Ban on travel creates another border crisis
There’s a crisis on the U.s.-mexico border. It’s not the one that politicos from Washington are commenting about and journalists from around the country are flying in to cover.
The crisis du jour is the increase in migrants crossing the border. Yet for decades, the flow of migrants has risen and fallen under a broken immigration system and costly border security schemes, driven by economic and political forces well beyond our border communities.
The real crisis has been in existence for more than a year now: the closure of our border crossings to so-called nonessential travel. On top of the economic impact of the pandemic, the closure has devastated border businesses, separated families and disrupted communities that straddle both sides of the Rio Grande. Small businesses are being destroyed.
Both crises — the one getting attention and the one being ignored — are a function of the same problem. Decision-makers in Washington don’t listen to those of us who live and work on the border.
For years, we’ve offered commonsense solutions to border security, trade and immigration issues. The solutions we’ve put forward require sustained engagement. Unfortunately, too many folks inside the Beltway play politics with these issues and are more interested in photo ops and sound bites.
The increase in crossings and border apprehensions is the result of the Biden administration’s political disregard for a plan to manage the predictable surge of asylum-seekers after ending the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Our nation’s asylum policy — a subset of our shoddy immigration system — was already in need of repair before President Joe Biden. Biden, however, made matters worse. Under current policy, once migrants set foot on U.S. territory, they can seek legal asylum and enter the yearslong process for adjudication. Human smugglers and social media have spread the word, drawing migrants to the border to meet traffickers who make enormous sums bringing them to the United States.
Also, in most parts of Texas, the border wall is not on the banks of the Rio Grande and is often hundreds of yards from the border. One of the many follies of President Donald Trump’s expensive and ineffective wall is that once migrants cross the river and enter the so-called enforcement zone behind the wall, they are eligible for asylum because they are already in the United States.
Both parties share responsibility for this deplorable situation. We haven’t had meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration policies since President Ronald Reagan forged a bipartisan agreement in 1986. Thirty-five years later, our immigration policies, and the physical and administrative system that supports them, are completely out of sync with our national interests and economic needs. Our immigration system should support our workforce needs.
Our immigration policies are at odds with the demographic realities of an American population that is rapidly aging while birth rates are rapidly declining. Every sector of our economy, from high-tech jobs to health care and agriculture, needs human capital to continue growing.
Our nation thrives on the contributions and entrepreneurial spirit of new Americans. Biden’s efforts to extend permanent protections to DACA recipients is an important first step, but it is a small step. Much more policy reform must happen to solve this horrible problem.
Then, there’s the other crisis: the border closure to what the government calls nonessential travel. In Laredo, Mexican shoppers account for 40 to 45 percent of retail activity, according to a report from the Dallas Federal Reserve. Similar economic impacts from Mexican visitors can be found in Brownsville, Mcallen and El Paso. For the second consecutive year, malls and retail districts were empty during Holy Week, normally a bonanza for border businesses.
The supposedly temporary border closures were instituted in the early days of the pandemic without any scientific rationale. Ridiculously, the restrictions don’t apply to air travel. Mexican residents can fly to San Antonio or Houston to shop. But if they want to walk or drive across a bridge in Laredo to do those things, they can’t.
While there’s no quick fix for the migrant issue, there is one for the border travel closure: The Biden administration needs to stop the monthly extensions of the punitive and ineffectual restrictions on “nonessential travel.”
Our border communities are one city in two countries. Border travel must be reopened.
If the people claiming to be concerned about the border mean what they say, they’ll listen to the area’s residents and keep working with us for solutions when the photo ops are over.