"The situation at the border is not sustainable. And that means that you have to either accept it when it’s not sustainable, or you’ve got to address it. And that’s going to cause some consternation within our party."
U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont)
The fact that one's family is starving to death in Venezuela is not a legal reason to immigrate to the U.S. But seeking asylum from "a well founded fear of persecution" is a lawful reason.
So people come to the U.S. and say they want asylum. They want to live a better life.
About 2.4 million people were apprehended at the southern border this past year.
Most immigrants do not sneak in. They enter and present themselves to authorities. They aren't "illegal." Under U.S. law and treaties the U.S. has signed, they have a right to request asylum. But it is widely understood and acknowledged that many of them are gaming the asylum system.
The crush of people at the border far exceeds the ability of the immigration system to absorb and process them. Their asylum claims are scheduled for adjudication years into the future, and this is fully understood by everyone. In the meantime, they are here in masses too big to absorb. They did not come here to be homeless on America's sidewalks, although some are. They came here eager to fill the jobs that American employers have trouble filling.
The mess at the southern border is unsolved because Democrats are divided and Trump made the issue toxic and divisive. Democrats are motivated by the moral sentiment of avoiding cruelty, including to outsiders; Republicans accept cruelty to outsiders as the means to achieve order. Trump defined the GOP position on immigration: Be tough, be cruel if necessary. Fence immigrants out and "shoot them in the legs." They are rapists, criminals, and terrorists. Trump's actions and message shaped the Democratic response -- do the opposite of Trump, so Democrats tolerated a situation in which immigration laws are unenforced and available to game with immediate claims of amnesty. A faction within the Democratic left became adamant pro-immigration advocates, condemning as a potential sellout any suggestion that Biden toughen his position. Other Democrats want action on a disorderly border. Democrats are discovering that many Hispanic citizens join non-Hispanics in wanting stronger border control.
Meanwhile, Republican senators know an ongoing crisis at the border is a winning political issue. They declined Majority Leader Schumer's offer to allow a clean bill of their own choosing to come to the floor for a vote. Democrats are too divided to solve the problem and Republicans are OK with that. Then House Republicans presented an idea that was sure to anger Democrats and force their hands: Tie Ukraine funding to Biden adopting Republican positions on the southern border. Hold Ukraine hostage. See if Democrats blink.
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
The GOP plan may give Biden the political room necessary to adopt elements of Trump/GOP policies on the border. It will involve threading a needle of opinions on two issues in two parties, simultaneously. Support for Ukraine divides Republicans, some of whom now think Ukraine should adopt Russian terms. Democrats consider protecting Ukraine a high priority.
Biden would not willingly disappoint his pro-immigration left. Adopting tougher border policies would be done under compulsion to protect Ukraine. Democratic legislators would have an excuse to disappoint some progressives: They are forced to do it to save Europe from Putin. Meanwhile, many Republican voters won't like aid to Ukraine, but they would see Republicans muscle Biden into increased enforcement of the border. They would see liberal tears.
No one would be particularly happy. People will complain of compromises on matters of high principle. It isn't "winning," but it might mean some action on an intolerable status quo. I expect some Republicans and Democrats to vote no. There may be a majority in each party voting yes because there would be something in it for them. Republicans care about the border. Democrats care about Ukraine.
It isn't pretty. But it is how the sausage gets made and problems get resolved in a republic.
I am pro-immigrant. And I wrote in September about the real, tragic, heartbreaking tragedy in Venezuela https://peterwsage.blogspot.com/2023/09/meanwhile-venezuelan-children-are.html And I said that the USA helped wreck Venezuela and that we had a responsibility.
But several things are true at once: 1. We Americans are at fault with our Yankee imperialism. 2. We have a moral responsibility in a Matthew 25 feed-the-hungry manner that non-believers like myself perceive. 3. People fleeing starvation and grinding poverty are not all that different from people fleeing bombing in Ukraine or Gaza or from people fleeing gangster threats of death or people fleeing government threats of death. All of them want escape. My Greek grandparents on my mother's side escaped village poverty in the 1910s; Jews attempted to escape Hitler threats in the 1930s. My grandparents got in and survived; many Jews did not and were eventually killed.
Because I am pro-immigrant I want the immigration system not to cause the social problems that perennially shut it down due to social unrest and political opposition: resistance to potato famine immigrants in the 1850s, resistance to Chinese post Civil War leading to the Exclusion Act of 1882, leading to the immigration acts on the 1920s, leading to Donald Trump talking about criminals, rapists, and "aren't sending their best."
The asylum system is, in fact, broken in the sense that it is a well known loophole that is so oversubscribed that it means that people can and do "game" it. I don't blame people for gaming it. I suppose that my student deferrment in 1967-71 was "gaming" the draft system and it kept me from being drawn into the Vietnam War. I wanted to be in college, so it was "legitimate" but it was also taking advantage of a law. A version of that is happening now with the result that 2 million people are entering a year and are in limbo of awaiting adjudication on whether they have a specific "I will kill you" threat or a general threat of "you will starve."
My bias is wanting an orderly, rather open, immigration system. I would also like a system of better support for parents of young children and day care so that people here in the USA once again having children at approximately replacement rate. Currently we are unusual among developed countries in not losing population because we are importing them. Oregon is a long way from being filled up. To have a sound immigration system we need to restore a rules-based one. A chaotic free for all creates the nativist backlash we are getting.
Peter Sage
"A well founded fear of persecution" is the legal phrase used in US immigration court to define a probable threat to an asylum seeker's life. I personally know a few of these people, and know some of the details that constitute such as fear of persecution: for example, the murder of a family together with a "you're next" threat, not uncommon. In one case, a single mother was the object of that threat. It appears that in today's blog entry, you're minimizing such a claim as trivial, compared to the possible starvation of another family. Wouldn't you run if there for all practical purposes a gun were pointed at you? By people who have proven over and over that they will carry out their threat? Which is worse?
How widely is it "understood" that people are gaming the system? Beware the passive voice, in this case leaving those who share this understanding unnamed.
Is if the fault of asylum seekers that our immigration courts are so slow and under-resourced, so that it takes up to 5 years for cases to be heard and decided?
People will have their beliefs, correct or not, and I acknowledge that these contribute to political outcomes, but the truth has to be spoken, popular or not.
Mike