What a humane and secure immigration system looks like.
I will argue every day for the rest of my life that our immigration policies for the last 30 years, policies that have come from both sides of the aisle, have made us less secure. Since 1994, the US Border Patrol has been screaming at the top of its lungs that deterrence policies work and have made us safer. Yet, there is literally no evidence of this.
If forcing migrants and asylum seekers who are refused legal entry at the ports to cross in the most inhospitable and dangerous terrains of the southwest actually deterred anyone, it would have worked by now. It is estimated by experts (including myself) on both sides of the border that over 80,000 human beings have died from deterrence policies, and still they come. These 80,000 deaths were intentional. The agency knew decades before deterrence policies that crossing in between the ports of entry illegally in the deserts and mountains that I once worked causes migrants to die from exposure.
Every single Border Patrol agent knows that limiting who can legally apply at a port of entry forces migrants to risk not only their lives but those of their loved ones in the dangerous terrain. This was the fundamental point of deterrence policies: migrants must suffer or die for deterrence policies to work. The policy relies on migrants suffering and reporting back to their countrymen how dangerous it is in order to “deter” others from coming. It relies on news of 40, 50, 60 people dying in the back of truck in sweltering heat to “deter” others.
Yet, none of this has worked because the dangers migrants face when they do not migrate are no worse than when they do. Death awaits them and their families either way. These deterrence policies not only do not work and kill migrants intentionally, they also kill Border Patrol agents and innocent civilians. All of this death in the name of national security to ask someone of what country they are a citizen. It boggles my mind.
While I often find myself in discussions about the human right to movement and how borders should be abolished (that is the dreaded open borders topic), I have not been able to get myself to support it. At least not in the environment we currently have before us. I think we could eventually get there with global warming and scarcity of resources continuing, but that would require we see ourselves as citizens of this planet, and I do not believe I will see that within my lifetime.
So, I argue for robust and humane borders. This is also what most Americans say they want out of their immigration system: a safe and humane way for people to apply, be inspected and either admitted or denied. In fact, recently 64% approved of undocumented migrants being allowed to adjust their immigration status as long as they had not committed any violent crimes and they had met immigration requirements.
The immigration system we have now and how we got here:
The US national immigration system has been a punitive one since the 1880s with the Chinese Exclusion Acts. Just like today, politicians who were failing American workers pointed their fingers of blame for the lack of livable wages and jobs at Chinese immigrants who helped built our railway system. This led to Customs, Immigration Inspectors and Border Patrol under the Immigration and Naturalization Service. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Customs and Immigration Inspectors at the ports became Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Border Patrol was moved under CBP. Old Border Patrol agents who often retired and became employer inspections or criminal inspectors became what we now know as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE.
In 1994, when President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he expected it to decrease illegal crossings for workers by providing jobs in Mexico. Unfortunately, tariffs on Mexican food and their subsidies to US farmers driving down cost of food in the US caused Mexican farmers to be unable to compete. When the Mexican farmers could not compete, they could not pay their workers who then came north. This problem repeated itself in Central America under CAFTA and why we see many migrants from that area today.
In 1996, President Clinton passed his big immigration reform bill that just made things worse. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) brought more deterrence policies, increased the types of crimes one could be deported for to non-violent crimes and created a 3 to 10 year ban on those who overstayed their visas. Overnight, legally admitted permanent residents became undocumented over minor criminal offenses like DUIs. This is a crime that ICE, Border Patrol and CBP management do not consider to be a problem when hiring their agents.
After 9/11, the War on Terror began. It should have been named the War on Muslims since President George W. Bush used it to create theMuslim registry. It was during this administration that we began to criminalize crossing the border without inspection. While 8 USC 1325 (Entry Without Inspection) has been a crime since 1929 when the US Border Patrol was created, from 1940 to 2005 it was treated as an administrative immigration violation. As an agent in the 1990s and early 2000s, I never charged anyone with 1325 unless they had another charge such as drug or human smuggling to accompany it. In 2005, President George W. Bush began prosecuting migrants for 1325.
This sets up Trump being able to charge asylum seekers with 1325 during his first administration under Zero Toleranceand was used to take parents’ children.
When President Obama got in, he further cracked down on who could enter legally, who was considered undocumented and he became known as the Deporter and Chief for deporting over 2.5 million immigrants during his presidential terms. While Trump is currently deporting mostly people with no criminal records, Obama’s numbers indicated roughly 91% of his deportations had criminal records. But again, these were not just for violent or serious crimes but misdemeanors and DUIs. President Obama was also responsible for building the cages for kids. It was during this administration that we started to see many unaccompanied children. In 2014, Obama ordered Border Patrol to use local Child Protective Services to take the newborns away from asylum seeking mothers in custody while they were still in the hospital. This was not discovered by the media until 2020.
This again paved the way for Trump’s brutal policies.
For those who cannot enter legally, there is no option but to return home or cross illegally. This is where the deterrence part of our immigration policies come in. Our policies require migrants to enter an obstacle course of death: cross raging rivers, scorching deserts and mountains thick with snow, brave the rattlesnakes, mountain lions and dangerous cliffs. They must out maneuver the passing cars on the freeways, the smugglers looking to rape them and the agents trying to make them crash. Then they must live their lives in the shadows hiding from ICE.
For those who can and did enter legally, they must wear ankle monitors and attend ICE meetings where they are often handcuffed and removed for little reason. They must deal with new presidents undoing the last orders that allowed them legal entry which suddenly makes them undocumented under a new administration. They will wait years, decades and even longer thinking the next ICE appointment will be their last because they are told theywill get their residency card soon only to be cuffed, flown to some Louisiana detention facility and deported within days.
Decades of living and working in the US just erased.
Our immigration system is punitive because that is what our politicians chose. They chose this because they were being paid to choose this by private prison companies like GEO Group and others. They chose this because Department of Defense contractors needed to make more money as the War on Terror died down.
They chose this to usher in the police state we see before us today.
The immigration system we deserve and must demand:
If deterrence does not work, and the system can be manipulated to force migrants to cross illegally in order to obtain optics of an “invasion,” it is imperative that we see the asylum/immigration system as a national security issue. Trump and the Border Patrol Union have demonstrated this to us during this last decade. When there is no adequate and humane system for people to enter the country, politicians and corrupt law enforcement will create chaos for political gain.
When the asylum/immigration system is closed, people who would normally pass inspections at the ports turn to Border Patrol agents to process them. This is why they crossed illegally. Border Patrol processed them just as a CBP agent would and then released them just as the ports would have done. This was policy even when I was an agent, we just did not have as many asylum seekers. As the number of people requesting asylum increased during the Obama years, the federal government never increased the system to handle the demand. The closure of the system by the Title 42 pandemic policyessentially just took the line at the port of entry and moved it to in between the ports. It moved CBP’s job to the Border Patrol.
This policy is what Trump and the Border Patrol Union argued for and demanded, while at the same time they complained that agents were overwhelmed and blamed Biden for the increase in illegal crossings. They did this because they were creating the optics of the “invasion” as union members worked hand and hand with Fox News and other outlets to flood the media with film of Black and Brown people entering illegally. Yes, there were a lot of people crossing illegally during this time, but that is what they intentionally created by shutting down the system.
So, how do we prevent this from continuing and happening again?
We create, fund and build an actual asylum system that addresses the needs of those fleeing violence and climate change. If we are saying that our security is tied to legal immigration and that we want everyone entering our country to be inspected to the best of our abilities, then we have to actually build a system that does that. Right now, we are just saying we refuse to process any migrants.
A robust and humane asylum/immigration system is the only path that allows us to maintain a semblance of security. We cannot inspect people unless we have a system with which to do it. We cannot prevent 80,000 more people from dying if we continue sending them to the deserts and mountains to cross illegally. We cannot stop agents from dying if we continue pushing migrants out there. We cannot prevent innocent civilians from dying if we continue with these deterrence policies and the severe limiting of who can legally apply.
I agree with the Border Patrol when they say that processing asylum seekers prevents them from securing the border in between the ports of entry. Border Patrol agents should be concerned with those who are intentionally trying to circumvent the legal pathways to enter the country. Migrants who want to enter legally but are not allowed to because of the whims of presidents and powerful unions interferes with this mission and threatens national security.
Currently, the Border Patrol is overstaffed averaging less than .5 apprehensions per agent per month. For reference, we averaged 23 apprehensions per month per agent in 1996. In the height of Title 42 illegal crossings under Biden, agents averaged less than 10 apprehensions per agent per month. To fix the system, money must be moved from the overblown budget of the Border Patrol and ICE and placed with CBP where we want these inspections to occur.
I envision a system where instead of killing them by the thousands through policies, instead of holding them in outdoor cages for weeks with rotten food and cramped conditions, instead of holding them in processing facilities or makeshift soft-sided camps - we could simply inspect them. We must hire more CBP agents, more asylum officers and build the facilities to hold families and those applying legally in humane conditions until their inspections are completed. By allowing more of those who should be crossing legally to do so, we do not overwhelm the agents working in between the ports, we are not engaging in what I call a lazy man’s genocide. We would be able to actually inspect people instead of just hoping we catch them in the mountains or the deserts before they die.
Such a robust system would require support and contracts with private companies just as the detention system we have now does. Medical, janitorial, transportation, and other services would be required to assist migrants as they await their records checks. Instead of spending billions on detentions and concentration camps, we must create a system across the nation that assists migrants with their immigration claims and does not punish them. The detention officer who spends her days screaming at people in her custody because they simply overstayed a visa, becomes an immigration agent who helps people adjust their status or becomes a guide to those entering their community. Assistance in finding work, a place to live, schools for children, English classes, finding faith based organizations for newcomers, etc. are all needed.
With this type of system, migrants could present themselves to a port of entry and apply legally. They would not have to cross illegally to find a Border Patrol agent which means they would not have to pay a smuggler. This would take money from the cartels. Migrants would be paying fees for processing to the government. We would know who is entering the country and where they were going. We would have a name, a photo, copies of their documents and assigned them immigration documents that would allow the government to track them.
And if you think this would cost more than what we are currently doing, you are insane.
A robust and humane asylum system would weed out the criminals, the people we do not want entering the country. It would allow for people to be humanely processed without having to pay smugglers. It would prevent them from needlessly dying. It would reduce the human rights atrocities our system currently enables. It would remove control of who crosses the border and how from the powerful immigration agencies. It would close the concentration and for-profit detention camps that have designed and manipulated the existing system. It would prevent another politician from using the migrants as a political cudgel.
A robust and humane asylum/immigration system is essential to national security. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.