August 9, 2021 ☼ border ☼ migration ☼ biden
Source: The Washington Post - Link
Alarmed by the numbers, the administration infuriated immigration advocates by announcing it would retain a Trump-era public health measure, originally justified on grounds of the pandemic, that blocks migrant families from seeking asylum at the southern border. Yet that measure, known as Title 42, has proved increasingly ineffective as a deterrent. Even while knowing they may be expelled without an asylum hearing, migrants often attempt to cross the border again and again.
For the most part, the administration’s impulses are humane. However, they have driven a policy whose incoherence has yielded pressure at the border that may cost the Democrats control of one or both houses of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. So far, there is nothing in the administration’s short- or long-term strategizing that is likely to shift that dynamic.
The long-term policy is sound, but the reality on the ground is bad. Biden has done away with the most egregiously inhumane practices and deportations remain at an all-time high. The GOP is calling for a revival of Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy, which was horrible.
What is interesting is that no one is calling for a wall anymore.