IMMIGRATIONImmigration Roars Back in Headlines. Time Finally Come for Reforms?
A recent surge in migrants at the border coupled with the heated politics of a presidential election year have once again pushed the decades-old debate over comprehensive immigration reform to the top of the agenda in Washington. Migration law scholar looks at history, and the prospects for breaking gridlock in election year.
A recent surge in migrants at the border coupled with the heated politics of a presidential election year have once again pushed the decades-old debate over comprehensive immigration reform to the top of the agenda in Washington.
Federal agents encountered more than 3 million migrants attempting to enter the U.S. in fiscal year 2023, with almost 2.5 million of them making their way through the southern border, marking a historic high.
In response, House Democrats and Republicans are negotiating a bipartisan border and immigration deal, which includes harsher border and asylum restrictions in exchange for new U.S. military aid for Ukraine.
If the deal, which currently has the support of President Biden, makes it through the Senate, it would be the biggest bipartisan shift in border and immigration laws since 1986, when Ronald Reagan signed a major overhaul bill.
To understand the roots of the gridlock and prospects for change, the Gazette spoke to Gerald L. Neuman, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law, and the director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The record number of migrants trying to enter the U.S.— more than 3 million “migrant encounters” in 2023 — has led to a humanitarian crisis. How did we end up there?
It’s important to mention that these encounters overstate the number of people involved. When agencies talk about “migrant encounters,” they include people who are found or sent back and who try again, which was especially common during the first part of 2023 — when Title 42, the U.S. COVID-19 border restriction, was being employed. I say this because there is a tendency to exaggerate the numbers to attract attention.
The current crisis indicates a cumulative backlog. Some of it goes all the way back to the Obama years, but it also reflects the chaos of the Trump years, with attempts to undermine asylum and the shutdown of the border during COVID. The COVID shutdown involved sending people back without even listening to their claims for protection. But the flows of migrants arise mainly from political instability, repression, gang violence, and economic disruption in their home countries.
