Separating fact from fiction on the frontline of Americas Border Crisis | Foreign Correspondent

JADE MACMILLAN: New York City has long stood as a beacon of hope to immigrants from around the world. But an unprecedented surge in the number of people seeking asylum in the United States has pushed some of its biggest cities to their limits. A lot of the families coming in have travelled a really long distance, often by bus. There were more than 2 million border crossings into southern states such as Texas last year. In response, the state's Republican governor has bussed tens of thousands of people to Democratic-led cities. They're taking innocent human beings, and they're using them to prove a political narrative. MAN: We can't just take everybody in the world. But if you want them, here you go. And now we're starting to see the backlash of that. Texas is pushing the boundaries of its immigration powers with the backing of former President Donald Trump, who has again made immigration central to his election campaign. On day one of my new administration, I will seal the border, stop the invasion, and send Joe Biden's illegal aliens back home where they belong. (CROWD CHEERING) The surge in migrants has pushed President Joe Biden to take a tougher stance, as immigration has become one of the defining issues of the forthcoming election campaign. We need to fix the broken border system. It is broken. The United States is in the middle of an immigration crisis. We'll show you why it's become such a massive election issue, and how it could decide who ends up in the White House. I'm in rural south-west Texas, travelling along the border that separates the United States from Mexico. Thaddeus. Hi. Howdy. How are you? Good, thank you. Pleasure to meet you. Are you ready for the ride? I am. It's going to be a lot of fun. Let's go. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Thaddeus Cleveland is the county sheriff. He patrols this terrain day in, day out. Historically, that's what we've dealt with, are people from Mexico crossing the border to come into the United States to work. And to be quite honest, our economy relies heavily on illegal alien labour. Um, but what we're seeing now with people coming from all over the world, I like to say that, you know, it's no longer the US-Mexico border, it's the US-world border, because so many countries exploit the Mexico border to make their entry into the United States. Watch your step. In Texas, that means finding a way across the Rio Grande River. So you can see that Mexico's right there. I mean, literally a stone's throw away. But this is, uh, this is the Rio Grande. Some areas just further up where the rapids are, the cows just walk straight across. People can walk straight across. Most of the river is very shallow. There may be some deep, deep spots, but, uh, the majority of it's just like this. Border crossings between legal ports of entry rose from around 850,000 in 2019 to more than 2 million last year. Out here, it's an unforgiving environment. Historically, one death a year is what we would encounter here in Terrell County, or one that...we'd find one body a year. But this last three years, we've had a total of 37 illegal aliens die trying to cross this portion of the border. And...and again, that's just a number I can't get over. Um, you know, I don't want to see anybody die. Howdy, howdy. What's going on? Hey! I hadn't seen you in a while. How you been? Fine. The sheriff's job here is an elected position. And Thaddeus has become an outspoken critic of Joe Biden. You done any fishing? The President campaigned on a promise of a more humane approach to immigration, reversing a number of Donald Trump's controversial policies. Since this administration took over back in 2021, we've seen a significant increase in illegal alien activity. There we go. Thank you. Today, Thaddeus is taking us to meet landowner Lon Ratley at his hunting ranch. Good afternoon. Hey, Lon, how are you? Hello. I'm Jade. Pleasure. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having us. How are you, sir? Good to see you. Morning. Just three weeks ago, Lon's house was broken into by a man who'd just made it across the border. It was funny. I just happened to be looking at my phone at the time. I was in Washington and I said, "What is this? "I've got a hit on my security system." This character was out running around. Anyway, bottom line is he came in here and he used a sledgehammer that he got here, and he broke open that window and came in. How often do you have people coming onto your property? I've... Well, probably daily. Do I see them daily? No. Do I see evidence of them? Yes. They leave water bottles here. This, that and the other, pieces of clothing. They'll leave gates open or cut holes in the fence and such. How do you think President Biden has handled this issue? The border issue? Well, he hasn't handled it, period. Every state is a border state now. Both Thaddeus and Lon believe change is needed in the White House. I'm more excited about the current administration leaving as opposed to who's coming in because nobody... ..nobody could do as bad a job as is currently being done. Trump's... You know, if he... His policies with regard to the border seem to be very much in line with what we would like. I guess I'm a single issue voter. If the border is taken care of, I'm happy. It's not being taken care of now. So... We'll see what happens when we have a change in government, which will hopefully be in a few months. So... As I like to say, we've got another...another nine months of this until... Yeah... ..possibly a resolution. A few hours drive away, the Texas city of Eagle Pass has become ground zero in the political fight over the border. At one point late last year, several thousand people were crossing the border here each day. The fact of the matter is, the United States of America is being invaded. And because... The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, responded by turning the city's waterfront into a military zone. One, two, three. Under a program called Operation Lone Star, he sent in state troopers and the Texas National Guard to set up new fencing and razor wire. Operation Lone Star has been enthusiastically embraced by Donald Trump. The operation that they showed me is nothing less than incredible. And I'll say this, uh, it's a military operation. I mean, we have a mili... This is like a war. Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has continued to ramp up his rhetoric on immigration, describing some people who cross the border illegally as animals. We've got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. The crime is going to be tremendous. The terrorism. It's a very sad thing. Jessie Fuentes is a vocal opponent of Operation Lone Star. All this that's going on here in our community is theatre put on to wow or to make people think that there's an invasion. There is no invasion. There is no invasion here. Jessie grew up in Eagle Pass and is taking me down the Rio Grande. Everywhere we look, there are signs of people trying to cross the border and the efforts to keep them out. That is like a collection of clothes that people have used as tools. They kind of like throw clothes on the concertina wire so it can act as a buffer so that they don't get cut. There's a story to every single layer. Every single piece of clothing belongs to someone. (IN SPANISH) It's not long before we come across a woman and her young child on the American side of the river. She says she crossed over last night. And that she walked all the way to the gate where we put in. And they didn't let her in. And, um, she's back here to where she crossed here, and she doesn't know what to do. And it was raining this morning. It's cold today. She has a little kid. Yeah. Do you hear the baby crying? What do you do? Well, I'm gonna try my best once we get down there to try to send her some help, but, um, it shouldn't be that way. We could do better. People trying to get across the border have often made long and dangerous journeys from all over the world. Many come from South and Central America, but increasingly, people are also arriving from Africa, Europe and even China. The Mexican city of Piedras Negras is right across the border. It only takes a few minutes to get over the bridge. We're heading over to talk to people who are hoping to make the journey to the US side and find out how much they know about what they're walking into. Hola. Como estas? Hello. Me llamo Jade. My name is Ramon. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having us. Nice to meet you. In Mexico's border towns, shelters have been set up for the new arrivals. This one is run by local pastor Ramon Moreno. This place is pretty new. And we making this place... ..last month, we had the... The people need place to stay. And they try to live in here. Many people don't have money for food or for a place for rent. And here is...it's not the best, but it's good. Rosie Sanchez is from Honduras. She's already tried to cross the Rio Grande twice. What was it like when you tried to cross the river? (SPEAKS SPANISH) She's now trying to book an appointment to legally request entry to the United States. That can take months, but Rosie's hoping to get in before Donald Trump's potential return. How much do you know about the types of things Donald Trump has been saying? He's called some migrants animals. He says that there's an invasion at the border. How do you feel when you hear that? On our way back to the US side of the border, we spot another attempted crossing. We'd only been here for a few minutes on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, when we saw this group of people trying to cross the border. There's children among them. We can see a little baby. One of the men splits off from the rest and wades back across the river. Guards on the other side of the fence hand the group water bottles. As night approaches, we leave them on the banks of the river while we head back to the US. The Texas governor claims Operation Lone Star is working, with the number of people crossing into his state on the decline. One of its most controversial programs has helped make immigration a major election issue, wedging Democrats in the process. We are in the section where we admit the folks when they come in. In this section, we do an orientation. This way they know that they are in the US, that they are in Texas. This is Sister Ursula Herrera. She helps to run a shelter in Eagle Pass for those that make it across the river. So when we started getting more people, then the law came out that we would definitely start bussing people to other Democratic states so that they could share the load, was the idea. They could share the load of all the immigrants coming through. In a move designed to have maximum political impact, the Texas government bussed more than 100,000 people from facilities like this one to Democratic-led cities, including New York. Some people have criticised the governor for putting on free buses, arguing that he's trying to sort of shift this problem to Democratic-led cities. How do you feel about that criticism? Well, uh, it's probably true, I'm sure. Um, because if you're upset with somebody, you're going to figure out how you can kind of get back at them. Initially, of course, we thought it's like, we just... It's...I don't know, it just seemed very inhumane. But a lot of people, they were really excited, you know. "We're getting a free trip!" Not realising what they were going to run into once they got there. New York didn't know what hit it. New York City is in the midst of an unprecedented migrant crisis. As more and more migrants pour into New York City, Mayor Adams saying the cost is escalating into the billions of dollars. And just last week, more than 3,800 migrants arrived here in the city. When the buses started arriving from Texas, they ended up in the middle of Manhattan. More than 40,000 people have been sent here so far. That's only a small portion of the overall number of migrants who've come to New York City. But it had a big impact. This was where the buses would arrive every morning from Texas, and we, my partners and I and all my volunteers would be here waiting for them, greet them, shake their hands. Ilze Thielmann is a volunteer helping new arrivals to the city. She was here when the first bus came in. Why do you think the governor of Texas sent people here on buses? Absolutely in the beginning, it was a political stunt. He was trying to make a statement and embarrass the so-called sanctuary cities and say, "Well, if you're a sanctuary city, "then why don't you handle the problem?" But I think that down the road it became more of an actual strategy of getting rid of these people and just kicking them, you know, to another place. So here we are, the Little Shop of Kindness. Come on in. Thank you. We've got some guests waiting. We have our receptionist. In the months since the first bus arrived, Ilze and her team have been working around the clock, distributing donated clothing and other goods. We see people from all over the world, even people from China and Russia and Ukraine. The demand is never ending. I mean, it's just so broad and so deep. You know, we feel bad that we were only able to do so much for each individual who comes in here. We have to limit what we give out, because there are so many people who need. Two months after the buses started arriving, the mayor of New York, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency. We're getting no support on this national crisis. And let me tell you something, New Yorkers, I don't see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City. I mean, what leader says that? This is the city that has gone through 9/11 and was ground zero for Covid in the United States and Hurricane Sandy and all kinds of other things just in recent memory. And never did the mayor of New York say that this was going to destroy this...this city. It's pretty cowardly, if you ask me. And dangerous, dangerous rhetoric. Amid mounting criticism from his own side, Joe Biden has started describing the situation on the border as a crisis. I am willing to make significant compromises on the border. We need to fix the broken border system. It is broken. And he pushed legislation that would temporarily close it if arrivals reached a certain threshold. The entire conversation has shifted to the right. And anything that that any politician does to assist migrants, um, is going to be painted by the...by the other side as, you know, dangerous to Americans and un-American and all of this, you know, crazy rhetoric. And that's really...it's a disgrace. Now that's kind of a summary of the... Muzaffar Chishti is a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. He's been closely following the crisis as it moved from the border to other parts of the US. Initially, the reaction by mayors and governors of these states and cities was, "Well, we are the anti-Texas. "We are the anti-Abbotts. "We'll receive them with warm welcome. "We are the Statue of Liberty and, you know, the welcoming states." That lasted about a week. So you could say that the governor of Texas might have done it for completely political motives. But he finally carried the narrative. He changed the politics of the Democratic Party, which was unquestionably pro-immigrant. Now somewhat sceptical. New York City has a unique right to shelter rule, requiring it to provide emergency housing to anyone who needs it. The city of New York has been scrambling to try to keep up with demand for support. This was once an iconic Manhattan hotel. It shut down during the Covid pandemic, but it's since been reopened with a very different purpose. The Roosevelt Hotel has been repurposed as an emergency migrant shelter. It's closed to the public, but we've been allowed inside. Come right through this way. Sarah Joseph Kurien helps to run the centre. So right through here is where every asylum seeker walks in. Since May of this...last year, we've seen about 125,000 people through these doors right here. And this team determines if people are new to the city or if they're seeking a replacement. What was once the hotel lobby is now a makeshift processing area. Event spaces have been transformed into a medical site for health checks and vaccinations, and several thousand people are temporarily sheltering in the hotel rooms. We see anywhere between 2 and 500 people per day in the 24 hour cycle, so sometimes arriving in the very late hours of the night. So this is 24 hours a day, seven days a week? That's exactly right. As the city struggled to keep up, new limits have been imposed on how long people can stay at shelters like these. As a city, I think we're really coming up against the reality of being in one of the most expensive cities in the world, trying to welcome everybody who is coming here, but also understanding that we simply don't have the room to be able to safely house everybody who needs housing indefinitely. The tougher legislation the president was backing had bipartisan support in Congress, but it failed to pass after Donald Trump intervened. The majority of Democrats and Republicans in both houses support this legislation. Until someone came along and said, "Don't do that. "It'll benefit the incumbent." That's a hell of a way to do business in America for such a serious problem. There was an unusual combination of very conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats who had come together on a number of measures, which would have made a significant dent, if not hugely changed the border situation. And the moment it started looking like that it may pass, President Trump decided to call in his chips and say, "Don't make it happen." How defining will the issue of immigration be in this presidential election? I think this will be the defining issue. From Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country. Donald Trump will make it his calling card. He has used it once before. He'll use it again. And as long as there is a perception, if not the reality, that there's a crisis at the border, people will pay attention to it. In the suburbs of New York, Donald Trump's message is resonating. Brenda Lee is a long time New Yorker. OK, good. Good, good. She's concerned about the conditions migrants are being housed in, but she's also worried about the impact on her own neighbourhood. Brenda is teaming up with other residents to plan a protest. That's what this is all about. Us, the citizens of the United States, deserve better. Our tax dollars deserve better. Our senior citizens that can't afford the high prices deserve better. It's a very difficult place to live because the rents are so high. We have a housing crisis. Um, you know, we have so many issues. So it's like, we...we come first because we pay taxes, right? Opinion polls suggest immigration has become one of the top election concerns for many Americans. And in a race that's expected to be close, every vote counts. How will this affect how you vote in the election? I'll be voting for Trump. You know, I've always been a registered independent and I voted both ways. Sometimes I voted Republican, sometimes I voted Democrat. I'm hoping that he closes the border. Like, freeze on the border, freeze the border. Just until we get this, um, we can get this in control. And then, you know, we can take it from there. Back on the border, Eagle Pass residents are coming together for an annual festival. They're meeting their Mexican neighbours in the middle of the border bridge. (BAND PLAYS MEXICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM) It's a time to celebrate. But this year the landscape is different. Down below, the politics at play here are impossible to ignore. Captions by Red Bee Media Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation