Democrats need to admit that they're wrong on immigration - Fareed Zakaria
The Democrats are confronting a crisis that could cripple their chances at the polls at the national, state and local level. I’m talking about immigration. It’s happening not only because Republicans are taking advantage of the problem but also because Democrats are unwilling to accept that their policy ideas on the issue are wrong and grossly inadequate to the challenge at hand.
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To understand how to think of this issue, let’s go back to basics. After World War II, the United States developed pathways for people who faced extreme persecution because of their race, religion or beliefs to take refuge in America. But there are two realities that are critical to turning this idealistic impulse into a workable system. First, there are surely tens of millions of people around the world who could plausibly claim that they face persecution, and the United States cannot possibly take them all in. More important, the United States cannot be forced to give priority to people who break the law and enter the country illegally — and then claim asylum status to legitimize their entry — as opposed to those who follow the rules, apply from their home countries and wait their turn. But that is what is happening every day at the southern border.
Second, these asylum cases must be special and distinct from the cases of people from all over the world who are trying to immigrate to the United States because they are fleeing poverty, disease or violence. People who fall into this category face a complex and elaborate process that entails several mechanisms for obtaining various kinds of visas and work permits, some of which can eventually translate into a green card and eventually citizenship. But instead of going through that arduous, lengthy process, many seem to have decided that it would be simpler to pay cartels to help them cross the border illegally, present themselves as asylum seekers, and slip into the country while their cases are being adjudicated. In a 17-month period between March 2021 and August 2022, the federal government released more than 1 million migrants into the United States and lost track of over 177,000 of them who had failed to give an address or had provided an invalid one.
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There is only one solution to this crisis, as Nolan Rappaport, a longtime congressional expert on the issue, has suggested: The president must use the power he has in existing law to suspend entirely the admission of asylum seekers while the system digests the millions of immigration cases already pending. The British government has passed a law to this effect. Other Western countries will undoubtedly follow. The world has changed. There are more than 40 million refugees and asylum seekers globally. We need new laws, standards, courts and systems so that asylum can be granted through some orderly, rational process — rather than just leaving it up to officials in countries that are overwhelmed by illegal entrants at their borders.
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