Stunts Don’t Fix Problems
Terry H. Schwadron
Sept. 19, 2022
Despite either shaming Republican governors or exalting them over sending busloads or planeloads of migrants from the border to Washington, New York, Chicago and now Martha’s Vineyard, neither Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis nor Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is about to stop.
Instead, they will continue to spend millions of tax dollars on transporting hoodwinked asylum-seekers in a political effort to tag Democrats with hypocrisy by delivering migrants to Democratic strongholds. It’s a nearly useless argument over symbolism.
Of course, the relocations are all stunts — even the initiating Republican governors own that, using fancier words — and ones that may just work to their individual advantage as those two tussle over who is in line for leadership should Donald Trump fall from his presidential hopes.
As stunts go, this has visuals and pathos enough to attract the television cameras, and enough political smolder to enrage a Republican base eager for culture wars.
But as a matter of fixing what’s wrong, this campaign is a stunning loser.
For openers, imagine if we spent those millions on something other than transportation, like adequate housing or job placement or even more asylum judges to clear the ever-growing backlog of cases.
As a tool to get more responsive actions from the Biden administration, this effort so far is a total loser. It guarantees conclusions that the immigration mess is too complicated for simple answers rather than getting the administration to pony up more border defenses.
Using individual immigrants as political pawns to move about on a policy chessboard is bad governing and ineffective politicking. It is immoral, some even think possibly illegal, possibly even misusing Florida’s own tax and budget restrictions, and should show up all parties as unable to resolve problems we elect them to address.
The big takeaways here are the brittleness of our times and our inability to identify what problem we are working effectively to resolve.
The Buses and Planes
Beyond symbolism, the flights to Martha’s Vineyard without notice were just inane. There are barely enough jobs there to account for full-time residents, and while islanders opened doors to provide temporary shelter, this was no solution. Thus, most moved to a nearby Cape Cod military base.
Dropping a busload of migrants on the front lawn of Vice President Kamala Harris solves nothing, including, apparently, getting Harris to get to the microphone to acknowledge that there are real border problems affecting real people.
The headlines in right-leaning news sites are focused on liberal hypocrisy to find migrants outside their homes rather than on the partisan nature of the protest. As always, there is a germ of a legitimate idea here: The fuss over 50 arrivals on a beach island might engender a look at what happens to border towns with many multiples of unanticipated arrivals.
From all accounts, these migrants crossed the border, fleeing poor economies and dangerous situations at home in Central America, South America and other countries. After crossing the border and claiming asylum, they are being released in the United States to wait for hearings on their asylum claim — with a backlog maybe years long.
Let’s underline that as asylum seekers, these migrants are in the United States legally, though they lack work permits that can take up to a year to receive. Under the rules and recent court decisions concerning return of Mexican migrants, those do not apply to those from Venezuela, Nicaragua or Cuba, for example. That’s not what DeSantis and Abbott are saying about being here illegally.
It also is not what migrants were told when they got on the bus or plane. If their cases ever get heard, about 40% can expect to win their appeals; the rest will be deported — if they ever get back to a hearing in Texas from, say, Martha’s Vineyard.
The targeted receiving communities are not being told consistently before arrival, making the process less than efficient or humane.
A political minute ago, Republicans and Democrats were demanding that Venezuelans be rescued from a leftist, Communist-leaning dictatorship. Of course, that is at odds with dealing with the humans who have made their way here.
Missing in all this are human factors like aligning what immigrant skills might be matched with actual job needs in places around the country. But then, that feels like part of solution rather than the game of politics.
Missing, too, is simple acknowledgement by the Biden administration that despite upwards of 100,000 deportations a year, the numbers of people at the border and coming through the border seemingly have grown out of control.
Despite increases over, say five years or so, there are an insufficient number of border agents, immigration judges, housing units and the rest to deal with an increasingly complex trafficking of migrants to and through the border or what to do with those that make it through.
Where’s the System?
What we lack is a coherent and enforceable immigration system.
It needs rebuilding around practical goals rather than a bunch of mostly poorly coined mottos that come across as less than humane and border into racist.
It shouldn’t be Build the Wall, but rather Build an Intelligible System that is scaled to handle the growing number of people from all over who are knocking at the door.
The discussion should start with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Democrats and Homeland Security owning up to the problem rather than dodging uncomfortable questions from opponents. And it requires the active participation of Republicans towards finding solutions other than building walls, but then solutions are much harder than blame. We clearly need more immigration judges to cut the asylum backlog, more consistency from Border Police policies, more work visas for farmworkers and other targeted skill groups.
The idea that there was no illegal immigration under Trump is as wrong as the assertion that we now have legally open borders; the biggest deportation numbers were during Barack Obama’s years.
What we have is chaos and opportunism built on fear and necessity to escape certain death. The idea that climate change and random wars, droughts and famines are not going to seriously worsen current trends is lunacy.
Comprehensive immigration solutions need to account for legal immigration, for 11 million immigrants already in the United States without documentation, for the 800,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program migrants, for upwards of 2 million asylum seekers this year from an increasing number of countries and for redefinition of how dependent our economic systems and American values rely on an understandable immigration system.
At this point, we don’t even agree on the questions, never mind the answers.
But seeing planeloads of migrants who believe that they are being taken to places where there are jobs and housing waiting only to find it a mirage is a cruel hoax.
Governors, state and federal lawmakers, do your job and get it squared away.
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