These are common Republican talking points:
Millions of immigrants are streaming in through a porous "Swiss cheese" Southern border.
Undocumented immigrants become criminals.
Kamala Harris was the border czar who failed to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants.
Now here are the facts to refute those Republican talking points:
Number of migrants coming across the border has gone down significantly. This was helped in part by Biden's executive action that severely restricted asylum claims at the border, and Mexico's beefed-up enforcement policies.
Violent crime numbers have fallen; immigrants tend to be more law abiding; little evidence to prove undocumented immigrants commit more crime.
Harris was never the border czar; her job was narrowly focused on understanding why people migrate from the Northern Triangle countries - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador.
She announced public-private partnerships that generated over $4.2 billion to create economic opportunity in these countries as an incentive for people to stay and not migrate to the U.S.
Launched an anti-corruption task force to prosecute corruption cases with ties to the Northern Triangle countries, and anti-migrant smuggling task forces in Mexico and Guatemala.
Migration from the Northern Triangle largely stabilized, but southern border encounters now involve citizens from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras (per U.S. Customs and Border Data).
Most importantly Senate Republicans, earlier this year, failed to vote on a very tough BIPARTISAN border security bill that was put in place to secure the border.
Why, you ask? Congressional Republicans walked away from it at the urging of former President Trump, who is centering his re-election campaign on immigration, and feared the bill would give President Biden an election boost. Surely a case of putting personal interest over country, wouldn't you say?
President Biden’s actions to address the southern border issue:
This article reviews the major immigration actions taken during the first three years of the Biden administration. It focuses on a record 535 executive actions and efforts to strengthen border enforcement, interior enforcement and impacts on U.S. cities, humanitarian protection, the immigration courts, and legal admissions, as well as increased coordination with Latin American countries to curb migration.
The administration has incentivized arrivals at ports of entry and disincentivized irregular crossings at the border. As a result, more migrants are now processed through ports of entries, but this has varied by the nationality of the migrant, and the irregular arrivals have remained high. Finite resources have strained operations and stretched budgets and resources. Interior cities have also felt the impact. Shelters are filled beyond capacity due to lack of affordable housing.
The administration is working on a multi-pronged effort including: granting liminal/twilight status for certain migrants, extending validity of work permits, partnering with Latin American and Caribbean countries to slow migration, restoring prosecutorial discretion guidelines and streamlining courts to address the backlog and wait times. Human migration is a complicated, painful issue.
I would strongly recommend a reading of the article to get a deeper appreciation of the problem, the efforts taken to date, the challenges that need to be overcome, and the need for bipartisan action that puts the needs of the country over the bidding of any one individual.
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