Southern Border Crisis: What is it and How can it be fixed?

The Southern Border of the United States touches California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The border spans 1,954 miles or roughly 10 million feet. The southern border is an important subject in politics. Lately, the mainstream news has been heavily covering the southern border. There is a problem, and the news has dubbed it the ‘border crisis’. Very large amounts of immigrants are illegally crossing the southern border. So far, more than 1.1 million illegal migrants have been arrested in 2021, the US Customs and Border Protection reported. There haven’t been this many arrests on the southwest border since 2006. Axios reported that nearly 90% of more than 50,000 migrants released between mid-March and mid-July with a notice to report to ICE have failed to do so. And according to the Pew Research Center, more than 40% of unauthorized migrants in the country entered legally on short-term visas but overstayed.

Because of these illegal immigrants, drug trafficking, human smuggling, extortion, murder, and many other crimes are very common along the southern border, as reported by fbi.gov. A report by the Texas Rangers revealed that in ten years, from June 2011 - June 2021, 235,000 illegal immigrants were charged with the following crimes: 1,245 homicides, 66,924 assaults, 17,456 burglaries, 72,835 drug charges, 980 kidnappings, 33,335 thefts, 4,155 robberies, 7,076 sexual assaults, 8,332 sexual offenses, 49,408 obstructing police charges, and 8,317 weapons charges.

Not only does the influx of illegal immigrants bring crime, but there’s not enough room for them. In February, Border Patrol apprehended 9,297 unaccompanied children, which accounts for an average of 332 per day. In March, there were around 400 unaccompanied children arriving per day, which accounts for about 12800/month. In just one month, there was around a 30% increase. The Biden administration has predicted that 117,000 unaccompanied migrant children would cross the border in 2021. Despite stating that “It is a moral failing...when children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers,” Joe Biden has done exactly that. His administration was rushing to provide emergency shelter capacity for the overflow of children, enlisting the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to open up temporary shelters.

What caused this? Let’s take a look at Biden’s new policies and stances on immigration. During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to “build a fair and humane immigration system.” And on Jan 20, President Biden’s first day in office, he signed a very important executive order. The government would no longer use taxpayer dollars to construct a border wall. There would be no more construction of the border wall. Joe Biden also promised to end President Trump’s famous Remain In Mexico policy, or Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). MPP is a policy that makes those seeking asylums at the border wait in Mexico while their claims were processed. The Biden Admininistration tried to cancel this policy in June, when Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, issued a memo ending MPP. However, a Texas District Court granted an injunction on the administration’s decision and ordered the administration to reinstate the policy because it did not properly justify ending it. The Supreme Court later upheld that decision. In November, the Biden Admininistration tried again to end MPP, but the new termination cannot go into action until a judge lifts the injunction.

Another reason why immigrants are heavily pouring into the US is the conditions of their homelands. Violence, poverty, and crime are prevalent among the countries and areas near the southern border. Gang violence is widespread in El Salvador and Honduras. MS-13, a brutal street gang that started in the US, now has at least 60,000 members in Central America. Despite MPP still being in effect, people seeking asylums in the US can request a "credible fear" interview if returning home would put their life at risk. So even this violence can be of benefit to those seeking shelter in the US.

Immigration later greatly decreased around the 2008 financial crisis. So what can be drawn from this and from what’s happening now? It seems that immigration increases with looser policies regarding the border, greater US economic success, and poor living conditions in countries neighboring the border. So how can we fix the ‘border crisis’? Obviously, it is impossible to control the living conditions in other countries, so that leaves US economic conditions and border policies. Coming out of a pandemic, the US’s economy will be growing, which is a good thing. So the only thing that can be easily changed is border policy. Donald Trump had vastly different policies than Joe Biden, and it shows. There was a ≈115% increase from 2018 (Trump) to 2021 (Biden) of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border (54k-117k).

In March, a bill passed in the House that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. Policies like this have clearly encouraged more parents to send their kids across the border unaccompanied, which enriches smugglers and traffickers. Traffickers on the southern border earned an estimated $14 million per day in February, according to border patrol sources.

It’s clear that the current policies are failing and there must be some changes. And those changes are to restart the border wall construction, stop giving unaccompanied migrants amnesty, stop trying to end MPP, and allow border patrol officers to do their job.