Global Courant 2023-05-12 04:46:38
CHICAGO — The city here has been so overwhelmed by an influx of migrants that it has declared a state of emergency. Government of New York, Kathy Hochul has done the same. Philadelphia braces itself for a new stream of buses transport migrants. And New York City Mayor Eric Adams temporarily suspended the Right to Shelter Act.
The migrant crisis sparked by the end of Covid-era immigration restrictions, known as Title 42, isn’t just affecting border towns — it stretches more than 1,000 miles from the country’s southern border.
And it all has the nation’s eyes on the White House as the policy expires Thursday night.
The left and right sides of the immigration debate, agreeing on nothing else, agree that President Joe Biden has mishandled this crisis. Not only does it touch on the lightning rod issue of immigration, but it also touches on Biden’s competence, with critics saying it recalls the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“It is a big deal for Biden. Forget states like New York and Illinois where he will win. There is a feeling that things are getting out of hand. Throw in crime and you have a recipe for calculable disaster,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York City Democratic strategist. “People hate it when things get out of hand. No matter who the president is, when things get out of hand, the president tends to lose.”
The impact extends deep into the states, a phenomenon exacerbated by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott has said his frontline border towns are bursting at the seams, sending migrants by bus — something he began unannounced last fall — to northern cities that consider themselves sanctuaries.
It’s a non-profit political situation for the White House, caught between its allies of immigration activists on one side — whom former President Barack Obama famously referred to as the “deporter-in-chief” — and the conservatives’ desire for heavy-handed occur as the migrant tent camps grow far from the border. Biden has taken some steps to prepare for a surge in asylum applications, including setting up processing centers in Guatemala and Colombia — before migrants reach the US-Mexico border.
Title 8, the immigration law that was in effect before the pandemic, will take effect once Title 42 is lifted. Title 8 allows immigrants to apply for ways to legally enter the US and also imposes penalties for attempting illegal border crossing.
Still, proponents complain that housing crises are on a crescendo, social services are being stretched to the limit, city and state budgets are inflated, and local officials are struggling to push back their constituencies.
“Everyone is capable,” said Maria Del Rosario Salgado, a Justice Department-accredited representative at the Centro Romero legal aid fund in Chicago. ‘There’s not enough food. Some of our employees spend time cooking batches of rice or beans. Some of them tell us that they have not had one meal, they have no blankets or pillows… the police stations are contacting us. We can’t send them anywhere because the shelters have run out of space.”
New York City is so stretched to accommodate it has considered closing streets and building temporary housing to potentially take in hundreds of migrants a day.
‘The national government has turned its back on New York City’ Adams said in April. “The president and the White House have let New York City down on this issue.”
New York City Social Services advocates say they are running out of physical space to house the migrants, whose impact is being felt in a variety of ways. For example, Win, an organization that helps provide shelter and housing for families in New York City, has seen such a rapid increase in the number of people in its shelters — including 700 children alone — that it has had five additional refrigerators since the fall. have to buy. Christine Quinn, president and CEO of Win, said there is no excuse for the flat-footed nature of the response now as the May 11 deadline was approaching.
“We really should have developed and implemented all-hands-on-deck comprehensive plans — and that’s really lacking,” said Quinn.
The White House argues that Republicans have tried unsuccessfully to use immigration as a political attack in every recent election.
“President Biden stands up for common values by providing the most border security resources of all time and treating migrants with dignity rather than tearing families apart,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in an email. “Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans passed an extreme budget. to fire thousands of Border Patrol agents and hinder our ability to block fentanyl from entering the country.
“The actions of Republicans in Congress discredit their fluttering rhetoric; the cynical messaging strategy they boast of has only collided into reality over the past three consecutive election cycles,” Bates added.
Tension is felt as far away from the southern border as Maine, which shares a 600-mile border with Canada. More than 1,000 migrants have arrived in Portland since the beginning of the year, and officials there say they are already at capacity.
“We know the city of Portland and surrounding communities are struggling to help so many people,” said Martha Stein, executive director of the nonprofit organization Hope Acts. told Local media. “And this is happening all over the country.”
Title 42 enabled the Border Patrol to expel asylum seekers quickly, without giving them access to the process that would-be refugees are normally entitled to.
The policy has been used more than 2.8 million times to reject migrants Border police datacreating a massive backlog that officials say could now lead to up to 13,000 migrants per day seeking asylum at the border.
Democrats killed former President Donald Trump when he invoked Title 42 during Covid, but Democratic lawmakers aren’t celebrating now that it’s finally going away.
Progressive Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., sees Title 42 as “nativist attempt to stop the entry of migrants fleeing persecution and violence with their legal right” and “no lawful border policy.” But he said in a statement Thursday: “While the Biden administration has done its utmost to prepare for the waiver of Title 42, it is clear that they have fallen short.”
Texas moderate Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who has just launched a high-profile campaign against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, used the same language to say that Biden “has failed to give Texas border communities the support they need. ”
Chuck Rocha, a leading Latin American Democratic strategist, blamed Republicans for “sitting back with their arms folded” instead of passing legislation to help, but said they are trying to boost their base and swinging frighten voters.
“The Republicans are mounting a message war that is not aimed at Latino voters. They are trying to scare suburban white voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by saying that there are these people – bad people in their opinion, who come to this country to do bad things – and that they are coming to your neighborhood.” said Roche. .
Rocha said he didn’t think the Republicans would succeed in the long run, though he acknowledged that “in the first few days, because there’s a backlog, there’s going to be images that aren’t good for anyone to see.”
And Rocha said immigration activists might give Biden a little more foothold, thanks in part to his recent selection of Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the granddaughter of famed farmworker organizer Cesar Chavez, to lead his re-election campaign.
“It’s hard for me to see immigration activists personally opposing this campaign in the same way when you have Julie Chavez as the face,” Rocha said.
But Quinn, of New York City’s Win, said both short-term and long-term solutions should be in sight — and fast.
“People think they go to sleep and we wake up and everyone is gone,” she said. “It’s not going to work that way. These are people who have fled through raging waters to get somewhere that was not their land.”
