Background Briefing: June 5, 2024


Legal Challenges to Biden’s EO on Closing the Border

We begin with the ACLU threatening to take the administration to court in response to Biden’s Executive Order to close the border in the event there is a flood of immigrants seeking asylum. Joining us to discuss the battle ahead in the courts is Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Policy Director at the American Immigration Council where he directs the Council’s administrative and legislative advocacy effort and works on border and immigration court issues.

 

Agreements and Disagreements Between Americans and Europeans on China, the Wars in Ukraine and Gaza and European Security 

Then, with President Biden in France for tomorrow’s D Day remembrance followed next week by a G-7 summit in Italy then 3 weeks later the 75th anniversary of NATO in Washington, we look into relations between Western Europe and the United States in terms of issues like Ukraine, Gaza, China and  European security. Joining us is Mark Hannah, a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs a nonprofit public education organization at the Eurasia Group and the creator and host of its “None Of The Above” podcast. Mark is a political partner at the Truman National Security Project and he teaches at New York University. He just led a new survey at the Institute for Global Affairs, “The New Atlanticism: Where Americans and Western Europeans Agree and Disagree About Democracy, Wars in Ukraine and Gaza, China, and European Security” which we discuss.

 

An Assessment of the Results of the Elections in India

Then we assess the results of the elections in India followed by an analysis of India’s foreign policy choices ahead as China and Russia grow closer and speak with Dr. Sumit Ganguly, who holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University. His books include India Since 1980, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia and his latest book is The Oxford Handbook of India’s National Security. We discuss his article at The Conversation, “Modi’s narrow win suggests Indian voters saw through religious rhetoric, opting instead to curtail his political power.”

 

India’s Foreign Policy Choices as Russia and China Grow Closer

Then finally we speak with Andrew Latham, a professor of international relations at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota specializing in the politics of international conflict and security. He was formerly the Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament Fellow at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and a lecturer at the Canadian Armed Forces School of Aerospace Studies. We discuss his article at Responsible Statecraft published before the election, “What an even stronger Modi might mean for US-India relations.”