NEW FOCUS NEEDED ON IMMIGRATION REFORM
In what’s being called the deadliest human smuggling incident in U.S. history, 53 migrants died while trapped and abandoned inside a sweltering trailer truck in San Antonio this week. It was a wrenching reminder of migrants’ vulnerability — and of the dysfunction of the U.S. immigration system. Two of the four men arrested in the case — including Homero Zamorano Jr., 45, a U.S. citizen who appeared to be the lead smuggler — could face the death penalty for their appalling indifference to the awful conditions inside the truck, which had no water or working air conditioning.
Unfortunately, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and some other Republicans glibly blamed President Joe Biden for creating expectations that any undocumented immigrant who reached the U.S. would face no repercussions. Instead of seeing the dead as exemplifying the desire of so many to come to America — bringing vitality and new workers to a nation which could use them — they essentially echoed Donald Trump’s view of such individuals as akin to animals. The dozens of deaths were dismissed. And they won’t be the last. Four people died and three others were in critical condition Thursday in what authorities said was a car crash involving an alleged migrant smuggling operation in Texas. In San Diego, there were at least five at-sea human smuggling attempts last month, including one in which three undocumented immigrants drowned.
Our nation must deal — and now — with immigration in a smarter, more humane way. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court made that seem more possible when it voted 5-4 to allow President Biden to end his predecessor’s Remain in Mexico program that kept asylum-seekers out of the U.S. But the closeness of the vote was disturbing. Three of the four dissenting justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — recklessly rejected both a clearly written federal law and the historical precedents giving presidents significant latitude in immigration enforcement. That law says the executive branch “may” decide — not “must” decide — to turn away some asylum seekers instead of allowing them in the U.S. while processing their requests.
Now Biden needs to build on this ruling in several ways. The immigration blueprint his White House issued last July set worthwhile goals. Among them:
Treating all asylum-seekers humanely and forthrightly and making sure resources are adequate to ensure their cases wouldn’t be in limbo for years — but doing so while retaining the rule that only individuals at risk of persecution if they returned to their homelands are eligible, not those motivated by economic reasons. That limitation wasn’t enough for the Trump White House, which rejected asylum seekers who faced the threat of gang or domestic violence — a callous decision Biden reversed in June 2021. But Biden has not done nearly enough to address the ever-swelling backlog of 1.8 million immigration court cases, which routinely take more than two years to resolve.
Ramping up the use of technology to keep borders secure instead of building more walls, while working with regional governments in Mexico to sharply strengthen anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts. The inadequacy of what’s now being done was underscored by the fact that the truck carrying dozens of dying people had passed through a federal inspection checkpoint inside Texas without incident — a failure described as routine in an analysis by The New York Times.
These are huge challenges. On the right, the era of immigration reform and “a path to citizenship” being a bipartisan cause is long gone. On the left, the progressive tilt of the Democratic Party has led some lawmakers to deride Biden’s support for “consistent messages to discourage irregular migration.” But a middle ground is most likely to gain the public support needed to fix our immigration system. A 2019 study found immigrant entrepreneurs were far more likely to launch job-creating new businesses, especially in California. With birth rates plunging and the population aging, America needs hard-working, ambitious immigrants as much as they need America — and what they bring to this nation goes far beyond their labor.