De Santis And Abbot Shuttling Migrants North To Make A Point

In a recent brazen move, Florida Governor Ron De Santis sent two planes carrying undocumented migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, prompting a frenzied response that entailed humanitarian aid from local residents and assistance from Massachusetts officials. Employing the same strategy, Texas Governor Greg Abbot sent two buses of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in the nation’s capital. More buses loaded with migrants are heading north, ostensibly to share the burden of irregular immigration. Calls for discussion of this problem from the White House and from northern state leaders have gone unanswered. No end is in sight to this showdown. The problem of migration over the southern border is not easily solved and merits special consideration given these developments.

Absorptive Immigrant Capacity

No country can take in an unlimited number of immigrants. Put another way, no country, not even the United States, has the capacity to absorb the 100 million persons today who are displaced and seeking a place to live. No matter the degree of suffering such individuals are enduring, the capacity of the United States or any other country to deal with their plight is limited. Every country has what can be termed an “absorptive capacity.” This is a hard lesson many find difficult to accept.

Immigration Is Not A Right

It is, therefore, axiomatic that every nation-state has the right to decide who is to be permitted to enter it and on what terms. Immigrating to the United States is a privilege and not a right and accepting any particular person is at the discretion of visa officers guided by U.S. immigration laws. Each country including the United States must determine for itself what number of immigrants is suitable for it given its institutional framework and capacity of the country to absorb the incomers. In short, the United States has the right to regulate immigration, including protecting society from unwanted intruders such as terrorists, criminals, and immigrants with health issues such as contagious diseases, and does so in the national interest.

How Many Immigrants Is Enough?

Following this policy, each year Congress decides how many immigrants are to be allowed to become permanent residents of the USA. That number has been roughly 1 million per year, ranging from a low of 700,000 to 1.25 million in the past. The number is then divided into the various programs that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) administer, such as family sponsorships, economic immigration, and refugees. Furthermore, the number of visas is allocated so that no country is allowed more than 7 percent of the global number per year.

U.S. International Agreements Regarding Asylum

Despite these limitations, the United States has signed a number of international agreements that protect the rights of refugees fleeing persecution that require the country to accept persons fleeing persecution and seeking shelter based on certain accepted grounds such as race, religion, political opinion, and the like. These are noble commitments and deserve to be honoured. According to these laws, it is not illegal to enter the United States to seek asylum. So far, American communities big and small have shown a willingness to welcome refugees and people needing humanitarian assistance. Helping migrants find housing and providing short-term services so they can adjust to their new surroundings and comply with American laws and rules is not only the right thing to do, it is cost-effective, efficient, and humane. And the evolving showdown has made clear that the federal government needs to invest in the infrastructure needed to better serve such people seeking protection as their numbers are growing dramatically.

New Migrant Policy Needed

It is clear that a new policy is needed to deal with the evolving crisis. Until then, there is no happy end to shuttling people around the United States. Shipping your problem to someone else’s state or doorstep will not solve anything for you or for them. Following the current logic, what is to prevent a governor from a northern state, such as New York, from sending homeless people southbound on buses to Miami for example? What is to prevent leaders in D.C. from gathering the poor and shipping them to Texas? Indeed, what is to prevent mayors from poor cities from shipping their residents on welfare to rich communities nearby for them to support the migrants? Shuttling people around has to stop for the sake of the country as a whole.

Temporary Policy Fixes

America’s absorptive capacity is being challenged on the southern border. New migrants in search of better lives have been flying to Central America from distant lands to join local migrants headed northward to test America’s willingness to abide by its refugee commitments. Until now America has resorted to measures such as Title 42 which blocked asylum claims due to the pandemic, returning asylum claimants to Mexico to await decisions, and deporting those that could be removed from America. But these measures were only temporary fixes.

Contingency Planning Also Needed

In the future because of climate change, food shortages, rising water levels, and natural disasters, America could be faced with far greater masses of migrants seeking entry on the southern border. In legal jurisprudence, there is the concept of necessity which can justify someone trespassing into a neighbour’s yard to avoid a menace such as being chased by a tiger. This concept could be resorted to on a mass scale in the future if hundreds of thousands of migrants show up on the U.S. border as a result of a disaster. In such cases, America will have to cope with a massive intrusion, even one that overwhelms America’s absorptive capacity. Contingency planning is needed for such possibilities. In the meantime, a more carefully thought- out plan needs to be devised to deal with events on the southern border as they escalate.