Caitlin Dickerson

So the border has been relatively, compared to the past, empty since Trump took office.

And so you have a lot of border officials who are available and have been detailed to American cities to support ICE.

And I think that you're seeing the difference in the way that they're used to working in these interactions that we're watching in American cities.

Border Patrol officials operate in a different constitutional zone than

Border Patrol officials have a lot more freedom when it comes to how they stop and question people, what source of information they can access.

Very different from the Fourth Amendment protections that we're used to in the interior of the country.

And I think some of the differences that we're seeing in how interior arrests look now versus how they did in the past may simply come down to training.

So I don't think the lesson is that the changes in numbers of people crossing the border is solely due to policy.

I hear what you're saying.

I'm very familiar with this debate.

And I think that circumstances outside the United States and outside American policy are very relevant.

I think

A lot of times missing from that conversation is acknowledgement of the fact that there was a global pandemic and an incredible pent-up demand for crossing borders given the way that international economies struggled so much.

You know, the U.S.

recovered better than any country in the world economically.

And so it makes sense that coming out of the pandemic with travel restrictions lifting abroad and with so many other countries suffering more than they were previously, that there was a huge pent-up demand that contributed to the increase in people who crossed the border under the Biden administration.

You know, you had millions of people leave Venezuela because of falling apart within that country and the regime there and the economy and public safety.

You know, political dissidents were being jailed and killed, etc.,

And so at a certain point, everybody who was able to leave Venezuela has left Venezuela.

And so I think there can be a real problem with just taking a slice of a moment in time and saying, you know, the Biden administration had record-breaking immigration and leaving it at that to suggest that the only factors that had to do with the Biden administration and their policies were at fault for these really high numbers.