Here & Now

US Rep. Mark Pocan on Lifting Pandemic Immigration Policy

Frederica Freyberg:

On the other side, Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan from Wisconsin’s 2nd congressional district joins us from Madison. Thanks for being here.

Mark Pocan:

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

In a letter to the CDC you signed with other House Democrats, you called Title 42, which has been in place for two years and closed the borders due to COVID-19, illegal. Why?

Mark Pocan:

Well, first of all, most of what happened in this area, under Donald Trump wasn’t done for health concerns. We know that. He mishandled COVID in every possible way. It was done as just another way to stop people who might be legitimately coming to this country to seek asylum. There’s a process we’re supposed to follow, and this allowed you not to have that process. That’s the real problem with it. I know the Republicans politically love to talk about this as one of their top three hits that they’re putting out for the campaign. But I can tell you that people in the district don’t reach out to us about the southern border as must as they do making sure they get their mail delivered, for example. On this particular issue though, because it was a fake issue by the Trump administration, about COVID, we should then be smarter and be back to the position that we’re dealing with those issues as asylum cases. And even more important at some point, Frederica, we need to be doing some resources and some help in the countries that people are coming from. If we give people a reason not to leave the country they’re in, then this political argument that some people like to have will become even less relevant than it even is to people in my district.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interestingly, though, some Democrats are even hedging on rescinding Title 42, what is your comment on that?

Mark Pocan:

Yeah, again, I can’t speak for other folks. I can just tell you that I was in Congress during this period. We saw how it was misused. And it’s time that people have legitimate asylum requests, we go back to being that country that legitimately looks at those.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think that Ukrainian people fleeing war should be given preferential treatment to those fleeing poverty and crime of which we speak?

Mark Pocan:

I don’t know about preferential treatment. I think what we need to do is make sure that we have a system set up to take refugees again. In south central Wisconsin, under the Trump administration, I think every single agency closed down except for Jewish Social Services and they stayed open at a loss to their operation because of how we changed policies during that administration. We’ve always been a country that’s had our arms open for refugees for legitimate purposes. I don’t think anyone thinks someone coming from Ukraine right now as a refugee is not legitimate. We should be making sure we are allowing folks into this country like we always have and that we have the support of agencies fortunately that we do have in south central Wisconsin to help those families find places.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of Ukraine, what is your response in reaction to what is going on there right now?

Mark Pocan:

It’s horrific every day to watch what’s happening, right? Vladimir Putin has proven a couple of things. One, that Russia is not the superpower that it pretends to be and Vladimir Putin certainly isn’t the leader that he needs to be. He’s an autocrat, and I think he’s an autocrat who is losing a grip on where he’s at and where Russia’s at. Because of it, they’re where they are in the war. When Ukraine is able to almost out-muscle, so to speak, in the situation on the ground right now, that tells you a lot. I think, we need to get resolution so we can stop the bombing and the deaths that are happening in Ukraine. And then go after Vladimir Putin for the crimes that he has committed by going into the sovereign nation as he has. I think we’re providing everything we can, and I know the president is going to be asking for more when we get back. I believe next week. And we need to continue to do anything we can do to support the Ukrainian people.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the COVID front, people no longer need to wear masks on airplanes and all of these measures are being loosened or eliminated. And yet the numbers are ticking up in Wisconsin also. What can you say to constituents who might be a little confused about what is going on with this?

Mark Pocan:

I don’t blame them. I am a little confused at times on exactly where we are with COVID. The problem is a lot of people think they’ve decided that COVID is over. I think COVID will tell us when it’s over. The good news is from people I respect who are the scientists and doctors in this area, it does look like omicron and the new variant of omicron are pushing out completely the worst parts of COVID. And this may be that stage where this becomes a more mild disease and we can move on and we won’t have the deaths and hospitals filling up like they did for the first several years of COVID. But again, we need to follow the science a little bit. I know when I fly to Washington, I’m going to wear a mask because I don’t want to 1) get someone sick. I have a lot of access with people, and I could be a carrier and I don’t want to get others sick. And I also don’t want to get sick from others. I think that’s still a common courtesy. People are going to have to do what they are the most comfortable with. But I still am going to look to the experts on this. And I hope we really are in this final stage where it turns out to be much less severe. More contagious but less severe. And it’ll be probably more like the flu. But I am not 100% sure that’s where we are at. It looks like that is where we’re going.

Frederica Freyberg:

With just less than a minute left, I want to get your take on last week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on the legislative maps and how they ruled on that.

Mark Pocan:

Yeah. You know I will tell you, if there are two things I could change that would fix just about every other issue, one is you stop gerrymandering, whether by Democrats or Republicans and quit having politicians pick their voters rather than the other way around. We have that problem in Wisconsin. And two, change how we finance campaigns. When you allow billionaires and large donors to have more of a voice in the campaign process than people who are your constituents, we’ve got a system that ultimately is going to hit a wall on democracy and cause real problems. I am very concerned. This is always around as an issue but we find new ways that billionaires have found ways to put a million dollars into a primary in various races around the country. I can tell you that’s more than most candidates raise for their own primary. We gotta turn those things around or we’re going to have some serious issues in Wisconsin. That was a great case of the gerrymandering problem only continuing to exacerbate our problems in the state legislature.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mark Pocan, thanks very much.

Mark Pocan:

Sure. Thank you.