A Pandemic Rule is Among the Trump-Era Immigration Policies That Has Divided the White House
Posted by Jack Selati. Colgate Class of 2023
Source: Kanno-youngs, Zolan, and Michael. “A Pandemic Rule Is among the Trump-Era Immigration Policies That Has Divided the White House.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Apr. 2022,https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/politics/a-pandemic-rule-is-among-the-trump-era-immigration-policies-that-has-divided-the-white-house.html.
Recently, policy disputes over immigration have been prevalent within the White House as both parties argue over the imminent surge of immigrants crossing the southwestern U.S. border. When Biden was initially elected President, he vowed to regress the unfair and inhumane policies that Trump enacted while in office. However, disputes over these policies have led to little headway being made.
Last summer, as the delta variant emerged, the C.D.C. said that keeping migrants out would not prevent the spread of the delta variant since it was already in the U.S. Biden planned on allowing Title 42 to expire as long as the C.D.C. agreed with the decision.
While there were internal debates about whether to renew Title 42 within the White House, the C.D.C. decided that on May 23rd, they would lift the public health border restrictions. Although the C.D.C. agreed to lift Title 42, this past week, the Republicans and a few Democrats in Congress held up a Covid funding bill to protest the lifting of Title 42.
As we have previously seen in class, an increase in immigration can often lead the media and others to blame immigrants for their negative fiscal impacts, such as using public services, cash transfers, and integration programs to help immigrants assimilate.
The benefits of terminating Title 42 are that more refugees and asylum seekers will be coming into the country, helping them escape gang violence, kidnapping, and torture from their origin countries. Similarly, an increase in the inflow of immigrants will provide more low-skilled workers for the towns surrounding the southwestern border. The cost of this increase in immigration is that by having more low-skilled workers in these cities close to the border, the wage effects of native workers may be dampened. Hopefully, with the early preparation for the arrival of these immigrants, towns and cities across the U.S. will be able to accept and integrate the immigrants into their new lives with ease, allowing for there to be fewer adverse effects on the cities receiving these immigrants.
4 thoughts on “A Pandemic Rule is Among the Trump-Era Immigration Policies That Has Divided the White House”
This is a nice blog article that helps ease people’s worry about letting immigrants in. As more immigrants try to come to the U.S. to seek refuge, more and more people are worried about the negative economic impacts and negative health impacts the immigrants might bring. However, it’s only half the story. The blog provides a great summary of the current situation and the impacts of lifting Title 42. It helps people perceive the long-term benefits immigrants can bring to this country besides the short-term negative effects publicized by politics. Great work!
Great blog post, Jack! Your post points to the fact that Biden promised to regress the unfair policies that Trump placed during his presidency, but he hasn’t been able to deliver on this promise. It’s easy to blame Biden for this, but your post showcases that internal disputes within the White House outside of Biden’s control have stalled his progress to fulfilling his promise, so we can’t solely blame him. I didn’t know about Title 42 prior to reading your blog, and it’s really interesting to see the role of the CDC in immigration policy throughout the pandemic. As you point out, there are costs and benefits to the immigrants and natives, but these are barely talked about in the media. Instead, many false/exaggerated narratives about immigrants are spread. It makes me realize how personal beliefs and biases get in the way of people being rational decision-makers. Great job showing the intersectionalities involved within just this one policy!
Jack , I found your blog post to be very interesting as it gives a lot of important information about the current and future situation of the Title 42 policy. Considering that the U.S. in regards to its Covid-19 policy has always relied on the CDC as its #1 source of information regarding public safety measures, it’s interesting how some politicians are disregarding the C.D.C. in its approval of the allowance of immigrants into the country, with the basis of disregard likely being the fiscal effects you mentioned. However, potentially saving lives of refugees escaping violence and providing a far better life for incoming immigrants are admirable reasons to allow them to enter the country in pre-covid numbers. To ease the wage costs to natives, the U.S. government could potentially relocate incoming immigrants and their families to lower income cities that are in need of low-skilled workers.
Jack, I thought you’re blog post was very interesting and even educated me on some of the things going on surrounding immigration right now. I had no idea that there was a Covid funding bill that was held up, and done so in a way to protest Title 42 being lift. I found that absolutely appalling. That is just another example of how immigration policy and politics battle with each other. And we see that in the lack of changes to our immigration policy over US history. Things never seem to get done or changes to be made because of either the fear of backlash or actual affirmation that the public would not approve. I also thought it was interesting how you mentioned the media, because we know how much it can impact the public’s opinion. It has caused massive polarization in our country, and it is that polarization that has made immigration policy such a tough task to battle.