Monday, May 15, 2023

Immigration Appears to Be Returning to (Disfunctional) Status Quo

Republicans have repeatedly said that the sunsetting of Title 42, a public health measure that restricted migrants during the heights of the Covid-19 pandemic, would lead to a fresh surge in attempted crossings.  But so far, that hasn't happened.

The number of migrants seeking to cross the southern US border has been “markedly down” during the past two days, bucking expectations of a surge after pandemic-era border rules expired.  The US Border Patrol “has experienced a 50% drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week,” before the restrictions known as Title 42 were lifted, Mayorkas said on CNN’s State of the Union

A relative calm prevailed over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, which has been receiving throngs of asylum seekers passing through neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The huge crowds of people from Central America, South America, the Caribbean and have dwindled to groups of dozens on both sides of the border.  

In the meantime, we still have a broken immigration system that Congress still needs to fix.  In addition, Congress continues to under-fund the immigration court system-- with the lack of sufficient immigration judges resulting in asylum hearings taking place three to four years in the future.

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