‘Higher Visibility’: How US Immigration Dynamics Are Changing

The humanitarian crisis at the US southern border is a political crisis for President Joe Biden. Cities receiving migrants, meanwhile, are facing a logistics crisis.

From El Paso to Denver and New York, elected officials are increasingly calling for more federal aid to help manage high numbers of arrivals. “The lack of federal support to significantly cover state and local costs, long wait times for migrants to work legally, and large numbers arriving in the country without connections have combined to create an disproportionate burden” on several cities, it concludes a recent article from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

The institute’s Doris Meissner has seen the border change since the 1990s, when she was commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor to immigration agencies now under the Department of Homeland Security.

In an interview, Ms. Meissner discussed the context of global migration and a challenging balancing act that continued to elude Congress — as border patrol this past fiscal year neared fiscal year 2022 records.

How does the United States remain “open and generous to immigration,” she asks, “but at the same time recognize that there are borders… and that border control is an essential feature and responsibility of any government?”

The humanitarian crisis at the US southern border is a political crisis for President Joe Biden. Cities receiving migrants, meanwhile, are facing a logistics crisis.

From El Paso to Denver and New York, elected officials are increasingly calling for more federal aid to help manage high numbers of arrivals. “The lack of federal support to significantly cover state and local costs, long wait times for migrants to work legally, and large numbers arriving in the country without connections have combined to create an disproportionate burden” on several cities, concludes a recent article from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

Doris Meissner, director of the institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program, recently spoke more about the issue in a telephone interview with the Monitor. Since the 1990s, she has seen the border transform. Under President Bill Clinton, she served as commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor to immigration agencies now under the Department of Homeland Security.

Ms. Meissner discussed the context of global migration and a challenging balancing act that has continued to elude Congress – as Border Patrol logged more than 1.8 million encounters along the southern border in the past fiscal year, nearly matching the fiscal year 2022 record. .

How does the United States remain “open and generous to immigration,” she asks, “but at the same time recognize that there are borders?” This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Americans have increasingly seen the migration crisis spread beyond the southern border into inner cities, including Democratic strongholds like New York. How has this changed the politics of the national immigration debate?

It has definitely made the issue more visible because it has shown the diversity of nationalities and the growing number of people trying to come to the United States.

It really illustrates the challenge that the (Biden) administration faces, trying to achieve border control, but at the same time trying to achieve humane enforcement that recognizes that we are a nation of immigrants. And that, as part of that tradition, we have always offered protection to people who suffer persecution or cannot survive where they are. However, this is now happening closer to home. That question of numbers and scale is very new and very complicated to try to manage and find a good balance.

President Joe Biden’s political opponents see the number of border crossings as a policy failure. How much of this is typical pressure on a sitting president facing an election year, as opposed to opposition to his own own making rules?

There’s no question that a lot of it is very political and reflective of the polarized politics that we have in this country in general, but of which immigration is one of the main hot-button issues.

Even before the surge in numbers we’ve seen over the past two years, it was very clear that the election of President Biden would not only bring a change in policy from what had been the case under the Trump administration , but also that there would also be real controversy. And that Republicans were prepared from the beginning to keep this issue burning and unresolved, to use it as a political issue in campaigns.

That said, we are in new territory. … That’s not just the case for the United States in this hemisphere, but it’s the case worldwide that we have more people displaced and at risk of displacement than we’ve had since probably World War II. These displacements are the result of authoritarianism, of wars, of climate change, of poverty, of the post-pandemic period when many parts of the world simply have not recovered from the economic damage of the pandemic as quickly as the United States. These forces all come together and lead to very large numbers of people moving.

The question for the United States, of course, is: How do we effectively remain a nation that is open and generous to immigration, but at the same time recognizes that there are borders, and there should be, and that border control is a necessity? essential characteristic and responsibility for any government?

Many consider 1986 to be the last time Congress passed comprehensive immigration reform. Do you see indications that members of Congress view this moment as the time to renew efforts for federal immigration reform?

Many people, of course, continue to hope that this might be the case. But given what we’re seeing in Congress, there’s just no — or there’s just so little — willingness to sit down and solve problems, compared to finger-pointing.

Looking back on our own history, immigration legislation has been rare – which is quite interesting, considering that immigration is so much a part of our national experience. But real changes in the law have been rare. There have been decades apart. But if they have occurred, they have only occurred through bipartisanship.

Immigration is one of those issues where there are extremes on both sides of the political spectrum. And so, to make progress, there has to be a strong center, and there has to be a willingness within both parties to be pragmatic and find solutions.

Are there issues that could prompt bipartisan compromise on immigration policy?

The issues that could lead to compromises have been around for a while, and no success has been seen yet. I think perhaps the clearest example of that is the issue of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), of young people who find themselves in this country without legal status because they came here with their parents but not in the United States. States are born. .

This issue has been ripe for legislative action for almost two decades. I mean, Senator (Dick) Durbin (a Democratic senator from Illinois) was the first person to make tangible proposals legislation to regularize the status of DACA youth (via the never-passed DREAM Act). At that time they were called the ‘Dreamers’ – they are still called the ‘Dreamers’. That was the early 2000s. The lack of legislation, over the course of perhaps a decade, brought us to 2012, when President (Barack) Obama issued an administrative order creating DACA, which is an executive action that provides protections against deportation and gives permission to work.

But that is still pending and has been challenged in the courts for over a decade, but it has still not been resolved. The latest lawsuit about this declared again that the executive action President Obama took was beyond the bounds of his authority.

However, that judge said the DACA program can continue for those people who currently have DACA status. Of course, a generation is emerging that is no longer eligible for DACA, but also young people who do not have legal status because they came young with their parents. That is a compelling example of where legislation is needed.

During the Clinton administration, you oversaw another era of immigration reform surrounding the asylum system. Which of these policies do you think has had the most impact on our current challenges with illegal migration and asylum?

The reforms we introduced in the 1990s have lasted for quite a long time. … We created a whole new set of offices across the country within the Immigration Department that only dealt with asylum applications. We were authorized by Congress to employ very significant numbers of asylum officers. … A completely new infrastructure was set up for the processing of asylum applications. … That system still exists, but has been completely overwhelmed (in the last decade). And that has not been accompanied by a commensurate increase in resources and an increase in funding support from Congress.

What we have now is a system in which the asylum applications that are submitted come almost entirely across the southwest border. The system before that time was not claims coming across the southwest border – it was claims being made by people who were largely already (present) in the country, in the United States.