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BioMed dot org for more. Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip

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Cast for May twelve, twenty twenty
three. My name's Matthew Watkins, Managing

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editor of News and Politics for the
Tribune. It's been a very busy week

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in Texas news since the last time
we joined. Of course, the mass

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shooting in Alan. We will be
having an alle hundred Serrano, one of

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our reporters covering gun laws this legislative
session, to talk more about that later.

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But we've also had major developments in
the Texas Legislative session and the lifting

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of Title forty two, the pandemic
era health order that allowed the Biden administration

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and previously the Trump administration to expel
migrants at the southern border. Talking with

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us about that today. Is our
editor who oversees immigration coverage, Dave Harmon.

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Hey, Dave, hey, thanks
for having me all right, so

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very quickly, I think most people
will know this, but give us a

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quick rundown of what Title forty two
was and how it worked. Sure.

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Title forty two is a public health
order that the Trump administration invoked for the

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first time ever in March twenty twenty, as the COVID pandemic was beginning,

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and it was used to allow immigration
authorities to quickly process and remove migrants from

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the southern border without allowing them to
claim asylum. The stated intent was to

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prevent people from other countries bringing COVID
into the country and allowing us to expel

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them before that could happen. Right, And so the reason that this is

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being lifted, it was lifted late
last night around eleven o'clock Central time ten

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o'clock Mountain time where al Paso is, is because you know, the Biden

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administration more broadly, is lifting the
COVID emergency. Right, so you can

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no longer have the emergency power to
kind of enforce Title forty two if there

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is no longer an official emergency here
and we saw, you know, the

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I feel like the build up,
the hype around this all week was expecting,

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you know, mass numbers of people
crossing the border now that this order

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was in place. We saw,
you know, in the lead up,

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multiple local jurisdictions around the border declaring
emergencies. I mean, we saw big

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crowds of people crossing over and you
know, in the streets of cities like

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El Paso and Brownsville in the days
leading up to this, So that all

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kind of set up for this eleven
o'clock or in the case of El Paso,

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ten o'clock kind of lifting of the
order, where you know, us

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in many other media outlets ready to
watch for kind of what was anticipated a

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major influx of people. What ended
up happening, What ended up happening.

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It was not what a lot of
people expected or feared. We've seen large

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numbers of migrants crossing the river over
the past week. Looks like a lot

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of people tried to enter before titled
to forty two ended. That happened again

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last night. Woody ell Garcia,
our border and immigration reporter in El Paso,

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was in siud Aduarez across the river
and saw once again hundreds of people

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lined up on the US side of
the river, waiting to be apprehended and

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processed. I think their hope was
that they would be paroled, which is

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a term basically it means they would
be released into the country if they promised

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to report to an immigration court.
And then when the actual deadline came,

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not much really changed on the Mexican
side of the river. Woody Yell told

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me that there were a lot of
reporters and a few migrants, so I

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think everybody who intended to cross did
it earlier in the evening. They queued

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up. There was a line for
men and another line for women and children.

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It was pretty calm and pretty orderly, and when the deadline passed,

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border patrol began letting people through a
gate in the border wall in small groups.

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And I think we saw that kind
of repeated up and down the southern

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border. Can you explain what the
difference is now, so you know what

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we're seeing right at the border and
have been seen for years, is people

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showing up right crossing the border,
sometimes illegally, sometimes at ports of entry

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and not necessarily kind of going out
into the broader America trying to be seen

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or not be seen by border patrol, although I'm sure that is still happening

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as well too, But a lot
of people kind of essentially walking up to

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border patrol and asking for asylum,
right that then setting that process where they

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might be released on parole or Entitle
forty two, allowing them to be released,

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you know, back into Mexico or
elsewhere. So what is different now

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on May twelve than what may have
happened if you turn yourself into border patrol

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May sixth, Like, what is
how? How are these processes different and

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how does that affect the migrants who
are crossing over? Yeah, I mean

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that's a great question. We're basically
going back to pre pandemic immigration rules with

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some tweaks by the Biden administration.
They were anticipating potentially a mass of people

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arriving at the border when Title forty
two ended, so they have added some

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features to the old system that was
in place before the pandemic. It's a

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carrot and stick approach. The carrot
is we will provide you with ways to

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request asylum without going to the border, without going to a port of entry

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or crossing the river and surrendering.
One of those is a cell phone app

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to make appointments, which migrants have
been complaining just crashes constantly. I think

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they only offered about a ten minute
window to grab one of the seven hundred

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and forty appointments available each day along
a two thousand mile border. The administration

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is also setting up offices in a
couple of countries Columbia is one of them,

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where people can apply for an appointment
from their own countries. The idea

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is they're trying to tell migrants don't
come to the border and surrender, because

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if you do, without Title forty
two in place, you are now more

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likely to just be deported. And
in many cases they're telling people we're not

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going to let you claim asylum or
you could get barred from the country for

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five years for illegal entry. So
it's kind of back to the old policy

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of you know, punishing people for
illegal entry and at the same time trying

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to give them some new ways to
apply for asylum without overwhelming border patrol resources

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at the border. Yeah, I
feel like a lot of this really highlights

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how little control the Biden administration or
really whoever is in charge at the time

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has over some of the things that
can kind of spur the political outrage or

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the political focus, right. I
mean, you know, people coming up

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to this country in a lot of
times being driven by you know, economic

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conditions or natural disasters or things like
that in their home countries. You have

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you know, I've been reading a
lot about people kind of arriving at the

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border based on misinformation being spread by
human smugglers or other basically saying, you

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know, title for you two is
lifting, they'll let you in now,

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you know, and and that driving
people in the Biden administration having trouble kind

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of dealing with that. And then
you know, the that being said,

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you have areas, you know,
people along the border. I mentioned earlier,

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areas in El Paso talking about you
know, shelters being full, people

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having to sleep in the streets,
Brownsville having similar you know, the Rio

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Grand Valley and everything like that.
I mean, how much is my assessment

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of that, right? I mean
that the Biden administration is somewhat limited and

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they can what they can actually do
about kind of maintaining these these crises that

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are happening on these in these border
communities. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean

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they are up against a really a
global problem and a global issue using you

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know what tools they have. UM. And at the same time, every

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policy they try to change or introduce
as almost uniformly being challenging court by Republican

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attorney generals, governors. UM.
So you know, some of their tools

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have been stopped by courts. That
that happened last night when a Florida judge

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put in a temporary injunction preventing them
from parolling people into the country without having

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you know, a court date.
So that's that's one less tool they have

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to manage this influx. But migration
is a global problem. As you said,

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it's sparked by big problems in country. We're seeing a ton of Venezuelans

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coming to the border right now because
that country has famously gone into economic collapse.

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Politically it's a mess. Haiti same
thing. The government essentially collapse in

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that country, and we saw a
huge number of Haitians come to our border

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and on and on. You know, you look at it, you look

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at a part of the world that's
in trouble. Natural disasters also play into

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this. Droughts play into this,
and America is still the place lots of

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people want to go. And we
have a very kind of clunky, clumsy

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patchwork system for handling the numbers that
we've been seeing in recent years. Yeah.

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Yeah, and and kind of I
think an unwillingness to accept that those

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numbers might keep coming, right,
because in order to kind of get past

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that clunky system, you would need
to, you know, build up capacity

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or or take other steps to address
that. I want to ask a little

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bit about kind of the next steps. You mentioned this judge's ruling based in

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Florida, you know, kind of
blocking the parolling of migrants. You mentioned

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how the number of people crossing over
so far and the you know a little

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bit over twelve hours since this title
forty two is lifted being maybe not the

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kind of rush that we were expecting. Does that mean we're out of the

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woods here from crises? What?
Like? What should we be watching over

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the next twenty four or thirty six, you know, even weeks and months

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of this kind of new reality of
the border. Yeah? Have they prepared

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enough for the numbers that they're seeing? Even though it wasn't a tidal wave

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last night, it was a significant
number of people crossing the border. I

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mean, these are these are daily
records that we've been seeing in the last

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week or so. Border patrol facilities
can only hold so many people. There

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was there was a lot of news
coverage in years past when those facilities got

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overwhelmed and we had migrants in overcrowded, caged enclosures. We're going to be

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watching to see if the border patrol
facilities can handle this influx. How many

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people are they deporting outright, and
how many people are they releasing into communities

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because in El Paso, for example, you know, they have a shelter

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system, but they can only handle
so many people. The other thing that

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I think we should watch is with
the Biden inspiration administration doing kind of a

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pr Bulitz discouraging migrants from coming to
the border, and migrants coming regardless because

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of the forces you talked about in
their home countries. Yeah, is this

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going to kind of usher in a
period where people are again looking for smugglers

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and trying to sneak across the border
and evade border patrol, which is you

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know, how a lot of people
have gotten into this country historically, as

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you said, they've they've recently been
more likely to process a bridge or between

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the bridges in Texas and surrender to
border patrol. But if they are afraid

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they're going to get deported or criminally
charged or barred from claiming asylum, they

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may resort to trying to sneak across
the border and just live and work in

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the country without documents. Yep.
So let's talk just briefly about the rural

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Texas is playing. Governor Abbott held
a press conference at the beginning of this

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week saying he was spending sending you
know, a couple of kind of tactical

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units down to the border, not
a major escalation of what he kind of

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has already sent down to the border. There's been images of National Guard folks

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kind of you know, turning people
away, like not essentially not letting them

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cross. Some have argued that that's
kind of an escalation and going kind of

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beyond what the state should be doing
in terms of enforcing the laws. How

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would you kind of summarize the Abbot
administration or the State of Texas response to

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to to the lifting of Title forty
two so far, well, I mean,

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it's another kind of show of force
at the border. This is this

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has been the pattern since Joe Biden
became president. The governor and the State

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of Texas have spent a lot of
money and sent a lot of state troopers

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and National Guard to the border,
claiming that the federal government isn't doing its

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job and isn't controlling the border.
So this is kind of just the most

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recent installment of that strategy. We
did Uriella did see National Guard at the

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river last night telling people they couldn't
cross into US territory. So to help

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you visualize this, there's the Rio
Grand and then there was a string of

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concertina wire pretty close to the river, and then beyond the concertina wire was

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the border wall. So there were
hundreds of people lined up between the wire

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and the wall waiting for boarder patrol
to let them through a gate. Meanwhile,

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you had the National Guard kind of
at the edge of the river telling

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people who were waiting across the river, no, you can't come in.

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We're not positive those were state deployed
guard because an administration also deployed guard.

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Our guess is that they were state
because the troops that Biden sent were supposed

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to be kind of helping with transportation
and logistics and that sort of thing.

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So, you know, the state
has in recent years really put a premium

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on shows of force at the river. You know there were images a couple

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of years ago of state troopers forming
a lot with a line of vehicles at

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the river when we had large groups
of migrants, you know, crossing it,

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trying to cross it, equal pass
and other crossings. So this looks

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like kind of another state show of
force. All right, well, we

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will continue to watch this. I
know that things are changing, you know,

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by the hour, and you are
you continue to watch them. So

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thank you Dave for joining us for
the to give us the latest update.

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Yeah, absolutely, thanks for having
me. All right, let's pause to

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00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:22,960
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slash investing in America. All right, So joining us now is alle hundred

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00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:57,160
Serrano. Alle hundred has been covering
a gun legislation in the Texas legislative session

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this year. Hey, drew All
one hundred, Thanks for joining us,

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Thanks for having me. It was
a dramatic week in the Texas House following

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a you know, pretty terrible weekend
in which, you know, a gunman

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and an Alan shopping mall open fire, killing eight people, wounding many others.

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This of course, kind of reignited
the debate around guns in this state

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right around an important time for that
debate in the legislature this week, you

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know, being the deadline for the
House to pass out House bills in the

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Chamber in order for them to you
know, have a chance of becoming law

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during this legislative session. While hundred
you have specifically been following the what you

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know, we've been kind of calling
the raise the age bill, the bill

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to raise the ah to buy a
semi automatic rifle from eighteen to twenty one.

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This has been particularly pushed by Uvaldi
families, families of victims in the

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Uvaldi shooting. Can you tell us
a little bit about the bill, who's

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pushing for it, and why this
is so important to the Uvaldi families?

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Sure? Yeah, So the main
bill when we refer to the bill or

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where he's the Age's House Bill twenty
seven forty four from Tracy King, the

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representative from Valda. Essentially, in
simple terms, would prohibit selling certain semi

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automatic rifles to people younger than twenty
one, and it has several exemptions,

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the King said. He added after
hearing from constituents or concerns such as sporting

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or hunting or what have you.
But this kind of has been like a

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main ask of Valdi families since the
shooting. Like this is really like almost

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immediately after the shooting, when it
became clear over the summer that the gunmen

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had tried purchasing rifles like the ones
he used, a R fifteen style,

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and he bought the two that he
had days after turning eighteen, as well

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as a bunch of ammunition that he
and use in the shooting. So it

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becomes a case where families contend and
Representative King as well, that they really

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believe this had this bill been a
law lest year, it could have potentially

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thwarted this shooting, right, And
we've basically seen these families coming to the

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Capitol, you know, throughout the
session, you know, speaking at rallies.

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You know, we've seen children who
were in the school kind of speaking

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at rallies, speaking to legislators knocking
on doors and everything like that that led

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to but you know, essentially like
little action. Right there was a committee

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hearing. You know, some thought
even that was an impressive step in kind

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of gunfriendly Texas. But then the
bill had been kind of paused, you

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know, beyond that hearing did not
receive a vote. The deadline to vote

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bills out of committee was on Monday, and we kind of came into this

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week then with the Alan shooting thrusting
this issue you back into the top of

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minds. Tell us what happened on
Monday. Yeah, so, I I

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mean, I like to think about
it. It's kind of starting last week,

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there's some as you mentioned, families
have been coming very They've been a

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constant presence at the They've maintained a
constant presence at the capitol. And last

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week there was one press conference with
a couple lawmakers and of a lawmaker mentioned

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that the committee had the votes to
pass it out and that was kind of

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surprising as like a tid bit of
news. And then a relative of one

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person from the Valda family said that
Chair Ryan gee And had told them that

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if there were enough votes to get
out of committee, he'd put it on

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for a vote, but that hadn't
happened. So Monday we were kind of

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like keeping an eye on this deadline
when very early in the day there's a

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rally already happening, another press conference
at ten am, even before the House

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had convened. And then when the
Chamber convened, our colleague Eleanor was there

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and they announced the committee meeting from
the floor, so we kind of just

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scrambled to come up with a plan, and she went there, and then

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they voted it out. And what
was curious that two Republicans joined the six

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Democrats on the committee and advancing the
bill, and particularly one of them said

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in a statement after the fact,
Dallas Area Representative that after hearing so much

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testimony, he was compelled to vote
the way he did. But he added

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he wasn't naive that one law could
solve this issue. But you know,

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you kind of think about like just
like the constant cloak of grief that we

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kind of have just as a state
that keeps experiencing this Like Alan was horrific,

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but you know, days before that
there was a similar shooting in Cleveland

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where it was in a public setting. But you know, a man was

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asked to stop shooting his gun by
a neighbor, and he killed five of

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his neighbors. So I think it's
been top of mind, and it's been

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kept top of mind by both activists
families, but also the occurrences in the

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state right, right, So that
was a very dramatic moment of the capital.

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We had, you know, the
families rushing into the room tearfully,

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kind of celebrating, saying thank you
and everything like that. But it was

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sort of a short lived victory,
right, because then Thursday was the deadline

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for the House to pass bills out. In order for that to happen on

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Tuesday, it had to get on
basically the House's agenda, and that was

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a sort of roughly ten o'clock deadline
for that to happen, and the House

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was still in session at ten o'clock, ten o'clock at night, and basically

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we didn't see it make that agenda, and you know, sort of a

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dramatic moment in the capital. Can
you just tell us a little bit about

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what happened there? Yeah, and
also confusing a dad because you know,

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it's kind of like like people are
trying to keep on, like stay on

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top of the issue. But then
by by late after Nino's becoming clear that

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like it may not happen because of
some technicality, So it wasn't immediately clear

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like come five o'clock Tuesday, if
the Calendar's committee even had the committee report,

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which is essentially required before they could
even put a bill on the calendar.

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So then it like activists were both
like commanding both chairs of both committees

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just act on it, not really
knowing whose onnus it was. But then

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the hour slowly ticked by and families
kept rallying and chanting up until the very

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last minute, where we saw one
parent Brett Cross, had to had to

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be escorted out by authorities because he
was apparently being too loud and the chance

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we're even being heard in the full
chamber so much that they closed the second

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floor doors. So the fight was
there up until the last minute, but

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ultimately just there was no movement.
The Calendars Committee met Tuesday evening, but

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they did not put this bill on
the calendar. So how should people view

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this? I mean, Texas is
clearly a gunfriendly state. I don't think

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with the current legislature that is going
to change anyway. There was a big

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kind of celebratory movement on Monday,
as we described, but ultimately it did

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not lead to any kind of policy
changes being made. I mean, what

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is the kind of community that was
pushing for this feeling this week? Are

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00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,440
they Are they feeling like this is
a sign of progress? Are they feeling

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like, you know, nothing is
going to change here? Yeah, I

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can't speak for everyone, but we've
seen already that families are are valuing to

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keep fighting, and they are already
like maintaining that they keep fighting, not

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only waiting till the session ends,
but you know, keep trying to push

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for this particular proposal because technically there
are things lawmakers could do, although it

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would still be that would still face
tall odds. But I think part of

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what we're kind of slowly seeing is
kind of like this willingness to have a

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conversation. And you know, we
saw another representative from North Texas talk about

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how he was willing to consider some
gun control measures after the Allen shooting.

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You know, there's a guy who
said that he loves guns, he knows

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guns, he's around guns, and
it's not about to take anyone's guns.

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But it just gets to a point
where you don't want someone harming someone you

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love or someone loved by others.
And you know, I'm kind of reminded

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of what a one gun reform activists
told me a couple of weeks ago.

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They were telling me how these shootings
are in general, gun bos becoming so

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prevalent that like the circles of separation
or the degrees of separation or decreasing,

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and it's kind of almost getting to
a point where it affects everyone, and

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that may just be what pushes at
least the conversation to a start. Yeah,

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you know, and of course,
these mass shootings in a lot of

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ways only make up a kind of
tiny proportion of the gun deaths in Texas.

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We had a story by our colleagues
Aaron Douglas and Alex Ford this week

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in which, you know, it
highlighted how in twenty eleven, there were

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nine point eight gun deaths deaths by
firearms is the term they used, per

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one hundred thousand people in Texas.
By twenty twenty one, that number had

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gone up to fifteen point three,
so more than a fifty percent increase in

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you know, just a little bit
over a decade, and the number of

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these deaths and so I don't know, we will see. We're still well

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below the peak in nineteen ninety one
where that number was twenty point four,

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but definitely a lot more conversation around
this topic and perhaps a little bit more

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willingness. But as you said,
even these bills, had they made it

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00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,279
to the House floor, had they
gotten a vote, which would have,

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00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:51,279
you know, a favorable vote,
which which felt feels unlikely, they would

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00:28:51,319 --> 00:28:53,240
have then had to go to the
Senate, where maybe there is maybe even

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more adamant opposition to this. So
you know, the folks pushing for this

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certainly have a long way to go. All right, Thank you all,

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00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:06,880
Hondro for joining us, Thank you
for having Okay, So, also this

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00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,400
week trip Fest tickets for twenty twenty
three win on sale. Joining us for

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00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,359
a quick conversation about that is Matt
Ewalt, our new director of Events and

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00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:19,039
live journalism for the Tribune. Hey, Matt Hey, Matthew Hey, tell

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00:29:19,079 --> 00:29:22,519
us a little bit about what we
can expect from trip Fest this year.

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00:29:22,599 --> 00:29:27,279
Yeah, so, we as you
mentioned, went on sale Tuesday. What

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00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:33,640
I'm excited about is building off of
the momentum of last year's festival, what

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00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:40,720
many said was the best festival they
had experienced, and we've been able to

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00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:49,680
announce our first twenty speakers out of
what everyone knows is becomes a huge lineup

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00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:56,599
of voices in national and state politics
and policy that you know and as we

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00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:00,000
joke, some voices you ought to
know based on the kind of impact we're

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00:30:00,039 --> 00:30:07,000
having. So already announced Mattie Parker, Senator Ted Cruz, Delora Suerta,

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00:30:07,079 --> 00:30:14,440
Andrew Yang a number of others will
be rolling out those names over the coming

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00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:22,680
weeks and months. But just I
think excited to bring Texans together into conversation

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00:30:22,119 --> 00:30:32,319
on issues again across across politics and
policy, but issues that impact people's lives,

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00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,440
all right. And this year it
will be again in downtown Austin September

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00:30:37,519 --> 00:30:41,519
twenty one through twenty third. How
can people get tickets? They can go

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00:30:41,559 --> 00:30:47,799
to tripfest dot org and we want
everyone to be part of the conversation.

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00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:53,480
So I think it's helped to remind
folks that we have discounts for students,

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00:30:53,960 --> 00:31:02,599
educators, those in government and working
for a nonprofit organization. But go online,

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00:31:02,759 --> 00:31:07,599
cr slate of speakers and a lot
of different options for how you can

348
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,599
engage in trip Fest. Very good. It's It's always one of my favorite

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00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,039
weekends of the year. And I
believe if you buy between now in May

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00:31:15,119 --> 00:31:18,200
thirty first, there is a discount
as well. So that note that that

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00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:23,039
site again is trip fest dot org. That's it, and you're right.

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00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:29,160
These tickets are the cheapest you're gonna
get, and do so before the thirty

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00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,000
first. All right, Thanks matt
You're welcome. Thanks Matthew. That's about

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00:31:33,039 --> 00:31:37,920
all the time we have today.
Thank you to our sponsors BP, the

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00:31:38,039 --> 00:31:42,640
University of Houston, College of Nursing
in Texas BioMed. Thank you to Alajandro,

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00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:45,720
to Dave, to Matt Ewalt,
and to our producer Justin. We'll

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00:31:45,759 --> 00:31:57,039
talk to you next week. The
Texas Tribute Spring member drive ins today.

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359
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