New Policies Will Be Made to Deal With the Immigration Crisis at U.S. Borders
Posted by Aiden Huang. Colgate Class of 2023
Source: Parti, T., & Hackman, M. (2022, April 18). “U.S.-Mexico Border Arrests Top One Million in Six Months”. WSJ.
The immigration crisis due to the pandemic and the recent wars has put huge pressure on U.S. borders. Since October, the U.S. has arrested more than a million illegal immigrants — the fastest pace of illegal border crossing in about two decades. On the other hand, only 11,397 people were permitted to enter the country in March. To address the problem, President Biden is planning to lift Title 42, a pandemic-era border policy that has expelled about 51% of crossings. Title 42 allows border agents to quickly deport people who are arrested trying to enter the country illegally as well as those who seek asylum at a border checkpoint. The public worries that the revocation of Title 42 might further raise illegal border crossing. However, the administration has high confidence in its early planning, claiming it is strengthening government contracts and adding more staff to take care of the immigrants. The Biden administration has planned to implement a new border policy that asks asylum officers, rather than immigration judges, to hear and assess the claims of immigrants. The new policy is expected to speed up the process of asylum applications and help solve the backlog of pending cases.
Though people are worried that immigrants might damage the economy of this country and aggravate the pandemic, immigration can actually be beneficial to this country. Studies show that immigrants would not intensify the severity of the pandemic since the virus has already been spread within the borders. The influx of immigrants can also expand the workforce and bring long-term economic benefits to this country. Therefore, the new policy changes would not only help the immigrants reach safety faster but also help the economy of this country recover from the pandemic.
One thought on “New Policies Will Be Made to Deal With the Immigration Crisis at U.S. Borders”
This reminds me of reading another article yesterday talking about the latest data showing that the number of people who quit their jobs hit the record high in the past month. Lifting Title 42 will definitely increase the labor supply in the current economy in which labor shortage is severely affecting the growth. In another article, it is discussed how this move will have more immigrants settled near the southern border and it will encourage more firms that demand low-skilled workers to move to those places. It would be interesting to think about how this policy change would affect the structure of the industries in the country.