In search of problem

I noted in Saturday’s paper that our governor has congratulated our president for bringing attention to the humanitarian crisis at the southern border. As I understand it, this, indeed, is what the “crisis” there is all about. Drugs and criminals may well be problems, but the real crisis is humanitarian and it is due to the unforeseen numbers of families and children who are trying to escape crime, gang threats, and/or insecurity in their home countries.

This act of seeking asylum is protected under international law and we have an established procedure to deal with it. Our procedure requires the asylum-seekers to report to a legal border entry point for processing. The problem with that is there are not nearly enough people or facilities to process the large number of seekers in a timely manner. At one entry point, I read, while hundreds were waiting, the border agents were processing six asylum requests per day. Therefore, many have resorted to crossing the border wherever they can and turning themselves in as soon as possible to border control agents whom they actively seek out.

While a wall may solve part of the problem, a much better and unquestionably more humane shortterm solution would be to increase the number of processing personnel and facilities. One example: Current figures show an average time spent waiting for a court hearing of an asylum claim in the U.S. is over 700 days. This means these families are living, working, and learning English for almost two years before learning if their asylum request will be granted or not. A long-term solution would be to increase assistance to ameliorate the problems in the home countries.

A beautiful southern border wall, even if paid for by Mexico, is a great example of a solution in search of a problem. And holding the country hostage to get that wall is outrageous. RICHARD PICARD

Little Rock