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³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio’s Dave Ross asked Washington Post reporter about the events at the U.S. border involving a number of children, many of whom are said to be coming to the United States to try to join their parents. It’s thought that the recent surge of immigrations is motivated in part by turmoil in Venezuela.

David Fahrenthold: Trump could be keeping funds ‘for his own purposes’

“This looks from the outside like Joe Biden — I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to get three emails from people saying this is what happens when Joe Biden opens up the border,” Dave said. “So is that what’s going on, do we have an open borders policy now?”

“We don’t have an open border,” Fahrenthold replied. “It’s still the same border that it was before Trump. But that means that when people come and make an asylum claim, saying they deserve asylum because they’re being persecuted in their home countries, the U.S. gives them a chance to make that claim in court.”

Under Biden, they’re then released to the custody of people and relatives in the United States while they await their court date, Fahrenthold explained.

“So the Republicans are going to say it’s open borders. The Democrats are going to say, this is the process we’ve set up to try to make sure everybody with an asylum claim gets a fair hearing,” he said.

“That said, Biden should have known, hopefully did know, this was going to happen,” Fahrenthold added. “Trump was famously tough on immigration. [Biden] defeated Trump. He had to expect a surge of immigrants. And so, hopefully, they’re ready for that and they have a plan to deal with them.”

Dave notes that it’s being said this surge is due to people escaping the socialist system in Venezuela, but points out that many said during the election that a lot of Venezuelans voted for Trump because they consider Biden to be a socialist.

“Well, apparently not if they’re streaming here to get away from socialism,” Dave said. “Is that a fair conclusion?”

“I think that’s right,” Fahrenthold said. “Trump also gave a lot of benefits to Venezuelans as they’re an important voting bloc in in Florida, including he really put a lot of emphasis on trying to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela, and that didn’t work.”

“He also gave a lot of temporary protected status to Venezuelans in Florida, or everywhere, but the political import was in Florida,” he added. “So Biden seems to be catering to the same groups. He’s extended temporary protective status for Venezuelans in the U.S. as well.”

Fahrenthold believes Venezuela is one of many factors driving this influx.

“Like I said, Biden needs a plan to deal with it because the numbers are going to be big,” he said.

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Fahrenthold joins ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio’s Dave Ross every Tuesday on Seattle’s Morning News. Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.