Boiling Point: America’s Immigration Problem
Decades of inaction have created an urgency to solve America's Immigration policies.
The federal government is simultaneously working hard to figure out a bipartisan immigration bill to address the high number of migrants crossing into America and duking it out in a major election year at a time where both political parties feel it is the other party’s fault that immigration is such a mess.
Who is at fault for what we’re seeing at the southern border and in our country? All of Washington. It is a problem decades in the making exasperated by a rapidly growing displaced global population due to economic inequality, human rights violations, climate change and international relations, or a lack thereof.
Sounds complicated? It is, but the solution doesn’t need to be.
The United States hasn’t passed an immigration law in over 20 years. There is an argument to be made that there hasn’t been a major, meaningful immigration bill passed since 1986. Throughout that time there have been Republican Presidents, and Democrat Presidents, different majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and none of them took major steps forward.
In an age of easy filibusters even having a simple majority across the federal government doesn’t mean you can do exactly what you want. There needs to be some level of compromise, and then there is the uphill battle against obstruction for the sake of politics.
When it comes to immigration, conservative and liberal views have drifted much further apart over the years. When the current level of immigration is at a level considered manageable, there isn’t a lot of urgency to make politicians budge from their positions.
The urgency has arrived.
Numerous cities are seeking federal assistance in dealing with the cost of supporting and housing a large number of migrants. There are calls from many states, both Republican and Democrat governors and mayors alike, insisting that the federal government do something to curb the number of migrants entering America.
The Senate has been working hard on a bipartisan immigration bill. Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security which is in charge of Customs and Border Protection, has also been heavily involved in the discussions. This is truly a bipartisan effort. But yet, House Republicans have said that the bill is dead on arrival when it hasn’t even been finished and they haven’t read it.
The reason is that it is an election year.
With the economy experiencing a great recovery and crime being near 50 year lows, a surging migrant problem is the top issue for much of the nation. Republicans hope to put the blame squarely at the feet of the President and Democrats. Several Republican politicians have directly said they don’t want to pass an immigration bill before the election because they fear it could help President Biden’s approval rating.
The House Republican strategy is to say that Biden can fix the problems with Executive Orders. Their claim is that Biden created this mess and therefore he can fix it too. But neither of those statements is accurate.
Let’s look at a brief history of the recent issues at the southern border:
As 2018 was coming to an end, the US was seeing a significant increase in the number of migrants crossing the southern border. President Trump attempted to use Presidential authority to shut down the southern border using the Presidential Authority to Restrict Entry. This was taken to court and blocked as the President doesn’t have authority to restrict access simply due to an increase in asylum seekers.
2019 saw a significant spike in migrant crossings as shown in this graph:
In response, Republicans began realizing that the only solution was for Congress to legislate new laws. Here are a few quotes:
“I will continue to work tirelessly in Congress to convince my Democratic colleagues that we have a serious crisis on the border, and that they need to work with Republicans and take action now,” - Sen. Ted Cruz - 2019
“Most importantly, Democrats must change our immigration laws right now,” - Donald Trump - 2019
“This is a broken system that needs to be fixed. It takes congressional action; you need to change the law.” - Rep. Steve Scalise - 2019
No agreement was reached to successfully pass any new laws, but 2020 brought something new into the equation, a global pandemic.
The pandemic changed travel patterns and migrant numbers. On top of that, the pandemic opened up new power for the President through the use of Title 42. By enacting a Covid Emergency, the border could now be shut down which restricted asylum requests and permitted rapid deportations. That action, combined with the change in migration, brought border crossing numbers way down.
This made the problem manageable once again. The country was focused on dealing with the disruption Covid brought to businesses, workers, and the economy. Any efforts on new immigration bills ceased.
In 2021, a lot of America wanted to move on from Covid. Republicans were itching to end the Covid Emergency and get back to life as usual. The problem was Congress hadn’t enacted any plan to replace Title 42. When the Covid Emergency ended, so did Title 42 and the issues from 2019 roared back to life once again. But who was migrating into the US was different than in the past as shown by this graph:
The majority of migrant crossings were no longer from Mexico. Mexican migrant crossings were still relatively low, but migrants from other nations had increased significantly.
This was due to a variety of reasons, such as harsh economic sanctions on countries like Venezuela and Cuba, displacement from drug cartels fighting for territory, human rights violations, and unstable governments. Latin and South American nations are experiencing a high amount of turmoil causing an influx of migrants to the United States.
President Biden attempted to combat this by enacting the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule after Title 42 ended. One of the main elements of this rule was blocking asylum requests for migrants who passed through a third nation.
This means if someone from Nicaragua passed through other nations to get to the US, that person was required to have requested asylum in those other nations and have been denied asylum before being able to request asylum in the US. Since the only nation America has a southern land border with is Mexico, this would have cut down asylum requests significantly. The caveat is that the nations passed through have to be safe for the migrant.
Once again, this action was brought to court. This is because as members of Congress have previously admitted, Congress needs to fix immigration. It requires new laws. A President doesn’t have the authority to change laws on his own.
Now here we are in 2024. The immigration issues are worse than they were before, and both parties are trying to navigate the solution during an important election season.
There is also a lot of hypocrisy flowing around with the rhetoric. Speaker Johnson is now saying the President can fix it alone and is citing Presidential Authority to Restrict Entry even though Trump was blocked by courts when he tried that very approach and Biden was blocked when he tried something similar. In contrast, here is what Speaker Johnson said in February of 2023:
“our immigration system is broken. Reforming that system is a job for Congress.” - Speaker Johnson - 2023
Recently, Speaker Johnson said that any bill which allows even a single border crossing is a non-starter. Such a goal is impossible and the House Republican bill H.R.2 would never have achieved that either. While Johnson seemed to quickly move away from that talking point, let’s quickly discuss why fully stopping all border crossings or deporting all undocumented migrants would crash the US economy.
1 in 6 workers in America are immigrants. 25% of those are undocumented migrants.
Immigrants are more likely to be the prime working age of 25-54 years of age whereas native born Americans are an aging population.
This is because America has had a birth rate below the replacement rate since the 1970s. Meaning that America's population would have been shrinking for 50 years if it wasn't for immigrants. A shrinking population destroys a nation's economy.
17% of the Agriculture workforce is undocumented migrants, along with 26% of farming specifically and over 50% of hired farm hands.
Also 15% of workers in construction, 9% of hospitality, 6% of manufacturing, and 6% of transportation are undocumented migrants.
In 2019, Mexican undocumented migrants alone contributed $10 billion in state and federal taxes. The majority of the money undocumented migrants earn goes right back into the community through spending on housing, goods and services.
America's economy is built off of immigrants, including specifically off of undocumented migrants.
We’ve gone over the inaction and global factors that have brought the immigration problem to where it is. And we’ve discussed why immigration is needed in the US. What are the steps to make the immigration system function better both for America and for migrants?
Properly fund the Asylum System
One of the biggest issues facing the immigration system currently is the backlog of asylum hearings. Migrants who reach US soil, even between ports of entry, are allowed to request asylum. To see if they meet the criteria for asylum, they need to have a hearing.
The system is so underfunded and understaffed that migrants are getting hearing dates years in the future. The US doesn’t have enough holding/housing areas for this number of migrants. The solution is that low risk migrants are released into the US. This isn’t a new policy. Trump did this, so did Obama, so did Bush. The problem now is the high number of migrants being released into the country is overwhelming city budgets.
Properly funding and staffing the Asylum system will clear out the backlog, deport those who do not qualify faster (most do not qualify), and significantly reduce the number of migrants being released into the US.
Work Visa Adjustments
The US doesn’t give out enough work visas. This is why so many jobs are filled by undocumented migrants. Adjusting the work visa programs to ensure that America has enough workers to keep our economy strong and allocating many of those work visas towards the countries facing the worst economic hardships will reduce border crossings.
Pathways to Citizenship
America simply doesn’t have enough avenues for legal immigration. Not only does America need to increase the number of legal immigrants it gives citizenship to each year, it needs to develop programs that give migrants paths to work towards citizenship, such as working a certain number of years with work visas while paying taxes and not committing crimes in order to earn citizenship.
Our military also has some programs that allow certain migrants to enlist and serve in order to be granted citizenship at the end of their contract. Given the current struggles with military recruitment, these programs could be expanded to include more migrants allowing more pathways to citizenship and solving the military recruitment crisis at the same time.
Better International Relations
The US doesn’t have the best relationship with many Latin and South American countries. We currently have stiff economic sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba. We have price fixing and import restrictions on common goods such as sugar which increases costs for the US and limits economic growth for other nations.
By improving our relationships with these nations we could both lessen the hardships that are leading to the high level of migrants and we could create better asylum agreements which limit how many migrants reach the US.
The good news is that the bipartisan Senate Immigration bill is expected to address several of these issues along with giving the President emergency powers to shut down the border when crossings are high.
The bad news is that MAGA House Republicans have already said they will block this bill.
We will find out the details of the Senate bill in the next couple of days. Then we will discover if Congress will finally take action on improving Immigration laws, or if the problem will be left to continue on as it has for some many years before now.
