Improving Immigration
Improving Immigration
Walls don't work. We need real solutions.
Migrant crossings along the southern border have reached record levels, exceeding 10,000 daily apprehensions multiple times in the past month. The underfunded and antiquated US immigration system is being overwhelmed by these numbers and cities are straining their budgets to take care of the migrants who arrive in need of shelter and supplies.
The situation is made all the more difficult by the Republican party using migrants as political props for their fear mongering agenda, referring to them as terrorists despite the lack of any terrorist activity related to border crossings. Migrants are also largely not violent or criminals, they commit crimes at a lower rate than American citizens.
The truth is that the vast majority of the migrants are people who have risked it all to take a long, perilous journey in hope of a better life for themselves and their families.
Walls don’t work and America is required by international law to hear requests for asylum. So how do we improve the immigration situation?
Let’s begin with the most touted solution from Conservatives, that these migrants should do the right thing and legally immigrate. The problem is that the US has one of the lowest immigration per capita limits of nations with strong economies.
When you break down the categories of those getting legal status in the US, the problem becomes even more apparent.
The number of immigrants given legal status in the US is around 1 million per year. That hasn’t changed in decades despite both the US and world populations continuing to grow.
The majority of those receiving legal status are through family relations. Then you have employment sponsorships. Everyone else who isn’t yet in America is left with refugee and lottery options, which are typically less than 30,000 people given legal status each year for each category.
If someone doesn’t have family already in the US and doesn’t have an in need set of skills for employment, it is nearly impossible to immigrate legally to the US. What that leaves people with is desperately attempting to cross the border illegally.
One of the easiest policies to adjust would be the number of people we allow to legally immigrate each year, as well as adjust the amount of legal immigration that is targeted at the countries generating the largest numbers of migrants. This would make it so that people in those nations feel they have legal options to solve their situation.
Reduce Displaced Populations
America is not to blame for all of the displaced people in the world, not even for most. But our nation has caused some of it.
Given that the focus is currently on the southern border and migrants traveling mainly from Latin and South America, that is where we should look first.
Venezuela accounted for over 180,000 migrant border encounters in 2022 and their share of all migrant crossings has increased in 2023. Cuba had over 220,000 encounters at the border. What do both of these nations share? US economic sanctions.
Cuba has been continually under US sanctions for over 60 years. If America believes sanctions bring results, Cuba is an example of the exact opposite. The only thing those sanctions have created is economic hardship on the innocent people living in Cuba which in turn forces them to seek a life somewhere else, such as the United States.
Venezuela has been under sanctions since 2019, and just like with Cuba, that is creating economic hardship for their population. As a result, the number of Venezuelan migrants has increased year after year: ~3,000 in 2020, ~50,000 in 2021, over 180,000 in 2022, and while the final tally isn’t in for 2023 yet, Venezuelan migrants have already exceeded the 2022 number.
Other countries like Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador are all facing extreme poverty and human rights violations without any US economic sanctions.
What can America do to help reduce that hardship for nations without sanctions? It turns out that Mexico offers an answer.
Mexico’s GDP is over $1.2 trillion, which may surprise you. One factor pushing their GDP higher is remittances. Remittance is when a person works in another country and sends that money home to their family.
Many Mexicans legally work jobs in the US as a way to earn a better living. In 2023 almost $70 billion was sent to Mexico through these workers. Other major remittance countries from the US are India, China, the Philippines, and Egypt.
America could restructure its work permits to ensure that a higher volume goes to workers from countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. This would give more migrants a legal way to enter the United States in order to improve their economic standing, and those wages would be passed back to their home countries which would improve the economic situation there too.
But we can do even more than remittances to reduce migration. We can improve trade deals and tariffs. One of the easiest examples is sugar.
The US ensures that 85% of the sugar sold in the US is from domestic supplies and then artificially inflates the price of all sugar through tariffs to prevent it from undercutting US sugar prices which are 2-3 times as high as the rest of the world.
The majority of the United States has a terrible climate for growing sugar which limits the supply. The cost of labor is higher in the US as well. In fact, the majority of sugar cane farming in Florida is done by immigrants and automation. US policies aren’t protecting US workers, they’re protecting very wealthy corporations at the expense of everyday Americans and even at the expense of other countries' economies.
The US could easily change these types of policies which would allow agriculture to flourish in Latin American and South American countries which would in turn reduce migration.
Furthermore, by adjusting some of our trade laws and relations, America can reduce the cost of goods for Americans. American products might even end up being made with sugar again instead of corn syrup.
The Drug Factor
The final approach to improving the migrant situation that I want to discuss is overhauling America’s approach to drugs.
The US has waged a War on Drugs for over 50 years and at the cost of over $1 trillion. The result has been increased drug use, destroyed communities, increased violence, and an overwhelmed and overly expensive American prison system.
Not only has it worsened the situation here in America, it has worsened it for many other nations in the Western hemisphere. Because there is such a great demand for illegal narcotics in the US, it is immensely profitable to grow, manufacture, and sell illegal drugs. This has led to drug cartels taking control of land in multiple countries which has increased violence and corruption for those nations, strained governments, and created more migrants.
Below is a link to an article specifically about America’s drug problem and possible solutions. In short, we need to federally legalize Marijuana and any other drugs deemed low risk, decriminalize personal use of drugs, fund drug education, and destigmatize drug rehabilitation and counseling.
Until America is willing to discuss the actual causes of migration, we won’t be able to find the right solutions to reduce the problem.
Migrants aren’t terrorists, walls don’t work, but modernizing our immigration system and overhauling key American policies can make a significant difference. And best of all, overhauling those policies can improve life in America as well.
