US Migration Policy: Politics and Fear over Facts and Empathy
Photo license from Unsplash
KATIE COOPER: During the past 50 years, US migration policy has been influenced by political agendas and fear instead of facts and human rights concerns. As a result, US politicians have demonstrated a lack of understanding regarding migration and the border region, which has had real consequences in the lives of migrants and on life in border communities.
I am currently taking a Centennial Lab in the SFS titled Refugee and Migrant Children: Mexico, the United States and the World. Over spring break, we traveled to the El Paso-Juárez border region and Mexico City to meet with migrant scholars and lawyers, local immigration nonprofits and advocacy groups, international humanitarian NGOs and locally run migrant shelters. Within the message of each diverse group was a common thread illustrating the utter failure of US migration policy due to an inability to understand the border or migration.
The US-Mexico border region is divided by a wall and a political boundary, yet united through economic activity, cultural ties and binational communities and families. As we left El Paso for Ciudad Juárez, we could see an immigration law office with an advertisement for free consultations facing the Mexican side, demonstrating a historical pattern of Mexicans crossing the border for a better life. Upon arriving in Ciudad Juárez, we immediately saw advertisements for dentists, pharmacies and other healthcare services, reflecting a pattern of Americans crossing the border for cheaper healthcare. Families also live and work on both sides, as the creation of a border wall existed long after the birth of a common culture and livelihood in this region. Yet, this region is vastly misunderstood, as seen in American responses to migration and border policy.
Border policy under the Trump administration was characterized by childish solutions to complex humanitarian issues and a general lack of both human empathy towards refugees and an understanding of migration. Continuing a policy of deterrence, Trump insisted on building a border wall to increase border security and stop drug trafficking, yet in reality, 90% of illegal drugs from Mexico enter the US through legal ports of entry. While there is little research demonstrating the effectiveness of a border wall, studies indicate that walls only shift patterns of illegal migration, not stop it. Thus, building a border wall to keep out drugs and illegal immigration may be popular politically, but is essentially useless in deterring illegal migrants or stopping drug trafficking.
Trump also demonized migrants, calling them rapists, drug dealers, and “bad hombres.” This rhetoric is extremely harmful and untrue. Not only are illegal immigrants less likely to commit crimes than US citizens, many migrants fleeing Central America are fleeing intense violence and threats to their lives. While the United States has every right to monitor who is entering our country, it is important to understand that the majority of migrants crossing at the Southern Border are Central Americans seeking asylum from gangs and cartel violence in their homelands. The establishment of the Migrant Protection Protocol, which forced asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await their trial, is yet another example of a lack of humanitarian concern regarding migration policy. This policy endangered migrants, as there were more than 1,500 documented instances of rape, kidnapping, assault, and other crimes commited against migrants who were returned to Mexico through February 2021. The policy of family separation also intended to deter illegal migration, yet only succeeded in creating trauma and extreme distress in children and didn’t reduce illegal migration, according to DHS documents. Hence, Trump’s rhetoric and border policies have been either ineffective or damaging to vulnerable migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
When President Biden was elected, many hoped that he would prioritize terminating inhumane border policies, such family separations and MPP. During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden emphasized that he wanted to undo the migration policies of Trump. But, during his presidency, it is obvious that Biden is attempting to appeal to Republicans and Democrats through contradictory policies that cannot coexist.
Republicans tend to support harsher immigration policies and border security, believing that illegal immigration is a national security threat deserving immediate attention. In an effort to win GOP support, Biden reinstated MPP, a Trump era policy that denies asylum seekers due process, restricting the number of migrants coming into the US. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats hold a much more favorable view of migration, and advocate for less strict border policy. Hence, the Biden administration has also implemented exemptions for Title 42, which would allow more migrants to enter the US. These exemptions give nonprofits that work on the border the power to pick which migrants are exempted from detentions and allowed to cross to the United States. In El Paso, we met with Hope Border Institute, one of these organizations. While these nonprofits are instrumental in providing humanitarian aid to migrants, they do not morally agree with this exemption process, as choosing which migrants can stay in the United States is a power only the government should hold. Dr. Jeremy Slack, a UT-El Paso professor, explained that this exemption policy has created camps of migrants in Tijuana, waiting to somehow be chosen as an exemption to Title 42 and cross into San Diego. Thus, while appealing to Republicans and Democrats on migration policy is a smart political decision in theory, this is a policy failure in practice. This is just another example of political agendas creating migration policy instead of facts, causing unintended consequences in border communities and confusion among migrants.
On our trip, I witnessed the real human impacts of a broken immigration system based on xenophobia and political agendas designed to deter those seeking asylum. The legal immigration system is extremely complex, confusing and expensive, motivating migrants to immigrate illegally. In recent years, the border has become increasingly militarized, as an increase in military surveillance technology has made it extremely difficult to cross in populated areas with less harsh environments, such as El Paso or San Diego. Militarizing the border doesn’t deter illegal migration; it only makes illegal migration much more dangerous. In order to flee gang violence and extreme poverty, migrants are then forced to risk their lives crossing the Sonoran Desert or put their lives in the hands of coyotes, who often lie to migrants and are more interested in making money than in ensuring their safety. During our trip, we visited a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In the shelter, I spoke with two young men from Morelos, Mexico. They were about my age, kind and funny, yet they had a difficult life. They grew up in extreme poverty, dropped out of school, and struggled with cocaine and meth addictions at 11 and 13 years old. I listened as they described how difficult their lives were in Morelos, and they explained how they felt that they could not better their lives or improve their socioeconomic position in their hometowns, thus motivating them to migrate. Their faith also played a large role in their decision to migrate as they trusted that God would guide them and keep them safe. At the end of the day, migration is about human beings seeking a better life, but this is easy to forget in analyzing facts and data about migrants and policies.
The US migration process is fully broken. It can only be resolved once we shift our focus from only looking at the border in terms of security and law enforcement to considering the needs and rights of those seeking safety in the US and prioritizing facts and human rights concerns over political agendas and xenophobia.
Katie Cooper is the current Co-Social Media Director for On The Record. A sophomore in the School of Foreign Service majoring in International Political Economy with a double minor in International Development and Spanish, she is from Leawood, Kansas.