May 12, 2023 and No Surge at the Border
That took away a few days of headlines and news rhetoric. I guess the Immigration Sky did not fall on us, yes? Of course, this is about the United States lifting the Covid emergency order bringing an end to the Title 42 emergency health authority prohibiting the immigration of the undesirable people Republicans believe should be denied entry. No chaos at the Mexican border. Immigrants are still at the border hoping to get into the US.
The next “Sky is Falling” event? Next “Sky is Falling event? The Debt ceiling.
“May 12, 2023,” Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson
For all the predictions about what would happen when the Title 42 emergency health authority that prohibited most immigration ended just before midnight yesterday, the reality turned out to be pretty…unremarkable. According to Rachel Treisman, Stephania Corpi, and Emily Olson of NPR, the southern border was not chaotic after midnight last night. Instead, there was “a relative sense of calm, if also uncertainty.” The number of crossings remained steady.
Juan Montes, Alicia A. Caldwell, and Michelle Hackman of the Wall Street Journal suggested that, in fact, crossings dropped when the emergency rule ended and the normal regulations, known as Title 8, resumed. Migrants had rushed to get to the U.S. before the rules changed, the journalists said. They also noted that the relative calm may not last, as the Biden administration is getting criticism in the U.S. from both those who want easier immigration policies and those who want harsher ones.
The Biden administration has generally barred migrants crossing illegally from requesting asylum, and those deported to their country of origin will face a five-year ban on re-entry. Trying to enter the country again could bring criminal charges. The administration is trying to push asylum requests to an online application, although those trying to use it insist it is hard to use (the administration counters that it is understaffed and so appointments are hard to get). The administration maintains it wants to open up legal pathways to immigration while cracking down on unauthorized crossings.
The American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights organizations have sued the administration over the new restrictions, saying the restrictions on asylum are illegal; the ACLU successfully sued the Trump administration with a similar argument.
From the far right, today former Trump advisor Stephen Miller took to Twitter to announce that his organization had just filed a lawsuit “to shut down Biden’s plan to flood America with illegal aliens by the millions.” He called it a “dire, dire hour for the United States of America.” Miller is an adherent of the “great replacement theory,” a white nationalist belief that nonwhite immigration threatens the traditional culture of the nation.
In Congress, House Republicans have indicated they want to add the immigration bill they passed yesterday to harden the border, including funding to build Trump’s border wall, to their demands for passage of a measure to raise the debt ceiling. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) today said,
“Every day that the President continues to dilly dally, in my mind, the price goes up, not down.… You want a debt ceiling increase? You want to go fund the operations of government? Then fix the damn border, Mr. President.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported today that if the debt ceiling is not raised, there is “a significant risk that at some point in the first two weeks of June, the government will no longer be able to pay all of its obligations.”
Title 42 Is Gone, but Not the Conditions Driving Migrants to the US
NY Times – May 14
Relative quiet has prevailed along the southern U.S. border since Friday, despite widespread fears that ending a pandemic-era policy to immediately expel most migrants, even asylum seekers, would set off a stampede from Mexico.
A surge in migrants did in fact happen, in the run-up to the expiration of the pandemic-era expulsion policy, known as Title 42. Uncertain of the impact of new deterrent measures, migrants braved turbulent rivers, cut through concertina wire and scaled the steel border wall to reach the United States and turn themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents. On some days last week, apprehensions reached about 11,000, among the highest recorded.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security secretary, said on Sunday that agents apprehended only 6,300 migrants on Friday and 4,200 on Saturday. The Biden administration’s new policy, combining the carrot of new legal pathways with the stick of more punitive measures for unlawful crossings, was working, Mr. Mayorkas said in television interviews.
Most migrants now must prove that they were first denied asylum in a country they passed through en route to the United States. And they could face criminal prosecution, prolonged detention and a five-year ban from re-entering. …
But the lull could be the calm before another storm.
Economic, political and environmental forces driving people to the United States are unlikely to subside in the coming months, and the new U.S. policies may not all survive. Minutes after the new policies took effect, immigrant advocacy groups sued to block a provision designed to discourage asylum seekers from coming to the border, likening it to a transit ban struck down during the Trump administration. And hours before Title 42 expired, a federal judge in Florida issued an order barring the release of migrants from U.S. custody without hearing dates. (The U.S. government is challenging the decision.)
Beyond U.S. borders, political instability, gang violence and climate change will continue to spur emigration.
Much of the developing world, from Africa and Asia to South America and the Caribbean, is still reeling from economic ruin wrought by Covid-19 and exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. …
In recent years, there has been a growing exodus from troubled countries in the Western Hemisphere, such as Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti. Unlike Europe, where multiple countries are potential destinations for migrants, in the Western Hemisphere, almost all roads lead to one country, the United States.
And, beyond the factors pushing migrants out of their home countries, the magnet drawing people to the United States is the labor market. Unemployment stands at its lowest level in decades, yet there are millions of unfilled jobs. …
And global warming. Climate change is a significant driver, and it will continue to grow worse in the next several decades. By 2050, the planet will be engulfed in resource wars.
It’s why they’re fleeing now, have been the last ten years
Yes. Also the violence in Syria. It’s only the beginning.
Indeed, call it ‘the calm before another storm.’
To put it very mildly.
House Republicans pass new asylum restrictions as Title 42 ends; Biden promises veto
AP – May 11
House Republicans passed a sweeping bill Thursday to build more U.S.-Mexico border wall and impose new restrictions on asylum seekers, creating a hard-line counter to President Joe Biden’s policies just as migrants are amassing along the border with the end of coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
The bill has virtually no chance of becoming law. Democrats, who have a narrow hold on the Senate, have decried the aggressive measures in the bill as “cruel” and “anti-immigrant,” and Biden has already promised he would veto it.
The legislation passed 219-213, with all present Democrats and two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and John Duarte of California, voting against it.
The House GOP pointedly voted on the bill the same day as the expiration of Title 42, a public health emergency rule that allowed border authorities to quickly return many migrants who crossed the border illegally. Biden has conceded that the southern border will be “chaotic for a while” as migrants weigh whether to cross and U.S. officials use a new set of policies that aim to clamp down on illegal immigration while offering more legal pathways.
Republicans have sought to slam Biden for the increase in illegal immigration during his tenure. Passing the bill would ensure House GOP lawmakers can say they did their part to deliver on a campaign promise to secure the border.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the package “the strongest border security bill this country has ever seen,” saying in a speech on the House floor that “meanwhile, we are seeing a very different record from President Biden.”
It took months, however, for Republicans to push the bill through the House amid sometimes public feuds between GOP lawmakers over the legislation. Even as the legislation neared final form Wednesday, it had to be amended to appease concerns from the House Freedom Caucus and other lawmakers.
The 213-page bill represents a compromise in the Republican conference between mainstream lawmakers, who wanted to focus on beefing up border enforcement, and hardline conservatives, who want to see drastic changes to U.S. asylum and immigration law. …
Visiting the Migrant Camp at the San Diego-Tijuana Border
NY Times – May 15
At California’s southern border, two parallel, towering fences stretch for miles, their reddish steel beams cutting through rugged hillsides thick with tall stocks of yellow wildflowers and marking where Mexico ends and the United States begins.
Around 10 days ago, as the end of a pandemic-era expulsion policy known as Title 42 approached, a migrant camp sprung up between the two border walls, with hundreds of people hoping to be allowed into the United States. I traveled to San Diego and Tijuana last week to report on the sprawling and diverse camp, its existence speaking of America’s shifting immigration policies as well as the desperation of migrants from across the world who are searching for better opportunities. …
“Everyone is looking at the arrivals at the border, but the root of the problem lies in push factors inside countries of origin that are going to persist,” Justin Gest, a political scientist at George Mason University who studies immigration, told my colleague Miriam Jordan. “When crises occur, they generate northbound flows.”
At the border between San Diego and Tijuana, roughly 1,000 people jumped the first barrier separating the cities last week and then remained stuck behind another wall, as they awaited processing by U.S. officials. The area between the two border walls is technically on U.S. soil but is considered a sort of neutral zone. A Colombian man in the camp told me that he had paid $1,500 to smugglers who sawed a hole in the fence on the Mexico side for him, his partner and his toddler to climb through.
Reporters aren’t able to enter the camp, but we crowded on the San Diego side to speak to migrants through the wall. I saw hundreds of families there, huddled together for warmth under Mylar blankets, sharing protein bars and bottled water. Some had fashioned tents out of tarps and black plastic garbage bags.
A mother brushed her daughter’s long brown hair. A father chased his giggling toddler through the trash-strewn patch of dirt.
I had never observed such a diverse group of people in one place, with migrants from Angola, Russia, Guinea, Venezuela, Turkey, Pakistan and dozens of other countries. They wore styles and clothing from all over the world: straw sun hats, hijabs, tank tops, ponchos and kofias.
The meager supply of food and water birthed new businesses — delivery drivers on the Mexico side sold fried chicken, loaves of bread and bottles of Coke through the wall — as well as a striking system of order within the camp.
As aid workers distributed toilet paper, bags of clementines, water bottles and packages of toothbrushes, migrants from various regions designated leaders to receive and distribute the supplies for their groups.
The Africans in the camp — from Ghana, Somalia, Kenya, Guinea, Nigeria — selected a tall Somali man, who communicated with aid groups about the number of sanitary pads and blankets they needed that day. The Colombians had their own leader; so did the Afghans, the Turkish and the Haitians.
The system emerged organically as migrants sought to ease tensions among groups fighting over limited resources, according to Adriana Jasso, a volunteer with American Friends Service Committee.
“People are cold, hungry, desperate, destitute, nervous,” she told me. “It’s a dire situation, to say the least.” …
“People are cold, hungry, desperate, destitute, nervous,” she told me. “It’s a dire situation, to say the least.”
Indeed. And where are all the pious sanctimonious “Christians” whose charity Jesus mandated?
Feh.