It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy.

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Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.

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THE MAZE OF U.S. ASYLUM POLICY
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews ([link removed])
Correspondent

For days, the three Senate negotiators working on an immigration and border security deal have given no details of their talks but have repeated one thing.
* “This is the most complicated area of law in the United States.” — Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.
* “Immigration law [is] some of the most complicated law that we have.” — Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
* “This set of law is so important and so complicated.” — Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

We get it. U.S. immigration policy is built on years of tweaks and patches generally applied to short-term issues. But it has created a long-term system that can feel held together by a blanket of Post-it notes.

We thought we’d carve out a little time today to look at one aspect of the maze that is central to current talks: asylum.

Fast history: a patchwork of laws

In mid-1939, with Europe at war and Americans yet to enter, the United States turned away the ocean liner the St. Louis. It was filled with more than 900 people, mostly Jewish, seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. Upon their return, at least 200 were killed ([link removed]) in the Holocaust.

After the horrors of World War II, new laws and systems began to emerge. What follows are some highlights ([link removed]) on how the U.S asylum process came to be.
* The U.N. In 1951, the international community — sans the U.S. — signed the U.N. Refugee Convention ([link removed]) , which asserts that refugees should not be returned to a country where they face a threat.
* Stacks of laws. After passing a temporary law in 1948 for WWII refugees, the U.S. Congress added a stack for other groups in the decades that followed, including Cubans, Hungarians, many in southeast Asia fleeing the Cold War and Vietnam War, Hong Kong citizens escaping China, and Azore islanders fleeing the aftermath of earthquakes and volcanoes.
* An asylum standard. Then came the Refugee Act of 1980. It set the first comprehensive standard for asylum in the U.S., adhering to the U.N. standard for defining refugees: The person must have a “well-founded fear of persecution.” That has since been assessed by a “credible fear standard,” meaning the person must show there is a significant chance they can prove to an immigration judge that they have credible reasons to fear torture or prosecution.
* Following 9/11, new anti-terror laws also dealt with immigration.
* The Trump era. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute straight-forwardly noted that the Trump era was “four years of profound change ([link removed]) ” in immigration policy. The White House put out a series of policies aimed at blocking or making asylum more difficult.
* The Biden transit rule. In May, the Biden administration announced a rule aimed at discouraging migrants from making long land journeys to attempt asylum. Under the rule ([link removed]) , people who have traveled through a third country to reach the U.S., and who cross into the U.S. outside legal entry points are considered automatically ineligible for asylum. But the policy, and whether it has any effect ([link removed]) , is intensely debated ([link removed]) , as well as litigated: The rule is making its way through court challenges ([link removed]) now.

The situation now

The result of all of these layers is a complicated system.
* The U.S. has been witnessing large increases ([link removed]) of unauthorized border crossings ([link removed]) , especially in past weeks and months. For the past two years, the asylum case backlog has also continued to grow.
* Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have said they frequently run out of space to detain people, and the U.S. law prohibiting extended detention of children has led to cartels encouraging families to cross the Southwest border so that they will be released by CBP after apprehension.
* The immigration court system is also overwhelmed. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data portal ([link removed]) run by Syracuse University, currently there is a 1,400-day, or more than four-year, backlog for asylum cases.

This is why both Republicans and Democrats are so focused on the issue at this moment.

And this messy system, what we have laid out is actually a very simplified view of asylum. It ignores hundreds of complex policy rules and decision points ([link removed]) in the process.

Meaning even if this were not one of the most heated political issues for the country, it would be one of the most difficult to navigate simply based on the patchwork policy alone.
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More on politics from our coverage:
* Watch: Political experts examine America’s divisions ([link removed]) heading into 2024 election.
* One Big Question: The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the high court ([link removed]) . She also fought to end the practice ([link removed]) of electing state judges. What is her legacy? ([link removed])
* A Closer Look: How some evangelical leaders are combating political radicalization ([link removed]) in their congregations.
* Perspectives: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus discuss the House’s impeachment inquiry ([link removed]) and its impact on President Biden.

How has PBS NewsHour coverage been useful in your life or work?
Please tell us your stories here. ([link removed])

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IMPEACHMENT EXPERT BREAKS DOWN HOUSE GOP INQUIRY INTO BIDEN
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Watch the clip in the player above.
By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage ([link removed])
Senior Editor, Digital

Dan Cooney, @IAmDanCooney ([link removed])
Social Media Producer/Coordinator

House Republicans have now formally opened an impeachment inquiry ([link removed]) into President Joe Biden and his family's business dealings.

But nothing regarding the evidence has changed, said Michael Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina Law School who has testified before Congress on the Clinton, Trump and Biden impeachments.

What has changed, he said, is there’s a new House speaker — Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.

The speaker and other House Republicans believe that faced with a formal impeachment inquiry, the courts will recognize the chamber’s efforts to get information from Biden’s son, Hunter.

“That's one of the real problems here, which is all the focus right now is on Hunter Biden and not on President Biden,” Gerhardt told the PBS NewsHour ([link removed]) . “But Hunter Biden is not an impeachable official. He's a private citizen.”

House Republicans have raised that some Biden family members have not ([link removed]) been compliant ([link removed]) with some of their subpoenas. But Gerhardt said the lawmakers are using that investigative tool “for a fishing expedition.”

“They don’t know what they’re looking for,” Gerhardt added. “They don’t know if they will find it.”

WHERE VOTERS STAND ON THE BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY
By Laura Santhanam, @LauraSanthanam ([link removed])
Health Reporter & Coordinating Producer for Polling

Americans are split over whether the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry is a good idea, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll. While 49 percent of U.S. registered voters say they disapprove of the inquiry, another 48 percent approve ([link removed]) .
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Image by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
The inquiry has centered around the business relationships and practices of the Biden family, but no evidence has emerged to link the president to corruption or bribery while in the White House, the Associated Press reported. The inquiry remains “at its infancy,” Republican strategist Douglas Heye said. A White House spokesman called it a “baseless stunt” ([link removed]) last week.

According to this latest poll, most Republicans and nearly half of independents support the impeachment inquiry into Biden, but interestingly, so do 24 percent of Democrats.

#POLITICSTRIVIA
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Watch Jim Lehrer’s 1998 interview with then-President Bill Clinton in the player above.
By Dan Cooney, @IAmDanCooney ([link removed])
Social Media Producer/Coordinator

On the heels of the formal Biden impeachment inquiry, Tuesday marks a notable anniversary in U.S. impeachment history.

On Dec. 19, 1998, the House of Representatives voted to impeach then-President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.

The impeachment came nearly a year after Clinton, during a 1998 interview ([link removed]) with the NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, denied allegations that he encouraged Lewinsky to lie about the relationship in a civil deposition. “I did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth,” Clinton said. “There is no improper relationship.”

At the time, the House’s vote to impeach the president was only the second in the nation’s history. (The first was for Andrew Johnson in the late 1860s.) Nearly two months later, the Senate acquitted Clinton on all charges.

Presidents, however, aren’t the only federal officials who can be impeached.

Our question: Who was the last federal official — not president — to be both convicted by the Senate and removed from office following an impeachment trial?

Send your answers to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.

Last week, we asked: After the Boston Tea Party, this founding father wrote a letter that called for the perpetrators to repay the East India Company for the destroyed tea. Who was it?

The answer: Benjamin Franklin ([link removed]) . We received quite a few guesses for John Adams, but he’s a founder who actually praised ([link removed]) those who took part in the political protest. It was Franklin who wanted a “speedy Reparation” ([link removed]) that would “immediately set us right in the Opinion of all Europe,” he wrote in a 1774 letter.

Congratulations to our winners: Lisa Contarino and Bob Schmid!

Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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