Last week saw the end of Title 42, the Trump-era border restriction which was technically introduced as a health measure during the coronavirus pandemic. The policy allowed the Trump and then Biden administrations to expel without due process the vast majority of people seeking asylum at the United States-Mexico border. Given that the acute phase of the pandemic has passed, the end of the policy – which has been used about 2.7m times – was inevitable.
But the end of Title 42 has also reignited the political firestorm over the US immigration and refugee system. Republicans have seemed to gleefully anticipate “chaos” and “disaster” at the border after the policy is lifted. Less biased observers are also concerned that the US refugee processing system will be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of people now expected to seek asylum. The Biden administration has come under fierce criticism from the left for a tough new policy of questionable legality which requires most refugees to seek asylum from abroad using a glitchy cellphone app called CBP One.
Not to be outdone, Republicans have responded to the situation by promising to return to the failed and cruel policies of the past. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill which would order the resumption of Trump’s border wall and eviscerate the right to asylum for those who reach the US. Meanwhile, speaking at a CNN town hall last week, Trump defended his policy of family separation and indicated that he would consider reinstating it if he became president again.
All of these proposals show that even though there are many reasons to be concerned about the humanitarian situation at the southern border, Republicans have no solutions to it. Migration is driven by human suffering and the desire for a better and safer life, rooted in structural factors like the climate crisis, human rights violations and economic inequality. US government policies have some impact, but they’re not determinative. If people could be prevented from seeking asylum through angry posturing or cruel policies like family separation, then it’s hard to explain why 2019 – a year when Trump was president – saw the largest number of arrivals in 12 years.
What’s even worse is that the policies that Republicans want to pursue in other areas of life only make the structural factors underlying migration more severe. The party is opposed to serious efforts to tackle the climate crisis, and it cut foreign aid to Central America under Trump – in some cases actually as punishment for the arrival of migrants at the border. Furthermore, the weak US gun laws which Republicans back create an “iron river” of firearms flowing into Mexico and Central America, where 70% and 50% of guns used in crimes are traced back to the US.
The party also has a long history of promoting US military intervention in Latin America, which has caused instability and propped up the regimes that fuel the inequality and violence of today. Republicans are busy right now proposing that the US invade Mexico to take out its drug cartels, an action that would contribute to the country’s insecurity and undoubtedly fuel an increase in migration northwards.
If Republicans wanted to actually help deal with the refugee crisis, there are many things they could do. They could join with Democrats to properly fund the system of refugee centers, in which the number of detainees is already exceeding capacity, and immigration courts, where some refugees have been waiting more than a decade for a hearing. They could try to advance proposals to work constructively with the nations with which the United States shares a hemisphere to tackle common problems like the climate crisis, economic inequality and gun violence. And they could work to expand, rather than contract, legal pathways to citizenship and asylum.
The Biden administration is now working to do just that, announcing plans to set up immigration processing centers throughout Latin America, with the first to open in Guatemala and Colombia in the coming weeks. Eventually, the administration hopes to reduce the need for desperate people to arrive at the border by offering them an opportunity to apply for asylum from elsewhere. This should not only dial down the political heat at home, but much more importantly mean that would-be migrants don’t have to suffer the harrowing journey north, which for many ends in abuse or death.
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But these plans can only be effective and sustainable over the long term with the cooperation of Republicans, both in Congress and in future administrations. For that to happen, the party would need to start seeing immigrants and refugees as fellow human beings in need of assistance rather than as enemies to be quashed. Only then can America really make progress in tackling this problem and escaping the cycle of cruelty in which it is currently trapped.
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Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and the creator of America Explained, a newsletter and podcast
