Addressing the Migrant Crisis with Fairness and Empathy
Over 7 million migrants have crossed the southern border over the last three years. Photo: PBS
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By ELLIOTT ZHANG
As over 100,000 migrants filled up New York City’s shelters, students of James Madison High School had to enter remote learning this past January 10 to allow those staying in tents at Floyd Bennett Field to take shelter from a storm with high winds.
While the students probably didn’t mind taking the day off to stay home—I honestly wouldn’t either—parents, as well as the rest of the nation, expressed their grievances.
Approximately 2.4 million migrants currently cross the southern border annually, a rate that reached a new monthly peak (300,000) in December. The large number of arrivals has caused confusion for authorities and forced cities to sink large funds into aiding them. According to Mayor Eric Adams, New York City will spend about $5 billion this year to house and feed migrants. He also said the cost would be more than $12 billion over the next three years.
NYC’s problems have been accelerated by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is sending buses full of migrants to the city to provoke the federal government to tighten security at the border. This move has stirred complaints from Democrats and added fire to the nationwide debate over border control.
The inaction of the federal government, internal political division, and poor immigration policies not only disrupt the peace at the border but also harm the migrants entering the country with dreams of a better future. The Biden Administration should strive for a bipartisan agreement that serves the interests of both parties or take executive action if Congress won’t compromise.
First, security at the border should be tightened. The purpose for this is to prevent gangs and cartels from taking advantage of the disorder to smuggle drugs and weapons across the border, fueling the drug epidemics and violence plaguing the nation.
The government must be fair to those who lawfully migrate, as those who illegally cross the border increasingly clog up the court system. According to The Economist, immigration court cases surpassed 3 million in November of 2023, and the time to wait for an initial hearing now takes an average of four years. In the meantime, millions of migrants wait inside America without any official status.
Asylum processing is tedious and difficult as immigration courts are inconsistent in their decisions. As stated by The Economist, a judge in Houston denied 95% of her cases while a judge in San Francisco denied 1% of hers. This inconsistency could not only bar justified immigrants but could also in turn allow those with malicious intent to enter the country without proper vetting.
This backlog could be improved by increasing the number of immigration judges and deporting those who illegally cross the border without valid refugee status.
Migrants awaiting asylum should also be able to look for employment, and employers must be willing to provide training for the unskilled. Preventing migrants from finding employment will keep them perpetually in poverty and allow for gangs to capitalize on this to recruit them, thus increasing crime. The government can make it easier to provide working visas by cooperating with foreign governments to perform background checks on an individual’s criminal history.
The issue of border control should not be each individual city or state’s burden. It is the federal government’s job to provide more resources and funding to help house and aid migrants and provide them some form of employment to point them in the right direction so that they can make an honest living.
Coming to a bipartisan agreement to address the crisis should be paramount for the federal government. It would be a step in the right direction to unify the nation, allowing us to move on to address the other issues facing the nation such as gun control, infrastructure, and poverty.