How might the next President of the United States impact our country's relationship with Mexico?

A prestigious panel of local and international experts weigh in this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

What are realistic expectations for the Las Vegas Raiders this season?

That's ahead, but we begin with expectations for U.S.-Mexico relations.

In October is when Mexico's president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, will begin her six-year term just as U.S. voters will be preparing to determine this country's next leader.

How will the results of that race impact border security, immigration policies, and more?

That was the focus of a recent panel I got to moderate at UNLV thanks to the Brookings Foreign Policy program in partnership with Brookings Mountain West.

I think you were hinting at this, Rachel.

Perhaps you could expand.

You say "undocumented" migrants.

There are politicians who will say "illegal" aliens, "illegal" immigrants.

Explain your word choice.

(Rachel Torres) So something I think really important to note is that being undocumented in the U.S., in and of itself, is not a crime.

If you are caught, right, entering the country without authorization, certainly you will be detained, processed for deporting, right, but in and of itself, being undocumented is not a legal distinction.

Now, there's been a lot of different kind of state policies that kind of created this narrative in which we kind of think of these people as inherently, the space they operate, as being illegal.

That doesn't make it normatively true about them.

And so when I use "undocumented," what I'm referring to is the fact that we do not have them openly, kind of, communicating their presence to the U.S.

But I feel like the term "illegal" kind of implies to a certain extent that their entry was inherently illegal.

What we know is that most undocumented populations did at one point legally like enter the U.S., right?

It's also completely legal to show up at the border and claim asylum and enter that kind of plea.

And so, again, when we start talking about immigration, I think when we utilize that terminology of "illegal," we start again immediately, if you're going to think more normatively or in the humanitarian sense, we're automatically calling those populations like criminal, right?

We're associating them with that when, in reality, there's a lot of different ways in which someone finds themselves to be undocumented.

-Vanda, touching on this idea of open and closed borders, you have talked about the extension of a border wall and how effective that may or may not be.

(Vanda Felbab-Brown) Unfortunately, it's not at all effective, even though, of course, the Trump administration made it a hallmark of its policy, and it's something that a Trump 2 administration would return to.

Now, interestingly enough, we are in a situation where the Biden administration had to restart the construction of part of the wall because of congressionally mandated, appropriated money.

So when the Biden administration came in, it tried to significantly disavow the policies of the Trump administration, certainly the most egregious, brutal ones, such as separating children from their families, but a wide set of other policies.

But as the years of the administration were unfolding, a lot of the switch to the left toward the more humane, humanitarian aspects of dealing with migration turned out really challenging, not the least of which because of the highly polarized debate and the vulnerability that this created with Republican constituencies, especially as we saw a massive surge of migrants coming to the U.S. border at first, principally trying to claim asylum, overwhelming the system, and eventually, as the system became overwhelmed, many simply resorted to coming in illegally.

So part of the package of what the Biden administration tried to step away from was the construction of the wall.

But nonetheless, parts of the wall, it's really a bollard fence, were constructed during the Trump administration, and other parts had money allocated to it.

So the Biden administration tried to get a new legal judgment that would allow it to spend the money in other ways, very much within the theme, Mike, of secure border that would focus on technological surveillance at the border, for example, and certainly beefing up security in legal ports of entry.

The court denied it.

And so one of the aspects of the policy has been that parts of the construction have to be reauthorized.

But I would just broadly return to the FEMA.

What is the border supposed to do?

So the border and the wall, according to the Trump administration, was to stop the flow of undocumented migrants as well as other contraband, principally drugs.

And chunks of the border wall were constructed during the Trump administration.

Now, immediately during the Trump administration, we saw that both migrants and drugs were getting across the wall, whether people were digging tunnels underneath, bringing many more people by boat through the sea.

In the case of drugs, a wide set of technological innovations took place, including flying drugs by drones.

But anyway, the vast majority of drugs certainly enters the United States through the legal ports of entry, are smuggled by U.S. citizens with vehicles that often, majority of time, carry U.S. licenses.

So building the fence has dramatic consequences, negative consequences for the environment.

It has dramatic negative consequences for communities along the border, not the least of which are Native American communities, and does not deliver the promise of stopping the bad flows that it purports to stop.

-John, can you expand on how Mexico views these issues, immigration as well as border security and the influx of drugs from Mexico.

(John Tuman) So for a long time in Mexico, the view across many different parties--and the current governing party is Morena, National Regenerated party--and AMLO, the current outgoing president, Claudia Scheinbaum, who's the president-elect, viewed transit migration, as they call it in Mexico, from Central American countries, from other parts of Latin America, as well as migration from Mexico, they use the language and discourse of human rights that it's very important for them to protect the human rights and the rights of migrants from other countries, as well as Mexican migrants in the United States.

The reality has been that there has been increasing militarization, at least that's the way it's characterized in Mexico, of the government's response.

I mean, there are other elements to this, but there are now over 300 detention centers for migrants throughout Mexico.

They greatly expanded the-- so these are called temporary, but I think there's kind of an elastic meaning of that term.

They seem to be coming semipermanent.

They have militarized parts of the southern border.

They've tear-gassed migrants from Guatemala or people who are transiting from the Guatemalan border, for example.

There was, of course, near Juarez, a migrant detention center, a very tragic fire that killed 40 people that you may have heard about.

And that is all part of the government's response under pressure from the U.S. to really sort of ramp up enforcement and almost like a military response throughout the country.

-Something important to note is that our undocumented immigration, like immigrant population, has really grown as the result of the securitization, the militarization of the border.

So historically in the U.S., we did have migrant labor coming in from Mexico.

I would say that more Central American flows that we see now are really more related to kind of external factors along the lines of civil wars, increased cartel violence, et cetera, but also economic markets crashing.

But historically in the U.S., we had migrant labor coming in, but they were only working for short periods of time.

So they were, essentially, we saw this kind of class of young, predominantly male laborers coming to the U.S., working because their wages were a lot higher and then going back to Mexico and developing it, getting married, starting families, building up their, you know, homes.

So they had this, more of this mentality of seasonal labor.

As the U.S. has increased its militarization of the border-- and I think you're completely right, What do we mean by secure?

We have to have like a clear definition.

But militarization in the sense that we have fewer ports of entries, we're far more limited in who's allowed to come in for periods of time, the idea of immigrants being able to just come over seasonally en masse and work in our agricultural industry, I would argue, politically, a lot of people would probably be opposed that.

Historically, that's how our U.S. economy worked.

In our agricultural sector, we have sowing and harvesting times.

They would come in, work, and essentially move back.

Now, because of the securitization of the border, people have to pay more to enter this country illegally.

And so as a result, they've had to pay much higher costs.

They're like, Okay, I need to stay longer to offset that.

The longer you stay, the more you get invested in the community.

(Michael Kagan) Migration policy that's rooted in the idea that we don't want anyone to migrate, we're going to have a lot of problems.

We're going to end up inflicting a lot of cruelty.

We're going to see chaos.

We'll be at war with humanity.

I think a migration policy that accepts that migration is something human beings do, that there's nothing inherently wrong with it, that there are problems that can result related to it, but that we can solve that through having it be done orderly and in a secure way, I think then we can have a functional policy.

-John, I want to kind of take a twist here and talk about Mexico being the United States' largest trading partner.

How well understood do you think that is by the American public?

-I think there's a growing realization of the importance of Mexico for many things which we consume in the U.S.

I've been studying the auto industry since the early 1990s and for good reason, because Mexico now is-- we import.

It's our largest partner in terms of imports of cars and SUVs into the U.S. market.

It has a tremendous impact economically within Mexico.

So its contribution to manufacturing GDP in Mexico is tremendous.

It generates about a million jobs, directly or indirectly there, over 80,000 just in the vehicle assembly plants.

There are 37 plants.

There are firms there which range from Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Kia, Toyota, Honda, and then, of course, there's Stellantis, which people still refer to it.

It took over Chrysler in bankruptcy.

It's really a European firm, even though we call it still part of the D3, so to speak, the Detroit 3 or the legacy OEM firms, the big three in the U.S., so Ford and GM as well.

The odds are if you buy a car from, you know, in the United States, it's either produced in Mexico or it's going to have a significant share of the content from Mexico and also from Canada.

So it's a very, very highly integrated industry.

-What can individuals do to navigate the misinformation inundating social media and biased news in relation to the election and immigration policies?

Who wants-- -Throw your phone into the river.

-Mike, you want to take a shot at that one?

-If I knew how to answer that question, I would have done that already.

-Well, let me add few thoughts here.

So one, obviously, is supporting platforms that do fact checking.

So part of what I do at Brookings all the time is engaging with journalists on fact checking.

Candidate X, Y, and Z said this.

Is this true?

What's the nuance?

What's the context?

How effective that is.

And I can imagine student media doing similar kind of fact checking for Nevada, for Las Vegas, for perhaps national policies.

I would also suggest, however, encouraging peers, encouraging friends, parents to expand where they get their media, where they get news, rather.

What has been very detrimental, in my view, is the fragmentation of media, that people simply listen to only one viewpoint that they want to hear and do not get a sense of how skewed that viewpoint might be.

And major media have become very discredited or are believed to be discredited because politicians condemn them as being discredited.

Where I would be looking at is the media source that I am reading or listening to, doing fact checking.

How objective are they?

What kind of editorial standards they have?

So go read New York Times; go read Washington Post; listen to PBS, the media platforms that we grew up with and that we had significant trust and with good reason.

-Mike, you wanted to add something.

-Yeah, so American public opinion on immigration is famously divided and also ambivalent.

But there's one thing that's really consistent in opinion polls: If they ask about salience, about-- ask what are the most important issues to you, immigration is not unusual for it to come in about number two or number three, which is pretty remarkable, given that it doesn't really affect that many people so directly.

However, if you look, as I say, in the crosstabs, at who are these people who are saying immigration is such an important issue to me, they are overwhelmingly people who do not like immigrants.

-They're the ones who say, This is a big issue for me.

This motivates me politically.

And that will affect, almost as much, maybe even more so than the overall of like who favors this policy or not, like DACA, it'll affect what messages and what pressures elected officials feel.

And in some ways, it's totally healthy, right, that the people who are saying, "I am so alarmed by immigration..." are people who-- "I was in line and I heard someone speaking Spanish and my head's exploding, so I raced home and bought a red hat."

Like those kind of people.

But they will be heard by elected officials.

The other person also standing in line also heard someone speaking Spanish, didn't even notice, because it's so normal and healthy for them.

By the time they get home, they're worried about what's for dinner and don't even realize it happened.

That's healthy, but it has a political effect, because it means that the people who should be voting to, say, defend dreamers, aren't aware that the person that they're sitting with in class is under attack by some really powerful people.

And if they're ambivalent about, I don't really like anybody, I don't know if I want to vote, are not as aware of that as that person who like, Oh, my God, I heard a foreign language and someone spoke with an accent.

I'm angry about it, and that was actually two weeks ago and I'm still angry.

There are people like that, and they will be heard.

And the other, the opposite, people are actually more numerous, but it's less important to them, and that's a hard political problem to overcome.

-You can find a link to the full panel discussion at vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

We move now to sports.

The Las Vegas Raiders open their season on the road Sunday, September 8, against the Los Angeles Chargers.

They finished last season 8-9 but went 5-4 under then Interim Head Coach Antonio Pierce.

So what can we expect from the Silver and Black this season?

For that, we turn to Mark McMillian, Former NFL Cornerback and now Raiders Analyst for 8 News Now.

Welcome back.

(Mark McMillian) Thank you for having me back.

Last year, you said you were going to have me back earlier, but they didn't get off to a good start.

So maybe it was, There's nothing really to talk about.

So thank you for having me back.

-And we had you on for Nevada Week In Person, which I encourage all our viewers to go watch.

You have a tremendous story.

But let's play catch up from last year, because the roster of the Raiders, the whole makeup has changed dramatically.

Let's start with Head Coach Antonio Pierce, now head coach.

Prior to this, though, his highest level of head coaching experience was the high school level.

-Yes.

-Did you agree with this decision to make him head coach?

-Well, at the time, everybody was questioning it, like, he was the linebacker coach, plays with a lot of energy, he's won a Super Bowl, so he's been there, done that, and they just needed a new identity, a new freshness in the locker room, because the fans were getting tired of it.

You can see the players really not buying into the system.

What he was able to do toward the end of the season kind of revitalized the program, got people excited about him being the coach.

You have Maxx Crosby saying, If he's not the coach, then trade me away.

So if you're the head guy up top, you know, Mark Davis, you gotta be like, We can't lose our star guy.

So at that time, it was still questioning, but I think he's the right guy for the job now.

Like I said, this is a tough business.

These coaches get hired to get fired in the NFL, so hopefully they can get off to a good start.

-I mean, I don't think the Raiders really had a choice.

Do you?

-No.

There was no other candidates, especially at that time.

It was the middle of the season.

Josh pretty much just dismantled the whole team.

Him and Carr didn't really get along.

They shipped him off to New Orleans, which I'm sure he's probably happy because he's got a lot of soul food out there.

But like I said, it was just the chemistry wasn't there.

So the players really bought into Antonio Pierce, especially being a defensive-minded coach.

Everybody knows the Raiders love to play defense down, dirty, gritty.

So he's kind of that guy that's preaching that message, and hopefully it transforms onto the football field.

-You brought up Derek Carr.

The quarterback now, Gardner Minshew.

And my producer found a really funny quote.

"Nobody wants him to be a starter, probably even his own team, but he won games with Indy last year," said an anonymous NFL offensive coach.

"When you play him, the kid is competitive.

He will keep you in the game, and then it's going to be a fight."

Your thoughts on that?

-There's a lot of people that didn't like the pickup.

They were thinking about maybe they should move up in the draft.

But they have a lot of players making a ton of money, so they really couldn't have too much move in the draft.

I know a lot of people wanted Penix, who's now in Atlanta.

They wanted the young guy with the Commanders out of LSU.

They wanted him, Daniels, but weren't able to move up because it cost a lot of money.

But Gardner Minshew was available.

A lot of people don't know he beat the Raiders last year, you know, with the Colts.

And he showed a lot of moxie.

He's gritty.

He has a little charisma to himself.

A lot of people say he's got a little Jake, a little Snake, in him a little bit.

You know, he's got the mustache.

He's, you know, he's a high-energy guy.

He's played some high-level football with some really good football teams as well, with the Jaguars and recently with the Colts and the Eagles as well.

-How would you describe this season?

Could you say it's a rebuilding season?

-The players don't want to hear the word "rebuild."

A player never wants to hear that you're rebuilding.

But you know, they have some pieces, some veteran guys.

You've got Davonte Adams, still one of the best receivers in the league.

You got Maxx Crosby, who's probably the defensive MVP, in my opinion, every year the last couple years.

Then you bring over Wilkins from Miami, who's a really good run stopper as well.

So they got some pieces, some veteran guys, but it's still a tough division.

You got "Khaki Pants" Jim Harbaugh over there with the Charges now, and-- -Who may have wanted a job with the Raiders, true?

-I thought he was going to-- he was my number one choice, because I think he just fits that mold of the Raiders.

He's a no nonsense guy.

He's won at every level.

He's won a-- he's went to the Super Bowl with the 49ers.

He just won a national championship with Michigan.

I don't know how long that will last, because the allegations that's going around there.

But he's a good coach.

He coaches up quarterbacks really well, as well as tight ends.

And the Raiders just picked up one of the best tight ends, one of the best players in the draft in Bowers as well.

-How did we get on Harbaugh?

I brought that up because that's going to be the first team they're facing this season.

Perhaps he's going to be a little bit angry if he wanted the Raiders job.

Okay, so not a rebuilding year.

You wouldn't say it, or say that to the players, at least.

-I wouldn't say that to the players.

As a former player, you never want to hear the word "rebuild," especially if you're a free agent and you go onto a team.

You want to win.

At the end of the day, these players, trust me, they make a lot of money; but if you're a real football player, real like-minded guy like myself, you want to win.

No one likes to lose.

These guys may have a lot of money, but when you're losing, no one wants to talk to you.

Your phone is dry.

You can't go out with your family, because everybody's talking about you.

But this is not a rebuilding year when you go get a veteran quarterback like Minshew.

-Okay.

So what about Davonte Adams?

Is he actually happy with the Raiders?

-That's the question that's going around with a lot of the media.

Obviously, you saw the show with wide receivers, kind of threw his guy under the bus a little bit, and, you know, just in and out of the lineup this year.

Even the last preseason game, the preseason game before that, Antonio Pierce came out public, said, Everybody needs to play.

And then obviously, Antonio, you know, he didn't play.

You know, so that kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

If I'm a veteran, at least go inside the huddle with your guys.

May not get the ball, but at least show these guys that you're all in and you're buying into the program.

And him not being in that huddle in the game before the last game with the 49ers kind of rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, because you got Maxx Crosby out there who's busting his butt, you got Jack Jones, you got Nate Hobbs who's a nickel guy.

You got all these guys that's starting getting it in.

Just go to the huddle, just call a hitch.

You don't have to catch the ball, but at least be out there on the field.

-Sticking with offense, no more Josh Jacobs at running back.

-Man, that hurts.

-Yeah.

Granted, last season wasn't great for him.

-Yes.

That hurt big time.

And I'm-- obviously, I'm an Alabama guy, but the guy led the league in rushing two years ago under Kennedy Polamalu, who they fired in the off season, who was a great running back coach.

So there's a lot of stuff that happened in the off season that rubbed people the wrong way.

Josh was a Raider.

He got drafted by the Raiders.

You look at the records he was breaking, Marcus Allen's record.

He was plagued by a little bit of injury last year.

Could have been some other stuff going on.

But you can't let a guy like that leave your building, because he brought so much more off the field than he did on the field, especially in the locker room.

-Who are they replacing him with?

What do you think of him?

-Zaire, he's a young guy out of Georgia.

I think this is his third year coming in.

And obviously, behind Josh, you're not going to get many carries.

But last year when he went down on injuries, Zaire stepped up, made some really good plays.

But there's no replacing of Josh Jacobs, a guy that's proven in the passing game, running game, and a leader in the locker room.

-We talked a little bit about defense and the defensive line, but what about that cornerback position, the very position you played in the NFL?

-There's some holes that they tried to fill in the draft.

But obviously, you know, Bennett, who they drafted high last year, is expected to be healthy.

He's looked good in the preseason.

Nate Hobbs, I always say a healthy Nate Hobbs at the cornerback's position helps the defense out tremendously.

You bring over Jack Jones, who had a really good toward the end of the season last year, plays with a lot of energy, played under Antonio Pierce in high school.

So he knows the guy really well, and they got really good safeties.

And Epps as well.

-All right.

Last question.

The total wins that the sportsbooks have put out for the Raiders, I think is 6 1/2?

Do you think they'll go over or under that?

-That's tough.

It's all about if the quarterback stays healthy, I think they can at least go 500.

It's a tough division.

Like I say, you got to beat the Chiefs, you know?

Then I always say-- I know, they beat them last year, and they went to Kansas City.

-Yeah.

You know, you're right.

-But 800 could possibly get you a wildcard spot in the division.

And who knows?

Once you get in the playoffs, anything can happen.

So they have the pieces.

They have a really dynamic offense.

They have weapons all over the field, especially in the wide receiver position.

You draft one of the best players in Bowers coming from Georgia.

It's going to be a mishmash for any defensive back.

Jakobi Meyers is playing really good.

Tucker has improved dramatically, had eye surgery in the off season.

So they really got some good receivers.

-All right.

Mark McMillian, you can watch him on Channel 8 on game days, right?

-Yes.

I'm there with Chris and Ron every Sunday morning, eight o'clock on Raiders Pregame Live.

-Thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you for having me.

-And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.