(CNN) — For much of this year, an idle argument has raged in Washington about whether the southern border of the United States is in crisis. But now no one is questioning the chaos and potential surge in immigrants that could spark an imminent policy shift next week.
The expiration of a Trump-era order on Wednesday that exploited public health justifications during the pandemic to turn away thousands of migrants is expected to strain an already overburdened borders, immigration and asylum system.
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a six-point contingency plan to address the crisis as Republicans prepared to take control of the House of Representatives, brandishing the potential chaos as evidence of their claims of gross negligence by the of the White House on the border.
Even some Democrats warn that a large influx of immigrants next week could have multiple negative consequences. Critics say the administration has taken too long to address the issue and hasn’t done enough, though they also blame Congress for failing to reform the immigration system and border enforcement for decades, a target polls show repeatedly public support.
“We have a leak,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said on “CNN This Morning” Thursday. “We need a plumber to come and stop the leak. And instead, what we are doing is bringing more buckets to contain the water».
Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom told ABC News this week that the expiration of the policy known as Title 42 could strain his state’s ability to deal with the situation. “The thing is, what we have right now is not working and it’s about to enter a post-(Title)42 world unless we take some responsibility and ownership,” he said.
Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco told CBS News she is concerned about an increase in “illegal migration” and drug trafficking. Some Democratic jurisdictions, like New York City, for example, are already struggling to cope with immigrants who have already arrived as they prepare to receive more.
A pandemic-era plaster for a larger problem
Title 42 was introduced at the start of the covid-19 emergency and allowed officials to reject certain categories of migrants. But critics say it not only abused public health principles, especially since they’ve been in place for so long, but it was a cruel and unjust violation of the human right to seek asylum. A federal judge in Louisiana blocked an earlier offer by the Biden administration to overturn the order, but a federal judge in Washington overturned it in November, judging it “arbitrary and capricious.”
Amid growing concerns that large groups of migrants waiting in Mexico could cross the border as early as next week, Biden’s team said Thursday it is ramping up resources for the area, improving immigration application processing efficiency , imposing consequences for illegal entry, building the capacity of non-profit organizations, targeting smugglers and working with international partners.
But it often seemed that the White House wanted to talk about anything but the border to avoid political backlash and that the administration had no urgency to address immigration as a whole, one of the most vexing issues for this president and his predecessors. Republicans have asked Biden to visit the border, even though the political theater surrounding such a trip could now cloud any attempts by the president to bring clarity to a deeply complicated issue. However, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas told CNN’s “This Morning” Wednesday that the president should leave anyway.
“I don’t know why they keep avoiding the border and saying there are other things that are more important than visiting the border,” he said. “If there’s a crisis, introduce yourself. Just show up,” Cuellar said.
And in another setback to Biden’s efforts to end some of Trump’s controversial immigration policies, a Texas federal judge has halted the administration’s latest attempt to end the so-called “Remain in” program. Mexico”, which sends some non-Mexican citizens who have entered the United States returning to Mexico, instead of detaining or releasing them on US soil, while their immigration procedures were pending.
The Republican Party prepares a relentless ballot at the border
It is perfectly within the right of the new Republican majority to investigate the administration’s failure to stem an increase in border-crossing encounters during Biden’s tenure and the intensity of his immigration policy in general. US border authorities encountered more than two million migrants in fiscal 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection data released in October, up from 1.7 million in 2021. Conservatives say this is evidence of an “open border”, which means that many more migrants pass through a scenario that endangers national security. Many Democrats argue that large numbers of migrants encounter border agents in multiple attempts to cross into the United States after being repeatedly turned back.
But more generally, the expiration of Title 42 is also a microcosm of a toxic debate on immigration, mired in conservative media demagoguery and distorted by some Republicans by a political upheaval that has made it a national and international issue of multiple levels impossible to solve for decades. Former President Donald Trump’s extreme rhetoric and chaotic hardline approach have further poisoned the issue and left the immigration system in shambles.
Some members of the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives due to take office next month seem more willing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on felony charges and a hitherto unspecified felony charge, such as revenge for Trump’s double impeachment, rather than working towards a comprehensive solution to one of the nation’s worst problems.
And by sending immigrants to places like Manhattan, Washington and Martha’s Vineyard, Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Greg Abbott seem more interested in scoring points with likely Republican presidential primary voters by using immigrants as political pawns than by using immigrants as politicians. draw attention to the burden borne by states in this crisis.
Republicans are right to point to the US epidemic of fentanyl deaths crossing the border from Mexico, often using precursor chemicals from China. But they also spent four years pandering to Trump’s obsession with a border wall that does little to stop the entry of narcotics that arrive mainly through border checkpoints, hidden in vehicles by drug cartels.
Another high-profile tragedy regarding the Title 42 expiration has its roots in the plight of migrants fleeing crime, persecution, economic and social repression in Central and South America who make the perilous journey to the United States, often in mercy of ruthless traffickers of human beings and without sure result.
Biden has tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with addressing the root causes of immigration from Western Hemisphere nations. Her task is complicated, considering the corruption, the instability of states and the tensions between nations such as Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador and the United States, not to mention the troubled relations of recent years between Mexico and Washington.
He argued at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in June that no migrants wanted to leave their homes, but many were forced to by dire conditions. Harris has also sought to spur private investment to alleviate the poverty that is forcing people to flee. But at the same time, there hasn’t been much recent public evidence that his efforts are paying off or a sense that an issue posing substantial political danger is his top priority.
Any permanent solution to border problems would involve a huge investment in border protection, with barriers where it makes sense, but also new tracking technologies and manpower where walls don’t help. It would address the plight of undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, known as Dreamers. It would also provide a long-term path to legal status for millions of other undocumented immigrants, expand asylum courts to expedite applications, and reform the legal immigration system and migrant worker visas needed to address the economic shortage. of manpower. example.
But the political compromises and goodwill required for such reform defied Congress during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. A last-ditch effort by Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and recently independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona that would have resulted in the protection of the Dreamers and new measures to stop border crossings in this Congress is only failed.
It was the latest sign that a broken Washington is unable to solve one of America’s most intractable problems, a failure that repeatedly leads to situations like the one set to unfold at the border next week.
