President Biden and Vice President Harris have begun a charm offensive to reduce irregular immigration. Migrants that are apprehended crossing the border illegally hit a record high in March of 2022 and the administration has come under fire for not doing enough to curb immigrants from crossing the border.
President Biden’s approval ratings have bottomed out at approximately 40% of eligible voters and he is striving to gain momentum before the midterm elections in November. President Bide met with his counterpart in Mexico by video to discuss the number of people crossing the border after a federal judge blocked the administration from ending the Migrant Protection Protocol, or Title 42.
President Trump enacted the “Remain in Mexico” policy during the outbreak of the Corona Virus as migrants were crossing the border in record numbers. This had a beneficial effect on irregular immigration as numbers dropped to historic lows. The number of illegal border crossings began to skyrocket after President Biden was elected into office when coyotes told residents in Mexico and Central America that it would be easier for them to cross into the US.
Troubles in Haiti were partly responsible for the rising number of migrants but migrants began to come in mass from Venezuela, Ecuador, Central America, and Asia. Numbers began to rise so high the Biden administration reimplanted the MPP policy after a federal judge ordered the administration to enact the policy.
This policy reduced the number of people crossing the border as the MPP returned people to Mexico but did not count them as being deported from the US. This has allowed migrants to try to enter the US several times only to be returned back to Mexico if they are caught. While the number of people trying to reenter the US is extremely high, the number of people that are not caught at the border is even higher. This means that the record number of people recorded crossing the border is still unrepresentative of illegal immigration.
Irregular immigration numbers are currently over 221,000 for March of 2022. This number is up by 26% YoY and over 56,000 from the previous month. This is troubling because immigration usually rises in the summer as more people head to the US. This number will likely go even higher even as President Biden tries to remove the Title 42 Covid protections.
Unchecked immigration is devastating to an economy as the majority of cities cannot handle large influxes of people when inflation, housing costs, and food prices are already quite high. If large cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Houston took 1 million working-age adults they might be able to absorb these new people with moderate consequences for their city, but smaller and medium cities could see real consequences from large-scale immigration.
Unchecked internal or external immigration is detrimental to a country because cities cannot handle the planning it takes to accommodate the influx of 1 million people a year. If a place like Austin, Texas added 1 million working-age adults within a year you would see some of the same factors California or New York City have been struggling with for the past decade.
If Austin, Texas took in 1 million working-age people of any race, socioeconomic status, education level, etc. they would struggle to accommodate this population change. Currently, 150 people move to Austin a day and the city is experiencing things like home prices doubling in 2 years, and large infrastructure issues like traffic jams or sewage treatment problems. It would not matter if the 1 million people were all white, all black, or an equal ratio of every ethnicity on the planet.
What would happen to home prices if a city took in 1 million people a year? Would home prices rise or decline? What would happen to wages if 1 million engineers or 1 million laborers moved to the city and began looking for work? What would happen to infrastructure if there were suddenly 1 million vehicles on the road? What would happen to taxes if half of the 1 million only had a 7th-grade education and could not speak the language? What is the earning potential of someone with a high school diploma and what is the salary breakeven point someone has to make to start paying more federal taxes than the benefits they receive? What is the breakeven point for individuals to start paying more state and local taxes to cover new schools, police, roads, bridges, sewer systems in new neighborhoods, and upgrades to power plants to accommodate the change in population?
Since this is a sensitive subject for many Americans, it would be prudent if they did their own research before they took such a hard line on immigration. Since it is not worth debating a topic where the population does not have a fundamental understanding of basic facts it is better for people to fully understand what are the positives and negatives of immigration before they form such a critical opinion on a complicated issue. It is worth noting that President Obama himself has commented on the situation at the border, calling it “unsustainable” and many Democrats along the border have hit out at President Biden and Vice President Harris for not getting the situation under control.
Solution
One solution would be to bring all the undocumented workers from other parts of the US down to the southern border so their cases can be processed. If the US brings these migrants to the Rio Grande Valley they can process their cases faster but they can also get an accurate count of who is in the country. This will help the country understand how many people they need to plan for and what they can do to make people’s lives better.
Many of these migrants are economic refugees but there are some that are fleeing legitimate violence in their home countries. If the newly captured migrants are forced to stay within 20 miles of the border or even within 20 miles of where they were apprehended this could cut down on this irregular immigration. If the economic refugees are given food, water, and basic medical help then they would be provided for but they could not work and send money home.
These economic refugees would not be able to work if they are forced to stay on the border due to the lack of jobs and competition from people back in Mexico. If they were provided food, basic medical services, and safety along the border this would help the legitimate refugees looking to safeguard their loved ones but it would be detrimental to the economic refugees since they could not work. This is assuming that the economic refugees only come to this country to work and send money back to their families back home.
If the US also made it a requirement to use the eVerify system to check workers’ immigration status throughout the country then this would cut down on people who just come to the US to work. Immigration should also ask migrants that had been in the country for years who their employers were so they could levy big fines against these employers for back personnel taxes which would further dissuade employers from hiring people for less than minimum wage.
This policy would have several negative side effects. First and foremost, it would marginalize Latin communities as they would feel persecuted by immigration disrupting their daily lives and blocking people from coming into the country. This marginalization might be mitigated as immigrants would be able to get work visas would allow them to be recognized as people and be paid, at the very least, minimum wages and provide protection from employers that have to obey labor laws for every other person in the country.
This would raise wages for employers at a time when salaries are rising rapidly. The same employers that hire undocumented people are the same ones that do not obey labor laws or minimum wage laws. This would mean a dramatic rise in costs at places like meat plants, restaurants, and cleaning services. Also, if employers have to pay fines for back personnel taxes this could push many companies into bankruptcy protection.
Another drawback of this policy would be political suicide for any political party that proposes this legislation. The Latin community has become a complex community of swing voters that the Democrats and Republicans fight over. Politicians are afraid to even mention the word immigrant during their campaign, let alone try to enact any legislation that helps the current situation in the country.
No matter what, it is not compassionate to let people continue to work in this country without labor laws or a minimum wage. It is also not feasible to enact any basic legislation that helps this group of marginalized people without putting barriers to entry into place. President Obama saw firsthand during his presidency after he was forced to deploy the military to the border. Once Obama passed the Dream Act, he was forced to deploy the National Guard on the border as waves of unaccompanied children were sent across Mexico to the US border where they turned themselves in to authorities and were quickly released. President Biden is also struggling with trying to take an approach that will help marginalized people as he is suffering the effects of not taking a harsh tone on the border.
There needs to be some hard decisions in the future if we ever want to get this situation under control and help the people that are already here. It is unclear what the plan would be to have a completely open immigration system because it is unclear if they know what the consequences of this legislation would be on the country. Politicians that suggest that we have an open border do not consider the consequences of their actions. Also, the politicians that say we need to end immigration or greatly curb it also do not understand the role this group of people play in their daily lives.
It is clear something has to be done but Republicans and Democrats are worried about making a policy decision because they are focused on winning elections and not helping voters deal with issues that are impacting their daily lives. Voters have to push politicians to make hard but acceptable choices and to compromise on a middle ground.
Someone could suggest allowing a certain amount of people to cross the border each month but ban anyone trying to cross at an unacceptable entry point. Politicians can make predictions about how to develop their city if they have a set number of migrants moving there. They could even make a deal that a certain amount of people in the country would be counted in the monthly allowance but institute barriers to work in the US for people that are still crossing, like eVerify. But for now, Americans are just waiting for a politician to step up.