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The Graphic Truth: How many refugees does the US let in?
Immigration has been a major challenge for the nascent Biden administration, testing the new US president's ability to placate moderates on both sides of the aisle, as well as the progressive wing of his own party. Biden initially pledged to keep the US' annual refugee cap at 15,000 — a "ceiling" set by the Trump administration, the lowest in US history. But after that move sparked swift backlash, Biden this week reversed course: 62,500 refugees will now be allowed to enter the US over the next six months. How does this compare to policies set by previous US administrations? We take a look at refugee admittance numbers since 1980.
Biden's first press conference reaffirms his working man approach
Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:
Joe Biden gave the first press conference of his presidency today, a much-anticipated event that a lot of political reporters were pretty excited about, that didn't really move the needle on any messaging aspects of the administration.
He kind of stuck to the party line on the filibuster, saying that it's a relic of Jim Crow era. And clearly, you know, he's already said he supports eliminating it, but he's not going to push Congress to get it done because that's not really his job. That's their job.
On the border, he talked about sending Kamala Harris down to negotiate a solution with Mexico and other Central American countries so they can deal with the problem where it starts. And he kind of took credit for being a compassionate guy, that immigrants believe when they come here, he's going to take care of them, which is consistent with the administration's message so far. A group of Senate Republicans are headed down to the border today in order to make some political theater out of the surge in migrants that's happening down there, and this is going to be an increasing political problem for Biden going forward because of the fact his party is somewhat out of step with the mainstream American view on immigration.
On the vaccine, there was a little bit of news, that he thinks he's going to be able to accelerate the timeline that people can get the vaccination. However, for the most part, this is really a non-event. Biden has stayed out of the spotlight and he hasn't really dominated headlines the way his predecessor, former President Trump, did. This is a purposeful strategy, to kind of have a working man approach to the White House, not make the story about him, and in the meantime, accomplish an awful lot, which the Democrats are likely to do this year between a $1.9 trillion stimulus they've already passed, and what looks like it's going to be potentially a $3 trillion long-term infrastructure spending bill that likely gets done before the end of the year.
Crisis at the border a no-win scenario for Biden
As thousands of migrants, many of them children, attempt to cross the US southern border, stretching the immigration system's ability to process and integrate them, President Joe Biden now finds himself facing a challenge that has bedeviled presidents and Congress for decades: how to reform an immigration system that everyone agrees is broken, but which no one can agree on how to fix.
The problem is, in principle, straightforward: On the one hand, most Americans recognize the need to control immigration into the world's most prosperous country. But on the other, the US has a long border that is difficult to secure, many businesses that are eager to hire undocumented workers, and millions of people living in countries to the south who see the perilous trek north as their only way out of a life of poverty and violence. As a result, for decades the US' two major political parties have decried the treatment and processing of illegal immigrants, while the increasingly dysfunctional legal immigration system serves the needs of no one.
The issue has become a true third rail of American politics, inflaming partisan passions like almost no other. As the share of Americans who are foreign born returned to historic highs after a decline in the 1970s and 1980s, concerns about immigrants putting downward pressure on American wages and accelerating a rapid pace of cultural change primed a generation of voters to be receptive to a message of shutting down the border. Recent polling from Pew found that 68 percent of Americans believe it is important to increase security along the US-Mexico border, though that number rose to 91 percent among Republicans (versus 49 percent of Democrats). It also found that 83 percent of Republicans supported increased deportations (31 percent for Democrats), while just 48 percent of Republicans supported establishing a path to legal residence for illegal aliens (compared to 82 percent of Democrats). Tapping into this backlash was, of course, critical to Donald Trump's success in 2016 and his continued appeal among GOP voters.
The Democrats, meanwhile, generally support more immigration on humanitarian grounds and because they see Hispanic voters as a key part of their coalition. Unions, another important Democratic constituency, welcome new low-wage workers as potential future members.
And so where Republicans put a focus more on border enforcement and, in the pre-Trump era, meeting labor shortages, Democrats emphasize broader pathways to legal entry and permanent citizenship. The two sides cannot agree on how to make it all work together.
The current crisis at the border has sent both sides to their familiar partisan corners. Republicans, and even some moderate Democrats, say the recent increase in asylum seekers is due to Biden's promises of looser immigration policies. This narrative is supported by press reports of Mexican officials and migrants who say that Biden's message of more humane treatment for migrants is one reason they set out for the US.
Meanwhile, the large number of children seeking asylum has stretched the capacity of the system to quickly process them, resulting in unaccompanied minors being housed in immigration centers that Democrats decried during the Trump administration, prompting calls from Democratic lawmakers to quickly expand processing capacity.
With Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, isn't this an opportunity for them to pass the reform they want? Not really. The issue is too toxic and there are divisions within the Democratic party itself — progressives who want to ease the admission of migrants and some moderates whose position is closer to that of the GOP.
Democrats in the House last week in fact declined to take up a comprehensive immigration solution, agreeing only on narrower legislation that would create a pathway to citizenship for residents who were brought to the US illegally as children (the so-called Dreamers) and farm workers. Both of these bills attracted bipartisan support in the House but they are unlikely to find a 60-vote supermajority needed for passage in the Senate, where even Republicans like Texas's John Cornyn or South Carolina's Lindsay Graham who favor a path to citizenship for Dreamers will condition their support for the bill on including other things, such as increased border security or a nationwide, mandatory use of electronic verification of citizenship for new hires. Neither of these policies are acceptable to enough Democrats to forge a compromise solution.
So Biden's hands are tied. As he takes executive action to accelerate the housing and processing of the surge in juvenile migrants, he will probably encourage more of them to come, fueling Republican criticism that he supports open borders — a message that the GOP would love to take into the midterm elections next year. But if Biden instead takes the path of former president Barack Obama and increases deportations to discourage migration, he will come under attack from progressives in his own party who will accuse him of turning his back on a pressing human rights issue.
In this context, the White House appears to be hoping that it can outsource some of the enforcement to Mexican authorities. But with larger numbers of desperate people arriving daily, little light at the end of the legislative tunnel, and midterms looming next year, this could shape up to be a defining crisis for Biden.
Jon Lieber is managing director of Eurasia Group's United States Practice and host of GZERO's US Politics In 60 Seconds.
Immigration reform so divisive that even Democrats can't agree
Jon Lieber, Managing Director of the United States for the Eurasia Group, shares his insights on US politics:
Is the surging immigration crisis the biggest challenge for the still new Biden administration?
I wouldn't say the immigration crisis is the biggest policy challenge, that's probably the coronavirus and getting the economy back on track and maybe a little bit of foreign policy, but it's certainly one of the biggest political challenges.
Immigration has emerged as the third rail of American politics, something that really divides the left and the right, it's really divisive amongst Americans, and it's almost impossible for policymakers to come to an agreement and find reforms that they agree upon to do anything about this issue. There's still a large number of illegal aliens living in the country. And as we've seen in recent weeks, there's a surge of children, unaccompanied minors, arriving at the southern border who are required by law, the US is required by law to take in, and process their asylum claims here in the United States, creating the perception that President Biden has essentially opened the US borders. And it's a real political vulnerability for him that Republicans are going to try to exploit into the midterm elections in 2022.
How are politics getting in the way of the immigration policy Biden wants to implement?
Biden's preferred immigration reform would involve essentially reforming the legal immigration program, increasing the numbers of foreigners who are allowed to come here, and most controversially, providing a path to citizenship for people who came here illegally who have been working in living here for many, many years. This issue's so divisive that the Biden plan probably can't even pass the Democratic controlled House and is going to go nowhere in the Senate as long as the super majority requirement exists, that requires Republican votes to pass legislation. The House, instead, this week, did pass two bills, one of which gives a pathway to citizenship for adult residents of the United States who were brought here illegally as children, and two, provides a pathway to citizenship for agricultural workers who have been here a long time. These bills are kind of the low-hanging fruit of immigration reform where Democrats can agree. They don't yet agree on a much broader reform that would give a broader pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens or change the amount of numbers coming into the country. Both these bills unlikely to go anywhere in the Senate because of the politics and this is going to be a tricky issue that will probably be one of the defining issues of the 2020 midterms, unless President Biden can convince the Mexican government to try to help him keep the numbers of migrants coming from Central America down.
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