Once again, long overdue decisions about our devastatingly archaic immigration system have been derailed by political gamesmanship.
What began with some hopeful bipartisan agreements that kids brought to the U.S. who have become productive but undocumented adults should be able to earn legal status, has turned into yet another issue American voters want Congress to act on, but where the will of the people proves far less compelling than the allure of partisan backbiting.
Thus, the current administration has returned to old school rhetoric about “those” people, rebranding an annual event to highlight the plight of migrants as a “caravan” of undesirables heading to our border to cross illegally, and keeping out the very individuals who most need entrance into the land of the free – the poor and vulnerable.
What strikes me most about calls for another wall and more border patrol agents is just how quickly we forget the past. The last time the border wall was fortified, in the mid-2000s, deaths along the border increased, cartels became stronger and more brutal, and the methods used by coyotes for crossing the border without detection were updated and “improved,” at least from the perspective of the smugglers making billions off human suffering and desperation.
It should be very clear by now that when the U.S. tries to slow the supply of migrants, without also addressing the demand to migrate, the results are poor, at best. The outcome from past crackdowns have been cartels who traffic in humans getting richer, while those most in need in Central and South America receive no respite from the poverty, violence, and other conditions that convince people to leave everything they know to make a dangerous crossing in search of a life of basic dignity.
Our closed borders leave our neighbors dealing with an ever more powerful criminal element that thrives when it can charge more for its smuggling operations, and a population increasingly in need of security.
If the U.S. population wants to slow migration across our southern border, it should listen to the wisdom of our Catholic leaders. For years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has advocated for more spending on humanitarian assistance. As the bishops have advocated, to improve national security, and save lives across borders, the U.S. should invest more in our humanitarian efforts that build employment opportunities in places such as El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala (all U.S. international humanitarian aid combined amounts to less than 1 percent of the federal budget) instead of pouring it into concrete walls.
The U. S. gains far more morally, economically and politically from helping countries improve the lives of their own citizens than from trying to keep those same individuals from desperately seeking an improved quality of life here. Building infrastructure within Honduras to provide meaningful work, safer communities and more opportunities for kids to grow, learn and thrive in their homeland makes far more sense for both the U.S. and Honduras than any of the proposals promoted by the administration at this point.
It’s time to make good on past promises and provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers while also making citizenship less desirable for future migrants, not through punitive measures, but through sound investments in humanitarian efforts across our border.
Jean Hill is the government liaison for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.