Why not just shut down all U.S. borders?
17th January 2024 · 0 Comments
The sea of people marching through Mexico on their way to the land of the free and the brave, America, is disturbing and concerning. Where will these migrants go if granted asylum? Who will support them and provide health care and housing? Where will they find work?
Aside from the millions of people wanting to escape tyranny and seek safety and a better life in the U.S., it’s clear that Immigration reform is a necessity. But that’s nothing new.
The U.S. Border Patrol arrested about two million migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, similar to record-breaking totals during President Biden’s first two years in office, Reuters reported last week.
During Republican Donald Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency, migrant arrests peaked at 852,000 in fiscal year 2019, the wire service report continued.
The stats are driving Republican demands for stricter immigration policies. Immigration is the Republicans’ main campaign issue.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wants the Biden administration to reinstate Trump’s immigration policies. From building more walls to ending asylum and sending unaccompanied minors back to their country of origin and arresting parents, the Republicans want a return to Trump’s racist, migrant-hating policies.
Johnson wants the Democratic-led Senate to approve H.R. 2, a bill passed by the House in May to end access to asylum at the border. The White House opposes the bill, and President Biden will veto it if it arrives in his office.
“The bill would make things worse, not better. Because this bill does very little to increase border security while doing a great deal to trample on the Nation’s core values and international obligations, it should be rejected,” a White House statement said.
The White House has a funding request for nearly $14 billion for U.S. border security. That money would pay for 1,300 additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, 1,600 new asylum officers, and 375 new judge teams. The package has been blocked by Republicans in the Senate.
They want a return to Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed Trump to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants to Mexico or their home countries due to the pandemic.
The Republicans are calling the immigration problem “Biden’s Border Crisis.” They don’t want to solve the problem. They want to run on Trump’s assertion that asylum seekers are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and bringing “drugs, disease and crime.”
Obviously, the GOP ignores the facts published by CATO Liberty last November, quoting data that showed Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years. Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden. But facts seem to be stubborn and inconvenient things for MAGA Republicans unless they favor their position.
While Republicans are wringing their hands over asylum-seekers at the southern border, nothing is said about people who are overstaying their U.S. visas.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a right-leading institution, sounded the alarm about the danger of visa overstays in a 2022 report.
The CIS pointed to Shihab Ahmed Shihab, a citizen of Iraq who arrived in the United States on a visitor’s visa in September 2020 and filed an asylum claim just before his authorized duration of stay expired. Before being arrested, Shihab was working on a plot to assassinate former President George W. Bush.
The Department of Home-land Security (DHS) reported over 400 Iraqis overstayed visitor visas in 2020. While not all overstayers are terrorists, the CIS believes the temporary visa system has been exploited by terrorists who overstayed.
Overstays are believed to be about 40 percent of the illegal alien population residing in the United States, contributing to unlawful employment and undermining the integrity of our immigration laws, according to the CIS.
DHS counted 684,500 overstays in 2020, up very slightly (about one percent) from 2019, when 676,400 overstays were counted, just below the levels in 2016 and 2017.
Approximately 105,000 foreign visitors who entered under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) overstayed in 2020. The United Kingdom had the most VWP overstays, while VWP travelers from Portugal had the worst compliance rate.
Still, the CIS website is full of articles blaming Biden for the vast number of asylum seekers at the southern border. Although CIS claims to be an independent immigration research organization.
The CIS did offer ways to address visa overstays: Congress should direct the executive branch to boost interior enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and direct the State Department, which issues visas to foreign travelers, to take more vigorous steps to reduce approvals and improve vetting for categories of applicants who are most likely to overstay.
Finally, Congress should consider creating and imposing more meaningful consequences for employers, schools, and other organizations that sponsor visitors who do not comply with visas.
The main point to take away from the CIS’s suggestions is this: Congress is responsible for border control, not the President of the United States.
Maybe the GOP would be satisfied if Biden closed the southern and northern borders, stopped migrants and asylum seekers from entering the country by air and sea, and end visa programs.
Oh, wait. If the Republicans are successful in keeping out migrants, we’ll be paying more for everything. So, immigration is not just about humanitarian assistance.
For all the GOP’s saber-rattling about immigration, do we honestly think corporations want to see fewer migrants? Corporations are interested in profits. Cheap labor puts money in their pockets. Immigrants equal Cheap Labor.
If immigrants are prohibited from entering the U.S., corporations will increase production out of the country. Which means fewer jobs for Americans, not migrants. Fewer jobs, no need to increase wages.
And who will pick the fruit and vegetables, process chickens, clean homes, and provide small neighborhood businesses?
In 2022, foreign-born accounted for 18.1 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force, up from 17.4 percent in 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
These represent workers born outside the U.S. to parents who aren’t U.S. citizens and include legally admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants.
According to the BLS, 1 in 5 workers were born outside the U.S. to parents who aren’t American citizens, representing a record-high workforce share.
On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island opened its doors as a federal immigration station and began receiving immigrants. From 1892 to 1954, it was one of the major entry points for immigrants, processing more than 12 million people in 62 years.
America is a vast country with large swaths of uninhabited lands. Why can’t we support more immigrants? They contribute to our economy and provide needed services.
Is the quote from Emma Lazarus’ 1883 poem “The New Colossus,” “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” that’s etched on the Statue of Liberty no longer valid? It’s a bitter irony that the majority wanting to keep immigrants out are descendants of foreign-born immigrants if not immigrants themselves.
This article originally published in the January 15, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
