Migrant solutions
Biden can halt caravans by working to help improve conditions across Central America.
Shortly before President Joe Biden’s inauguration last week, part of a group of about 9,000 people, mostly from Honduras, clashed violently with security forces in Guatemala, with thousands of would-be migrants pushed back across the border. As with other caravans, those that made it through faced even harsher treatment by Mexican officials.
The dissolution of the year’s first caravan was probably welcome news to the Biden administration, who no doubt saw little benefit in a fresh crisis at the southern border. But as conditions in Honduras and elsewhere worsen, other caravans will follow. The incident provides a reminder of the delicate balance Biden must strike as he seeks to end the policy of blanket exclusion pursued under President Donald Trump without sending a message throughout Central America that the doors to the United States are wide open.
To truly reform immigration, Biden will have to do more than provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people who are in the U.S. illegally, as he proposed last week. He must also contend with what pushes and pulls immigrants to come, as well as with those who are stuck at our doorstep.
Biden, working with Congress, can do so by steps in two related areas. First, he must reopen courts designed to evaluate asylum requests, a system that was all but shuttered under President Donald Trump. Second, the administration must improve conditions that push migrants out of their homes and develop regional cooperation that goes beyond keeping immigrants from reaching the U.S. border.
Treat asylum-seekers fairly
The new administration must restore the asylum process to bring it in line with U.S. and international law. Those laws provide an opportunity for those arriving at our border to request asylum — and while most requests are denied, failing to permit them to even make their case is inhumane, especially given the violence and other dangers so many are seeking to escape.
The Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols have trapped asylum-seekers in Mexico while awaiting their day in court. There are more than 20,000 cases pending in MPP courts along the border, the vast majority of them in Texas. Many have been stuck in limbo for months, often in unsanitary and dangerous conditions.
Fortunately, the administration suspended the MPP program last week, a welcome start.
Much more is required, Ariel Ruiz, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told the editorial board.
“The Biden administration has inherited this broken system at the U.S.-Mexico border and must now proceed carefully,” Ruiz said. “On the one hand you want to restart the U.S. asylum process, while on the other hand send a clear message that the borders are not open to future migrant caravans.”
That’s why the second step — improving conditions in Central America — is so critical for Biden’s success.
Strengthen homelands
The Trump administration strongarmed countries such as Mexico and Honduras into getting tough on migrants traveling north through their lands to the United States. But a far better policy would be to help keep Central Americans from leaving home in the first place and to work with partners in the region to create a larger regional arrangement to protect Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence.
Direct aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala must be part of any long-term effort to address the root causes of migration and President Biden has wisely proposed an initial $4 billion in assistance. That money, though, must come with safeguards against the same corruption that has helped persuade migrants to flee.
“Promising $4 billion in aid by itself isn’t the answer,” said Lisa Haugaard, co-director of the Latin America Working Group, in a statement. “Promise instead that the United States will stand, not with corrupt or authoritarian officials in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, but with the citizens working for change.”
Donald Trump’s focus on enforcement and deterrence promised a simple solution for a complex problem, and only succeeded in causing a humanitarian crisis at the border and delaying an inevitable reckoning that the Biden administration must confront head on.
A multilayered international approach is even more ambitious and difficult to achieve than Biden’s domestic immigration agenda, but it is the only way forward if we hope to limit the intermittent waves of migrants coming to the U.S. while at the same time holding to our values and respect for human rights.