Following the Election of President Joe Biden, as many anticipated, immigration numbers began to surge along the United States southern border, however, the surge was significantly larger than many expected. Starting with a quote from CNN politics:
“As the number of unaccompanied children in Border Patrol custody ballooned this month, President Joe Biden's team raced to find more places to house them, leaving thousands of children stuck in jail-like facilities for longer than the 72 hours allowed under the law.”
Specifically, as of this past Thursday, there are more than 14,000 unaccompanied children being held under U.S. custody amidst this border crisis. Furthermore, because of Covid, many of these kids lack beds to sleep in and many more have been separated from their parents due to public health laws causing adults to be rejected entry at the border. While many sources and even the presidency itself may claim that this is a result of a less than smooth transition between presidencies, I would argue that this isn’t true and that the current border crisis is a result of new policies that resulted from a new administration.
First, the beginning of Biden’s presidency started with him signing “a slew of executive actions aimed at undoing Trump’s immigration policies”. Considering Trumps’ support of policies like the building of a border wall and more that restrict illegal immigration, upending these policies would not surprisingly result in an increased amount of immigrants trying to cross the border. Furthermore, the recent administration also made the decision to “no longer expel unaccompanied minors who show up at the border, “ something that would undoubtedly result in people trying to get their children across the border and thus lead to the situation we have with more than 14,000 unaccompanied minors stuck in cages. These decisions had nothing to do with the transition between presidencies and have clearly contributed to the border crisis we see on our southern border today.
Another major factor that I believe contributed to the current border crisis was President Joe Biden’s campaign for the presidency this past year. Specifically, he promised “putting him … into the White House [would] return us to something approaching normal” or “a return to normalcy” as a major part of his running campaign. Keeping this in mind, when we look at trends during Covid, a decrease in border crossings is one of the many statistics that we have been able to identify. If people believed we were going to be returning to normal, then what would be one thing they might do based on the above statistic? Of course, they would likely view the new presidency as the ideal time to cross into the United States, seeing as we are returning to normal when more border crossing were happening.
To conclude, while there may have been a rocky transition between presidencies, it’s pretty clear that it had nothing to do with the current border crisis. Instead, the policies of the new administration can be blamed for the influx of minors and adults at the border. Furthermore, this influx can be partially attributed to Biden’s promised return to normalcy that could be interpreted as a return to pre-covid standards when border crossings were more frequent.
There will be always an issue regard the boaderline. Since the living standrad between the line has been a huge difference. Building a wall simply would not properly address this problem. Instead of buding more walls, why not we support these kids with food and education?
I think the general idea of just expelling unaccompanied minors from the border fails to recognize the humanitarian issue at hand. Many people are sending their children out of desperation and fear. As a country, whose foundation is based on immigration and the promise of opportunity, how could we just turn a blind eye? Though there may be a mismanagement issue of the crisis on the part of the Biden administration, at least they've recognized the importance of opening the process to people who are in need. I don't think an effective answer to this issue would be becoming more stringent when dealing with the lives of so many people. If anything, we need to dedicate more effort to accommodating…
According to PolitiFact, 90,000 unaccompanied minors were detained at the border during Obama's Presidency. I can't find a number for Trump's presidency but PolitiFact also recorded that there were 2,600 unaccompanied minors at the peak during his time in office. This situation during the Biden administration is nothing new. Maybe a wall would deter families in South/Central America from sending their children, unaccompanied to the United States; maybe it wouldn't.
The fact that the US immigration system could use an overhaul is an understatement. However, the bigger problem seems to be the fact that desperate parents south of the border are willing to run the risks associated with sending their children unaccompanied, to attempt an illegal crossing for the chance…
The overly amount of minor at the border is indeed one of the first crisis of Joe Biden's Presidency. Based on my research, the children stopped schooling and many of them left their parents to cross the border. The officials tried to provide classes, but there are too many of them from different cultural background and speak different languages, so it didn't happen. Some of the cases take a long time to process, meanwhile the amount of people in the shelter accumulate. An effective way to solve this problem I can think of is the President stating a new policy that convince them that crossing the border without any support is not an effective way of moving to the U.S.,…
This post offers a very interesting and important analysis surrounding immigration over the past year. Switching administrations without the pandemic would have initiated drastic changes throughout the country, and with the presence of COVID-19, there was an added element of contention that had to be addressed. Because Trump advocated 'building a wall' and President Biden has much more lenient immigration policies, the transfer of power definitely raised hopes for immigrants. With the added aspect of Coronavirus, the thought of entering a version of America that resembled pre-COVID times was even more exciting. President Biden framed himself to be the hero who would resolve the chaos which Trump brought upon us. He campaigned on the premise of relieving us of t…