Opinion Writer
Washington Post
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Republicans are convinced that attacking President Biden’s border policies will win them the midterms. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has gleefully labeled the situation there “Biden’s border crisis.”
In this, Republicans are benefiting from a media debate that has gone off the rails.
There’s a huge hole in this GOP attack, but it’s rarely described clearly in news reports and commentary. You can read endless headlines warning of a “crisis.” But even if that’s so, a crisis relative to what, exactly ?
What’s missing is a serious comparison with the pre-Biden status quo. It’s as if the current situation exists in a vacuum: Before there was no crisis, and now there’s a crisis .
That’s absurd. The situation under former president Donald Trump was substantially worse from a humanitarian and a pragmatic governing perspective: worse for the migrants, worse for the rule of law and worse for our country.
Biden is cleaning up Trump’s mess
It’s true that child and teenage migrants are overwhelming our facilities.
Because they can’t get released alone, they must be held at Border Patrol facilities for 72 hours before getting transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places them with relatives or guardians. The ORR facilities are jammed, backlogging border facilities.
This is a terrible situation. But it’s happening in large part because Biden is undoing a Trump policy that should be undone.
Due to covid-19, the previous administration turned away most asylum seekers — without hearings — under a legal provision allowing a temporary block on noncitizens from entering to protect public health.
Biden is no longer applying this provision to unaccompanied children and teenagers (while keeping it for adults), helping fuel child backlogs. But that’s a move in the right direction, both from a humanitarian and rule-of-law perspective.
Coronavirus will be tamed before long, and we have a legal obligation to allow migrants to exercise their right to seek asylum. And as David Bier notes, that provision is not for controlling migrant flows outside a genuine public health rationale. If anything, expelling adults abuses it.
So continuing to use this tool is not a tenable long-term solution to the humanitarian problem, and it’s not in keeping with the rule of law. That requires letting in the kids, and we will have to allow more adults to apply for asylum. The question is how we manage it.
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Read Greg’s full op-ed at the link.
I understand why Fox News, Breitbart, and the rest of the “truth averse” right wing media shills promote the GOP’s racist, xenophobic “border crisis” myths.
What I don’t get is why the so-called “mainstream media” doesn’t do its homework on the real situation on the border and the Trump-created mess facing Biden in restoring some sense of order and lawful behavior to an intentionally broken and dysfunctional system.
A few journalists like Greg, his WashPost colleague Arelis Hernandez, Cindy Carcamo (LA Times), Nicole Narea (Vox News), and Priscilla Alvarez (CNN), to name some, have taken the time to get it right (or close to right). But, far too many reporters who should know better just repeat the Abbott, McCarthy, GOP disingenuous nonsense without critical analysis or pushback.
And, what’s sorely missing is the perspective of those at the heart of this situation: the kids and families faced with such a desperate situation in their home countries that they are willing to seek mercy and refuge in a country that proudly advertises its lack of respect for their humanity, our own laws, and international norms that are supposed to insure fair and humane treatment.
They aren’t numbers, stats, bar graphs, and trend lines — they are human beings. They assert rights to apply for refuge under international norms that the U.S. has written into laws – laws we have unilaterally decided not to follow.
The overwhelming majority seek not to “evade” authorities, but to turn themselves in to our legal system: A system that functionally no longer exists at our Southern Border thanks to Trump and, to some extent, the Supremes. This is neither a “law enforcement” nor a “national security” crisis — it’s a fundamental breakdown in our legal system and a betrayal of humane values.
That’s the real problem here. It originated long before the Biden Administration. To date, no GOP politico has offered any type of constructive solution. And, too few journalists have held the GOP nativists accountable for their racist-inspired lies, misrepresentations, myths, and lack of any semblance of constructive proposals for rational, lawful, governance — real solutions for problems aggravated by their own toxic, inhumane, and often illegal policies!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!
PWS
03-17-21