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tv   The Bottom Line  Al Jazeera  September 24, 2022 3:00pm-3:30pm AST

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ah ah safe going home and then international anti corruption excellence award boat now for your hero? ah . hello, i am emily anglin, in anto. hi headquarters. these the top stories on al jazeera around in president
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abraham bracy says, protest against the government must be confronted decisively. the demonstrations were triggered by the death of a 22 year old woman in police custody. martha maney died last week after being arrested for allegedly violating policy on have scar on friday counter protests were held in support of the government. but that hasn't stopped. the outrage spreading beyond iran process to planned in london on saturday and on friday crowns rallied from santiago in chile to the belgium capital russell. i think this is just the beginning for 43 years. the people of iran have been oppressed and now they're coming together. never before for the rights of women. this is a moment in history and we are all rallying behind them, not just radians, but people of the world are rallying behind this topic because we want freedom from the people in iran. why don't you need the way he had to show solidarity with the protesters and iran for the people who is still on the streets to fight the deck
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tutorial regime to ukraine. in the 2nd day of a referendum is underway on the annexation of full regions held by moscow. soldiers that reported have been going door to door to get people to vote on whether for occupied regions in ukraine should join russia. gabriel, alexander has more from kate. it is very hard to get a clear picture of what is happening in these russian controlled areas of ukraine with this voting is taking place because there are no independent international election monitors. their media is very tightly controlled and also it's happening in a war zone. so it's very hard for people on the russian side or the ukrainian side of the front lines to go back and forth to get a better sense of what is happening behind the russian front lines for this voting is taking. with that said, russia is claiming that voting is going ahead as planned,
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and there are some videos that russia is putting out, showing what appears to be orderly voting taking place. but we are also seeing videos from telegram and other sources on social media that purport to show russian appointed officials going door to door with russian military personnel knocking on people's door. forcing them to vote. and this is a clear sign, according to ukrainian officials of intimidation by russians and signs that the russians, according to create officials already have this. the results of this election already decided if you will, or this referendum decided and mom and val has more on the kremlin view of those referendums from moscow. what they are saying here is that this is the natural course of think that the, the communities in 5 eastern ukraine and southern ukraine have always been part of
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russia. that's the deep desire and their dream. and now the opportunity has come for them to vote, to join russia. they talk about the initiative coming from not from russia itself, but from those communities saying got lost, choose the local communities in those 4 regions. sent a request to, to their higher authorities to do this, to organize this refund them. and that has been granted. the lebanese army says it's arrested the man behind what he calls as smuggling operation to italy. 86 people died when they boat sank off the coast of syria. most of them were flying lebanon to escape an economic crisis. their final campaign rallies had been held in italy ahead of a general election on sunday. former prime minister to sippy conte told a crowd in rome. the vote is a historic one opinion poll. sure, he's trailing a far right coalition,
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led by ga maloney. they indicate she could become the country's 1st female prime minister. and roger federer has played his final competitive tennis match. federer's last match was a loss to the team world pairing at the labor camp in london. the 41 year old has struggled with injuries of the past 3 years. all right, those are the headlines. i'm emily, anglo in the bottom line is next to stay with us. ah, hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. as republican governors dump refugees in different cities across america, does either party really have a plan for immigration? let's get to the bottom line. ah, human beings are now being used as pawns literally ponds. in america, culture wars,
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republican governors have been organizing bus trips and more recently air flights for latin american refugees who shown up in their states. and now they're sending them off to democratic states. these refugees, many of whom are applying for asylum, were promised housing and jobs that they got on the transport. but they were duped . it's as cruel as it sounds, and it's only getting worse. last week, texas sent bus loads of migrants to the residence of vice president comma harris in washington, d. c. and florida, flu, 48 migrants in texas to the posh island of martha's vineyard. yes, an island off the coast of massachusetts. the republican governors who are doing this want to spark a national debate on immigration with a few weeks left before the mid term elections. well, will it work? can americans agree on any immigration policy? is there a middle ground between 0 tolerance and open borders? today we're talking with barris stockman, a journalist who's covered politics, social movements, and race and is a member of the new york times editorial board. she's the author of american made.
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what happens to people when work disappears? and tom nichols, a writer at the atlantic magazine, former professor of national security affairs at the us naval war college. he's the author of our own worst enemy, the assault from within on modern democracy. thank you both for joining me today. you almost simultaneously had the headlines about this migrant stuff about the movement of people, the shipping people, to martha's vineyard, and both of you had interesting takes on america's migration refugee challenges right now. and i'd love to start with you fara, because you, you started by saying we have a deeper problem here, which is the story of america is being the story for the huddled masses yearning to be free, coming here from problems abroad seeking asylum. in many cases. tell us how you saw this issue of what governor de santis did in grabbing a number of people a sit really seducing them on the plane and dropping them in martha's vineyard. oh
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sure, no, i was just weird. like, how does the governor of florida send an operative to texas to bring them to, to martha's vineyard? it's, it's a, it's a strange story. oh, he are. his people are arguing that it's preemptive, right? that these are people from venezuela who are going to end up in florida, and that's why he gets to insert himself in this way. but it's very odd because, you know, this is the, this is he's kind of getting in on something that governor of greg abbot has been doing for months now. which is busing migrants to a sanctuary. cities quote unquote, in in washington dc. and then new york and chicago, they're, they're trying to get attention right. but, and it's working, frankly, if this, this is a stand is working. well, tom, let me ask you about this side of shipping refugees in migrants to various cities
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in the country. i saw this kind of thing a year ago in eastern europe. i was visiting at the time, telling estonia and we were listening the state minister, the security avant garde security issues they were facing. and they said lucas shank o in, in belarus, was sending folks over to iraq to pick up a rocky refugees promising them a better life in europe and dropping them off on the border. lots and lots of people on the border of lithuania and that this was, you know, creating lots of tensions for the government in lithuania. and lo and behold, we see the source. i don't seem to be talking about that from a year ago. but is this something you think people watched, and this is sort of a copycat exercise. i don't think the santas watch that. i think what the santis watched was tucker carlson back in july thing. would it be great if we dumped a lot of people on martha's vineyard? you know the thing is there, there is an immigration problem in the united states. we do have problems with our
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border. i mean, if you go back 25 years to the, to the democratic party platform, when bill clinton was running, he talks about how, you know, in the early ninety's, americans didn't even really have borders. but, but what disinterested is completely separate from that. this is just a kind of form of cultural warfare that's meant to primarily the advance rhonda sentences position and they were coming republican presidential primary. and there was just a kind of a juvenile mean spirited next to it that really has nothing to do with immigration, but everything to do with turning to your holding base and saying, see, i made people in massachusetts math because messages just bad. and martha's vineyard is full of liberals, and in a strange way, i think it backfires because as ferris said, it brings attention to it. but i think it convinces a lot of people across the country that only really terrible people worry about
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immigration. well, let me, of course, we should all worry about it. let me show you a poll that was done recently on, on whether the united states is experiencing an invasion at the southern border look at these numbers. so we have 76 percent of republicans think there's an evasion in the southern border, 40 percent of democrats and so say well you will that 40 percent still a big number when you look at that time. and i just want to note that in your article, you go to kind of length to say what you just said. we have a problem with the southern border. you identify yourself as a conservative who's looked at this. you didn't just call these, you know, on an unofficial folks. you said these are illegal folks that have come into the country. how is your view changed? when you look at these numbers, what do you think the credible way is to deal with that sense of threat than many americans are feeling? i am both the grandson of immigrants on both sides of my family. and i still think of myself as an immigration hawk,
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i actually think the 2 things are related that you know, i cherish immigration and i want it done properly because that's the strength of america. what i don't want, and where i change my view is, you know, a hard line policy at the border that's implemented. pure purely for sadistic kicks . purely for kind of, you know, this, these sadistic motives that are meant to advance the political careers of a couple of guys in texas and florida. that's not policy because the other thing of america is about, is about being humane. is about being a refuge for people and i mean, we have to, we have to have the rule of law, we have to have order. and i think that, that, you know, for him, for, for people who want a strong border and a regularized immigration system, that's really important. but i mean, that doesn't mean that i would ever sign on. and i don't think any of us should
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sign on for the intentional tormenting of children as a deterrent, which is what happened over the past few years with things like family separation. there has to be something in between throwing up our hands and saying, well, there's nothing we can do about it and saying, well, the only thing we can do about it is to put a bunch of, you know, statistic, jerks in charge of tormenting people. i mean, that's really, that's not what america is. certainly not what america is to me. foreign in european, which i highly recommend to people is so powerful and kind of looking at the ethic of america about what it was about. and i just want to have you, in your words, share with our viewers. what seeking asylum means and compare say, a few years ago in terms of the number of asylum seekers that were coming into this country versus what we're seeing today virtually every month in, in staggering levels. yeah, so we've seen about
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a 1000000 people enter the country in the last, since biden has become president, and about a 150000 of them have managed to seek asylum. there's many more that are able to seek asylum through this process. i think they have about a year to do it. and at what, that's a similar number actually that, that came in under similar circumstances under, under trump. and i just have to say that this is a, this is broken, the system, these, these, the, the sure number of people that have come in can't be handled by our courts. our courts have been very archaic. they up until very recently they were using paper files. and so the amount of time that it takes to get a hearing has gone from like $45.00 days to 4 and a half years. so now you can wait years before you even get a hearing. and it could be like 7 years before you actually,
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your case is actually decided. and so what i said in my piece is that our system is chaotic enough that it actually has become a self perpetuating problem. because it takes so many years to get a hearing, then people are incentivized to apply for asylum it's. it's not easy to go through the process. but if you go through the process, then you get work authorization after 150 days. and so it's, i think that this is one of the problems we need a system. it's more modern that's more efficient and that's more fair, where people who actually deserve asylum. people who qualify for asylum can, can make it right and can, can get what they are, what they deserve. and where you can kind of weed out the people who are just
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trying to skip the line, skipped the integration, skip immigration line. the, the other thing i have to say is that this is a, this is not just something we have another buy and it's been a growing one like backlog has, has it's, it's been growing for years and years and years. and we're actually seeing because of the higher hiring of war, immigration judges. we're actually seeing the system start to work out the kinks and start to operate faster. and this is where that we've seen completion of markets while that may be the case. but you make a really interesting point in your piece is saying that, you know, from an incentive structure, those people coming across the border. now we have an incentive to ask for asylum whether or not they are deserving or not. and so those of us that are looking, you know, a few steps aside. say, you know, look at the numbers, they see what's going on. i understand there's, you know, horror and impunity,
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and rapes and killings in other parts of the world that people may be trying to escape. but not all of those people are there and the numbers have searched such levels that it's created a lot of skepticism. we just show you both, you know, these, these numbers. i mean, because i would be worried. but if you look at these numbers here, support for legal status for immigrants has really decline from overall 65 percent of the country was a bit very bit in 2018 to about 51 percent and still falling now. and i guess my question is, when we look at legal status, you know, tom, the, you switch in your article, you say i have now moved my view from being prickly about legality and all of this. and because of this sadistic what you call a sadistic stunt, you think we need to be now much more permissive, but most of america is not with you on this because they look and they don't trust the asylum route anymore. so tell me where i'm wrong. well, i don't, unfortunately, i don't trust the people that used to be my fellow immigration box anymore. and
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what did it was? not this. i was going to make a coming earlier when farrah was talking about the final speakers. you know, the, the nice thing is that de santis took a bunch of people from venezuela were the prime of facia case for asylum is probably pretty strong. and, you know, he took the one group of people where he really could say others probably this, the sure it looks a lot like asylum seeking. but then of course, the problem is that everybody says, well, that's what you get in. and i'm seeking asylum to that suddenly a 1000000 people say i'm seeking asylum and of course asylum does not mean that life in my country is terrible and life in your country is better. and, and so, you know, i have not changed my view to say will just, you know, let everybody in and will sort it out. but to say things like, you know, what really radicalized me here was not a scientist, but the family separation policy. that's when i step back and i said, you know,
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there are people who claim to be care, but this puerto issue who, who really are just doing terrible things. the policy was to take children away from their parents and send them in to the american. 7 kind of foster system or immigration. hell, you know where there was simply no infrastructure to deal with them because nobody had done that on that scale before. and to do it as a deterrent literally to cause pain to parents and children as a message to others. not to come here. i, you know, i again, old school law and order rule of law conservative. that does not mean inflicting pain on toddlers and babies intentionally as a warning to other people. and that's when i kind of felt radicalized away frying. so the harder views i took fair, let me ask you so the experience being felt by texas by arizona, by florida,
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southern states in this, where liberals elsewhere in the country are basically saying we should be opening and welcoming. but they don't have the problems. they don't have the stress in the financial issues. and some liberals in progressives are beginning to say, now, now we're getting it, which means that desantis and governor abbot may have actually started a conversation that could go in a constructive course. at least i'd love to get your mapping of this. i was just looking at all the comments on my stories and a lot of them were from people who said, i'm liberal and yet i, i, i feel for these places that are having a huge number of migrants come in because we're tired we, we have been volunteering in san antonio are helping them or we are, you know, like there's, there is a sense that places like boston and places like new york haven't had to deal with what the border states have been dealing with. and you
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don't have to be statistic to say we, you know, it requires resources which the federal government has actually been giving to places like san antonio. but it does require resources to house people. busy to, to, to teach kids who only know a different language. if it's not free, it costs money and it can be a demographic, a demographic transformation of a place. and so look, my mother is from, she grew up in mississippi. she's a black woman from mississippi and on the immigration issue, she's pretty, she's, she's sounds conservative. sometimes she's like those jobs that these migrants are taking should go to black people who have been here all this time. and so, you know, there is a, it's about, it's a trade off, a lot of times people with people who are well off who have college degrees and who want to hire, you know, babysitters for cheap or lawn care people to do their lawns,
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people to work on their houses, right. those are the immigrants and were you know, so we like to have folks who are coming in who are going to work for less. that's good for us. the americans that are competing with them in those industries don't like to have them coming in. and frankly, even recently naturalized hispanics who are their closest competitors, are some of the most hawkish on immigration that you'll find. why do you think trump got a boost in 2020 from some of those hispanic communities? it's a lot of it has to do an economic competition. and i think if democrats don't, don't acknowledge it or understand it, they're going to lose the, they're going to lose that debate. because phone numbers. i mean, you, you thought yourself that 40 percent democrats the time, you know, i, i love you to break down the politics of this little bit. you know,
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president trump has said america is full because full of folks. and we don't even now when i go around the country and see the job shortages and the people i keep wondering, wow, something's going on here with a disconnect where restaurants can't run small businesses can't run. you know, large businesses are having a very hard time finding workers and retaining workers in this environment. so i guess what are the politics as you look forward at the, to the mid terms and then to 2024 of the america is full message. well, some of the people that most most strongly with trumping are the most anti immigrant actually live in places where there aren't any immigrants you know, when, when you hear people in, in iowa and new hampshire and montana complaining about immigrants that's, that's a message. they're picking up from the conservative media and the conservative kind of messaging ecosystem. but i think this, this dovetails back to ferris point. immigration is
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a crisis. it's not just the problem, it's crisis. and if you, in the democratic party, if a big share of the democratic parties only answer to that is to dismiss any discussion about immigration as racism, for example, and say, well, it's just racism. it's not racism. there are people who want to have a diverse and welcoming country, but, you know, again, going back to the democrats of the 90s to bill clinton, you can't just not have a border. and so the problem is that this stuff to go back to the whole florida and texas thing, i disagree that they've opened the conversation. i think they've created a kind of stupid binary that even i feel pulled into saying, well, what are i saying? the piece is my choices, ron de santis, and a bunch of goons pulling pranks or joe biden, and the system we have now where we kind of muddle through. i'll take the system
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now and we'll muddle through that. i can't sign onto that other. excuse me, approach. we also, i don't really think that's really a productive way to go about it, but the entire country has to become invested. and the key word here was resources, right? country has to fall and resources, not just for education, not just for housing, but for, but because i'm inforcement and i'll just finish by saying, you know, i'm old enough steve, that i was a young guy, washington. when the 1986 immigration reform act was passed, where, you know, ronald reagan signed the sam estate and, and it was kind of a lucy in the football and that was supposed to get it all done. right. going to get it all done. were never doing it again. this is one and done, the fixes are problems and you know, 35 years later, here we are. but let me ask you farrah, what should vice president common harris be doing right now that she's not what she
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should be doing. i mean, look at this, the system is broken for a reason it's, it's broken by design. i think we are whole restaurant economy in new york is basically balancing on the idea that undocumented labor is, is working in the kitchens. our, our agriculture sector is based on the idea of migrant labor, some of the, some of whom are undocumented. and so, you know, we have a system that wants people to be in limbo. it doesn't want to give them citizenship, it doesn't want to give them an american wage, but it needs their labor. and so that we have to come to terms of that as, as a society. i personally think that we need more legal pathways. i think a lot of people just don't like the chaos and the idea that people, anybody can just show up and walk in that. right, that's the, that's, that's worry from for a lot of people, not just conservatives. so we need to get
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a sense of control slows knowing who's coming in and keeping track of people, making sure that they're there, the skills that we need, frankly, and that and that there are also alternatives for people who are just, frankly, extremely desperate and in need tom, let me give you 30 seconds on tips for vice president harris. well, i think her trip to central america, which was kind of her maiden foreign policy speech, did not go well. immigration is always, you know, anybody who comes here as ferris said, you know, the side you have just, you can just kind of walk in, you know, i think biden's always been a little better about that. but, but the left flank of the democratic party really has to understand that, you know, there are people that are visible with gentlemen concern and not just, you know,
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greg abbott and ron de santis pulling statistic print. right. so that messaging i think has to change and you know, again, i'll just go back and say that or be trading better staffing and also don't, you know, going down to the. busy border and going to central america, i don't think really accomplishes a lot. i think, speaking the american people about this more directly with. all right, well let me thank you both veteran journalists and authors, ferris dockman of the new york times, and tom nichols of the atlantic magazine. thanks for these articles and thanks for joining us today at your famine. so what's the bottom line? america has a major immigration ulcer that's getting worse and worse. hundreds of thousands of people a month are fleeing their homes in latin america and trying to get into the united states. some di trying, some are beaten rapes traffic. some just need a job and others are trying to escape the impunity in their own countries. either way, they're driven by desperation. otherwise they just would never pick up their families and go through this ordeal. there are no good answers. nations must control their
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borders, or guess what? they seem to be nations at the same time, there is a humane way to deal with the problem. and that's certainly not what we saw on the ruthless exploitation of refugees for political purposes. putting random people on buses in plains and sending them off to random places where they have no connections. really. the u. s. has never been able to tackle this issue in a lasting logical way. now the political right has been an issue to gain traction. and now congress, in my view on a bipartisan basis, needs to invest in real solutions. and that's the bottom line. ah oh ah, ah, ah,
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ah, the charco region of paraguay, one of south americas, we followed 2 men who seemed to thrive on his challenges. a veteran truck driver, the answers every call, whatever the weapon to provide for his growing family and the cowboy who enjoys his rough, lonely life risk in an old powered wife. on al jazeera lou .

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