NEW DELHI: The United States runs the risk of being flooded with illegal immigrants if it doesn’t close its borders soon.
12 million illegal immigrants and still counting. Reversing a trend over the decade, illegal immigration crossed the 11 million mark in 2021, after Joe Biden of Delaware took over as President (2 million per year from 2021 to 2023). Among those who crossed the border illegally, most were Mexicans, sent across the Rio Grande by criminal networks operating in that country and specializing in human trafficking. Not that there weren’t illegal aliens from elsewhere (800% jump in the number of Chinese trying to enter America illegally), but Mexicans still top the chart. Compounding the problem are the large number of visa violators, who either overstay their visa or indulge in unauthorized changes in the purpose of their visit to the United States.
Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, who is seeking the White House yet again this November, has been talking for long about “a massive invasion” at the nation’s southern border that has “spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction of communities” all across America. He raised his pitch after his re-nomination at the Republican national convention this year, promising to finish building the border wall he started during his presidency, overriding opposition from a Nancy Pelosi-led Democratic Congress, and threatening to return to his policy of immediate apprehension and deportation of illegal aliens across the border with Mexico.
According to data collected by the Pew Research Center just before the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—federal agencies entrusted with the identification, apprehension, and deportation of illegal immigrants—border apprehensions, interior arrests, and deportations (known in official parlance as “removal”), rose substantially during the Trump years: border apprehensions more than doubled, interior arrests rose by 30%, and removal of unauthorized immigrants increased by 17%. Unfortunately, the pandemic intervened to disrupt President Trump’s stern border enforcement. Also, his “Remain in Mexico” program, that required asylum seekers from Central American countries to wait out in Mexico when their cases were being adjudicated (as different from the earlier practice of spending the waiting years in the US), was suspended by a California federal appeals court. ICE also blamed the total lack of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities on the part of local jurisdictions all over America (also known as “sanctuary cities”) as a contributing factor toward the growing problem of illegal immigration in the country.
In a report compiled by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the House Homeland Security Committee and published by the House Budget Committee in 2023, during the presidency of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., there have been 8 million illegal immigrant encounters nationwide, out of which 6.5 million were at the southwestern border. Worse, 1.7 million gotaways, illegal immigrants who had escaped Border Patrol, were living in the interiors of the United States without proper documentation and without being vetted by immigration enforcement officials. This was an alarming situation, forcing immigration officials to speak against the President. In fact, the report quoted Tom Homan, the former Director of ICE, who even went so far as to accuse President Biden as the only President in US history who had “unsecured the border on purpose.” The purpose of the President is clear: to cater to both liberal and Hispanic voters who support open borders and insist on “humane treatment” of illegal aliens, putting America at great risk and putting a heavy and unnecessary strain on America’s resources.
An argument is gaining ground in scholarly and media circles in the United States that if America took upon itself the responsibility of strengthening the economies and assisting internal improvements in countries to which the asylum-seekers belonged, there would be no reason for them to arrive at America’s gates in search of a better life. It is important to remember that the United States is under no obligation to shoulder the responsibility of Central American republics plagued by poverty, crime, lack of democracy, economic mismanagement, violence (especially in the turbulent northern triangle), and drugs. Just as it has no obligation to shelter any immigrant trying to enter America illegally. President Lyndon Johnson, with his Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, had opened the doors of America to the world. President Joe Biden, prodded by the obstinate insistence of his party on a more relaxed immigration policy, has dismantled that door altogether. If elected for another term this November, President Donald Trump has the enormous task of not only completing work on his border wall but also erecting the door of America, bolting it from inside, and only opening it when one lawfully sought permission to enter. America is indeed a nation of immigrants: legal immigrants. If Vice President Kamala Devi Harris (President Trump’s “border czar”) is elected to the presidency, she is expected to cater to the sentiments of immigration activists. And that would make millions in Mexico and Central America to perceive her election as an opportunity to flood America, just as they did when Joe Biden took office. Then, in a departure from the past, America would become a nation of illegal immigrants.
Dr Saumyajit Ray is Assistant Professor in United States Studies at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.