If you were shopping for a home, a car, a plumbing repair, or investing your savings, would you do business with someone you knew is dishonest and was lying to you about what they’re selling?
I don’t really understand why normally sensible people leave their common sense behind when it comes to politics.
As the 2022 elections approach, Republicans are loudly campaigning on their “Biden’s open border policy” theme.
There is no such policy. Border crossers are being expelled in record numbers. As White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday, September 15, 2022, “More individuals encountered at the border will be removed or expelled this year than in any previous year.” (See story here.)
Jeh Johnson, Obama’s secretary of homeland security, says the Biden administration is being “unfairly perceived” as “lax” on border enforcement. He points out that “we are sending back over 100,000 people a month and have been for the last two years.” (See story here.)
The border patrol today employs nearly 5 times as many border agents as 30 years ago, the number peaking under Obama after growing sharply from the previous Republican administration (George W. Bush), before declining about 10% under Trump. (See charts and graphs here.) And border stops have more than tripled under Biden (see graph below).
So what’s going on? Border crossings are way up, that’s what.
For two reasons. One, pandemic policies that froze the processing of asylum seekers resulted in a “revolving door” effect with “the same people trying to cross again and being caught again” (see story here). Two, migrants are coming from more countries now, increasing the overall numbers of those trying to cross the border see story here).
In the past, they came primarily from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — the so-called “Northern Triangle” countries. But now, they’re also coming in large numbers from three Marxist-ruled countries, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, whose governments want to create problems for us and reap a bonus by ridding themselves of malcontents unhappy with life under their regimes (see story here).
Biden didn’t create, or encourage, any of this. His administration is stepping up enforcement. And while Democrats opposed Trump’s costly border wall, there’s little reason to believe the wall, where built, was stopping border crossings (see story here). Border walls mainly serve to make it appear that politicians are “doing something” about unwanted migration (see article here).
The reality is that neither infrastructure (e.g., border barriers) nor punishment has a significant deterrent effect on migration. The lure of jobs and reuniting families is simply too strong. A University of Southern California group that studied the problem concluded, “Perhaps there is very little that border enforcement can do. Increased enforcement in the past has had little impact on the total volume of unauthorized migration into the U.S. as well as … propensity to migrate.” (See story here.)
What does reduce migration is better livability in the home countries. As that last article points out, migration from Mexico has been declining, thanks to an improving economy there. Many of the Central American refugees are fleeing chaos and violence in their countries, which suggests the U.S. has a stake in what’s happening there, and needs to be involved in those places if it wants to reduce the flow of refugees to our border.
None of the things that work are easy, or overnight cures. Republicans posture, and milk the problem for political gain, but they haven’t demonstrated a practical solution. They don’t have one, and their political stunts — such as Trump’s border wall — at best don’t help much, if at all, while what does work is ignored or neglected.
Their “no immigration, period” approach, apart from being ineffective, actually hurts the U.S. economy, which is suffering from a worker shortage. That’s partly due to the fact that the citizen birth rate has fallen below the “replacement rate,” i.e., not even babies are being born to replace the older generations that are dying off. The workforce also is shrinking because of demographics: The huge population bulge after World War 2, the Baby Boomers, are now retiring by the millions. Every reliable study of data and analysis agrees the U.S. needs immigration to supplement its own population in order to fulfill its workforce needs.
A policy of accepting migrants who want to work here, coupled with an orderly process of screening and admitting them, wouldn’t solve all the border problems but would take a considerable amount of pressure off the border by proving an avenue for legal migration. There’s no reason not to adopt this approach; we need the workers, and crime is no real reason not to, as immigrants generally don’t bring crime with them. Most just want to work, and studies show illegal immigrants’ crime rate is half that of American citizens.
But standing in the way of a rational immigration policy, and blocking immigration reform in Congress, is Republicans. This certainly is thick-headed (and pig-headed) on their part, but it’s not entirely without rhyme or reason. They have their reasons: Racism, and fear that a new group of citizens will vote for Democrats. It’s not that Republicans don’t care about the problem; they simply have different priorities than solving it.
They’re right when they say there’s a border crisis. But they’re being dishonest with you about what’s causing it, who’s responsible, and what the solution is. When you go to vote, don’t buy a used car from them. It’s overpriced (border wall) and defective (doesn’t work).
