On this episode of “The Opinions,” the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy talks to the columnist Lydia Polgreen concerning the international panic round migration, and what President Trump’s efforts to curb it imply for the USA and its place on this planet.
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Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of New York Instances Opinion, and that is The First 100 Days, a weekly sequence inspecting President Trump’s use of energy and his drive to vary America. This week I needed to speak to my colleague the columnist Lydia Polgreen. For the previous yr, Lydia has been reporting from all over the world about migration and the way the worldwide inhabitants is shifting.
She’s checked out who wins and who loses when a rustic decides there’s an excessive amount of immigration. In lots of the wealthiest nations, like the USA, these adjustments have sparked a wave of conservative political victories and insurance policies. Now, as everyone knows, Donald Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportation. That hasn’t occurred in a widespread approach but. However his administration has began a really public clampdown in ways in which courts have dominated illegal or unconstitutional.
Trump desires to totally reshape immigration in America and the way America sees immigrants, and I needed to speak to Lydia about what he’s doing right here and the place it could lead our society.
Lydia, thanks for coming in at present.
Lydia Polgreen: It’s a pleasure, Patrick.
Healy: I needed to the touch first on two instances which have been within the information and that you just and I’ve each been watching: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was by accident deported to El Salvador, and Rumeysa Ozturk, the scholar arrested from Tufts College. How do you concentrate on these two tales within the context of your years as a overseas correspondent and in addition as somebody who has lined migration so deeply?
Polgreen: I believe that each of those instances communicate to one thing that goes to the center of the query of what sort of nation we wish to be. And sfor each of those instances, the best way that — in a matter that appears to me utterly lawless — the Trump administration appears to be attempting to reveal a ”do-not-come-here” message. And they’ll train a rare quantity of discretion in energy in deciding who’s undesirable and search to take away them from this nation with none type of due course of.
These instances, to me, communicate to one thing that I believe People have a very onerous time wrapping their heads round, which is the concept perhaps folks simply gained’t wish to come to the USA. We’ve these insurance policies of restriction which might be so harsh and so draconian that individuals may look across the globe and say: “You realize what? Really, perhaps that’s not the place for me. Perhaps there isn’t the chance that I believed that there could be.”
And one of many issues that I’ve executed in my travels is speak to lots of people, notably individuals who oppose migration, and ask them the query, “How would it not really feel to stay in a rustic that individuals needed to go away slightly than be a rustic that individuals needed to come back to?”
The strain of that dynamic, of individuals worrying that outsiders are going to come back and take the great issues that they’ve, with out appreciating that these outsiders are wanting to come back and take part in what you will have, slightly than take — it will get misplaced on folks. I worry that the USA is turning into a rustic that actually desires to show its again on what it has gained from being a spot that individuals wish to come to.
Healy: Lydia, you simply received at one thing that puzzles me a lot about this. For a lot of my lifetime, so many People took pleasure in the truth that folks from El Salvador and Turkey, college students from China or Western, Japanese Europe needed to come back to America. And now, as you had been additionally saying, it looks as if many individuals now appear very, frankly, snug with the concept this administration desires to both cease a few of these folks from coming or really take away them. As you take a look at our latest historical past, is there a second that stands out to you that is sensible about why this sort of shift occurred amongst People?
Polgreen: Yeah. I’ve spent a whole lot of time fascinated about the polling on immigration in the USA, notably at this second the place we’ve seen help for Donald Trump actually crater on the problems that he has historically executed fairly nicely on. And the one place he’s really been above water is on immigration.
I believe that what that displays is a deep sense of unhappiness amongst People and People actually of all races and backgrounds — together with People of immigrant backgrounds — a way that issues had simply actually gotten uncontrolled.
It’s very straightforward to take a look at the scenario that was unfolding beneath the Biden administration and say we successfully had open borders, however we’ve had a political type of impasse on migration for a really very long time. There has not been a critical immigration reform invoice in Congress because the Eighties — we’re speaking within the Reagan administration. When People speak about desirous to crack down on immigration, I believe what they’re actually on the lookout for is a few sense of management and a few sense that there’s an orderly course of that they’re fairly completely satisfied for newcomers to come back to the USA and be a part of our neighborhood, however there must be a way for that to occur in an orderly vogue.
And within the midst of that, I believe you’ve had a really opportunistic Republican Social gathering beneath Donald Trump that has realized that for them, blocking any type of immigration reform is definitely actually good politics as a result of it means you need to use the specter of an enormous flood of migrants coming into the nation as a perpetual boogeyman, as an argument for “for this reason we have to be in cost” as a result of in any other case we’re going to have some type of invasion. And it’s actually labored nicely for them.
What you’re seeing if you ballot the American folks on this situation is definitely a need for compromise. They need one thing that is sensible. And as an alternative we’re introduced with a binary alternative between open borders and what we’re seeing proper now, which is principally transport folks off to overseas gulags. Clearly that’s not the vary of choices — there’s an enormous vary of choices. However within the meantime, I worry that we’re doing extraordinarily critical and actually long-lasting injury to the fame of the USA as a world vacation spot.
Healy: Lydia, I’m having a kind of moments of déjà vu that you just and I get after many years of working at The New York Instances and being reporters. I simply left this focus group of Trump supporters on Monday night time, and essentially the most animated a part of the main focus group by far was about immigration. They touched on a number of of the phrases that you just simply touched on: this need for some type of management, a way that issues received uncontrolled.
A few them do not forget that second in the summertime of 2019 when all of the Democrats who had been operating for president towards Trump stood on a debate stage and raised their hand primarily for a way of open borders. These had been folks within the focus group who had been Democrats who voted for Democrats in 2016 and 2020 after which flipped to Trump in 2024. They needed the management that they thought Trump might get, however in addition they felt that sense of the puzzle, like what’s the proper consequence?
That is the factor about Trump. He promised to do a whole lot of the issues when he was operating for president that he’s now doing. He was true to his phrase to some extent. However I believe what so many individuals that I’ve heard from over these final 100 days have mentioned is that they didn’t anticipate college students to be snatched on sidewalks by mass federal brokers they usually didn’t suppose issues like that occurred in America.
So I’m questioning the way you see this in the end enjoying out. Will People settle for this for very lengthy?
Polgreen: I believe it’s vital to level out that the polling is on immigration broadly. However if you ask about particular techniques and insurance policies, the help plummets, proper?
People are — as latest polling captures it — horrified by the masked brokers that you just talked about, the concept individuals are being shipped off with out due course of. I don’t suppose these are issues that People, by and huge, help. However I believe that the fact is that maybe they belief that Donald Trump will have the ability to make some type of a deal with out realizing that Trump’s complete political mission requires not making a deal. And, in reality, there was a deal that Democrats within the Senate and Republicans within the Senate got here collectively on. And Trump, who was not even president on the time, got here in to dam it. So, clearly there’s no need.
I believe that one of many huge themes that I’ve tried to hit on on this sequence that I’ve executed about migration is, that migration is definitely a fairly uncommon phenomenon. It’s at an all-time excessive, however on the identical time, it entails simply 4 p.c of the inhabitants of the world. And in order that implies that 96 p.c of the world inhabitants lives within the nation the place they had been born.
And when you actually give it some thought and also you think about migrants as being human beings such as you and me, then that is sensible. I imply, to choose up and depart the place you’re from and go an extended distance, depart every part behind, make a brand new life the place you don’t communicate the language, the place you may not know anyone, the place your instructional credentials will probably be devalued — that’s really simply an enormous, big, big factor to do.
I believe that immigration reform that truly mirrored the truth that folks need to have the ability to hunt down alternative, but in addition return to their nation the place they’re from and have some type of forwards and backwards — I imply, that somebody may wish to come and spend a while in the USA after which return to the place their household lives, the place their tradition is and that we have to actually think about the total human lives of people that select to come back right here and worth that, and take into consideration methods to have a system that displays that.
I believe these focus group folks that you just speak to, they might intuitively perceive that as a result of they themselves have skilled that. Perhaps you progress to New York Metropolis however in the end your coronary heart is at all times in rural Nebraska as a result of that’s the place you’re from.
In some ways in which’s what’s lacking in our dialog about immigration: an actual recognition that these are individuals who wish to stay lives that we might acknowledge as lives that we stay ourselves.
Healy: I get the sense in speaking to folks that you could be be proper. They might be open to that type of flexibility, fluidity, type of the nonbinary, however that they need safety first. They wish to see proof that each events take this critically. They need some sense of management.
However I additionally do suppose they’re influenced by some extent you made earlier, that although it’s solely 4 p.c of the inhabitants migrating, the boogeyman impact has actually taken maintain for lots of people that they see it as bigger.
I bear in mind in 2018 in the course of the midterms, allies of President Trump tried to make it sound like there was going to be this invasion over the southern border that was going to achieve Minnesota. And Minnesota was going to be in such hazard. It did briefly have like an actual influence. I empathize with a whole lot of these People who need some type of change, who wish to see that dedication first, however aren’t fairly positive what occurs subsequent. And Lydia, I’ve to say, I believe the most important query on my thoughts is — I don’t know whether or not People will in the end settle for, if we get there, armed army camps within the southern states that change into filled with migrants being deported.
It appears like if Trump actually goes full-scale mass deportation, you will have a few of these locations erected, and you will have photographs and tales popping out that can make People look themselves within the mirror and say, “Is that this what I would like in my nation?” And I do marvel, in your expertise abroad or simply in America, what you suppose the tolerance could be for that.
Polgreen: I believe the tolerance might doubtlessly be fairly excessive. I believe we have now these particular person tales which might be fairly compelling, however I believe that when you’ve been instructed again and again that it is a disaster, it is a disaster and the reply is we are able to solely remedy this disaster by having these big armed camps in components of the USA.
However, the opposite factor is that this deportation regime is definitely not going notably nicely. I believe ——
Healy: He has not gotten the numbers he promised, proper?
Polgreen: He’s not gotten the numbers that he promised. It appears to me that there’s been a reluctance to do mass roundups at workplaces. I imply, why are we searching after college students when there’s all of this sort of low-hanging fruit?
And I believe that what that displays is the type of actual political actuality, which is that undocumented migrants are a very huge a part of the material of our communities and economies.
And on the finish of the day, the value that People must pay when it comes to the best way that their lives would change is simply insupportable. We have already got a disaster in housing development and small enterprise house owners who’re dealing with employee shortages and never capable of get folks to work. So I believe that the “options” which might be being provided by the Trump administration even have big, big, big knock-on results that individuals are not going to love. And I believe that turns into an actual political drawback, and I believe that that’s why you’re seeing them have this sort of opportunistic plucking-people-off-the-streets strategy.
Healy: Lydia, I wish to dig into the sequence on migration that you just’ve been engaged on and notably the truth that whereas so many nations have enacted insurance policies to maintain migrants out, nations internationally are going to want them greater than ever, as you had been simply saying, whether or not it’s due to jobs or frankly due to plunging birthrates. What has your reporting revealed?
Polgreen: I ought to say that this sequence really predated Trump coming again to workplace.
What I’ve seen is that there’s simply a completely big mismatch between the wants of societies which might be, as you mentioned, dealing with vastly declining birthrates and having very, very actual employee shortages, but in addition want the brand new blood, the brand new dynamism, the brand new concepts that migration has reliably introduced, notably when folks from poorer nations migrate to wealthier nations. They carry with them new views and new methods of pondering which have actually introduced an amazing quantity of innovation to the nations the place they arrive.
I believe that that could be a story that we’ve been very used to celebrating. And it was not till the Syrian civil conflict, when big numbers of Syrians actually had no alternative however to go away Syria, and about 1,000,000 of them went to Europe. It type of began this cascade of occasions, I believe, which have outlined our politics ever since, and known as into query the core tenets of the postwar agreements about refugees and the way we have now a accountability to offer asylum to folks. We’ve simply been dwelling within the shadow of that ever since.
It strikes me, although, that it’s not nearly folks. Individuals, I believe, are in the end manifestations of a broader set of questions on human progress and about globalization.
So I believe that in some methods it’s reflecting a way of getting reached a little bit of a lifeless finish that societies that in the end are saying, “We don’t need extra migrants” are additionally saying, “We don’t see a future, we don’t see progress occurring in our society. We’ve to hunker down and actually give attention to caring for our personal.”
I believe it’s very onerous for them to think about a world during which nobody desires to come back into their nation. I believe it’s onerous for People to think about that.
Healy: Yeah. Lydia, why does migration trigger such an influence on how common folks take into consideration their nations and societies and themselves? As a result of I might argue that the migration you had been speaking about from Syria, components of the Center East, had a extra profound impact on Europe over the past 10 to fifteen years and the way folks in sure nations thought of themselves — thought of their lack of management and have become resentful or offended then on the conflict in Ukraine or Brexit or Putin and Orban and the rise of authoritarians greater than the rest. What’s it about migration that units folks off a lot?
Polgreen: Effectively, change is tough. Determining the best way to stay alongside individuals who don’t seem like you, who perhaps communicate a unique language, who apply a unique faith — this has at all times been a human problem.
This nation was actually constructed on waves of various sorts of individuals coming right here, and that was at all times uncomfortable. There have been durations within the historical past of the USA the place sure teams of individuals have been declared undesirable: the Chinese language Exclusion Act, the 1924 Immigration Act that principally set very, very harsh quotas that ended up tragically holding big variety of Jewish individuals who would’ve very a lot favored to have left Europe within the run-up to World Warfare II to hunt security in the USA. A lot of them — scientists, individuals who might have made extraordinary contributions to the USA. We are able to look again on that and see that as really an amazing loss for America.
One economist who I spoke to had written a paper concerning the influence on innovation from that restriction act in 1924. Within the paper she wrote that the loss to American science throughout this era was the equal of eliminating a complete physics division at a significant college every year between 1925 and 1955.
However I believe that at a second the place lots of people are their lives and questioning what the long run seems to be like and if this sort of story of limitless enlargement and at all times shifting ahead and with the ability to take the perfect folks from all internationally and combine them into our society, however then even have them educate us new issues — I imply, that is the type of fantasy model of the USA that you just and I — we’re each Gen X-ers — grew up with. That is what we discovered in civics class.
There’s an actual sense that that type of upward incline of our prospects is over. And what you get is the politics that we’re in proper now.
Healy: It’s so attention-grabbing to me what you’re getting on the relationship that People have to vary, and I really feel like migration encapsulates that so powerfully as a result of folks once more must type of take a look at themselves in a mirror and ask: Who am I? Who do I would like for my neighbor? What am I snug with? Why am I uncomfortable with this? These are actually onerous questions, particularly, I believe, for a society that will really feel like issues are uncontrolled.
Polgreen: Yeah, and look, I spent most of my life dwelling outdoors of the USA, in nations with very, very actual issues. And so I’m not that sympathetic to People who really feel that issues are uncontrolled as a result of I’ve lived in locations the place issues had been really uncontrolled, the place the state’s capacity to train a monopoly on violence was tenuous at finest.
The U.S. is a wealthy nation. This can be a nation of people that simply don’t have issues in the best way that different folks on this planet have issues. And so I believe that’s a part of the reply; I believe we battle to think about what actual privation and actual issues may seem like.
Healy: Completely. Lydia, in your years as a reporter and a columnist, you’ve lined autocrats, authoritarians; you’ve lined reformers, small-d democrats. You may have perception into what drives leaders and why societies are drawn to sure sorts of leaders at sure factors. What does it say to you about America and our society that half the nation needed Trump again as president?
Polgreen: Effectively, not fairly half.
Healy: I get into fights with that. I typically say not fairly half, and individuals are like, can’t you narrow him some slack? He principally ——
Polgreen: No, completely not. Completely not. This man is a monster. You shouldn’t lower him any slack.
Healy: OK.
Polgreen: I personally don’t imagine that the president of the USA wants any slack. You’re essentially the most highly effective particular person on this planet and details matter. However anyway ——
Healy: So, OK, a few of our fellow People really feel that approach, however what does it say to you about what America — why did this nation need him again?
Polgreen: I believe that all of it speaks to this need for some type of change, and the best way that that’s been interpreted. Individuals will seize on the choices that you just give them, and I believe there’s a feeling that the nation just isn’t moving into the appropriate course. There’s dissatisfaction over globalization, over migration, over the state of the economic system. There’s simply all of this roiling dissatisfaction beneath the floor. And I believe when you will have a pacesetter who has a easy story of how they will repair issues, and a voting inhabitants that feels that it’s consistently being offered a invoice of products lied to, guarantees made after which guarantees not stored, that there’s a sure attraction to somebody who’s providing up easy options.
The fact is that we have now had these sorts of binary decisions for a lot of my lifetime. I bear in mind within the 2004 election when George W. Bush was re-elected, everybody thought that was the most important disaster that they’d ever skilled. They simply couldn’t imagine after the WMD [war on mass destruction], the tax cuts, all the issues that Bush had executed, that he may very well be re-elected. And it appeared after John Kerry misplaced that the Democrats had been simply going to be within the wilderness for a era. However then what occurred? A singular determine emerges. Issues change. There’s a world monetary disaster.
In the event you take a look at the 2012 election, the place the shoe was on the opposite foot, the Republicans shedding that election thought that they wanted to go on this utterly centrist, average course. And what occurred? A singular determine emerged who got here in and upended every part.
I don’t wish to examine Barack Obama to Donald Trump as a result of I believe they’re very, very totally different males. However I believe that what they’ve in frequent is that they had been capable of articulate a transparent and very compelling imaginative and prescient of the place they had been going to take the nation.
Healy: Completely.
Polgreen: And so, we’re on this second the place, I’m not saying that we have to get down on our knees and pray for a savior, however I really really feel like we’re in a second the place each events are dealing with this drawback. Individuals wish to be impressed. I believe the American character is to choose inspiration over worry. However barring that, when you don’t supply inspiration ——
Healy: The boogeyman ——
Polgreen: Yeah, the boogeyman is the subsequent neatest thing.
Healy: I believe that’s so true, Lydia. I might simply add that Donald Trump additionally impressed a whole lot of People, however I believe he did fail to ship in that sense, particularly throughout Covid and now with what’s happening with the economic system and tariffs. He might have had a really consequential first 100 days, however he might nicely find yourself having a fairly traditionally unpopular presidency.
Lydia, I wish to finish with going again to the world and America’s function on this planet and what Trump is doing to that function. You may have been so considerate over time about America’s promise and what America will get fallacious, its basic flaws. I wish to ask you: What do you see Trump doing to America’s function on this planet at a time when the world wants America and America wants the world?
Polgreen: Having spent most of my life dwelling abroad and notably dwelling in poor nations, in Africa and in Asia, there’s such a mixture of admiration, longing and resentment for the USA.
That have of dependency, of needing American support or needing America’s help when you’re a NATO nation, of type of dwelling in a world economic system that’s dominated by the USA — that has been a supply of simply extraordinary resentment.
What I believe Donald Trump has executed is definitely given folks permission all over the world to provide full voice to that anger and resentment at the USA that has at all times type of bubbled beneath the floor. America has been the “hail fellow nicely met” on the worldwide stage for a really very long time — individuals are completely satisfied to see us, however then additionally resent our self-satisfaction and our wealth and our army energy, however then additionally rely on it.
To not get too psychoanalytic about all of this, however I believe that what we’re seeing proper now could be in some methods an virtually euphoric sense of liberation from having to faux that America is a few type of benevolent participant on this planet, and that each one has been nicely within the international compact that’s set by America. I simply suppose it’s going to be fascinating to see how the world reorients itself. I believe the USA will lose so much from not being a part of these conversations.
Healy: That’s the knock-on impact that I actually marvel about Trump, if People are type of uninterested in the world and wish to break from it, and the world is uninterested in America and Donald Trump and doesn’t belief this nation. What does that result in?
Polgreen: Yeah. America doesn’t actually have a whole lot of expertise at being simply one among many nations on this planet up to now century. We don’t know what it’s like for folks to not wish to commerce with us or to not wish to come to us or to not wish to use our cash. I believe it’s very onerous for People to think about what it’s prefer to be extra remoted.
My mom is from Ethiopia. For a few years, she traveled on an Ethiopian passport, and she or he’d get pulled apart on the Frankfurt airport and couldn’t go into town with us once we had an extended layover as a result of they suspected that she was going to desert her husband and youngsters and stay on welfare in Germany. I don’t know what they suspected.
So it’s been actually hanging to me to see the variety of People who’re pondering: “Hmm, ought to I be fascinated about constructing a life elsewhere? Do I would like choices?” America was the world’s possibility, and if it’s not the choice for outsiders, what does that imply for America? What does that imply for our choices? I believe we’re headed for a interval of profound decline if issues go on this continued trajectory.
Healy: Lydia, thanks a lot for becoming a member of me.
Polgreen: This was nice, Patrick. Thanks a lot on your actually considerate questions.
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This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin and Alison Bruzek. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Unique music by Carole Sabouraud, Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Reality-checking by Mary Marge Locker, Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Viewers technique by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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