Policy Dysfunction

As I see it the immigration “policy dysfunction” from which the Biden Administration is rather clearly suffering is fully reflected in the Washington Post editorial criticizing the problem:

That’s largely what Mr. Biden has done for others, especially Central American families with children, tens of thousands of whom have been admitted to the United States this year. And he did so even as administration officials urged them not to attempt to cross the border illegally. That glaring disconnect, between official dissuasion and on-the-ground leniency, has been received by Haitian and other migrants as an invitation to take their chances on reaching the U.S. border.

Now the door has slammed shut for many of them in Del Rio, especially the Haitians, whom U.S. officials began loading onto deportation flights over the weekend. It is fair to ask why Haitian migrants, virtually all Black, are being subjected to expulsion on a scale that has not been directed at lighter-skinned Central Americans.

Haiti, reeling from crime, political upheaval, economic calamity and a devastating earthquake this summer, is in no shape to handle the return of thousands of deportees. Yet that is the burden Mr. Biden is imposing, evidently in hopes of deterring further waves of migrants. Under a public health rule invoked by the Trump administration at the pandemic’s outset, asylum seekers are being deported without hearings on daily flights to Haiti.

The policy is inhumane; equally, it is inhumane to incentivize migrants to risk the perilous, expensive journey across Central America and Mexico. Having mismanaged migration in its first eight months in office, which contributed to a two-decade-high surge in illegal border crossings, the administration clearly fears a backlash at the polls in next year’s midterm elections more than it fears the wrath of immigration advocates. Republicans, sensing electoral advantage, are using border “chaos” as a cudgel.

Many of the failings in the U.S. immigration system are reflected in the mess in Del Rio: the absence of any workable channel by which migrants could apply for asylum south of the border; the massive backlog and shortage of judges in migration courts, which means asylum applicants, once admitted, may wait two or three years for their cases to be heard; and the misalignment of high domestic demand for cheap immigrant labor with an inadequate legal supply of it.

I’ll stipulate that employers want to keep wages low. Should keeping wages low be federal policy? I don’t think so. What do the editors think?

Unfortunately for the editors’ worldview, there is no such thing as an immigrant job. There are, however, entry level jobs frequently taken by immigrants but not only by newly-arrived immigrants. Those jobs are also taken by earlier immigrants, by people just entering the workforce, by people who don’t have the skills for jobs that pay higher wages, or people who prefer those entry level jobs for one reason or another. Econ 101 would tell them that high demand would be reflected in rising wages for entry-level workers; the absence of rising wages for entry level workers until very recently, as the supply of such workers declined for a variety of reasons, many of them relating to the pandemic and the policy strategies taken in response to the pandemic.

Consequently, what is humane to newly-arrived Haitians (for example) is inhumane to people already holding those entry level jobs.

I have as much sympathy for the plight of Haitians as the editors but my preferred strategy for remediating their problems is somewhat different from that of the editors. I think conditions need to be improved in Haiti rather than bringing Haitians here. Sadly, Haiti was born dysfunctional and U. S. meddling in Haitian affairs has all too frequently served to make things worse. It won’t be easy but it will be more humane to more people than the strategy advocated by the editors.