A few weeks back, I was flipping between different news channels, as I usually do.
I like to try to get as many different perspectives as possible.
But on this day, I was particularly interested in the news about the recent moon landing. Intuitive Machines, a private space company, landed a spacecraft called the Odysseus lander on the moon, and I wanted to see the coverage.
As I flipped to the first channel, they were covering the landing, and I naturally watched until they went to a commercial.
But as I changed to the next channel, they were not covering the moon landing. They were talking about immigration and the border.
This was a Republican-leaning channel, and not even the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since 1972 could take them away from talking about the border, even for a few minutes.
But this is nothing new. Almost every time I tune into a Republican news station or website, they seem to be talking about the border. The coverage feels practically incessant.
And that’s not inherently a bad thing. Border security and, overarchingly, immigration reform are significant issues that have long needed much change and attention.
Both parties even agree on this. They will both tell you that the immigration system is broken and needs reform. However, their goals for reforming the system are very different, which is why they can never come to an agreement.
Politics has always gotten in the way and turned immigration reform into a political storm that only seems to be getting stronger and stronger.
But if we can get past the storm, solutions are waiting in the aftermath.
So, let’s look at the real problems with the immigration system, why failed policies have led us to our current state, and why politics is preventing solutions to this issue.
The Complexity of Immigration Reform
Immigration has many layers to it, and there isn’t a one-solution quick fix.
That’s because each layer has many complexities that must be sorted out.
The main concerns with the issue of immigration are legal immigration, illegal immigration, what to do about undocumented workers already in the country, and border security.
Legal immigration is a problem because it’s not easy for immigrants to come to the United States.
The system has four ways for people to come legally and obtain a green card: family sponsor, employment sponsor, the refugee process, and the green card lottery.
And all can be very difficult to obtain.
The number of immigrants allowed to come to the country through family sponsorships is limited to a very small number yearly, and millions continue to wait to get their visas.
Employment sponsorships are also very low because the system makes it tedious for employers to complete the process. Once employers have completed that process, agencies like the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also take a long time to process everything.
The refugee process, which admits people seeking refuge from their own country before they come here, only admits a minimal number of people as well but also causes other problems with illegal immigration issues we’ll discuss later.
Finally, the green car lottery picks random immigrants who meet specific requirements and grants them a green card, but the chances of winning this are very low.
All this shows that coming to the country legally is complicated, and a system that made it easier and more efficient would not only solve some of these difficulties but also help address illegal immigration and border security.
The issues with illegal immigration and border security are one, how do we approach all the undocumented immigrants already in the country and two, how do we prevent people from illegally crossing into the country and deal with asylum seekers, refugees who make their refugee claim at the border instead of before they arrive as mentioned above.
This is where much of the political storm comes from, as there are countless debates about amnesty programs, catch-and-release policies, deportations, and detainments.
Democrats usually favor amnesty and catch-and-release policies, and Republicans favor more deportation and detention policies.
However, these policies, without compromise or the foundation of an overarching efficient and stable immigration system, have led to even more issues and failed results.
To truly fix the immigration system, Congress must pass legislation.
But up to this point, that has failed to happen.
This is mainly due to our current politics; however, before we can discuss that, we must look at how the failures of the Trump and Biden administrations have led to our current issues.
Dropping the Ball, the Wall, and a Free for All
I’ll start with Donald Trump and Republicans because despite them talking about immigration incessantly and claiming how much of a crisis it is, they could have not only solved the issues they’re complaining about but also fixed them to their liking.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump ran on a tough-on-immigration platform.
It was his most important issue and resonated with Republican voters, as it still does.
After he was elected President in 2016, Donald Trump and the Republicans had every opportunity and resource to fix the immigration system completely and to fix it in the way they wanted.
They had not only the Presidency, but the 115th Congress had a Republican majority in the Senate and House of Representatives.
At this point, you would think that Trump and the Republicans would have come together with their majority and began to negotiate immigration reform legislation.
It’s what the Presidents and Congress usually do with issues of significant importance to them when they have a majority.
President Barrack Obama did just this with the issue of healthcare after his election in 2008.
Healthcare reform was one of Obama’s most important issues. Once he became President, he came together with Congress, which had a Democratic majority, and began to negotiate healthcare reform legislation, which was passed and became the Affordable Care Act.
Many Republicans hated this and still say it’s a bad policy, but that’s not the point.
Obama took one of his most important issues and got legislation passed to fix it, with democratic policies as its foundation. And despite Republicans trying to repeal it for years, even under the majority with Trump, it’s still the law.
Donald Trump and the Republicans could have done this with immigration. If they did, they could have passed comprehensive immigration reform legislation with Republican policies being the foundation that may still be the law.
I’m not saying that would have necessarily been a good thing, but they certainly had their chance.
Instead, Trump decided to pass executive orders to enact his policies. And while executive orders have the force of law, they can be undone by the next President ordering to eliminate them.
One of those executive orders was the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall.
As a central component of his 2016 campaign and his immigration policy, Trump called for the construction of a border wall along the southern border, and he said that Mexico would pay for it.
But Mexico didn’t pay for it, and the wall was less comprehensive than originally proposed.
Trump promised to build 1,000 miles of border wall, with natural borders like the Rio Grande making up the rest, but only a little over 450 miles were built.
All the money for the wall came from U.S. taxpayers, and many miles of the border without natural barriers still need a wall.
Yet Trump claims he finished the wall.
So, which one is it?
Is the wall finished and not working, or did Trump not finish the wall, and this is the reason we have so many migrants still crossing illegally?
Republicans can complain about immigration all they want, but these points ultimately show how they are just as much to blame if not more, for the issues with immigration as Democrats are.
Trump, with a congressional majority, did not pass immigration reform, enacted short-term executive orders, and failed to build the border wall, yet somehow the crisis and invasion, as Republicans are calling it, at the border is all Joe Biden and the Democrat’s fault.
Speaking of Biden and the Democrats, however, they do bear responsibility for these immigration issues as well.
The main issue with the Biden administration is its relaxed policies of parole and catch-and-release, which, while a lot more humane than Trump’s policies, don’t effectively deal with migration into the county.
Parole, in the issue of immigration, means to allow someone who isn’t a citizen into the country for a certain amount of time.
Usually, this is for humanitarian reasons or if it adds some sort of benefit to the country.
It could be enacted in an urgent situation but is currently being used on a large scale to deal with the large number of people coming to the country.
Democrats are usually more relaxed in their immigration policies, and this can drive more migrants to the border because it can be easier to enter the country.
Then, once people know that policies like parole are being enacted, even more people begin to come to the border because they know they may receive these types of parole treatments.
It’s like a snowball effect that continues to build upon itself.
Catch-and-release policies can also encourage this. Once someone gets to the United States, they are allowed by law to ask for asylum. Under catch-and-release policies, they release them into the community instead of detaining them until they have their hearing in immigration court.
This can take years because the courts are overwhelmed with cases and need more resources.
Biden’s continued relaxed policies seemed to allow for a free-for-all, and without an overarching federal system, this creates a chaotic quagmire.
This has also trickled down to the state level, creating a situation where states are now forced to deal with immigration independently, which creates more problems for the federal government and these state governments.
However, Biden has recently shifted gears and finally begun to call for Congressional federal immigration reform.
Unfortunately, this is where politics has infected the issue of immigration and has us currently in limbo on this issue.
Immigration Reform, Congress, and Politics
As I stated earlier, to truly fix the immigration system, Congress must pass legislation.
But this is where politics is currently preventing any realistic solution to immigration.
In late 2023, President Biden finally began to negotiate a bipartisan bill that would have been the most significant immigration reform legislation in decades.
The bill was negotiated by Republican Senator James Lankford, Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy with the Biden administration behind it.
It would have revamped the asylum system and allowed for closers and shutdowns at the border, among other things.
In a quick summary of some very detailed changes, the asylum changes would have toughened the standard for approval of asylum requests and allowed asylum officers instead of judges to decide cases, which would have helped with the abovementioned judicial problems.
Also, the border closer authority would grant the Department of Homeland Security new authority to handle migrants at the border.
It was a bipartisan bill that, while not a complete overhaul of the immigration system, was something we have not seen in decades. It would have transformed the system and pushed it forward to even more change.
Most importantly, it would have effectively started to address the significant issues we currently have with immigration. The same issues we hear incessant coverage of on Republican news stations.
But this bill didn’t pass.
Why?
Politics got in the way.
Donald Trump didn’t want this bill to pass and actively called on Senators and the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to oppose it, which they did.
Why did Donald Trump want this bill to fail? Because it would have hurt him in the upcoming election.
Donald Trump needs immigration as an issue.
It riles up his base and moderates who are on the fence, and as we discussed, it’s his most important thing to run on.
It’s a wedge issue that can push voters more to his camp and is a significant issue where he can counter Joe Biden.
Immigration has been a significant blemish on Biden’s Presidency so far, but if this bill passed and solved the issues at the border, not only can Trump not get people riled up about it, but Biden could take credit for solving the border issues.
Senators and House members ultimately complied with Trump because they only cared about Trump’s election and wanted to stay loyal to their party leader.
It’s the perfect example of the concepts discussed in my article Political Machines and the ideal example of these political machines at work.
Ultimately, Donald Trump and Republicans don’t care about immigration. They care about Trump getting elected this fall. All the negative news coverage isn’t about the border or immigration at all; it is about getting Donald Trump elected.
Now, some Republicans will say that this bill didn’t do enough, and that’s why they opposed it.
However, the bill was still very conservative, and if the border is as bad as they say it is, then this bill would have helped in some capacity.
Also, if Donald Trump is elected President, they could amend this bill or even write a new one. But in the meantime, this bill would have done something to improve an issue Republicans say is so bad.
If someone is starving, they may want a full-course meal, but if someone offers them a piece of bread in the meantime, they’ll take it.
However, this Republican perspective is lowballing the potential effect of this bill; the bill probably would have been very effective and had a significant impact.
As discussed in the last article, Centrism and Moderate Politics, democracy works best when multiple ideas and ideologies come together in negotiation to find solutions to real problems, and this bill was an example of this.
However, Donald Trump didn’t want it, so the bill didn’t pass.
This, unfortunately, is the nature of the extreme politics we now have, and immigration reform is the latest victim.
Immigration reform got caught in a political storm, and we may just have to ride out this storm until we decide to call on leaders of a more practical nature.
In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to search the news vehemently for information on moon landings and other such achievements because I doubt we’ll stop hearing about the border anytime soon.
It’s unfortunate when a bipartisan bill is ready to be passed and ultimately doesn’t, for whatever reason. It’s even worse when the reason is a potential future president tells them not to pass it. They should want what’s best for the country.