March 28, 2024 • 17 mins
Immigration has become a top issue for voters in the 2024 election cycle, but people on the border want action now — not after November.
On the Big Take DC podcast, Bloomberg's Washington Bureau Chief Peggy Collins visits Eagle Pass, Texas, to explore why the US-Mexico border is shaping up to be a dominant campaign issue and what the needs on the ground really are.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
In twenty sixteen, Donald Trump had a simple solution that
he believed would stop the migrant crisis, build what he
called a big, beautiful wall on the border between the
US and Mexico. At the time, a lot of Americans,
even some Republicans like Jeb Bush and Rick Perry, dismissed
the IDEA simple.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Fact is that his proposal is unrealistic.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
The cost, the time, the maintenance of that is not reality.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And for most American voters, immigration was not at the
top of the list for issues driving their votes. Today
that's changed. A Harvard Capps Harris poll found immigration is
now the top issue for voters over the economy, and
one from Monmouth University found that a majority of Americans
now support building a border wall.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
One of the things we heard when we were in
New Hampshire for the primaries Iowa, South Carolina is that
not only is the economy top of mind for voters
this year, but also immigration and border security were coming
up time and time again in all different places in
the US.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's Peggy Collins, Washington Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News as
the person shaping the newsroom's coverage of the election. Peggy
is watched as the border has taken center stage in
both Trump and Biden's campaigns, but she hadn't seen it
for herself. So Peggy decided to go to the place
at the heart of this issue to understand how national
(01:38):
politics are playing out there. She flew down to Eagle Pass.
That's a small city right on the border in Texas.
It's become a beacon of hope for many migrants seeking
asylum in the US and an inflection point for law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
As he's walked.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And ridden trains and hitchhiked, you could just see in
her face like she was gone.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Resources that we have.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
That's the most that we can do, like the best
that we can do.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Today on the show, we bring you voices from the
US Mexico border after Bloomberg's Washington bureau chief Peggy Collins
went down there. How are the state and national policies
that everyone is talking about playing out on the ground
and how could all of this shape the border conversation
in the twenty twenty four election. From Bloomberg's Washington bureau,
(02:28):
this is the big take DC podcast. I'm Saleamoso Eagle Pass, Texas.
It's a city of twenty eight thousand people. Right along
the Rio Grande.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
You can see right over to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The US border with Mexico is almost two thousand miles long.
Parts of it are urban, others are desert, and some
parts have sand dunes. In Texas, the Rio Grande is
the dividing line. And the thing about Eagle Pass that
makes it unique is that it sits at a spot
where the river is especially narrow.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I mean, it really looks like you could throw a
baseball across and hit it. You look across at the
river and you think, oh, I could swim across that,
no problem.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
People drive multiple times a day from Eagle Pass, Texas
to Padras Negras, Mexico, across a bridge, connecting the communities physically, socially,
and culturally. There were people we talked to who had
grown up in Mexico, gone to school in Eagle Pass,
become citizens, now have homes in Eagle Pass, but go
back to Mexico to see family or for events in
(03:34):
a given week. This proximity and just how narrow the
river gets are what brings thousands of migrants a day
to Eagle Pass. They're all hoping they can get across
the river into US territory.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
It's deceptive.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It looks really peaceful, right.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Pancha Navarres is a former Texas state representative who owns
a ranch right along the border in Eagle Pass. He
says that Rio Grand may look narrow and easy to cross,
but it's actually really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
There's a lot of crevices and limestone where you can
get caught. It'll kind of suck you in and drowning you. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The current is very strong, and many people have died
by drowning when they tried across the border because the
current is deceptibly fast. But thousands of people do make
it across, leaving their wet clothes on the banks of
the river. Telea, I can't express enough how when we
drove up to this part of the border, there are
(04:29):
mounds and mounds and mounds of clothes, Like when you
step on it, you can't feel the ground because the
clothes are stacked up and it's so thick shirts, jeans, bras,
children's sneakers. But making it across the river and into
dry clothes is far from the end. Of the journey.
Right on the water, right up against the piles of
(04:52):
clothes are razor wire fences with rows and rows of
sharp teeth. It's really striking in emotional to see because
it almost looks like it's possible to get through them,
because they're kind of circles, and so it's almost like
a bit like wow, I think someone could actually get
through that. But when you get closer, you realize that
(05:13):
it's almost impossible to get through them without you know,
really getting cut or scraped. There are a few spots
in the fence where people have found openings. Peggy saw
one on this rancher's property.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
There was a part of the wire that had basically
been opened or pushed down enough that people were able
to come through. And because so many people have access
to social media now, they have basically been able to
message to lots of people that there's this opening and
a place you can get through. Navarres agreed to let
(05:46):
the state put up that barbed wire fencing along his border,
but before long he had an experience that made him reconsider.
He was walking around the property with his daughter.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
We came across as young girl. She was barefoot carrying
a child and pregnant. You know, we found out later
after talking to her that she was seventeen years old.
The child she was carrying was two and a half
years old, and she had walked and ridden trains and
hitchhiked all the way from Atlantida on ludahs. By the
(06:17):
time we got to her, sar like you could just
see in her face like she was done, like spent.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
She was gashed from the wire, but she had beat it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And so what it instantly told me is that somebody
who's walked three thousand miles and ridden trains and hitch
hike and probably been beaten and robbed is not going
to be stopped by that. I've been talking to the
guard I told him I want to shut down because
it's any humane and doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Generally, it's up to the Federal Border Patrol agents to
police the US Mexico border, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott
says the Biden administry isn't doing enough to prevent illegal crossings.
In fiscal twenty twenty three, officials encountered almost four hundred
thousand migrants crossing the border into the Del Rio region,
where Eagle Pass is located. So Abbot took matters into
(07:14):
his own hands. He took aim at one place in particular,
a spot right on the water called Shelby Park. In January,
Abbot sent in the Texas National Guard and created a
militarized zone. They blocked out Federal Border Patrol agents and
put up new barriers, razor wires, and buoys, all to
discourage migrants from trying to cross the river.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
It was a ship at containas first, and then it
was a Coontatina wire. And then there's a new barrier.
I'll show you right now, a psychle fence. It's called
an anti climb barrier.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Lieutenant Christopher Olivarrez works for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
He showed Peggy the new reinforcements at Shelby Park.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
I mean this was ground zero used to be. If
you remember back in December, there was a lot of
I guess you know video images from other media outlets
where you would see thousands that were kind of grouped
here in this field. This is where that's where this
was taking place.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Do you see a market difference in terms of the
volume of people coming through here as a result.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Yeah, So in December we're averaging probably the last two years,
a little over two thousand crossings a day a day
in this area here a Shelby Park and even outside
of Shelby Park in the close proximity. And then when
National Guard took over the park, secure the park put
up more barriers, more fencing, more wire. Ever since then,
it's been a ninety percent decrease in illegal crossings at
(08:32):
Shelby Park.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Abbott and other Republican lawmakers count this as a win,
but some argue that the dip in crossings could be seasonal,
something we see every year during the winter, and Pancha
Navarres believes that even if crossings are down at Shelby Park,
it just means that people will find another spot at
the border to cross. He told Peggy that he sees
(08:55):
all of this as a political stunt.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Having us under siege, if you will, makes it look
good for them, and the truth is we're fine. But
what we need is people to stop believing that somehow
this protects anybody, because it doesn't. You don't really care
about this crisis other than to mine it for votes.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
When it comes to using the issue for votes, it's
worth noting that bipartisan immigration legislation has been held up
in Congress. Biden has blamed Republicans for that, saying they
don't want to pass it and let him take credit. Meanwhile,
calling in the National Guard was just one of Governor
Abbot's moves. The other one that's gotten a lot of
publicity bussing migrants to other states up north. We get
(09:38):
into the political consequences and the human consequences of the
bussing after the break. In April twenty twenty two, Governor
Greg Abbott announced a radical new plan.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
To move migrants away from the Texas border.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
This morning, more micant arriving in New York City, bus
after bus, at least six pulling into the city's port authority.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Since then, the state has spent more than one hundred
and forty eight million dollars doing just that. It's been
a very effective tool enforcing the issue onto Democrats and
President Biden's agenda. Biden isn't a tricky spot. He can't
tout high numbers of turnoways at the border without angering
progressives who are pushing for a more sensitive and humane
(10:26):
approach to border policy. But he also needs to do
something to show voters around the country who are increasingly
concerned about immigration policy that he's taking it seriously. Here's
Washington Bureau Chief Peggy Collins again.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I think in the last few months, as the issue
has become so intense, and as the volume of people
going through places like Eagle Pass has just exploded, the
Biden administration has realized that it does have to have
a stance on this, be able to point to ways
that they are trying to help bit or ways that
(11:01):
they can say, look, we tried to do this, but
Republicans are not allowing us to do this.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
In February, Biden took a visit to a border town
some three hundred miles from Eagle Pass, and you can
hear him trying to convince the people there that he's
been trying to get stuff done with the most recent
border bill that's making its way through Congress, but he
says that Republican lawmakers are standing in his way.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
I want the people to understand clearly what happened here.
This bill was a United States Senate was on its
way to be passed, then it was derailed by rank
and file politician ranked a partisan politics.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
But meanwhile down the river, an Eagle Pass on the
exact same day was his opponent.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
This is a Joe Biden invasion. This is a Biden
invasion over the past three years.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Peggy spoke with a city official during her visit who
said that all these stump speeches are not helping people
on the ground. They said that sometimes it's frustrating because
people will come and take a photo op and then leave,
and they feel like they need help now, and they
can't wait till the election, and they don't want to
(12:10):
be pawns in this political back and forth. What we
need is for people to really sit down and try
to do immigration reform in some ways. Peggy also met
migrants who had just crossed the border into Eagle Pass.
One of them was Nancy Lopez, a mother of two
Sali Porkie.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I left because I was attacked by the father of
my children, and I was afraid of being there, so
I left. I came here with my kids to give
them an education and to work.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Nancy said she traveled nearly eighteen hundred miles all the
way from Honduras.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So I boorded the train to cross the and I
was worried the whole way because I was traveling with
my kids. And it's not safe. You feel afraid, like
I said.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Yell.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Nancy hoped that once she arrived, she could find her
way north. She said her sister lives in North Carolina,
so she planned to save up enough money for bus
fare for her. Governor Abbot's busing program might actually be
a welcome offer, and she's not alone.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Do you have received people that come and write when
they enter our place, they're like, we want to go.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
In the free buses.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's Valeria Wheeler, the executive director of a nonprofit called
Mission Border Hope. The organization gives recently arrived migrants basic support, shelter, clothing, food,
phone lines to call their families. Valeria said that those
migrants have been increasingly showing up and asking about Abbot's buses,
which they heard about on TikTok.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
It's like, Hi, I'm in New York. I took a
boss from Middle Past to New York for free.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Critics say that Abbot's bussing program is using migrants as
human political tools, trying to overwhelm social services in northern
cities that are unprepared for this sort of influx. But
it's complicated for people like Valeria who are on the ground,
providing care to hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross
the border into her city each year. Valeria told Peggy,
(14:22):
she said.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
You know, I understand that, and we don't want to
be a burden to other places. But we are Egle
Pass and we are very small town and doing the
best that we can with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people,
as we were told in December, across the border in
one day.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The least think we want to create is chaos.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And difficult situation in other places.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
With the resources that we have.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
That's the most that we can do, like the best
that we can do.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And she was saying, look, I hear you, but also
we're very small and places like New York and Chicago
are much bigger, so we do need some help here.
I saw things that stunned her. We saw children who
were there in a nurse's station that was set up
because a lot of the migrants that are crossing have
walked for days, weeks and sometimes even months, and so
(15:12):
their feet are severely damaged. We saw one child where
they were taking tweezers and taking some things out of
the bottom of their feet.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
And she heard about problems that are regular occurrences in
Eagle paths.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Some people who may feel like they don't qualify for
asylum are more likely to try and cross farther away
from a port of entry and then potentially link up
with a smuggler that they've heard of through TikTok or
social media. For example, we were told jump in a
car and then try to get as far away from
(15:45):
the border as fast as possible. We heard the state
troopers say that they've had issues with literally some of
these cars driving down streets in the opposite direction, and
sometimes they call it a bailout, where all of a sudden,
the driver will realize that, you know, they're stuck, like
they're not going to be able to get out of
a law enforcement at a certain point, and then everyone
(16:07):
just like jumps out of the car and runs.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I asked Peggy what's stuck with her from her visit
to the border and what she'll be thinking about as
she steers coverage of the immigration debate going into the
twenty twenty four election. That felt like when we were
in Eagle Pass and on the Texas border, that it
has reached a breaking, if not inflection point. We do
need to figure out a way to improve our immigration
(16:32):
system because the flow of migrants is not going to stop.
Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Bloomberg News. I'm Salaiah Mosen. This episode was produced by
Julia Press. It was edited by Caitlin Kenny and Stacey Vanocksmith.
It was mixed by Ben O'Brien. It was fact checked
(16:53):
by Thomas Leu. Thanks to Adriana Tapia Zavra for providing
translations and a special thing. Thanks to our Bloomberg Originals
colleagues and to Julie Fine. Bomi Shavin is our senior producer.
Michael Shepherd, Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction.
Nicole Beemster Bower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is
(17:14):
Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Please review and subscribe to The
Big Take DC wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps
new listeners find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be
back next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
In twenty sixteen, Donald Trump had a simple solution that
he believed would stop the migrant crisis, build what he
called a big, beautiful wall on the border between the
US and Mexico. At the time, a lot of Americans,
even some Republicans like Jeb Bush and Rick Perry, dismissed
the IDEA simple.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Fact is that his proposal is unrealistic.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
The cost, the time, the maintenance of that is not reality.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And for most American voters, immigration was not at the
top of the list for issues driving their votes. Today
that's changed. A Harvard Capps Harris poll found immigration is
now the top issue for voters over the economy, and
one from Monmouth University found that a majority of Americans
now support building a border wall.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
One of the things we heard when we were in
New Hampshire for the primaries Iowa, South Carolina is that
not only is the economy top of mind for voters
this year, but also immigration and border security were coming
up time and time again in all different places in
the US.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's Peggy Collins, Washington Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News as
the person shaping the newsroom's coverage of the election. Peggy
is watched as the border has taken center stage in
both Trump and Biden's campaigns, but she hadn't seen it
for herself. So Peggy decided to go to the place
at the heart of this issue to understand how national
(01:38):
politics are playing out there. She flew down to Eagle Pass.
That's a small city right on the border in Texas.
It's become a beacon of hope for many migrants seeking
asylum in the US and an inflection point for law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
As he's walked.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And ridden trains and hitchhiked, you could just see in
her face like she was gone.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Resources that we have.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
That's the most that we can do, like the best
that we can do.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Today on the show, we bring you voices from the
US Mexico border after Bloomberg's Washington bureau chief Peggy Collins
went down there. How are the state and national policies
that everyone is talking about playing out on the ground
and how could all of this shape the border conversation
in the twenty twenty four election. From Bloomberg's Washington bureau,
(02:28):
this is the big take DC podcast. I'm Saleamoso Eagle Pass, Texas.
It's a city of twenty eight thousand people. Right along
the Rio Grande.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
You can see right over to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The US border with Mexico is almost two thousand miles long.
Parts of it are urban, others are desert, and some
parts have sand dunes. In Texas, the Rio Grande is
the dividing line. And the thing about Eagle Pass that
makes it unique is that it sits at a spot
where the river is especially narrow.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I mean, it really looks like you could throw a
baseball across and hit it. You look across at the
river and you think, oh, I could swim across that,
no problem.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
People drive multiple times a day from Eagle Pass, Texas
to Padras Negras, Mexico, across a bridge, connecting the communities physically, socially,
and culturally. There were people we talked to who had
grown up in Mexico, gone to school in Eagle Pass,
become citizens, now have homes in Eagle Pass, but go
back to Mexico to see family or for events in
(03:34):
a given week. This proximity and just how narrow the
river gets are what brings thousands of migrants a day
to Eagle Pass. They're all hoping they can get across
the river into US territory.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
It's deceptive.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It looks really peaceful, right.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Pancha Navarres is a former Texas state representative who owns
a ranch right along the border in Eagle Pass. He
says that Rio Grand may look narrow and easy to cross,
but it's actually really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
There's a lot of crevices and limestone where you can
get caught. It'll kind of suck you in and drowning you. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The current is very strong, and many people have died
by drowning when they tried across the border because the
current is deceptibly fast. But thousands of people do make
it across, leaving their wet clothes on the banks of
the river. Telea, I can't express enough how when we
drove up to this part of the border, there are
(04:29):
mounds and mounds and mounds of clothes, Like when you
step on it, you can't feel the ground because the
clothes are stacked up and it's so thick shirts, jeans, bras,
children's sneakers. But making it across the river and into
dry clothes is far from the end. Of the journey.
Right on the water, right up against the piles of
(04:52):
clothes are razor wire fences with rows and rows of
sharp teeth. It's really striking in emotional to see because
it almost looks like it's possible to get through them,
because they're kind of circles, and so it's almost like
a bit like wow, I think someone could actually get
through that. But when you get closer, you realize that
(05:13):
it's almost impossible to get through them without you know,
really getting cut or scraped. There are a few spots
in the fence where people have found openings. Peggy saw
one on this rancher's property.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
There was a part of the wire that had basically
been opened or pushed down enough that people were able
to come through. And because so many people have access
to social media now, they have basically been able to
message to lots of people that there's this opening and
a place you can get through. Navarres agreed to let
(05:46):
the state put up that barbed wire fencing along his border,
but before long he had an experience that made him reconsider.
He was walking around the property with his daughter.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
We came across as young girl. She was barefoot carrying
a child and pregnant. You know, we found out later
after talking to her that she was seventeen years old.
The child she was carrying was two and a half
years old, and she had walked and ridden trains and
hitchhiked all the way from Atlantida on ludahs. By the
(06:17):
time we got to her, sar like you could just
see in her face like she was done, like spent.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
She was gashed from the wire, but she had beat it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And so what it instantly told me is that somebody
who's walked three thousand miles and ridden trains and hitch
hike and probably been beaten and robbed is not going
to be stopped by that. I've been talking to the
guard I told him I want to shut down because
it's any humane and doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Generally, it's up to the Federal Border Patrol agents to
police the US Mexico border, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott
says the Biden administry isn't doing enough to prevent illegal crossings.
In fiscal twenty twenty three, officials encountered almost four hundred
thousand migrants crossing the border into the Del Rio region,
where Eagle Pass is located. So Abbot took matters into
(07:14):
his own hands. He took aim at one place in particular,
a spot right on the water called Shelby Park. In January,
Abbot sent in the Texas National Guard and created a
militarized zone. They blocked out Federal Border Patrol agents and
put up new barriers, razor wires, and buoys, all to
discourage migrants from trying to cross the river.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
It was a ship at containas first, and then it
was a Coontatina wire. And then there's a new barrier.
I'll show you right now, a psychle fence. It's called
an anti climb barrier.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Lieutenant Christopher Olivarrez works for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
He showed Peggy the new reinforcements at Shelby Park.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
I mean this was ground zero used to be. If
you remember back in December, there was a lot of
I guess you know video images from other media outlets
where you would see thousands that were kind of grouped
here in this field. This is where that's where this
was taking place.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Do you see a market difference in terms of the
volume of people coming through here as a result.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Yeah, So in December we're averaging probably the last two years,
a little over two thousand crossings a day a day
in this area here a Shelby Park and even outside
of Shelby Park in the close proximity. And then when
National Guard took over the park, secure the park put
up more barriers, more fencing, more wire. Ever since then,
it's been a ninety percent decrease in illegal crossings at
(08:32):
Shelby Park.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Abbott and other Republican lawmakers count this as a win,
but some argue that the dip in crossings could be seasonal,
something we see every year during the winter, and Pancha
Navarres believes that even if crossings are down at Shelby Park,
it just means that people will find another spot at
the border to cross. He told Peggy that he sees
(08:55):
all of this as a political stunt.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Having us under siege, if you will, makes it look
good for them, and the truth is we're fine. But
what we need is people to stop believing that somehow
this protects anybody, because it doesn't. You don't really care
about this crisis other than to mine it for votes.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
When it comes to using the issue for votes, it's
worth noting that bipartisan immigration legislation has been held up
in Congress. Biden has blamed Republicans for that, saying they
don't want to pass it and let him take credit. Meanwhile,
calling in the National Guard was just one of Governor
Abbot's moves. The other one that's gotten a lot of
publicity bussing migrants to other states up north. We get
(09:38):
into the political consequences and the human consequences of the
bussing after the break. In April twenty twenty two, Governor
Greg Abbott announced a radical new plan.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
To move migrants away from the Texas border.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
This morning, more micant arriving in New York City, bus
after bus, at least six pulling into the city's port authority.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Since then, the state has spent more than one hundred
and forty eight million dollars doing just that. It's been
a very effective tool enforcing the issue onto Democrats and
President Biden's agenda. Biden isn't a tricky spot. He can't
tout high numbers of turnoways at the border without angering
progressives who are pushing for a more sensitive and humane
(10:26):
approach to border policy. But he also needs to do
something to show voters around the country who are increasingly
concerned about immigration policy that he's taking it seriously. Here's
Washington Bureau Chief Peggy Collins again.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I think in the last few months, as the issue
has become so intense, and as the volume of people
going through places like Eagle Pass has just exploded, the
Biden administration has realized that it does have to have
a stance on this, be able to point to ways
that they are trying to help bit or ways that
(11:01):
they can say, look, we tried to do this, but
Republicans are not allowing us to do this.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
In February, Biden took a visit to a border town
some three hundred miles from Eagle Pass, and you can
hear him trying to convince the people there that he's
been trying to get stuff done with the most recent
border bill that's making its way through Congress, but he
says that Republican lawmakers are standing in his way.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
I want the people to understand clearly what happened here.
This bill was a United States Senate was on its
way to be passed, then it was derailed by rank
and file politician ranked a partisan politics.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
But meanwhile down the river, an Eagle Pass on the
exact same day was his opponent.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
This is a Joe Biden invasion. This is a Biden
invasion over the past three years.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Peggy spoke with a city official during her visit who
said that all these stump speeches are not helping people
on the ground. They said that sometimes it's frustrating because
people will come and take a photo op and then leave,
and they feel like they need help now, and they
can't wait till the election, and they don't want to
(12:10):
be pawns in this political back and forth. What we
need is for people to really sit down and try
to do immigration reform in some ways. Peggy also met
migrants who had just crossed the border into Eagle Pass.
One of them was Nancy Lopez, a mother of two
Sali Porkie.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I left because I was attacked by the father of
my children, and I was afraid of being there, so
I left. I came here with my kids to give
them an education and to work.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Nancy said she traveled nearly eighteen hundred miles all the
way from Honduras.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So I boorded the train to cross the and I
was worried the whole way because I was traveling with
my kids. And it's not safe. You feel afraid, like
I said.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Yell.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Nancy hoped that once she arrived, she could find her
way north. She said her sister lives in North Carolina,
so she planned to save up enough money for bus
fare for her. Governor Abbot's busing program might actually be
a welcome offer, and she's not alone.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Do you have received people that come and write when
they enter our place, they're like, we want to go.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
In the free buses.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's Valeria Wheeler, the executive director of a nonprofit called
Mission Border Hope. The organization gives recently arrived migrants basic support, shelter, clothing, food,
phone lines to call their families. Valeria said that those
migrants have been increasingly showing up and asking about Abbot's buses,
which they heard about on TikTok.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
It's like, Hi, I'm in New York. I took a
boss from Middle Past to New York for free.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Critics say that Abbot's bussing program is using migrants as
human political tools, trying to overwhelm social services in northern
cities that are unprepared for this sort of influx. But
it's complicated for people like Valeria who are on the ground,
providing care to hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross
the border into her city each year. Valeria told Peggy,
(14:22):
she said.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
You know, I understand that, and we don't want to
be a burden to other places. But we are Egle
Pass and we are very small town and doing the
best that we can with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people,
as we were told in December, across the border in
one day.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The least think we want to create is chaos.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And difficult situation in other places.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
With the resources that we have.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
That's the most that we can do, like the best
that we can do.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And she was saying, look, I hear you, but also
we're very small and places like New York and Chicago
are much bigger, so we do need some help here.
I saw things that stunned her. We saw children who
were there in a nurse's station that was set up
because a lot of the migrants that are crossing have
walked for days, weeks and sometimes even months, and so
(15:12):
their feet are severely damaged. We saw one child where
they were taking tweezers and taking some things out of
the bottom of their feet.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
And she heard about problems that are regular occurrences in
Eagle paths.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Some people who may feel like they don't qualify for
asylum are more likely to try and cross farther away
from a port of entry and then potentially link up
with a smuggler that they've heard of through TikTok or
social media. For example, we were told jump in a
car and then try to get as far away from
(15:45):
the border as fast as possible. We heard the state
troopers say that they've had issues with literally some of
these cars driving down streets in the opposite direction, and
sometimes they call it a bailout, where all of a sudden,
the driver will realize that, you know, they're stuck, like
they're not going to be able to get out of
a law enforcement at a certain point, and then everyone
(16:07):
just like jumps out of the car and runs.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I asked Peggy what's stuck with her from her visit
to the border and what she'll be thinking about as
she steers coverage of the immigration debate going into the
twenty twenty four election. That felt like when we were
in Eagle Pass and on the Texas border, that it
has reached a breaking, if not inflection point. We do
need to figure out a way to improve our immigration
(16:32):
system because the flow of migrants is not going to stop.
Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Bloomberg News. I'm Salaiah Mosen. This episode was produced by
Julia Press. It was edited by Caitlin Kenny and Stacey Vanocksmith.
It was mixed by Ben O'Brien. It was fact checked
(16:53):
by Thomas Leu. Thanks to Adriana Tapia Zavra for providing
translations and a special thing. Thanks to our Bloomberg Originals
colleagues and to Julie Fine. Bomi Shavin is our senior producer.
Michael Shepherd, Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction.
Nicole Beemster Bower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is
(17:14):
Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Please review and subscribe to The
Big Take DC wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps
new listeners find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be
back next week.
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