Anita Kumar is on the cusp of making a sharp observation in her piece at Politico about the Biden Administration’s immigration conundrum:
Biden campaigned on overhauling Trump policies and creating a system where immigrants — from refugees to high-skilled workers — are more welcomed. He has introduced a massive immigration package and put in place a series of executive orders to achieve that end. But, elsewhere, he’s been hampered by the byzantine and often-conflicting immigration laws and policies currently in place. After he was sworn into office, he pleaded with immigrants to not come to the U.S. because the programs needed to handle the influx were not ready yet. Still, they’re coming.
and here’s her conclusion:
Trump-allied officials used the opening of such shelters to accuse the Biden administration of both hypocrisy and naivete on immigration policy, much as they did in 2014 when Obama faced a surge in migrant children at the border as well. But, in a reflection of the tug and pull he now faces, immigration advocates are worried that the current plans don’t go far enough in protecting unaccompanied minors.
“We would much rather see children in smaller facilities or foster care families for the short time they need to be government custody,†said Leah Chavla, a senior policy adviser in the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “We’d really like to see them reform the system and really focus on smaller better places for kids and improving the process overall.â€
Now here’s the point I think should have been made. The Obama Administration erred in making pronouncements which whatever their intentions were interpreted by people in Mexico and Central America as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for families with children or unaccompanied minors. What I believe they did not take into account is that illegal immigration itself is a business and they were, in effect, doing the smugglers’ and child traffickers’ marketing for them. The Trump Administration erred in trying to reverse that by separating families without the ability either to determine whether they were in fact families or to put them back together if they were.
Our present method for preventing illegal immigration along our southern border is targeted at preventing entry by single adults. Separating children from their law-breaking parents is not unusual in the United States. Today across the U. S. there are presently nearly a half million kids in foster care, many of them the children of parents who’ve broken the law in one way or another. The number of unaccompanied minors the federal government is trying to cope with is approaching that number, adding nearly another 50,000 per year.
As I have been contending for decades we need to start addressing the problems we have rather than the problems we had or those we wish we had.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is in a pickle. No matter what they do they’ll make somebody bitterly unhappy. Whatever they decide I hope they’ll consider Adam Smith’s advice: kindness to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
This has become a problem with no solution. I’d like to propose one that I have some but not much confidence in. Open the border under the condition photos, fingerprints, and DNA are collected and immigrants are issued green cards which allow them to work and stay.
They would be allowed to travel to and fro as often as they like as long as they remain legally documented and commit no crimes.
Coupled with workplace enforcement.
The plan would hinge upon the immigrants wanting to go home to visit family or when there is no work, and returning when there is, without the need for coyotes or sealed trailer trucks.
There is a saturation point for economic migrants, I don’t know what it is.
As long as there’s a black market for labor there is no saturation point. There will be a black market for labor as long as the wage paid to those here illegally is lower than the wage paid to people here legally.
Said another way abolish Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, health and safety regulations, and the minimum wage and your plan will work.
“Said another way abolish Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, health and safety regulations, and the minimum wage and your plan will work.”
You made me remember, Door dash , Uber, etc. has pulled that off.
But, I did recommend workplace enforcement.
OTOH, Biden’s plan is no plan at all, guaranteed to disrupt life in already troubled Latin America as they pull up roots and head north wearing their screen printed “Biden! Let Us In.” tee shirts.
“Said another way abolish Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, health and safety regulations, and the minimum wage and your plan will work.”
You know that is not quite true. If we had none of those on your list employers, some of them, would still want the cheapest possible employees. If you can pay an American $8/hour to pick strawberries (none of the above benefits) or an illegal Mexican $5/hour (none of the above benefits) the latter wins out, if you can get away with it and some people will always try.
Steve
You didn’t read or, perhaps, didn’t understand his proposal.
Strawberry pickers come and go but domestics and groundskeepers are year round necessities for the multiple estate owners who make immigration laws.
Without serious workplace enforcement this concept cannot work.
And then we’re back to the status quo. Then we’ll elect leaders again who talk walls to a public without the will.
Always remember, this isn’t all about Mexico, but 1/3 of the people of the earth through Mexico.
We probably can’t impose our will on the gangs and cartels to the south but they are now a national security issue.
Maybe clearing a 100 mile wide buffer zone in Mexico would calm things down.