← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:01]
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- [00:55]
Tim Miller
play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Hey, everybody, it's Tim Miller here on the Bulwark Takes feed. I'm excited to talk to somebody I've been following on social media for a while who's just dropping bangers after bangers on fx.com. he is the Cato Institute's Director of Immigration Studies and the Salz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policies, an expert on immigration, border security and interior enforcement. It's David Beer. What's up, man?
- [01:24]
David Bier
Thanks for having me on.
- [01:26]
Tim Miller
Well, we had to have you on after your testimony last week. You were on Capitol Hill. We're going to play a little bit of it. But why did our esteemed Senate call you forth for your expertise last week? How did you end up there?
- [01:38]
David Bier
Yeah, so this was the U.S. senate Budget Committee. They were ostensibly studying the issue of the cost of immigration to sanctuary cities. And I was invited because the Cato Institute, my colleagues and I published a comprehensive analysis of the effect of immigration and immigrants on government budgets over the last 30 years. And we found that they reduced government deficits by $14.5 trillion. And so this was the purpose of me being invited, was to discuss this budgetary issue and, and how immigrants can be a benefit to the United States and to government budgets generally.
- [02:29]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry, I'm told that immigrants are a drain on our resources and they're stealing from us and that taxpayers are, are covering the bill. Is that, that's wrong.
- [02:39]
David Bier
No. Immigrants, when they come here, we basically get a free worker. Right? You know, the average immigrant shows up at age of 25, he's ready to enter the labor force. He gets right in there, he gets his hands dirty. He's, he's Working or maybe he's computing. You know, whatever the, the, the type of worker we're talking about, they're contributing to the economy, not sucking in resources. And, and of course, you know, you can find those counter examples, you can find those anecdotes, you can find, you know, you can pick and choose. But when you look at the big picture, the big picture is immigrants in the United States face all kinds of unique barriers to applying for government benefits. If you're here illegally, you're categorically barred from most federal benefits, including the two largest sources of government spending, Medicare and Social Security. And so there's a huge difference between the immigrant population who's excluded from any of these benefits and the US born population who can. You can get on benefit. If you want to get on benefits, you want to quit your job and you know, go into, you know, the government benefit pool, you can find a way to do that if you're a citizen. If you're a non citizen, it's much more challenging to do that. And so on average they're less costly to government and help reduce the deficits. Particularly when you look at those areas, Social Security and Medicare, where they're using significantly less than the US born population. And because they work at 12 percentage points higher than the average, they're also end up paying more in taxes per capita than the average US born person as well. So they're, they're getting, they're improving things at both ends of the spectrum when it comes to taxes and benefits in the United States.
- [04:33]
Tim Miller
Well, one segment from that testimony went viral. It's from my senator, one of my senators from here in Louisiana, John Kennedy. It seems like he didn't really want to engage with you on the merits of the immigrants impact on the budget and instead wanted to do some like hee haw ad hominem attacks. He said that you trigger his gag reflex. You haven't done that for me so far. Seemed like pretty normal DC policy dork. He had some other negative things to say about you. Let's play a little bit from that.
- [05:03]
Senator John Kennedy
Don't you think your hyperbolic statements undermine your credibility?
- [05:11]
David Bier
What hyperbolic statement did I make?
- [05:14]
Senator John Kennedy
You posted on Blueski quote, my words are your words, not mine. The Democrats video telling service members to ignore illegal orders didn't go far enough. They should have also urged them to refuse unethical orders. Whether illegal or not, there are many things deemed legal that are still obviously unethical and everyone should hold themselves to this higher law, end quote. Did I read that correctly?
- [05:51]
David Bier
I believe you did. Do you disagree with it? You think people should do unethical things in their capacity?
- [05:57]
Senator John Kennedy
On December 31st of 2025, you posted to. In front of.
- [06:06]
David Bier
Wait, wait. Do you disagree?
- [06:08]
Senator John Kennedy
Let me finish my question. I'm sorry, sir. In front of God and country, you said, quote, they referring to Republicans think they control their way into us accepting ethnic cleansing, end quote.
- [06:26]
Tim Miller
Your.
- [06:27]
Senator John Kennedy
Your words, not mine. Did I read that correctly?
- [06:29]
David Bier
That was in regard to a. About advocating 100 million deportations. That is what DHS has tweeted from their own account. 100 million deportations would be ethnic cleansing. You would be true one third of the country. So, yes, there are people within the Department of Homeland. Homeland Security.
- [06:51]
Senator John Kennedy
Don't think this is hyperbolic. Give me 30 more foreign people.
- [06:55]
David Bier
So these are hyperbolic statements. I appreciate you reading my. My account. I. I appreciate. Here's the good news.
- [07:00]
Senator John Kennedy
What planet. Wait a minute. Mr. Chairman, what planet did you just parachute.
- [07:05]
Tim Miller
No, no, no. Hey, guys.
- [07:08]
Senator John Kennedy
You trigger my gag reflex.
- [07:10]
Tim Miller
So there you go. He was looking at your post on Blue Ski. That was the only kind of charming thing about it for me. The Ms. The Malprompism on Blue Ski. But anyway, what was your like, reaction to all that sitting there? I mean, did. Had you prepared for that type of onslaught?
- [07:24]
David Bier
Well, it's interesting. I actually had an interaction with him at another hearing the month before, and it was kind of a favorable, you know, exchange. He was asking me, so is it really true that the Trump administration has shut down half of all legal immigration to the United States and who's responsible for this? He wanted to know, you know, who's. Who's actually the culprit here. And, you know, there were several people involved, but I explained who. Who they were. Joseph Edlow, who's The head of U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary Noem. They all have this role to play in what they've done to our legal immigration system. And what's. So it's interesting that he then came to this hearing knowing who I was and decided that my statements should be subject to scrutiny. What he described, you know, he went to my Twitter feed and started reading off and Blue Ski and reading off various things that I had written. And he said, you know, they're hyperbolic. You know, these are things that, you know, couldn't possibly be true. There are exaggerations of the truth. Despite me previously at another hearing explaining to him how extreme this administration is when it comes to its immigration policy and statements. And so I was a little surprised that he decided to take an approach of not, you know, having a fair exchange of ideas, but just sort of implying that everything I'm saying is ridiculous. Now, he started off with one of these, you know, statements from me on Blue sky, which had nothing to do with immigration, actually had to do with the Democrats video of essentially urging the troops to disregard illegal orders. And I said, they should also disregard unethical orders. Now, this might be, this is certainly maybe a controversial opinion, but I asked him, do you disagree with that? Do you think they should follow unethical orders that could be technically deemed legal? And he didn't respond. He immediately transitioned on to the next question. So I am a little surprised that he seemed unprepared for his interrogation of me. He didn't really come with any arguments. He was just gonna, I'm gonna read these statements and they're gonna be self evidently show that this guy is hysterical and hyperbolic. And then of course, the next thing that he read was my statement that they think that they control their way into getting us to accept ethnic cleansing. And on its own, that does sound, wow, that's extreme. He's talking about ethnic cleansing. Obviously, the Trump administration, you know, isn't trying to do that. It doesn't have anything to do with that. Except if you look at the tweet that I was reposting from the Department of Homeland Security. As I explained to him, the Tweet talks about 100 million deportations of people from the third world, which of course there's, you know, 330 million people in the United States. There's a hundred, there's only about 25 million or so people who are non citizens in the country. So we're talking about deporting tens of millions of people who are citizens and tens of millions of people who are, were born here and are Americans. And so that would be ethnic cleansing. And of course, he didn't respond to that either. He didn't have any rebuttal or come up with some way in which. Well, actually, the Department of Homeland Security is correct. He just thought he could read this out of context tweet and everyone be like, obviously, you know, this guy's crazy. David Beer doesn't know what he's talking about and is trying to, you know, engage in liberal hysteria. We're not liberals, we're not leftists, we're libertarians. We believe in liberty. And I, I would urge anyone who's actually interested in this topic to look at that tweet from Department of Homeland Security. It's not A mistake. It's still up. Months later, they are still standing by the statement that the world would be improved after 100 million deportations from the United States.
- [12:04]
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- [13:23]
Tim Miller
This is, I think interesting. I mean obviously I wanted to talk about it because I like it when John Kennedy gets owned and embarrassed. But also I think that it's a revealing thing that you see a lot in Washington right now, which is like there's a category of anti immigrant ideologues and radicals that are inside and outside the administration who are maga, who have very extreme plans that are like far outside the bounds of anything that has been proposed by legislators in our lifetimes. Right. And then you have another category of people that just either refuse to learn about that or it's inconvenient to know about it or, or like they, they, they've convinced themselves that it's, that they're so, it's so crazy that it can't be real. And like, it is important to try to like bring those two worlds together as much as possible and like make John Kennedy sit with like the reality of what it is that this administration is proposing. And like, and to me I think that was the most significant Part of the exchange.
- [14:29]
David Bier
Yeah. I mean, honestly, we're never going to have that hearing, at least under, you know, this Congress that's actually focused on the extremes that this administration is carrying out. I mean, even when you look at the policy, the legal immigration policy I talked about, I mean, he's banning half of all of the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens. That's a real policy that he has in place. That's a policy supported probably by about 10% of the population. Now, if you tell them that Trump did it, then maybe it gets up to 25 or 30.
- [15:03]
Tim Miller
Talk about what that ban entails, like banning them in what, in what manner?
- [15:08]
David Bier
Right, so this is for people who are applying for an immigrant visa abroad to reunite with a spouse or, or a parent. If they're a minor child who is in the United states, they're a U.S. citizen, they're, they're bringing their spouse and child here to be with them. The basis of the ban is it's based on country of origin. So there are a list that they drew up. Over 90 countries are on the list. And if you're from one of those 90 countries, you cannot receive an immigrant visa. You're categorically barred from coming to the United States if you're from one of these places. And so essentially, it doesn't matter how close a relationship you have with someone here, they're not going to issue an issue you a visa. Even though you're paying all this money into the process, you're going through all the vetting that you go through, at the end of the process, they're just going to either deny you the visa or just sit on your application and not process it at all. And, you know, that is not a policy that I recall hearing during the campaign. It's not something that, you know, received a lot of publicity. I don't believe anyone voted for Trump for that policy. But that's what they've gotten from this administration because it's filled with so many people who are just so anti immigrant that they're willing to do anything to, you know, ban the third world, which is, you know, what the 100 million deportations were, you know, also focused on, you know, this idea that we're being invaded by people. Even if they come legally, they're still considered invaders by a subsection of this administration.
- [17:02]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I was talking to, I had Sager and Jetty on last week and we were talking about, and we're arguing about immigration a little bit, and he kept throwing around this thing about how Like Biden brought in 20 million people illegally. And I assume that this is like he's counting all asylees tps, you know, people from these countries. Right. That, that quote unquote shouldn't be here. But I think it's important to like, you know, separate that out for people just kind of talk about like how they're treating folks who tried to come the right way, who have come the right way, but don't have full citizenship yet. They're treating them the same way as they would. Like somebody who's a drug smuggler that came across the Rio Grant.
- [17:41]
David Bier
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If you look at, if you break it all down, I mean, we've had, we had about 8 million people, immigrants total, legal and illegal under the Biden administration over four years came to the United States legal and illegal. If you break it down, about 3 to 4 million of those were people who came across the southern border. About half of Those of the 3 to 4 million were people who had entered legally through a process for asylum, through requesting permission to enter. They received something known as humanitarian parole, or they were allowed to enter as a result of an asylum claim. And then, you know, some of them received what's known as temporary protected status, which is a legal status to be here. The Trump administration canceled all of those temporary protected status grants. They also eliminated people's humanitarian parole, even again for people who had entered the country legally under the Biden administration. And so they want to treat them all as if they're people who are here illegally. They're even treating refugees who came legally. They were vetted abroad, they didn't cross the southern border at all. They, they came here directly. And those people are also being arrested and detained and sent to detention camps as a result of their extreme policies. Anyone who does not have permanent resident status is liable to be arrested. And of course, even people who have permanent resident status who don't have their green card on them can also be arrested by this administration. So there's not a distinction in their mind between the legal non citizens and the illegal non citizens. It's an invasion in their, in their view. And they're going to do whatever they can to dissuade people from staying in the United States, to deter people from coming in the future. And that's what we're seeing under this administration is just an all out assault on immigrants, regardless of their legal status or how they came. And of course, this, you know, total abuse of, of numbers, you know, just made up. I mean, you know, there aren't 20 million people hiding somewhere in the mountains. No, our census is better than that. And look, if it was 20 million higher, mass deportation would make even less sense than it already does because it would be even more expensive, it would be even more economically disruptive. It would be even more harmful to Americans who have relationships with these people. So the higher the number they come up with, the worse their idea actually is in practice.
- [20:37]
Tim Miller
There's a recent court case in Oregon where an ICE agent under oath testified to something that you've been posting about forever that we all know, which is that they have quotas for arrests. Also tested about the use of the Palantir app for surveillance of people monitoring, including citizens. Just talk a little about that, what we're seeing from that, if there's anything kind of related that you think people should know.
- [21:04]
David Bier
Well, it certainly looks like Secretary Noem lied under oath during her testimony because she said there aren't quotas, they aren't racially profiling. And this court case has ICE agents saying, no, that's exactly what we're doing. We have a quota. We have these mandates to make arrests a certain number. And any time, it doesn't matter whether it's immigration or something that you actually care about. I mean, I care a lot about property and violent crimes, but I don't want to impose a mandate. You have to make this number of arrests because then all of a sudden you're making arrests of people who really shouldn't be arrested just to meet your quota that's being imposed on you. And so when it comes to these quotas, how are they going to meet their quotas? They're not going to meet them by selecting specific people, tracking them down, finding those people, arresting them. No, they're going to go out on the streets. Look at you, look at your profile. You're a Hispanic worker going to a construction job. Oh, yeah, we're pulling you, we're tailing you. We're going to use our facial recognition software to scan your face and see if you can. You're in our database somewhere. And if you're not in our database, then, oh, okay, that's reason to pull you over as well, because that maybe that means you cross the border illegally. And as a result of these methods, thousands, tens of thousands of Americans are being detained and harassed by ICE agents just based on what they look like. Fox News actually did probably the best reporting on this issue. They followed a team of ICE agents around a Florida construction, you know, development that was happening. They followed them around for a full day just to see what would happen. And they ended up arresting about 30 people. They had interrogated, harassed, stop, detained, whatever, however you want to describe it. Over 300 people. Wow. So about a 10% hit rate. So they got, you know, 30 rest. That was a great day for them in their quota. But it resulted in the destruction of rights and civil liberties for 10 times that many people during that day. And that's exactly the kind of number that we need to see more of. We need to see more oversight by Congress about these activities because they're destroying the rights of Americans, they're taking away our liberties to live our lives free of government interference when there's no reason to believe that we've done anything wrong.
- [23:39]
Tim Miller
I only have one note for you. You know the style and substance of your pushback on my Senator John Kennedy, and that is, I wish you would have thrown in his face that their immigration policies are causing real harm to Louisianans in the area of crawfish. We require migrants and immigrants to work in crawfish processing plants or at the height of crawfish season. My rouses down the street does not have its usual supply of crawfish hand plies because we do not have people doing the, you know, pulling off the tails, things like this. If you're going to be a senator from Louisiana, if you're going to be a hardline immigrant senator from Louisiana, I would think that he should at least fight for our cultural heritage down here, which is the ability to eat crawfish without imposition from the government. So that's just a note for you if you encounter him again.
- [24:29]
David Bier
I will absolutely bring that up the next time I see him. I mean, it's just one of the many examples of how immigrants benefit our country. We never have that hearing. We never have the. And immigrants are just supplying us with lots of good stuff that we really love that make our lives better. We never have that hearing in Congress. No one ever wants to talk about that. And look, I mean, even with this, you know, senator who I just talked about, look this, we were destroying the legal immigration system which is affecting the crawfish suppliers in your state. It's directly influencing and affecting all of your constituents. He doesn't want to talk about that. He wants to read my tweets. And, you know, that's great. I think my tweets are awesome. You should follow me on X.
- [25:15]
Tim Miller
And I agree. People should follow you.
- [25:17]
David Bier
But. But at the end of the day, that should not be the focus of Congress. We need to get back to the Real issues, and most of those real issues right now are being caused by this administration's hostility to immigrants.
- [25:30]
Tim Miller
Final topic, if I'm going to have a Cato Institute libertarian on, we've got to discuss, you know, kind of a random policy position that only libertarians put forth. And you, you posted about one speaking about your posts recently, that had my interest, it had my attention, and that is we should ban tsa. There's a big amount of discussion right now happening about funding tsa. You know, there's a government shutdown. Democrats are saying, we don't want to fund ice, but let's at least fund the ts. And you are looking at that debate and saying, no, let's not fund the tsa. We do not need this anymore. You do not need to have your dick pat down by people at the airport because you had your belt on still by accident, that we can go a different path. So let's hear a little bit more about the path you would, you would see the crazy libertarian path here.
- [26:19]
David Bier
Look, you should privatize security. I mean, there's absolutely no reason why we need to have the government directly in charge of airport security. We would have a much better security system. We, we know the TSA is ineffective. Their own audits show that they're ineffective at the only thing that they're supposed to be good at. But what they are good at is being a big political constituency. They're obviously unionized workers. They're, they're collecting a lot in government benefits, not actually supplying the service that we need. We shouldn't have our entire airport infrastructure held hostage by a government shutdown or government budget debate. It should be totally apolitical. And airport security can be provided privately as it is other places and has been historically. There's no reason to have a government involved. Obviously, people are going to bring up, well, what about 9 11? And, you know, first of all, again, TSA has not proven itself to be reliable at stopping attacks or stopping people who want to board planes with weapons and so on. But even if you look at the 911 situation, there were many other factors that simply reinforcing cockpit doors would have prevented 9 11, let alone allowing, you know, having a policy of allowing pilots to fight back against hijackers. I mean, there are lots of things that we could have done and we have done to secure air airlines. But the airports themselves have the greatest incentive to protect their biggest assets, which are their passengers and airplanes. The government has no incentive. They don't care. There's no consequence when they fail. And so we should get it out of the political sphere and get it back into the private sector where those security is incentivized by us as consumers. We want to have secure airports. We also want to get to our planes on time and the TSA doesn't deliver on either of those things.
- [28:31]
Tim Miller
I love it. You had me almost all the way there until the fighter pilots, the fighting pilots. I don't know. We'll have to talk about that another day. I don't know if I want pilots with nunchucks taking on the hijackers. But besides that, I'm with you, David. And it's good to have areas for future discussion. So that's David Beer of Cato owning my Senator John Kennedy. Appreciate you coming on the boy.
- [28:52]
David Bier
Thanks for having me on. This is great.
- [28:53]
Tim Miller
All right everybody, subscribe to the feed, Give us a like comment, let us know what you think about his fighting Pilots plan. We'll see y' all soon.
- [28:59]
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- [29:23]
Tim Miller
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Tim Miller
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Tim Miller
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