Congressional Democrats on Wednesday made it clear they’re pushing to expand the U.S. capacity to process asylum seekers as part of a border security deal they’re negotiating with Republicans.
“Assistance to Central America, [addressing] the root problems causing people to flee their countries and coming to America, and immigration judges — a great shortage there — to process asylum cases,” said Senate Appropriations Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., during the first conference committee meeting on border security.
“These are smart uses of the taxpayer dollars. These are effective solutions. I think all Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on this,” he said.
House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., added during the meeting that she has drawn up a bill to include reforms dealing with asylum claims.
“The only crisis at the border has been a humanitarian one due to DHS’ inability to care for immigrants, families, and unaccompanied children properly. My proposal includes much-needed humanitarian aid and improved facilities for migrants taken into CBP custody to help prevent unnecessary death and health problems,” Roybal-Allard said during the meeting.
“My proposal provides a larger investment in alternatives to detention, and family case management, and a bigger focus on detention facility inspections, and healthcare services,” she said.
The Democratic goal of more quickly dealing with asylum claims is a much lower priority for President Trump and his Republican allies, who mostly want money for a border wall. But some Republicans on Wednesday said they also share Leahy’s goal.
“I’ve been to the border more times than I can count. I’ve talked to these families who are risking their lives and the lives of their children to come here to the United States,” said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas. “I think we all owe it to all of these families to do something about this crisis.”
Granger called for “money to support our immigration court system, including hiring new immigration judge teams to reduce the immigration court backlog and funding our humanitarian assistance, medical support, and temporary housing for the most vulnerable, like women and children who are victims of human trafficking.”
Democratic calls to improve the system for dealing with asylum claims are similar to claims from immigration experts who don’t think Trump’s border wall will solve the problem.
“The question is not really wall or no wall — it’s what do we really need,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, Bipartisan Policy Center’s director of immigration and cross-border policy.
“The barrier’s purpose is basically to slow down and try to deter,” added Brown, a former Department of Homeland Security and CBP employee. “No one believes, including the Border Patrol, that it actually stops everything.”
“Whether steel slats or concrete, a wall will not fix these problems,” Migration Policy Institute’s Doris Meissner and Sarah Pierce wrote. “Instead, the money would be far better spent retooling an overwhelmed asylum system, adapting border enforcement infrastructure and procedures to respond to the changing composition of arrivals.”
Their group said one change that would address the asylum issue would be additional immigration judges in border communities, which would let the U.S. more quickly get through the nearly 900,000 outstanding immigration cases.
These groups say the border “crisis” of today is much different from the one the U.S. faced decades earlier. From 1983 to 2006, nearly 1 million illegal immigrants were arrested each year, and Congress voted in 2006 to add 649 miles of new border barrier in response.
By the late 2000s, the fence projects were starting to make an impact on illegal immigration numbers. Apprehensions dropped below 1 million per year and trickled down to half a million by 2010.
In 2015, they were under 400,000, but Border Patrol had begun to see a shift in the demographics of those apprehended. Families and unaccompanied children from Central America began showing up instead of Mexican nationals, and migrants these days are looking to turn themselves in to claim asylum.
Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center said expanding walls and fences at the border might help some, but not for long.
“That is a constant battle of, ‘We do something, they [cartels] respond and find other ways. It’s a multibillion-dollar business for them. There’s no set it and forget it [approach],” Brown said.
