In the 2023 fiscal year, 2.8 million immigrants were encountered by U.S. Border Patrol on the United States Southern and North-Eastern (New York) borders. In response to the estimated 8000 crossings every day, heavily affected cities in Texas, New York, Illinois and Washington DC have all declared a state of emergency. In Biden’s proposed $106 billion aid package, $14 billion would be sent to secure the southern border.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said this month that immigration right now “is something totally aberrational in terms of the historic import that it has. It used to be that when there was a migration crisis, it tended to be one — maybe one source country at a time. It was Haiti. Maybe it was Cuba. Maybe it was Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador, the so-called Northern Triangle countries. Now it’s all of the above, plus Venezuela, plus Nicaragua, plus Ecuador.” During 2023, over 224 thousand deportation orders were issued across the country, a decrease of almost 25 thousand compared to 2022.
The surge of illegal immigration and undocumented migrants living in the country is a result of the backlogged asylum system. There are currently over 1 million (as of August 2023) asylum claims needing review. In 2022 just under 50 thousand cases were processed, data also shows that cases take an average of four and a half years to be processed, a number which is likely to increase in 2024. During this time migrants typically stay inside of the country, but are not allowed to work due to a lack of permit, which can take over a year to get. Those who are denied asylum (over 26 thousand in 2023), are usually not deported due to a lack of clear protocol and usually remain in the country, adding to the estimated 11.4-16.8 million undocumented migrants living in the U.S
The beginning of the surges coincided almost directly with the ending of Title 42, which allowed immediate expulsion of people trying to illegally enter the country. In the 2022 fiscal year over 2.2 million people were stopped at the border; it is reported that 1.1 million of these migrants were admitted into the country and given a court date in the far future. As an alternative to Title 42, the Biden Administration tries to promote legal pathways (such as scheduling an appointment via a government app) while simultaneously punishing those who don’t with deportation and asylum ineligibility. Biden has increased accessibility of work permits to around 472 thousand Venezualens, as well as granting them deportation protection. He has also opened parole processes to Cubans, Hatians, Venezalens and Nicaraguins in an overall effort to decrease the number of illegal immigrants.
Migrant populations frequently enter homeless shelter systems, which are already overwhelmed by the American homeless population. In response, New York has begun housing immigrants in hotels, a policy said to cost an estimated $12 billion in American tax dollars over the next two years, and about $9.8 million per day. This is enough money to threaten cuts of city services, which benefit the American citizens whose taxes pay for them. Multiple contracts have been signed which require daily room cleaning, fresh linens once a week or more and monthly exterminations. The most recent contract signed in September is worth up to $1.365 billion, paying over 100 hotels to house these migrants for the next three years. The price does not reflect additional money spent on services and other rented housing spaces. The price can be reduced later if fewer hotels are needed, or if populations of new migrants decline. Mayor Eric Adams has said that the migrant crisis will “destroy New York City” and that hotels will soon run out of capacity, possibly resulting in migrants sleeping on streets.
Immigration is important for the nation, foreign born workers account for about 18.1 percent in 2022 and represent 73 percent of all agriculture workers in the nation. But not all immigrants come with good intentions, 64 percent of federal arrests (illegal reentry representing 72 percent of them) in 2018 and are 15.8 percent of federal prisoners despite only representing 7 percent of the national population, not including the thousands of people turned away at the border with prior violent criminal activity. Non-federal cases are not sorted by immigration status in states other than Texas making it hard to get an accurate account of migrant crime rates across the country.
The number of incoming immigrants will not slow down, and the number getting in will not either. U.S. Border Patrol said in June that they have “diverted up to 60 percent of its agents from the border security mission to care for families and children, significantly reducing agents’ presence on the border.” A policy which essentially creates a positive feedback loop, as more migrants come less agents will be there to stop them.
