US-Mexico Border Quiet. A Little TOO Quiet.

On May 11, after seemingly endless court cases and publicity stunts by Republicans, the Biden administration finally ended the Trump-era border policy known as Title 42, which had allowed for the immediate deportation of border crossers even if they were claiming asylum. Wingnut media predictably predicted that America would be quickly overwhelmed by hordes of lawless migrants who’d be sleeping on every sidewalk and Great Replacementing all the hardworking retirees who watch Fox News.

Funny, though, because as the Washington Post reports (gift link), none of that happened. Instead, arrests of illegal border crossers have dropped by more than half, largely because of new procedures rolled out by the Biden administration. Instead of risking their lives crossing the Rio Grande and then requesting asylum when they turn themselves in to the Border Patrol, asylum seekers use a phone app to schedule an initial asylum screening (a “credible fear of persecution” interview) with Customs and Border Protection (CBP). If they pass that, they’re allowed into the US to live and work until they have a formal asylum hearing.

The other side of the new policy is that if migrants don’t use the “CBP One” app and instead cross the border outside a port of entry, they can be deported immediately and barred from applying for entry for five years.

Not surprisingly, this still has anti-immigration Republicans plenty pissed off, because even though the new procedures have led to a 70 percent drop in illegal entries since Title 42 ended, the more orderly process allows people to claim asylum and enter the US, and how dare Joe Biden actually respect the right to asylum? Plus, the relatively small numbers of asylum seekers going through ports of entry on any given day has robbed Fox News of the scary visuals of crowds of people huddling under bridges near the border, and how is that even fair?

As the Post explains,

The recent drop in illegal crossings does not mean fewer than half as many migrants are coming to the United States. President Biden is allowing roughly 43,000 migrants and asylum seekers per month to enter through CBP One appointments and accepting an additional 30,000 through a process called parole. The new legal channels appear to be absorbing many of the border-crossers who for years have entered unlawfully to surrender in large groups, overwhelming U.S. border agents.

U.S. agents made about 100,000 arrests along the Mexico border in June, the first full month that Biden’s new measures were in effect, down from 204,561 in May, according to the latest CBP data. It was the largest one-month decline since Biden took office.

The story notes that the factors in Central America that have driven immigration — gang crime, climate change, poverty, corrupt government and the like — haven’t significantly changed, but the administration’s new approach is far more orderly than the Trump approach of making the US so cruel that migrants would decide instead to stay home and take their chances with the cartels. OK, that’s us editorializing; WaPo instead says that

At the heart of the strategy is a belief that reducing the chaos and illegality of migration is more feasible than trying to stop it.

Since Republicans in Congress seem bent on never ever ever agreeing to an immigration bill — because then how could they cry about an immigration crisis? — trying to be a bit more humane seems like a fairly good approach.

In addition to using the app to make the process more orderly, changes in border facilities have helped, too. Near El Paso, CBP is temporarily holding migrants in a new detention facility built with military-style tents (the big ones with AC that we aren’t using in Iraq anymore). No more cramming hundreds of people into “the icebox,” those freezing cells at Border Patrol facilities that weren’t meant to hold that many people. Instead, some 400 to 500 detainees daily are taken to “the largest and perhaps least harsh CBP facility ever built, with capacity for more than 2,500.”

The Border Patrol supervisor running the facility likened it to a cruise ship — a small self-contained city floating on the desert. With hot showers, on-site laundry and scores of private booths where migrants can videoconference with attorneys, asylum officers and immigration judges, the facility’s operating costs exceed more than $1 million per day.

Border Patrol officials said the facility allows them to manage detainees using far fewer agents. They can reserve the more austere, jail-like detention cells at Border Patrol stations for migrants considered security risks. Family groups, unaccompanied minors and others deemed lower risk can be held at the tent complex, where contractors perform administrative and custodial tasks that have long grated on agents.

Yeah, that “cruise ship” line seemed designed for rightwing media. Still, look at Joe Biden, that sneaky bastard, relieving CBP agents of work they absolutely hated, and now they’re actually patrolling the border. Just don’t hold your breath on the Border Patrol union endorsing him, though.

None of this has made Republicans any happier, because allowing 70,000 migrants per month into the US without even beating them or taking away their kids is still too generous and scary in a nation of 335 million people, there’s simply no room at all and definitely no jobs, so Republican officials in red states are suing to make it stop. And the deportations of people crossing the border without using the app is being challenged in court by immigration advocates who point out, correctly, that there’s no app in US asylum law either, even if it’s more orderly.

So far, Fox News hasn’t yet sued over the lack of terrifying visuals. They’re pretty resourceful, and will no doubt get by with old footage, stock footage from some other country entirely, or maybe that newfangled AI that can whip up a caravan without even having to send a camera crew to Texas.

[WaPo gift link / Photo: US CBP on Flickr, public domain.]

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