The crisis at the border

America Explained

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There is a humanitarian crisis at the southern border, and Republicans in Congress will be working hard to make it a political crisis for the Biden administration in the coming year. But the dirty secret of Biden's immigration policy is that it continued the use of a very repressive tool first used by Trump - so-called "Title 42" immediate expulsions. This episode traces the debate over the issue and how the situation at the border got so bad.

Correction: In the episode, Andy discussed a new "humanitarian parole" program created by the administration and stated there are only 30,000 places on it. That should have been "30,000 places a month".

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Credits

Host - Andy Gawthorpe

Researcher, editorial assistant - Catherine Wood