So How’s Biden Doing on His Big Immigration Promises? 

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

When they took over, the Biden administration was confident that it could quickly repair the trouble on the southern border. People would no longer be held in cages. Children would no longer be separated from their parents. Migrants seeking asylum would be processed in a humane and orderly way.

On March 23, Biden signed a series of executive orders meant to reverse some policies created in the past 4 years. “We’re going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from the arms of their families… and with no plan – none whatsoever – to reunify the children,” he said at the signing ceremony.

So how is all that working out?

It’s not easy to say with any certainty. That’s because the Biden administration isn’t allowing the media into the processing centers. Asked to explain this (which did not happen under Trump), Biden said that he “fully intends to be fully transparent” about the situation. Just not right now.

Many of the media are apparently okay with that. I suppose they feel certain that, whatever the conditions, they must be better than they were last year. And so there has been virtually no reporting on it from the NYT, CNN, etc. since Biden took office.

But what if it just ain’t so?

It turns out that some of the Customs officers are talking. One of them, who was willing to give only his first name, Carlos, reported the following conditions at the South Texas facility:

* Up to 80 individuals are living in 24- by 30-foot cells.

* Sheets of plastic divide the cells.

* As of 3/25, there were not enough mattresses for everyone.

* One or two agents are left to control 300 to 500 people per shift.

* Agents are leery of reporting physical or sexual assaults between the migrants because they’ll get blamed for “letting it happen.”

* Children with biological parents are being kept together.

* Children accompanied by extended family members are being separated from them.

* The number of unaccompanied minors – children under 18 who arrive without a parent – is growing daily. The law requires Border Patrol to prioritize unaccompanied minors and transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours. But many are staying for 10 to 12 days.

* The majority of unaccompanied minors coming across the border already have parents or family members in the United States.

* Two-thirds of migrants traveling through Mexico report experiencing violence during the journey, including abduction, theft, extortion, torture, and rape, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). (MSF has been providing medical and mental health care for migrants and refugees in Mexico since 2012.)

* Almost 1 in 3 women surveyed by MSF said they had been sexually abused during their journey. 60% through rape.

Biden doesn’t like any of this. In fact, he doesn’t like it so much that he asked Kamala Harris to be in charge of this messy job.

I’m sure he and Kamala would like nothing better than for things to turn out exactly as they promised they would, once they took charge and rescinded Trump’s executive orders.

And so now, we have this surge of migrants at the border seeking asylum, and a larger surge of migrants crossing the border illegally. And because it’s well known, south of the border, that after processing, most asylum seekers and illegal entrants are allowed to enter the US so long as they promise to come back for a hearing, the Mexican cartels that are transporting many of them are actually throwing children over the walls!

Here’s what I’m wondering: How could anyone actually believe that loosening restrictions would not cause an unmanageable surge?

There are more than 300 million poor people below living below the border. And virtually all of them know that being poor in the US is much, much better than being poor where they are. They have friends and relatives that have made it to the US and are working as gardeners and housekeepers and making more than doctors do in their own countries. Why wouldn’t many of them want to do the same?

By the way, I’m all in favor of not just allowing immigration, but promoting it. But the idea that it’s somehow immoral to rationalize the process by controlling and vetting immigration is just plain stupid. Every other developed country in the world does it. Heck, just about every developing country does it too.

There are solutions to this. Solutions that sensible people from both sides of the political divide should be able to agree to. For one thing, we could do what the Canadians do: Make illegal immigration absolutely illegal. And, at the same time, introduce a large-scale temporary worker program that would permit hundreds of thousands of vetted and qualified foreigners to work in the US on permits for designated periods of times. In some cases, it could be months; in most cases, years, with the ability to return home to visit their families.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen because the political argument is based on lies. Open border advocates want to add millions of low-paid or no-paid immigrants to the population because they believe it will increase their voter base. And anti-immigration advocates want to severely limit immigration from Mexico and Central America because they fear the same thing.

Poverty in Mexico and Central America is a big problem. A big, humanitarian problem. But once a humanitarian problem becomes a political issue, the human factor disappears, and things usually go from bad to worse. That is what’s happening now at the border.