I want to bring a conversation between Yascha Mounk and Isaac Saul, published at Mr. Mounk’s Substack, to your attention. The link is to the transcript but you could listen to the conversation if you like.
The first section of the discussion is largely devoted to recent Supreme Court decisions and I think there’s one factor that they neglect to mention. Over the last 50 or more years there has been an ongoing conflict over how policy goals are realized. In the courts that conflict has been reflected in policy goals which could not or would not be reached by the legislature being realized by the Supreme Court without recourse to the written law, common law, or legal precedent. Those who admire that apparently prefer a civil code system over our common law system. The beneficiaries of that have largely been progressives or sexual libertarians and those groups are now horrified when their political opponents resort to the same tactics against them or, worse, reverse judgments arrived without recourse to written law, the common law, or legal precedent. Whatever happened to the “arc of the moral universe”? (My answer would be that whether the legislative, executive, or judicial branch or all three in combination the government is not the “arc of the moral universe”.)
The balance of the discussion is about executive overreach and I share Mssrs. Mounk’s and Saul’s concerns. WRT immigration I would remind them that every presidential administration, Democratic or Republican, since the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act has somehow managed to limit the number of asylum seekers annually to around 50,000. IMO the Biden Administration didn’t just drop the ball they own-goaled it.
Americans are soft-hearted so they are unhappy with the actions needed to restore the status quo ante. IMO the solution to a bad law is to enact a better law but once a law has been enacted it should be enforced. No winks and nods. That’s authoritarian and undermines the rule of law.
And yet you have written, correctly, that our Congress is missing in action. I think I mentioned that I went to Chautauqua again this year. The AEI and Brooks people on the topic of current American governance both agreed that our biggest problem now in governance at the nationals level is Congress. Its relinquishing its power and authority and not carry out its position/actions as envisioned in the Constitution has undermined our ability to make and rule by laws. The AEI guy even noted that while he agreed with the court decision on injunctions he heavily sympathized with the judges who ruled in favor of the injunctions as at present there is no realistic way to place limits on a POTUS who is willing to ignore past norms.
Steve
What did past administrations do to limit that number? I cant think of anyone before Trump doing anything?
Steve
Not issuing a blanket invitation might have been nice.
I’m afraid that the only remedy to that would be term limits, something no sitting Congress will ever enact. It would take a constitutional convention and that is just too risky.
About half of foreign-born residents in the United States are citizens, another 20% have lawful permanent residency.
The population of undocumented immigrants in the United States has been remarkably stable over time, about 11-12 million. While figures are still tentative, the net increase during the Biden term was probably only 1-2 million.
The vast majority of Americans (79%) believe immigration is good for the country. The obvious solution is to pass legislation which documents the flow of migrants, something Trump nixed when Congress was ready to act. As for Trump, of course it’s easy to close the border when the president ignores the law and implements draconian policies.
Have you ever read the original sources? The classic Greek philosophers, Thomas Aquinas, Locke, etc.? I don’t mean excerpts. I mean what they wrote in the original languages. I have. Locke, of course, wrote in English. That makes him easier to read.
How do you know that? If immigrants don’t self-report and the authorities don’t ask, we have no idea how many people are in the United States illegally. There are something between 250 and 500 jurisdictions in the United States including New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago in which the authorities are actually banned from asking about an individual’s immigration status.
Dave Schuler: Locke, of course, wrote in English. That makes him easier to read.
What matters is what the Founders read and wrote about. There is no detaching the Founders from their west European cultural roots. (Washington was paying top dollar for fashions from England. He complained the clothes were “were really not fit to put on”, even “laughable”. After the Revolutionary War, most Americans switched their fashion allegiance to France.)
Dave Schuler: How do you know that?
Can we state with reasonable probability that the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States is less than 100 million? More than 1 million? If you answer yes, then you grant that we can make estimates based on observations.
Pew and other research organizations, as well as the Department of Homeland Security use surveys, such as the American Community Survey. Then they estimate the response rate of undocumented immigrants compared to other residents to make adjustments. These are just estimates with error margins, of course, but they are more than just hand waving that we can’t know anything.
These methods show a consistency over time, and are also consistent with other data, such as green cards, asylum admissions, deaths, and departures. Regardless of the base number, an increase of several million or more should easily be detectable in the data.
The Biden Administration was a remarkable break from the past. I have been told by friends who work for ICE that under the Biden Administration they were directed to accept all applications for asylum. Most were obviously fraudulent. When you take everyone into account (apprehensions, “got aways”, visa overstays, completely undetected) during the Biden Administration at least 8 million were “apprehended” (almost all claimed asylum), 2 million were “got-aways” (observed but not apprehended), and let’s say a conservative 1 million just entered without being observed. If 60% of those were here illegally that means that those here illegally jumped from 10 million to 16 million or, possibly, even more. We don’t know and because of the break from the past old trends cannot be applied.
Dave Schuler: Most were obviously fraudulent.
Coincidentally, most asylum applicants to the U.S. come from places in turmoil or under political oppression, such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Central America.
Dave Schuler: during the Biden Administration at least 8 million were “apprehended” (almost all claimed asylum)
During the Biden administration, most migrants were deported at the border. About 2 million applied for asylum (including affirmative and defensive applicants). Keep in mind that most came from places in turmoil or under political oppression, the increase being primarily due to refugees from Venezuela and Central America.
Most estimates are that the undocumented population increased 1-2 million (Pew, CIS).
That is untrue.
It’s hard to count illegals, but there are numbers you can look at, but first we should acknowledge, which Dave has done tacitly, that prior admins weren’t doing anything to keep asylum requests down. Anyway, at present we have 3.7 million waiting for asylum review. In 2020 we had just short of 700,000. (Which kind of makes the claim of 50,000/year suspect.) And, I know we have gone over this before, but I would still note that legal opinion is divided on how you need to handle asylum requests. Some people think you need to honor them and others dont, just like some lawyers think it’s OKJ for POTUS to ignore Congress and past norms.
Did Biden invite them to come here? Why then did he deport way more than Trump and set records for numbers of returns at the border? Again, illegal immigration tracks with job openings in the US. The economy cooled off and illegal immigration had hugely dropped off by the end of the Biden admin.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record
Steve
Dave Schuler: That is untrue.
Steve’s link addresses that issue, “the Biden administration’s nearly 4.4 million repatriations are already more than any single presidential term since the George W. Bush administration”.