Members of the Texas National Guard give directives to migrants at the United States-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, Thursday, May 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez). Image Source: Spectrum 1 News.
The Southwest land border, also known as the United States-Mexico border, has been at the forefront of national political attention. Republican leaders have called out Democrats, particularly the Biden Administration, for being weak on security and failing to protect the border properly. Comparatively, Democrats accuse Republicans of overdramatizing a serious immigration issue and blame them for stifling the passage of a bipartisan solution. Thus, it is easy to see how the American public could struggle to consume the news headlines. However, one thing is certain—with the United States presidential and general election less than seven months away, the debate over the border will only intensify. Therefore, it is critical to understand what is actually occurring at the border and reframe how we think about this challenge as a national security and moral issue.
What’s Actually Happening?
In January of this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the crisis at the Southwest land border an invasion. He argued that Texas has a right to defend itself. While constitutional scholars and the court system should validate the legality of Governor Abbott’s characterization, this article can critique the veracity of his claims. The situation at the border is not an invasion. However, it is a severe immigration and national security challenge that deserves more thought than a 30-second political sound bite.
Global patterns show a spike in migration that researchers expect to continue through the following decades. The increase in migration is due to a myriad of drivers including regional violence, poor economic conditions, political instability, and climate change. An alarming number of these migrants seek entry into the United States through the United States-Mexico border. However, migrants do not exclusively come from Mexico. Recent analyses have shown that more and more migrants are from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) closely tracks the influx of migrants. As of February 2024, CBP has reported more than 1.15 million migrant encounters at the Southwest land border, including more than 300,000 encounters last December alone, a record high. Monthly migrant encounters at the Southwest border in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 are nearly three times the rate in FY2021. If this trend continues, Southwest border encounters in FY2024 will continue to surge.
The United States’ inability to efficiently account for and assist migrants when they reach the border is concerning. Upon arriving in the United States, many migrants apply for asylum. The U.S. immigration system cannot handle the high volume of asylum applications and cases in its inbox. In FY2022, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) received roughly 239,000 affirmative asylum applications, almost four times the amount compared to FY2021. At the end of FY2023, USCIS reported 974,571 asylum application cases, with six-year wait times in some states.
Recent Approaches
While undocumented immigrants are not immune to committing crimes, this characterization does not apply to the vast majority of migrants coming to the United States. Research has shown that immigrants are 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime and 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S. citizens. Despite this truth, a common approach to the border has been to treat migrants as criminals and hostiles intent on harming Americans.
Launched by Governor Abbott, Operation Lone Star is central to the border enforcement strategy. The objective of the operation is to prevent criminal activity at the border by increasing the presence of military and law enforcement. Texas began the campaign by activating more than 5,000 National Guard troops at the border. Governors around the country have sent additional Guardsmen to assist in the effort. Altogether, thousands of U.S. soldiers, hundreds of CBP officers, and countless other federal and state authorities guard the United States-Mexico border.
Similarly, the White House called for increased funding to add more CBP agents, asylum officers, and judge teams to address the problems of border enforcement and immigration management, a central theme in the President’s latest State of the Union Address. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, known as the bipartisan border deal, included numerous provisions that would drastically overhaul the U.S. immigration process. This act would provide the president with enhanced Border Emergency Authority and funding for essential refugee services. However, as the deal was tied to other foreign aid priorities like Ukraine, the Senate blocked it. Congress also looked to solve the border problem by questioning the leaders responsible for border enforcement, namely the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas. After failing once, the House successfully impeached Secretary Mayorkas and plans to deliver the articles to the Senate later this month, where the move will likely be dead on arrival. The dismantling of the bipartisan border deal and the fight to impeach Secretary Mayorkas emphasize the tension between the two Parties. While both sides agree on the need to improve border security efforts and reform the United States’ immigration system, they disagree on its implementation. Without a consensus approach that includes the concerns of Republican and Democrat lawmakers, the situation will only continue to worsen.
The Recent Approaches Aren’t Enough
Although the situation at the United States-Mexico border is a national security issue with several other political, economic, and humanitarian implications, the White House, Congress, and state officials inadequately address the problem.
First, if increasing border security funding and law enforcement presence were the right solutions, shouldn’t it have worked by now? From 2003 (the creation of DHS) to 2019, the number of CBP agents doubled, and the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents tripled. Funding for CBP and ICE also tripled from FY2003 to FY2021. Despite these efforts, the situation at the border has grown worse. We should not be misguided; the military is not the solution to the border either. Due to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the military cannot enforce U.S. immigration law; they can only assist federal, state, and local authorities through sustainment and support operations. What, then, is the exact role of the military at the border? On March 10, two National Guard soldiers and one CBP agent died after their helicopter crashed while conducting aviation operations at the border; a third Guard soldier suffered serious injuries. The military’s mission at the border is hazy at best. However, for the moment, it appears as though the military is an intimidation tool that state governments are using to scare migrants and convince Americans that there is indeed a war going on at the border.
Second, while bold, the legislation proposed by the White House and Congress has several gaps. Although the Senate border deal would have improved the immigration and asylum process, it would not have done anything for the millions of immigrants in the United States without legal status and awaiting their asylum cases. In the same vein, migrants who enter the United States are sent to cities all over the country that are unprepared to receive such a large amount of people. Additionally, migrants whom the United States does not deport often wait in camps along the border in some of the most abject conditions. The Senate bill enacts an insufficient amount of funds to provide communities with the support they need and does little to address the treatment of migrants when they enter the United States.
What Should the United States Be Doing Instead?
The recent congressional and executive actions fail to go after the root cause of the immigration challenge: why record numbers of people are seeking refuge in America. If people had the same freedoms, opportunities, and living standards in their own countries as we do in the United States, they would have little reason to leave. However, that is not the case. The realities of migrants in their home countries are ones entrenched by corruption, poverty, gang violence, drug trafficking, and limited opportunity for socio-economic improvement. Given these circumstances, the best thing the United States can do to address the border challenge is to significantly invest in the economies, infrastructure, and societies of its Latin, Central, and South American neighbors. This is not to say that Congress should not pass bills such as the bipartisan border deal—they should. The United States should pursue any efforts to expand the resources available to migrant families, add capacity to the immigration court system, and bolster security at the border. However, our country must enact these changes in concert with financial and humanitarian assistance to Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and other nations where migrants are fleeing.
Although assisting is the right thing to do, it certainly is not an easy message for government leaders to convey to the American public. According to recent polling, while Americans still value the good that immigration can do for the country, support for this idea is diminishing. Moreover, U.S. citizens are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the inability of both political Parties to come together and find a solution to the immigration problem. The United States sending foreign assistance to Latin and Central American countries, where reports of corruption are on the rise, will not ease their concerns. They would rather see those resources stay within their communities. Therefore, there is a window of opportunity where the American public is still receptive to immigration and supportive of a comprehensive solution. However, that window is closing. Unless lawmakers are willing to meet this moment and work together, the border challenge will reach an unsustainable level where the possibility for meaningful action could slip away.
Final Thoughts
The surge of migrants at the Southwest land border is a national security and moral issue. While the United States cannot compromise the safety and security of the nation by losing control of the border, it cannot forget that this is a country founded by people in search of a better life than what they once had. Regardless of motivation, people are making the treacherous journey North to discover new opportunities in America. That’s why a real solution to the border necessitates the removal of our partisan blinders and implementing a renewed approach that works for the United States and invites the cooperation of neighboring countries. Assistance should be the top priority. If the United States is to confront its challenges properly, it should seek to do right by others. That means helping those who are poor and oppressed, not marginalizing them. The world is watching what’s occurring at the border and observing how the United States will respond. It’s written in the fabric of America that we’re all created equal—it’s time for our immigration laws and approach to the border to reflect that belief.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, National Guard Bureau, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.