oh, well, like getting that build of the president's desk isn't the goal. So it's an interesting illustration of the functions that a day one bill can serve that are not necessarily you know, this is my top legislative publicly. That was, Oh my gosh, this is a huge legislative priority for president Biden as demonstrated by the fact that this is his day one top legislative priority as we discussed last week is the relief package. And there are questions as to what comes out after that, but it's been an interesting illustration of where the Biden team thinks the immigration discussion is who they think they need to have on board who they need to play. But I think, you know, I would go further in some ways. Right? Activists are so enthusiastic about the content of this proposal. Lind purpose, I see because it isn't a top Biden legislative right. Because if it's a top legislative priority, then it either needs to be something that fits a reconciliation framework or you need some plausible story about how a dozen Republicans are voting for it But what Biden actually did was was like, forget that because reconciliation and immigration don't go together that. That nicely, particularly in terms of like creating a path to citizenship for people. And you get Republicans on board for something by compromising your views. So like this, we we should talk about what's in it, but it's like immigration advocates would love for Joe Biden to sign this bill precisely because it's not like a good faith effort to get Jerry Moran to vote for it. It's a it's a it's a proposal designed to, like, say what progressives think about immigration policy? Right. Like, fundamentally, the proposition made by this bill is what if we put together a bill that offered legalization with, you know, eventful possibility of citizenship to unauthorized immigrants currently in the US, like broadly. On a slightly faster timeline than previous legalization proposals have, and we didn't pair it with more immigration enforcement. Lind and that that's I mean, where it is distinguished from the way that comprehensive immigration reform has been eventually been thought of. It's distinguished from the 20 o six, twenty o seven, twenty thirteen immigration proposals Lind so, like, the the kind of meta message you can argue that the bill sends, you know, even if if you if you think of it as like, a message rather than a piece of proposed legislation is what if we as the Democratic party didn't negotiate with ourselves first on immigration? What if, you know, what if the Democratic Party Right? Like fundamentally the proposition made by this bill is what if we put together a bill that offered legalization with, you know, eventual possibility of citizenship to unauthorized immigrants currently in the U S like broadly on a slightly faster timeline than previous legalization proposals said here is what we want. We do not think that enforcement needs to be paired with legalization. Lind if Republicans want to come to the table and say here are the enforcement things we need, then we can we would rather have that conversation with them, then try to figure out what they're gonna want in advance, which no one is actually making that argument. I mean, maybe they're making it privately. Right? But that's not the way that the bill is being publicly defended. The way the bill is being publicly defended is it is bad to try to pair legalization with enforcement. That's not what we need We've had increasing enforcement for the last twenty years without legalization. We just need legalization to catch up to it. Which substantively, that's an awkward pairing. It's a little bit hard to imagine how you get, you know, ten Republicans on board with a bill with out losing some of the very voices who have been most enthusiastic about, yes, we finally have a bill that is legalization without enforcement. But thing about proposing legislation that you don't think is going to immediately make it onto the president's desk is that there is a space between, oh, this is just messaging bill Lind this is an obvious no brainer that everybody can vote for immediately. Like, there is some space for, okay, this is the opening shot in what we expect to be an ongoing valley, but you do have to have some sense of what the red lines Narea. And that I think is what is still little bit, you know, is still a little bit murky on the administration's part. On the advocacy side, it's not that the the question is the red lines. It's that the question is, to what extent the priority is to do immigration separately, versus trying to get legalization into everything else. You're already seeing a certain amount of effort to talk about essential worker, like protecting essential workers as part of COVID relief package, whether Lind its more moderate sense, that's just making sure that unlike previous COVID relief packages, unauthorized immigrant slip do get to share in the universal benefits of a COVID relief package but you're also seeing a certain push to do some kind of legalization in a way that's going to work in reconciliation package. And the story that Democrats are now pushing is, oh, maybe we can break this bill up into smaller legalization packages Lind try to get it done that way, which, you know, again, is probably it's it's a strategy where you're more likely to get sixty votes out of some of the stuff, you're more likely to get sixty votes on, you know, Dream on TPS. Or legalizing people who currently have temporary protected status, which they're legal. They don't have a way to get citizenship yet. But It also has an un it it exists uneasily with this big Biden bill that they sent so much enthusiasm all. In the first twenty four hours of the administration. I do think it's worth putting this in the context of, like, what Biden administration they were trying to do last week because I was in a few of their executive action calls. Oh, that's a few where the name was on. They were pretty adamant about emphasizing, like, look, we really wanna move past the Trump administration. And, like, you saw that in their early executive actions on, like, ending the travel ban, reinforcing Dara, like, the immigration ones were really related to this. Whether they're as like, the reinforcing taco one. Like, I was on that call and it's still unclear to me if it even does anything, really. But I I think their their point is like, look, we are taking a step away from this administration. That's their signature issue was immigration for a long time, at least the first two years. And they really, really want to emphasize that they are no longer acting like Trump and the well, they were never acting like Trump, but they're not the Trump administration. They are not going to take this hard Lind stance on immigration. I think it's worth putting this in the context of like what Biden administration they were trying to do last They're not gonna try to pander to the xenophobia or any of that stuff that the Trump administration was doing. Yeah. That's a good point. And actually think it's continuing in the spirit of, like, things that they're not saying publicly, but that would make sense if this is the way they're thinking about it. Like, if you think about the executive actions as mostly undoing the things that Trump has done on doing the Dara, the case you can make for introducing that bill on day one is, and we also have a positive vision for how to move forward. It's not just about reinstating the twenty seventeen status quo, but you're right that the substance those executive actions was like, a little murkier, the rolling back the travel ban, which unfortunately, like, now that there are all of these other bands in place due to COVID, saying the travel ban has become this totally analytically useless thing. And yesterday, the Biden administration actually expanded bans on people from country you know, from particularly COVID hit countries from coming to the US. There are still bands in place from last year that the Trump administration point. And I actually think it's continuing in the spirit of like things that they're not saying publicly, but that would make sense if this is the way they're thinking about said we're supposed help the economy That make it impossible for, like, most family members to sponsor people to come to the US. So a lot of the people who are who were covered by the travel ban, now still can't bring family members over because those other bands are still in place for now. They may be getting rescinded at some point. But the other executive actions were, like, even less well defined. The docket one, the Best way that I can explain that is that because there is pending litigation in Texas Lind which the conservative judge who struck down the expansion of Dara Lind the parallel program for parents of American citizens back in twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen. He is kind of on the cusp of ruling that Dara itself was illegal to begin with. Which would then force the Biden administration to come up with some kind of alternative like legal pathway to protect that same population of people. So the executive order was kind of a placeholder for if that happens, we will do something. But, like, because that ruling hasn't happened yet, there didn't need to be any actual legal substance to it. And then there was, you know, also an executive order on interior enforcement that didn't its text really do a whole lot, but that was subsequently subsequently prompted a memo from the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security that did kind of declare the hundred day deportation work foream that Joe Biden campaigned on the Democratic primary. And so it would be reasonable to see those executive actions as sending the message that the Trump era is over Lind beginning to put the pieces in place to reverse some of that. I think that the question of what they're doing substantively is a little more complicated Well, you're right. Let let's let's start just a people. So the executive order was kind of a placeholder for if that happens, we will do something, but like, because that really hasn't happened yet, there didn't need to be any actual legal substance to Right? Because so so Trump, right, is very hawkish on immigration. From the beginning of his administration through to the end. Trump is also quite lax on COVID. Right? Like, we gotta open up, you know, like, it's all gonna be cured with hydroxychloroquine Lind stuff like that. But because many countries, have sort of sealed or or restricted movement as part of their COVID response. Trump while doing very little on COVID a lot of COVID related immigration restrictions. Right? So Biden runs against Trump. Promising to be much more hawkish on COVID. Right? But also 26 be more welcoming of immigrants. So when you look at these orders, you see a relaxing of a lot of Trump era things from pre-twenty twenty, many of which have been superseded right? Because so, so Trump weight is very hawkish on immigration from the beginning of his administration through to the by emergency COVID orders, which have not been pulled back. Right? And so and so there's a sort of defer you know, so it's like they're gonna stop building the wall. But, like, you actually can't get into the country from Mexico still. But so, you know, conceptually speaking, this is like Biden is sticking with Trump's COVID actions, but rolling back lot of the pre COVID immigration oppositions, and then there's the third bucket of things, which is just like the functioning of the normal immigration enforcement apparatus, which is like where Obama administration spent several years fighting with various people about, COVID. did a big thing, gotten to court. Right? like, this, like, I think, like, the forward looking focus is gonna be, like, what does that deportations moratorium amount to? What happens on day hundred? one, what happens when there's a confirmed secretary? You know, because, like, an acting secretary could send whatever memos he wants. Right? But -- Yes. -- we're couch entrant. Frontline immigration officers are not gonna be responsive to a vaguely worded memo from an acting secretary. That's just like, that that's not how that's not how the world works. But, I mean, it's not, I think, like, incoherent to say, we're we're you know, like, we're we're reversing the travel ban that was imposed in what was it? Twenty nineteen. But so so Biden is saying that the, like, protectionism, travel deportations, he's getting rid of, But even though Trump was using COVID in a pretextual way, Biden is still like favors those those kinds of things. But then I think the question, right, for Biden on all of this is, like, back to the legislation. Right? I actually do wanna I wanna I I think that that framework is mostly correct, but I a lot of what Trump did in twenty twenty on immigration restriction was not with the was not pretextually COVID, it was pretextually or, like, or intentionally letting immigrants in hurts the economy Lind we need to get the economy back on track. That was the justification for the immigrant visa ban and for the ban on many kinds of non immigrant visas -- Yeah. -- work visas and that kind of thing. So, like, it's actually a lot harder, especially because there's ongoing litigation about literally everything Trump did on immigration. It's it's harder for Biden DOJ to show up in court in these lawsuits and say, yes, we agree that it's a fit we need to continue these policies because immigrants hurt our economy when Geannikis out here saying, we need immigrants because immigrants help our economy. Like, that's that's the tricky road. And that's where, you know, there is a sense that those bands are going to get rescinded. Uh-huh. There isn't But they haven't. But It's not clear. Right. Like, there's gonna be it's it's publicly known that there's gonna be another back 26 immigration executive orders coming Friday. It's not publicly known exactly what that's going to be. I'm hearing different things about whether that those kind of, like, economy justified bands are going to be rescinded or Narea. And so if they get rid of that part, then you're right, Matt. They get the benefit of, you know, the COVID restrictionist parts of the Trump regime. And thing. So like it's actually a lot harder, especially because there's ongoing litigation about literally everything Trump did on are able to roll back everything else. But, Joel, I wouldn't ask you about the about the legislation. Right? Which is so it's it's sort of you know, amnesty without an enforcement swap, of course, we don't call it that. An earned path to fit. We need to continue these policies because immigrants hurt our or whatever you're supposed to call it. But what what does it say about, like, future immigration? Right? There's something there's like I saw a bullet point that was like we're gonna clear the Visa backlog, but I don't really know what that means. I genuinely do not have answer for you on this one because I have not been looking into the details of this deportations, and I admit, like, future legal immigration is The place that that holds in legislative Friday. It's not publicly known exactly what that's going to right now is weird because it used to be seen as, you know, in the kind of comprehensive immigration reform model. The political model is business really cares about future flows. Labor really cares about, like, certain things related to future flows, and so we're going to let those two stakeholders figure out what they can agree on. And now that, like, the idea that business and labor agree on something doesn't mean you get the party on board with it. That's all been scrambled. And you actually saw with in in the last congress, just how weird the politics of this had gotten because there was a bill that actually made it surprisingly far that would have taken a minor action that had big consequences on the legal immigration front by getting rid of the provision in law that says no one country can get more than a certain percentage of visas that are offered every year. And that in practice would be a great boon for like, China, India, and the countries that do send a great deal of, you know, immigrant workers particular to the US. By the time that actually got to the senate floor, there had been, like, weird anti China stuff put into it. The fight to get it on the floor was really behind the scenes kind of vicious. Like, there were a lot of accusations flying around, you know, Dick Durbin hated Indians because he wasn't willing to this bill forcefully, that kind of thing. Just some very weird stuff. And it I think made it kind of obvious that the politics of future legal immigration are fraud in a way that isn't necessarily related to the way that the politics of legalizing unauthorized immigrants are fraud. So, like, when I see a bill like this that, you know, like, the one Biden's proposed that is, like, CIR without the enforcement, you know, I, like, I I don't know how seriously I should be taking that as an indication for what a future legal immigration bill would look like because there is a lot of energy behind breaking off the legalization parts of this and passing those. There is like, a certain amount of energy and certainly some history Lind, like, the oh, we're going to invest in Central Erikk, and we're going to develop more regional approach, which is in that bill, but is also something that obviously Joe Biden was talking about as vice president, something that's been in other bills that were proposed during Trump administration. I don't think we have a good sense of what the politics that are going forward in a world where there isn't necessarily the energy from Congress to tackle big issues on a non emergency timeline. it's not being connected to something that a critical mass of people really wanna push. But so I think, right, this is by out of the box idea, free free to use by members of the US senate. Right? But then if you take some of the new immigration hawks, right, like a Tom Cotton or what's the Narea? David Purdue. And you combine them with some of the lefty people who care a lot about enforcement Lind, you know, oppositions, but don't really care about future flows or immigration policy at all, particularly if you think somebody like Bernie Sanders who has always seemed like he's actually against immigration, but also wants to decide with immigrant advocates. Yeah. That instead of the traditional enforcement for legalization swap, you could have legalization for sharp reductions in future flows of legal immigrants. Or, you know, a switch in the in the composition. Right? That that could be just like a straight anti business. Compromise that combines what But so I think, right, this is my out of the box idea, free, free to use by members of the us the restrictionists want. Because getting fewer immigrants by, like, trying to, like, drain the pool of existing undocumented immigrants. Right? It's really difficult. We've we've been not doing comprehensive reform and we've been ratcheting up enforcement. But like it doesn't work. Right? It's like you're trying to drain the ocean with a thimble or or whatever it is, whereas reducing legal immigration I do not favor, but like I think would be efficacious all. But you're going to be, think of somebody like Bernie Sanders, who has always seemed like he's actually against immigration, but also wants to side with immigrant in bending the demographic curve of the United States. I don't know, as just a a spectator who enjoys legislating. I think I think somebody should try that swap even though it's it's kind of a a really bad idea. I think the thing to be aware of there is that because we have been having conversation about the immigration system is broadly broken and, like, needs to be fixed for a solid and the most conservative accounting fifteen years, in those fifteen years, you have had political you've you've had kind of political stakeholders develop who weren't there. You know, a decade or fifteen years ago. And, like, the growth of attention in certain progressive circles toward immigration enforcement and reducing it is certainly one component of that that Democrats are now responding 26, but another component that you only saw crop up during the few abortive attempts the Trump administration made to act pass immigration legislation is that Latinos in the US, people like Mexican Americans, people of other immigrant groups in the US, Latino immigrant groups in the US, and Asian Americans in the US feel that they were, you know, historically, shafted by the early twentieth century immigration regime. The the current immigration regime is like, what has allowed them to Lind Erikk, what has allowed them to, you know, keep their families together or allow people or allow family members to migrate. And that any change to the immigration system that hurts family based immigration, which is almost certainly what would get targeted in a reducing legal immigration proposal because it is like most of the permanent immigration that we have would come under attack from those groups that would feel very concentrated harm. Okay. Let's take a break come come back to some of this. Over the holiday season, I talked to you couple times about give well the nonprofit searches for the charities where your donation helps the most. In twenty twenty one, give well is encouraging you to keep the giving spirit alive. If you are listener and you start a new monthly donation by the end of February, you will get your first month matched up to two hundred fifty dollars When you make a monthly donation, you commit to helping others all year by giving 26 the most cost effective charities give a house found every month you'll automatically work towards saving lives, preventing deadly disease, or helping those in extreme poverty. The great thing about get well, if if you don't, like, know the the shit. Great, is they really try to zero in research on what charities help in cost effective ways. This turns out to be a lot of public health stuff and some direct cash transfers to very low income people. So when you give to give well, you know, you're not necessarily giving to the most visible things in the world, but you're giving to the most important causes in the world. 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I think you're right that there are really big questions over the hundred days about what happens in the enforcement components at at CVP and especially at ICE. But we do actually have some oppositions because this is all being fought in court still and again, and because it's a Democratic box. That's click up.com/box to bring all of your work into one instead of being fought in California, it's now being fought in Texas because that's where you find the favorable place. the ideologically favorable judges who are likely to sign nationwide oppositions of policies that you disagree with. There is already a lawsuit in which Texas is using an agreement signed by the Trump DHS in its last days with the state of Texas saying that Texas gets to object to any immigration policy. If they think it's not in their interests, which they're currently trying to invoke to stop the deportation moratorium. And that litigation is happening on a wildly expedited timeline that we've already had couple of indications as to how the enforcement moratorium is or the deportation moratorium is going. And it does seem that I think it is fair to say at this point that we do know that there wasn't a plan to ground all deportation flights starting on Friday the 20 second. There was at least one case in which it took a lot of Lind of activist pressure on Sunday night to get you know, a a particular immigrant off the manifest for deportation flight, and then that flight itself got canceled. But, like, that's it it's one of those things where that's the case that is publicly known. We don't have you know, they they haven't said we have stopped all deportations flights there's no we don't have evidence that that is the case. It raises questions about why advocacy pressure was needed if this moratorium is in fact in effect. Lind meanwhile, Texas is out there using a Tucker Carlson segment to argue that all there wasn't secret order to release all immigrants from detention, which we now know thanks to the Biden administration's reply. Was a an email sent at a single site to release people who were at high risk of COVID, which was already something that was being litigated. But there are real questions about how this is being implemented on the ground, not just in the people dragging their feet sense? But in the sense of people, you know, trying to case. It raises questions about why advocacy pressure was needed if this moratorium is in fact in get out in front of this memo in the absence of more detailed guidance by kind of swinging back the other way aggressively and saying, well, if they don't want us to enforce things, then we'd better do exactly what they said for, you know, good faith reasons, bad faith reasons, whatever. This is the kind of thing that we're not going to have a very good picture of in real time. We've released them all immediately email that the Tucker Carlson story was based on. Actually have the seeing that email was really wild to me personally because it's like the most real time for transparency that we've gotten into ice in the entire history of the agency, but it is something that is very important to figure out Lind that I think maybe by the end of a hundred day period, we might have a better sense of what the enforcement situation has been. But I'm not seeing national attention to it, and it is kind of making me think that the kind of attention politics of the issue are that a post Trump, America doesn't really care about immigration enforcement that much. I I mean, the to to that end, one one thing we have seen with bond administration in the aftermath of all these orders is just like a lack of follow-up, I think, in public, that is is Lind striking to me because they put all this stuff out on the firstday, and I know that Moore is coming out this but it seemed like they were really red to 26, like, immediately move on this issue as quickly as possible. And while we've seen some reporting like you you said, it to me, just really emphasizes that, like I mean, it's kinda like they dumped this bill out there DLind these orders, and then they're like, Alright. We know that this is is contentious. It kind of created Donald Trump. Maybe we can say we we tried our best here and move on. And like that's that's what what I think about. When I see the lack of transparency as to how all of this is working out, I think it's deliberate. I I don't think they want to really lean on this issue for the next few months. I think they wanna talk about the economy and how they're taking COVID seriously. And climate change stuff, but immigration is an issue that I don't think the bond administration really wants to focus on and make it their signature issue 26 the way that it was Trump's signature issue. No. I I mean, I Geannikis definitely agree with that. Right? I mean, I think, like, the the message of this bill, it's like a funny twofold message, right, because this incredible narrative took hold. In the immigration community that Obama had betrayed them by not releasing a specific and detailed proposal early in his administration. Because that was an explicit promise that they demanded of him and he made. And I I don't know. I mean, out. I think it's I I understand. But I mean, like, the premise of the anger over that broken promise is that had Obama done that? Like, something good would have happened on policy. Right? I mean, it's a real so it was because, like, I just don't think that that was ever true or plausible. At any rate, so, like, Obama's with the one hand being, like, See, this is what you asked for. A bill on day one. You've got it. And then we are going to get a live fire demonstration of exactly how little difference makes. Right? Because it's like Biden is a is a congress guy. Right? And so it's like, here you go, guys, an immigration reform proposal. then, like, we shall see. Like, I think Biden would love if a future gang of sixteen senators came together and, like, had some kind of bipartisan immigration bill. I think almost Of the anger over that broken promise is that had Obama done that like something good would have happened on of content. Right? Like, by then, like, gloves, bipartisan deals on things. But to her mom's point, right, Obama, by the end of his turn, Right? It's very different from the beginning. But by the end of his term, Obama was embracing immigration as a cause. That he wanted to be identified with. You had White House staff talking about how, like Dara and stuff was like gonna be part of his legacy, Right. Because it's like Biden is, is a Congress and and and all these kinds of things. And, like, Biden does not want that. Right? Like, these orders on immigration were not paired with, like, Joe Biden on camera doing interesting stuff. Right? There there wasn't a it was it was there were some, like, I I am changing some of these policies. It's not meaningless by any means. But there's not a desire to, like, make a big deal about this. Jump up and down and have an immigration focused national conversation. Right. Very different from the They probably wish we weren't doing this podcast at all. It's interesting because public opinion has become much friendlier to immigration than it was in twenty thirteen certainly than it was in two thousand seven. There's been a real sea change in in public but the congressional politics have gone a hundred percent in the opposite direction. Because it used to be that there was a significant pro reform block of Republicans which meant that there was a guarantee of bipartisan cover, which meant that a lot of Democrats who were responsive to sort of elite liberal views on immigration could feel comfortable with it. Right? So like Joe Manchin was for the twenty thirteen immigration bill. But immigration is not popular in West Virginia. Right? But like bipartisan deals are popular everywhere. so the polarization of the issue has suddenly made it much much more difficult for the democrats who represent rural states. Right? So it's not just like the loss of a couple of Republican votes. Having lost the Republicans, you now lose a ton of Democrats. And create a, like, almost inseparable Narea something happens that makes Republicans want to engage. With the legislative process. But for all the reasons that Hurman was outlining, like, I think Republicans will love to engage with the executive action process. Right? Like, this scenario you outlined with, like, Tucker Carlson got some email Right. But like bi-partisan deals are popular that he then mischaracterized. Lind, like, everybody yelled about that for forty eight hours. Like, that's the Lind of immigration politics that Republicans can get really excited about. There's millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States. At any given week, one of them is gonna do something Biden's, like, you could talk about that. You could have many news cycles about how, like, this guy who threw some order, ICE was supposed to not do whatever. Was driving drunk and killed a nice white girl. you know, like, it's it's a potential nightmare for Biden who, like, I know, doesn't wanna deal with this, but, like, the absence of an affirmative immigration agenda doesn't make the topic go away. And if your opponents like, both like activists, you know, still want what they want to have to come up with something to ask for because that's their job. But like the opposition would really like to talk about different aspects of of immigration enforcement going forward. Like, they don't wanna get up there and be like, we're the party that's stopping you from getting a minimum wage that. You could have many news cycles about how, like this guy who threw some order ice was supposed to not do whatever was driving drunk and killed a nice white Like, that's what we're here in Washington to do. Like, that's terrible for whereas saying that, like, they're on the side of the ice agents trying to keep you safe. Like, That's what Trump taught them. Right? Like, I think when people talk about Trumpism without Trump, it's gets pretty vague, but just like, being really gung ho about immigration enforcement because immigrants pose a physical threat to your security. Like, Trump didn't invent that but he'd like took it to a high level. And I think ProPublica takeaway is that that worked. So for. Cause that's their a bunch here. And I I do wanna talk about that, but I wanna talk a little bit first about the relationship between attentional politics and, like, substantive policy because It's a loose relationship. Right. Right. Lind, like and and, Matt, this is a point that, like, you were making as often as anybody during the Trump years, is that just because Donald Trump wasn't talking about deregulation all the time, didn't mean that his executive branch wasn't engaging in a fairly aggressive deregulation campaign. Even though we now have a government that is less governed by the whims of a single person, it is still true that Joe Biden is not going to spend an equal amount of time talking about literally everything his administration is doing. So theory, just because Biden is out worked. you know, like DLind photo ops on the immigration executive orders. That doesn't necessarily give us a sense of how aggressive implementation is happening on the inside. You know, what does raise questions is Right? And like, and Matt, this is a point that like you were making as often as anybody during the Trump fact that the Obama administration had to spend several years writing successive versions of memos on interior enforcement before they finally got a formulation Lind a process. That could meaningfully constrain the local discretion of ice field offices. So, like, whether you can really So immediately back to that after four years of Trump is an open question, and that's kind of where the, you know, what was going on with that type Carlson email thing comes in. You know, it's it's the the good thing about that is that it takes a while to get visibility there if if the White House isn't making a big publicity push about it. And so your it's going to take longer to get a critical mass of pressure from the left to do things more aggressively, especially because you can probably assume safely that there will be a little less appetite in the Democratic coalition more broadly for criticizing a Democratic president on immigration enforcement. That's not good for I mean, it's really not good for journalists, but it's not good for transparency generally offices. So like whether you can really go immediately back to that after four years of Trump is an open question and that's kind of where the, you know, what was going on with that Tucker Carlson email thing comes in, you know, it's, it's the, the good thing about that is that it takes awhile to get visibility to not really know what's going on until you, like, can piece together a few, you know, like, local Twitter threads. But it's a very common, you know, it was it's how we've gotten a sense of interior immigration enforcement for last ten years, so I don't anticipate a change anytime soon. Instinctually, there. If the white house isn't making a big publicity push about I agree with you that Trumpism without Trump logically would be big on immigration hockery. But if he's think about the things that the Trump administration was pushing in the Lind duck period. Like, they passed a bunch of really aggressive immigration regulations Lind they weren't talking about those. Donald Trump was talking a lot about the sixteen nineteen project. Lind, you know, section two thirty and a lot of issues that were culture war issues, it. I mean, it's really not good for journalists, but it's not good for transparency generally to not really know what's going on until you like can piece together a few, you know, like local Twitter threads, but it's a very common, you know, it was, it's how we've gotten to sensitive interior immigration enforcement for the last 10 but worked immigration related. And that's the kind of thing that you see a lot of enthusiasm about, like, you're not seeing Josh Holly out here. It's really I mean, he did kind of substantively put a hold on the confirmation of Ali Moyorgas to be director to be secretary of DHS because he was concerned that Moyorgas' policies would be too dovish. soon. Instinctually, I agree with you that Trumpism without Trump logically would be big on he's not, like, that's not why he's talking why he's going out on Fox News. That's not why he, you know, writes a New York post op ed. The news from this morning that Trump's former OMB director is gonna start a, like, post Trump think tank to keep his issues in the national conversation. You, like, look through the list of things they're talking about, and it's, like, transgender rights, critical race theory, tech monopolies stifling free speech. It's all of the twenty twenty iteration of Trump's culture war rather than the twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen iteration. that makes me wonder if here. It's really, I mean, he did kind of substantively put a hold on the confirmation of alleyway orcas to be director, to be secretary of DHS because he was concerned that my orcas, his policies would be too dovish, but he's not like, that's not why he's talking, why he's going out on Fox way that Republicans are actually approaching Trumpism without Trump is not the way that I would have assumed that this looked substantively three years ago. I think one thing that's interesting about what you said is that if if you, like, put all this together, Biden not really focusing on specific policy aspects, I think it's notable that a lot of these specific policymaking well like, they are popular among Erikk. But when you start shifting to the culture war stuff of immigration, conversation. You like look through the list of things they're talking that's when you start getting into pricier Erikk. about. And it's like friends, gender rights, critical race theory, tech monopolies, stifling, free Like, that's when you start getting seen the Republican base getting riled up and conservative getting riled up. I mean, it's what Tucker Carlson would love to spend his show on. It's just like, look at this undocumented immigrant. They did this terrible thing. I mean, we saw bunch of those stories during the Trump years, and it's hard to, like, remember even most of them for me. I'm I'm sure you'd remember them Dara because, like, you were followed this closely. Yeah. But they were all recycled from Well, I think one thing that's, that's interesting about what you said is that if you put all this together Biden not really focusing on specific policy aspects, I think it's notable that a lot of these specific policies poll well, like they are popular among, among Americans, but when you start shifting to the culture, war, stuff of immigration, that's when you start getting into dicier territory, like that's, when you start getting, seeing the Republican base start getting riled up and conservatives getting riled like, it's it's it is going to be very interesting to see what happens when there is an actual news hole because the one story that you know, really created its own news cycles was the the killing of Kate Steinle. And but that's it. That's one. And that's not enough to really create you know, that's not enough to, like, do a show every night on, so it's gonna be interesting to see how that develops. Well well, that's just, like, to to like, Lind what I'm saying, I I'm, like, wondering if, like, buying strategies, up. I mean, it's Tucker Carlson would love to spend his show on is just like, look at this undocumented not talking about this issue is even, like, a remotely good idea because it does seem, like, this issue I mean, I've been looking at Breiffart's homepage regularly. thing. I mean, we saw a bunch of those stories during the Trump years and it's hard to like, remember even most of them for me, I'm sure you'd remember them Dar because like you were following this They are still talking about immigration. Tucker Carlson is still bringing up immigration. Like, I think if if they do want to just, like, say, like, look, we tried on this issue and move on. I don't think that's actually gonna make the issue go away. It's like a question of, if you if you just try to ignore this issue, I think you just let the culture war people take over and start spinning it in a way that is going to bring it up again. Maybe not during COVID, maybe not during an economic downturn as much. But eventually, I mean, I think we are going to start seeing Trumpism without Trump come right back to this issue. Well, well, that's just like to like, kind of what I'm Say to Erikk, talk about a white paper. saying. I'm like wondering if like buying strategies for like, not talking about this issue is even like a remotely good idea, because it does seem like this Hey, it's Sean Ramosfer on the host of Vox's Daily News podcast today explained hopefully by now you've made today, explained a part of your daily routine and great news if so or even if not. Vox is bringing you even more crucial daily content with our new podcast feed, Vox Erikk hits. You can subscribe to Vox Quick hits just like any other podcast, but each day, We'll be dropping a few new episodes spanning culture, oppositions, and policy to deliver you the concise yet deep explanations you need on everything from Biden's first hundred days in office to the best Netflix binge. Every morning, you'll wake up to new episodes in your feed, each coming in under ten minutes in the time it takes you to grab a cup of coffee and breakfast or commute to the couch. You can start your morning more informed. Vox Erikk hits in your favorite podcast app or ask your smart speaker to play the Vox Quick hits podcast. anxiety. In fact, in clinical studies participants who use Cove daily reported significant improvements in their stress levels and sleep Thanks. quality. The best part you can wear Cove anytime, anywhere, even while you're on your 10th video call of the day, all you need is 20 minutes to stress, less and sleep So the paper this week is called the effective police on prime, a natural experiment involving New Jersey's two largest cities. And it's from Erikk and Vijay Shilar. I might be butchering those Sorry if I am. But basically, what the paper did is back during the the great recession Lind around two thousand eight, two thousand nine, a lot of police departments around the country were facing big budget constraints. They had to decide, are we gonna make cuts? And in New Jersey, Newark and Jersey City, the two biggest cities in the state, took different paths. Newark actually did end up laying off a sizable amount of its police force. I think it added up to about thirteen percent. Whereas Jersey City ended up making a deal, so There were some pay cuts and some some benefits cuts, but they actually kept their police force intact overall. what this paper looked at is, like, look, this is a natural experiment to really go into the debate about, like, defund the police, like, police force Biden's. what are the ultimate effects on crime here when you decrease a police force significantly over a pretty rapid period? And what the paper found is that in North where they did cut police, crime was noticeably higher compared to Jersey City, especially violent crime. The the effects of violent crime were about twice as high. And this kind of matches what we've seen in some of the other research. This this paper does a good job, like, highlighting some of the the past literature on this area like, It it points out that, like, this is kind of the effect you would expect home. Everything you share is there are more comps. You do see less crime, but particularly less violent crime. I mean, that's what we saw here. I think what really makes this paper interesting is that it is a bit of a natural experiment since It's not like these two cities were choosing, like, to want to cut their police forces. So help. it's not something that they actively wanted to do, but it's something that at least one of them was forced to do. And and so yeah. I I think for for in terms of, like, this abate about, like, whether more cops are effective for finding more crime, just definitely another bit of evidence that, like, in fact, more cops do help. Reduce crime? So, Ramon, I am actually skeptical of the analysis in this paper in a way I'm I rarely am. And I I want I I'm hoping that you can kind of explain to me why I'm misunderstanding this because if you look at the figure in this paper that compares crime rates in Newark before and after the point where they laid off a bunch of officers 26 crime rates in Jersey City before and after that point as kind of the the natural experiment comparison. What you see is that violent both property and violent crime were trending downward in Jersey City before the point, and both of them continue to trend downward after more consistently in case of property crime particular. But, like, it's it's a trend that, you know, unsurprisingly, layoffs happening in a different city does not change those trends. But in Newark, even before the layoff point, violent crime was not going down.violent crime was like flat to rising. And so the fact that it continued to rise after the layoffs which is not addressed in the text of the paper is like, I'm not sure that I should credit the layoffs as being the difference making factor here. Property crime is going down before the layoffs then, like, rises and then goes down again. But I'm not sure that the takeaway here isn't that whatever Jersey City was doing in the late two thousands here. I think what really makes this paper interesting is that it is a bit of a natural experiment since it's not like these two cities were choosing, like to want to cut their police shouldn't have, you know, like like that that was good whatever Newark was doing was bad rather than that the layoffs themselves were, like, led to higher crime. I think that there are two two ways to explain that. One is crime data as you know is very noisy. So even if you, like, smooth it out in these kinds of charts, you will see, like, spikes that or or trends that, like, appear to be going in one direction, but it might be a result of, like, how you're smoothing this out overall. crime. So I think that's one thing. That said, I mean, I I think the paper does acknowledge that to some extent, and the the research does show that it's not just the size of a police force that matters here. And fact, some of the interesting things here is that Newark is a result of laying off such a sizeable portion of its police force actually stopped doing some, like, evidence based hotspot policing style stuff. And more than whether it decreased or increased or changed the composition of its police or size of its police force, that could explain the results we're seeing here. I think it would still speak to, like, how much the size of a police force matters because, like, if you don't have extra cops around to, like, be able to do hot spot a policing. You still might see higher crime trends, but it is just to say that that it's it's true that this doesn't Lind, like, the I don't think the size of police for explains the entire effect we're seeing here. But I mean, I think it's telling that the effect gets bigger as time goes on 26. So, like, the the split between Newark and Jersey City just keeps growing a little more and more as time goes on according to this paper. After the layoffs. And so that that 26 me suggests that, like, look, this probably is having an effect, but You're right. I I wouldn't say it's like the whole whole thing. You know what? There's another paper Steven Melo did a did a paper looking at the same time period because the stimulus act from two thousand nine provided I think that there are two ways to explain that one is crime data, as you know, is very some funding to cities to sort of avert police layoffs. But it had one of these congress likes to help researchers by incorporating largely arbitrary numerical cutoffs and things. So you can look at cities just above and just below the the threshold. You know, when he shows that the cities that got the extra money had lower crime in the intervening couple of years, actually doesn't look in detail at what the city's did with the money. I I mean, the the program is designed to make here. And in fact, some of the interesting things here is that Newark, as a result of laying off such a sizeable portion of its police force actually stopped doing some like evidence-based hotspot, policing style it so that you're supposed to avoid officer layoffs. But cities can sometimes do do mischief here. But that was the sort of the political context was different back then. And so there was a an Obama Biden administration initiative that was specifically focused on this question. Of of police officer layoffs which I think is fairly unlikely to recur even though they are arguing about state and local. Financial aid in in Congress, which would have that kind of impact there. You know, I've been interested that, like, a lot of people have published on this subject over the years. Oftentimes, when things academics work on become relevant to the news, they get excited and eager to speak up. That has not been my experience with people who have published in the police staffing research space, particularly those who did it, you know, five or ten years ago, back when I mean, 26 to an extent, like, this finding used to be considered a liberal Lind it. Right? It was Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Had the two big federal, like, police hiring initiatives. And most of the research on this basically confirms that Democratic presidents did something good. The violence of it Lind switched around to the left is wrong about police certain people have like. Gone squirrely on their own findings in in this wake. But, you know, when you think about a state local a a purely local Right? I mean, the natural thing to follow-up on here would be, like, what's the what's the other side of the trade off? Right? You gotta lay off somebody. Right? So there's, like, probably bad effects money. I mean, the program is designed to make it so that you're supposed to avoid officer layoffs, but cities can sometimes do do mischief here, but that was the sort of the political context was different back of whoever you lay off. And a case can be made that at the end of the day, you should lay off. Police officers. I do think some people over the past summer wanted to talk themselves into the idea that that was like a free lunch. Right, in which, like, you know, laying off librarians would be bad because people couldn't get books, but laying off police officers would have no negative consequences. But it's, you know, it's like it's like any other public service. If you lay off the people, you don't get the output. Well, I think another aspect here is that there is a cost to having more police officers as well in the sense that there's actually there was another study III can't remember for the life of me who published it, but there was another study that's, like, spoke to these issues and it looked at the breakdown on race on, like, the effect of having more police officers. And it found that, yes, having more police officers reduced homicide overall, but it also found that there were more arrests for, like, low level crimes, basically the kind of stuff that you would expect like, broken Lind policing, like, misdemeanor drug enforcement Lind of stuff. You you see more of that Lind that is a cost. And I I think it's it's notable that this paper does not look at that stuff, but III mean that as a cost in the sense of like, that's the kind of stuff that makes a lot of people in minority communities feel harassed every day when they're being stopped or stuff that probably shouldn't be crimes in in their eyes. Like, Like, should I really be getting stopped by a police officer for having loose cigarettes or should somebody else be taking care of that problem? Like, that's that's I think what what what this paper is missing, and think it's a noticeable aspect of it. That was the paper that you wrote about in the weeds newsletter last week. Right? This is why people should subscribe to the weeds newsletter. Yes. That's right. If you wanna subscribe, that's vox dot com slash weed slash newsletter. Anyway. But, yes, that that paper basically, like, it goes to show that, like, like, you have to balance this stuff out. Like, you you can't hire more police officers. You can't make them more effective. But I think, honestly, the point that, like, Matt has been making more broadly is, like, you still wanna do the reform stuff to hold cops accountable. You still wanna make sure they're going after the Like any other public service, if you lay off the people, you don't get the crimes. And this paper seeks to do it too. Like, there are still more better evidence based strategies to be focusing on, like, whole neighborhoods or whole communities, but, like, certain segments that are more likely to be committing more crime, like the hotspot policing, the focus to turn strategies those those seem to be more effective on top of perhaps just having more cops around to actually be able to do those things. Can you explain hot spot only saying because I find the findings of this to be wild? Right? It's basically just that having pops around, stops, cry. Like, you're you're I you just think about this, like, really practically, if if you're walking down the street and you see a cop on the other side of the street, you're probably not as likely to try to kill someone front of that cop because you know you're going to get caught. And and basically, what this research does is, like, the the whole thinking is you saturate these, like, certain blocks where you know crime is is unusually high relative to the rest of the city. You saturate those areas with a lot of comps. Like, you have lots of comps of trolling. You have lots of comps in sometimes just sitting there police cars, and it seems to work. I think one of the the big things here is it works by even just reducing the amount of problem? Like, that's, that's I think what, what, what this paper is that comps actually can make the end because the the presence of the comps is reducing crime. So there's fewer crimes to actually arrest people for. So right? This is why people should subscribe to the weeds that's that's one of the things that, like, makes us good if you want to stop, like, higher incarceration rates, it it Lind seeks to the give and take here in terms of, like, hire more comps versus more rest, there actually might be benefit to out. Like you, you can't hire more police officers, you can make them more to reducing mass incarceration by just higher more cops and just saturating certain areas of a city with them. Right. And then the question becomes, like, if you hire a bunch of people, give them guns and justification to use deadly force if they feel threatened then tell them that Erikk actual jobs to stand around and not do things, is that going to work? And that's where we get into the kind of, you know, not just policing strategy, but like, the relationship between strategy and the kind of organizational culture that that, you know, you weren't listened to earlier, Ramon, that matters address the the substance of what police are doing on a daily basis is really the fraught political thing something where research can only give us a certain amount of indication as to how to go move forward. Well, and I think from the from the public 26, because I think when people see hot spot policing in action, it looks really stupid to them. Because you literally talking about police officers standing still on a corner. On the theory that a lot of crimes have happened on that block. And I remember around actually where city. You saturate those areas with a lot of Jane's old apartment, but before there was condos there, there there used to be a lot of crime there. At a certain point, MPTC did a hotspot initiative. They brought one of these really bright lights that they have. And they just, like, had a squad car always be there. And I remember people on the listserv were, like, this is so stupid guys. Like, they could just do the crimes around the corner. Like, you've 26 go do something. Like, people people wanted to see the police. I was just doing something about the gang violence problem not sitting in their car at some corner where there had been a crime last week. And I was, like, typing out. I was, like, there's actually good research for this. Like, You know, so I don't know. I mean, I was not able to conduct a, you know, regression discontinuity study on that block. But it is what the research says you should do. Right? Is just send people to go to particular areas with high crime incidents and just Lind just kinda be there. And I think it's a very unintuitive way to invest resources. Right? Both from the side of of the officers, but also 26 the extent that the public wants to see, like, the mayor getting tough on crime, and maybe they don't. Right? Maybe they wanna see the mayor, like, reforming the police department. But if people are upset about crime they wanna see you taking action, I think they wanna see something that looks more like taking action. Right? There's no there's no guns on the table because you don't arrest anybody. Right? The idea is that people will say, Ugh, cops there. I just won't do the crimes. Which is good. Right? Like, that's a good outcome for society, but it's not a great it doesn't have, like, the political drama that you're looking for. Right. And I mean, the the flip side of it is if comps are doing the stuff then they're pressured or field pressure to actually go and do stuff, then they might start harassing people for stupid nonsense. So, like, it kinda seems like that organizational structure that Dara was speaking to, like, the what comps are expected to do, what we should expect comps to do, and, like, what they're being held accountable for. Because, like, you could tell, like, these comps as you're deploying them, like, Look, police do not make these low level arrests. But if you're a police department, guys. Like they could just do the crimes around the you don't maybe you feel like you're you've been too tough on your officers recently, like the unions, telling you that policymaking them feel like their time is being wasted. Like, you might turn the other way. Look look the other way when when they are actually doing hot spot quote unquote, but in effect just harassing a bunch of people on the neighborhood. So it's just again, there's a there's a balancing act here. And I don't think this study does enough to, like, show that, like, look, the that just just because this might have happened in in Jersey City versus New York, like, necessarily in every city if you start doing higher more comps, even trying stuff like hot spot police that'll work out as you as you would want it to. Alright. Thanks, guys. Thanks for another exciting episode of The Weeds. Thanks to Arman for coming on with us today. Thanks as always to our sponsors our producer, Erikk and who's will be back on Friday. department. But if people are upset about crime and they want to see you taking action, I think they want to see something that looks more like taking action, Hi. I'm Avery Treflaman, the host of The Cut, a new podcast from New York Magazine and the Vox podcast network. Mhmm. Mhmm. there. I just won't do the crimes, which is Every Wednesday, we work to explore important provocative ideas about the world around us. So far, we've discussed what it's like to move back into your parents' house Lind why that's actually an incredible and empowering thing to do. We've also talked about what means to be radical and society expects you to be practical and pragmatic. We'd love for you to join us. Subscribe to the cut in your favorite podcast app to get new episodes each week. do. And like what they're being held accountable for. Because like, you could tell like these cops, as you're deploying them, like, look, please do not make these low-level arrests. But if you're a police department, you don't, maybe you feel like you're, you've been too tough on your officers recently. Like the unions telling you that you're, you're making them feel like their time is being wasted. Like you might turn the other way. Look, look the other way when, when they are actually doing hotspot policing, quote unquote, but in effect, just harassing a bunch of people in the neighborhood. So it's just, again, there's a, there's a balancing act here. And I don't think this study does enough to like, show that like, look the, that just, just because this might have happened in Jersey city versus Newark, like necessarily in every city, if you start doing hire more cops, even try and stuff like hotspot policing that'll work out as you, as you would want it. All right. Thanks guys. Thanks for another exciting episode of the weeds. Thanks to Herman for coming on with us Hi, I'm Avery. Truffleman the host of the cut a new podcast from New York magazine and the Vox media podcast network. Every Wednesday, we work to explore important provocative ideas about the world around us. So far, we've discussed what it's like to move back into your parents' house and why that's actually an incredible and empowering thing to do. We've also talked about what it means to be a radical in society, expects you to be practical and pragmatic. We'd love for you to join us, subscribe to the cut in your favorite podcast app to get new episodes each week.