“A society without a moral center has no mechanism for working through competing narratives and desires, leaving us in a fog of confusion and estrangement.” — Megan Dent
Donald Trump is the only candidate in modern United States history to run, and to win, on the issue of immigration. His 2016 campaign promised a wall on the 2,000 miles of our border with Mexico and the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.
When in office, his Migrant Protection (“Remain in Mexico”) Protocol required asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their applications were adjudicated in our immigration courts. Moreover, the pandemic gave his administration cause to further block immigration by invoking a “Title 42” public health law to turn away all foreign nationals who posed a public health risk.
By the time the Trump administration ended, there were 706 miles of primary barrier along the U.S. - Mexico barrier. Only 52 miles of that, however, was new construction during Trump’s term — albeit 351 miles of existing primary barrier was strengthened and improved during his time in office.
The Trump administration implemented some of the most restrictive border policies in our history — even as migrants from Mexico, Haiti, Central America, South America, and from around the world, continued to press to enter our country.
A January 2017 executive order directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to make a priority the arrest of unauthorized immigrants in the interior of the country. Friction with local law enforcement in many jurisdictions hampered this effort. ICE made 549,000 such arrests from fiscal year 2017 through 2020. Between fiscal years 2013 and 2016, ICE made 640,000 such arrests.
During the Trump administration, 935,000 non-citizens were removed from the country. During the last four years of the Obama administration, 1,160,000 non-citizens were removed.
In his 2020 campaign, Joe Biden was against pretty much anything Donald Trump stood for — including immigration. Biden disparaged Trump’s “wall” rhetoric. On the very day of his inauguration, Biden ended the Migrant Protection Protocol.
He proposed a Citizenship Act which would have established an expedited path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It would have provided $4 billion in spending to implement a four-year strategy to address the underlying causes (violence, crime, poverty, and economic instability) impelling so many people to flee their home countries in Latin America for ours. And it would have improved the efficiency of our immigration system which, even in 2020, had a backlog of 5 million in asylum and green card applications. The Citizenship Act, to no one’s surprise, stalled in the Congress.
President Biden did not repeal the Title 42 restriction until May of this year when the pandemic was officially declared at an end. Then, after a brief but illusory lull, migrants surged in record numbers along our southern border. In September, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 269,735 encounters on that border — a record high. An encounter is a when person crossing the border is detained, deemed inadmissible, or expelled.
There were 240,986 encounters reported in October, and 242,418 in November. In fiscal year 2023 there 2.48 million encounters on the southern border. In FY 2022, there were 2.38 million. In FY 2019, there were 977,509.
On October 5, in a remarkable policy reversal, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced that not only would urgent new construction of primary barrier commence on the southern border, but the government would waive enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Water Pollution Control Act, and other federal laws to do so.
The effect the announcement had on national news-and-opinion cycles was overshadowed by the Hamas attack into Israel on October 7.
On October 20, in an address to the nation responding to several crises at once, President Biden called upon Congress to authorize $106 billion in additional spending to cover critical needs concerning Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and our border security.
Congress has not yet acted on this spending request which the president portrayed as urgently needed.
$13.6 billion of the $106 billion request is intended for border security. $7 billion of which is to increase CBE and ICE. $2.1 billion is to enlarge our immigration court system.
Meanwhile, the surge on the border continues unabated. CBE reports as many as 10,000 encounters a day. Senator John Fetterman looked at the nearly 270,000 encounters in September and, appalled, remarked, “You essentially have Pittsburgh showing up at the border” in one month.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in October observed: “It used to be that when there was a migration crisis, it tended to be one country at a time. Maybe it was Haiti. Maybe it was Cuba. Maybe it was Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador … Now it’s all of the above, plus Venezuela, plus Nicaragua, plus Ecuador. On top of that, we’re seeing an upsurge in migrants coming from other parts of the world … toward Mexico and toward the United States.”
President Biden has staked his reputation on his support for Ukraine. Most Republicans in Congress support Ukraine too. But they are making stricter border security a prerequisite for their votes for more military aid to Ukraine. The White House has indicated that the president is willing to make “significant compromises on the border.”
Have Republicans caught the bus to immigration reform which they say they have so long sought? There seem enough Democrats who will not necessarily turn a deaf ear to them.
Negotiations are reportedly taking place with Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma as the lead Republican, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut as lead Democrat, with Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Independent of Arizona, as an adjunct. To their credit, in my estimation at least, they are not doing their negotiating in public.
More border wall is coming. Republicans don’t seem to object to the amount Biden wants to spend on the border — especially to grow CBE, ICE and the immigration court system.
The main sticking point is the parole into our country so liberally given, in the Republican view, while asylum cases are considered.
Additionally, Senator Lankford has long expressed concern with how criminal cartels in South America have exploited the openness of our immigration system to extort profit in the transport of people longing to reach our border.
Republicans may well insist on the re-creation of the Migrant Protection Protocol, or even something like the Title 42 restrictions.
At the least, they will insist on raising the bar for obtaining asylum parole. They may demand quotas — that is to say, so many asylum paroles can be granted over a specified period of time and no more.
Congress is in recess over the holidays. Urgencies — in Israel and Gaza, in Ukraine, about Taiwan, and on our southern border — have not been in recess. We will see how Congress may or may not act when it reconvenes in the second week of January. Inaction, it somehow comes to mind, is also a kind of action.
In regard to how Ukraine and our border with Mexico have been intertwined, the issue may need resolved, if it is to be, by January 15.
That is the day of the Iowa caucus. If Donald Trump emerges from Iowa triumphant, he may not want his party in Congress engaged in anything resembling meaningful immigration reform with Joe Biden’s White House.
This is the last in this series of my effort to come to grips with the issues swirling around immigration — that is, until Congress decides to do or not to do something about it. It is also my 52nd article of 2023. All of us at In Penn’s Woods (well, so far that’s just me) thank you for your readership, hope you will continue as readers, even become subscribers, and wish for you a happy and prosperous 2024.
Sources and Links:
Migration Policy Institute, Immigration Policy During the Trump Administration
Politifact, How Many Miles of Border Wall Did Trump Build?
National Immigrant Forum, U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 Bill Summary
The Dispatch, "End-of-Year Migrant Surge," 27 DEC 2023
DHS, 5 October 2023, “Determination Pursuant to Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, As Amended.”
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, "What's In the $106 Billion Supplemental Request?"
Secretary Antony J. Blinken During a Conversation at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy Moderated by Ambassador David Satterfield.
The Morning Dispatch, "Will Congress Make a Deal on Border Policy in the New Year?"
Senate Republican Working Group Solution for the Southern Border Crisis
Emma Lazarus’s entire poem The New Colossus:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek frame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates still stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the impressed lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Blows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp," cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, temptest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Good article. I would like to meet and discuss some of the issues you have raised throughout the year. Happy New Year!