The new year begins in Washington as the old one ended, with an impasse on border security and immigration that has tied President Trump and Congress in a knot and left federal agencies in limbo. Rather than fighting over who’s to blame for the stalemate, it’s time for all parties to the conflict to accept responsibility for solving it.
There’s a way to untie this knot, but it will require everyone to look rationally at the immigration challenges confronting the United States. We face a very real crisis on our southern border, and it is not of our making. The failed states of Central America, encompassing Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — with the unintended complicity of a faltering Mexico — have left their citizens bereft of hope of breaking endless cycles of crime, corruption and grinding poverty.
Without a secure border, the U.S. will continue to be swamped by desperate migrants seeking refuge here. It isn’t surprising that they see our country as the best and perhaps last hope for escaping oppressive conditions in their home countries. And while America has already welcomed millions of these refugees in the past few decades, there are limits to how many we can realistically absorb without being overwhelmed. Think of America as a lifeboat, able to haul in only so many refugees before it is itself swamped.
That’s already happening along our border with Mexico. Ruthless smugglers and well-meaning but misguided immigrant advocates have helped deliver a flood of migrants, taking advantage of a huge loophole in American immigration policy that in fact encourages illegal immigration. Right now, there are over 700,000 migrants who illegally jumped the U.S.-Mexico border and then claimed protection under American law, which, as currently interpreted and enforced, grants asylum to those fleeing political oppression or violence in their homelands.
It’s not uncommon for many of these asylum seekers to deliberately surrender to U.S. border authorities and invoke this asylum protection to gain access to the American legal system. And because of special humanitarian considerations given to adults accompanied by young children, many immigrants purposely travel with youngsters to take advantage of the additional legal protections. The results are too often tragic, with children exhausted by the long trek north facing sickness and death.