If there is one thing U.S. voters of all political persuasions can agree on, itâs the need to address the emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, one rooted in the violence, corruption and poverty in the Americas that has sent waves of asylum-seeking refugees our way in recent years.
San Antonio has been the next-stop epicenter for helping hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Cubans, Central Americans and Mexicans seeking emergency entry once they are released along the border. They have come in episodic waves, first during the Trump administration and now under President Joe Biden.
The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress find themselves stymied from winning more military aid for besieged Ukraine unless they give in to far-right Republicans insisting on approval of the partyâs most extreme border security demands, which many with more nuanced views on immigration believe would actually weaken the U.S., here and on the world stage.
Comprehensive immigration reform remains the only long-term solution to border security and assuming the orderly flow of immigrants into our growing economy and labor force. It also is needed to reinforce our international agreements and obligations to honor our countryâs place in providing safe haven for persecuted peoples. Unfortunately, the last Texas governor and Republican president to see it that way was George W. Bush. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ended any chance of reform in his time in office.
City officials and Catholic Charities, which operates the principal processing facility for migrants on San Pedro Avenue, get little recognition from the state or federal government, much less the necessary funding. Yet San Antonio continues to serve as a beacon of humanity as asylum-seekers are processed here and connected with sponsors elsewhere in the country while awaiting hearings in an immigration system that is woefully underfunded and hopelessly backlogged.
Republican politicians like former President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott on the right have approached the continuing chaos with sticks, calling for arbitrary expulsions and greater enforcement, treating desperate people crossing the border without proper documentation as criminals and herding unwitting immigrants by bus and air to blue states.
Oddly, they brand the emergency a problem rooted in Democratic leadership, forgetting the very same conditions existed under Trump as president. Abbott, meanwhile, fails to acknowledge that the billions of dollars Texas has spent on Operation Lone Star, his highly politicized border security initiative, also has failed to stem the tide. The billions the state continues to spend would be much better spent on public schools, which are being starved of funding even in a year when the governor and legislators had a record $32.7 billion surplus to deploy.
We are entering a presidential election year with the first state primaries one month away. Candidate Trump infamously has doubled down on his dehumanizing slander that immigrants are âpoisoning the blood of our country.â Those are cruel words from a nativist whose mother and grandfather were immigrants. Two of his three wives were immigrants. Yet all were white, undoubtedly the telling difference for Trump in his contempt for the Mexicans he has vilified since he announced his candidacy for president at Trump Tower in 2015.
Western countries that embrace strict anti-immigrant policies inevitably find themselves with aging populations and a shortage of workers willing to accept the entry-level jobs that come with low wages, few benefits and tough working conditions. Those are the jobs immigrants have always gratefully filled while reserving their dreams of a better life and prosperity for their children. That bargain has worked well for the United States for more than a century. Policy reforms should reestablish an orderly system that welcomes immigrants while discouraging mass arrivals and chaos at our borders.
There are ways to do that. Starving countries like Cuba and Venezuela does not work, and only destabilizes conditions even more in those places. Inadequate funding for consular offices and operations at U.S. embassies and in other foreign cities frustrates individuals seeking to emigrate. Our system of quotas is badly outdated. Inadequate immigration courts in this country only make things worse.
A 21st century bracero program, where work visas are granted to eligible workers and their families, allowing them to legally come and go while also offering a path to permanent residency and citizenship, would help U.S. employers and the economy, and give would-be immigrants strong incentive to seek legal entry. That approach also would help the United States remain a talent magnet.
No one is seriously discussing bipartisan immigration reform these days. We will not see the border emergency abate in 2024 as partisan politics intensify in an election year. Meanwhile, Republican extremists in the U.S. House who insist on holding hostage the fate of Ukranians to get their way on immigration are playing into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Americans are at one anotherâs throats while the Russian despot sips his Champagne.
