No quick fix
This week, Mayor Adams lamented in a TV interview that the city “can’t even turn [migrants] over to ICE,” a head-scratching statement from a New York mayor. Perhaps Adams could claim that he was only alluding to those migrants that have committed crimes while here, though the number of arrests appears to be vanishingly low, and there are no convictions that we know of. That’s in keeping with long-standing statistical realities: immigrants, by and large, commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born.
Adams, of course, should be aware that the city does turn people over to the immigration authorities when they are convicted of one of a list of “violent or serious crime” and the feds present a valid judicial warrant. If his argument is that NYC should start turning people over to ICE for petty crimes, that’s not much in keeping with frequent assertions that the city he oversees — which is about 40% foreign born — is a welcoming one. Moreover, ICE probably wouldn’t take them anyway.
The vast majority of migrants aren’t an immigration enforcement target at all, because they aren’t present in the country unlawfully. Those in the asylum pipeline have been detained, interviewed, and released pending the outcome of their proceedings. The government knows who and where they are.
Will most of them ultimately win their cases and receive the ability to stay and eventually attain citizenship? Odds are less than half will qualify, for a variety of factors, including a lack of attorney representation. Nonetheless, unless and until the immigration courts make this determination, there’s nothing for ICE to detain them for.
But the fact that down the road a good many of them will have to leave doesn’t make anyone “illegal” now. Not that any of this is straightforward; a well-meaning asylum system modeled on global definitions reached in the aftermath of the horrors of WWII to ensure that never again would nations leave vulnerable populations to their grisly fate has turned into an unwieldy mess that’s unfair to everyone. t’s not working for eligible applicants, who are forced to wait in limbo for months or years to finally receive the security of a positive asylum outcome. And it’s not working for those who don’t qualify, who have been led to see the asylum claim as an alternate pathway to a land of economic opportunity, only to often find the grass isn’t much greener in overwhelmed cities and they’ll eventually be ordered deported anyway.
That’s an issue only Congress can fix, both by allocating more resources to and streamlining asylum proceedings in a way that can more quickly protect those eligible — no one wants people sent back to true danger — and turn away those who aren’t.
It also must, at long last, reform business and temporary visas and programs to more easily allow people to come to the country to find work, then leave once they’re done — what a significant chunk of current asylum applicants want to do anyway, and a solution embraced equally by advocates and the business community.
Adams playing cat-and-mouse with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott via targeted bus arrival restrictions is not going to fix anything. If and until Congress acts, the Biden administration should pony up, with cash and logistical support.
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