This episode follows the Santos and Vinick campaigns, as Vinick tries to cause problems for Santos by taking on immigration. Vinick talks about homeland security and the importance of the border patrol while also calling the Minute Men at the border Vigilantes and introducing a guest worker program.

Tens of thousands of migrants were legally processed at our southern border in September. In addition, last month over 200,000 migrants illegally crossed the border. Most of these apprehended migrants have been released from custody to await their immigration court proceedings, something which can take years given the only growing backlog of unresolved cases (currently standing around 2 million).

Republicans have claimed that the wave of immigration we are experiencing is due to the Biden administration ending Trump administration border policies, such as Remain in Mexico, which required migrants to wait in Mexico while American courts reviewed their asylum claims. On the flip side, Democrats have attributed high immigration rates to the declining safety and economies of Latin American countries, particularly as a cause of the pandemic. In reality, this increase in migration likely comes from both more lenient conditions from migrants and factors pushing migrants out of their home countries.

Immigration is an issue with a broad range of viewpoints. There are some who take the stance that America should be a country that embraces migrants given that we are a country founded on migrants. They also point out the conditions that migrants are facing in their home countries, arguing it is not right to send them back to those circumstances. They also point out that certain sectors of our economy depend on immigrants, such as agriculture.

Others want America to have a closed border, letting very few migrants in, seeing immigration as not an economic necessity, but an economic burden on communities that receive migrants. These cities often struggle to integrate them, especially in border towns that are relatively small and receive massive amounts of migrants. In fact, even big cities are feeling the effects of migration, such as New York and Chicago, which are having to spend money to take care of immigrants they are receiving from the south. Closed border proponents also argue that such a large amount of immigration threatens national security. The leading cause of death for Americans 18-45 is fentanyl overdose, which is mostly smuggled into the US via the southern border. Additionally, as of July, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 160 migrants this year who were trying to cross the US-Mexico border that had identities matching those on the Terrorist Screening Dataset.

There is also an ongoing debate about whether it is fair to those who immigrated to the US legally to allow citizenship to those who enter illegally. Many say that they are happy to let into the country those who go through the immigration process but don’t want to let in those who don’t put in the time and effort to gain citizenship. But this has been pushed back on by those who claim that the bar to get citizenship is too high. All in all, most Americans are somewhere in between wanting a fully closed or fully open border, understanding the plight immigrants are facing while also weighing the concerns of those who are already Americans.