Why Kamala Harris’s new immigration assignment could be a big deal

Why Kamala Harris’s new immigration assignment could be a big deal

Opinion by 

Greg Sargent

Columnist

March 25, 2021 at 5:56 a.m. GMT+9

Vice President Harris participates in a roundtable discussion on Equal Pay Day with female leaders of advocacy organizations at the White House on Wednesday. (Olivier Douliery/AFP)

The White House just announced that President Biden has assigned Vice President Harris the task of overseeing the administration’s efforts to stem the flow of migrants at the Mexican border, at a time when young asylum seekers are overwhelming the immigration system.

According to CNN, this mission will consist of two roles:

Officials said Harris would focus her efforts on stemming the current flow of migrants and on developing a larger strategic partnership with Central American countries based on values of respect and shared values.

Here’s why this could prove to be a big deal. In the short run, it could help shift part of the conversation away from the media-centric idea that the sum total of this “crisis” is what’s happening at the border, and focus it on the deeper causes of these migrations.

That’s absolutely necessary if the political and policy debate is going to regain some sanity. What’s more, in the long run, this could also pave the way toward the development of some actual solutions to the broader problems here, which are fiendishly difficult.

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The Republican game plan centers on making you stupid about this issue’s many complexities. They want the entire story to be that under former president Donald Trump, the border was under absolute control, and the second Biden started rolling back Trump’s policies, bedlam erupted.

Central to that narrative is the notion that the current influx both constitutes an unprecedented crisis and that it was caused by relaxing Trump’s deterrence policies. Unfortunately, network news has lapped up that narrative.

It’s a silly story. Trump’s policies — especially the one forcing migrants to wait in Mexico for asylum hearings, which Biden rescinded — themselves produced a humanitarian crisis. Ending cruelty-as-deterrence — and accepting the challenge of trying to fix the system, rather than turning migrants away — are the right things to do.

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Second, the border is largely closed to asylum seeking right now. The administration is letting in kids and teens, but is still expelling most adults and families under the Title 42 public health rule.

Third, the numbers tell a complicated story. As The Post’s Tom K. Wong, Gabriel De Roche and Jesus Rojas Venzor show, the current spike in apprehensions at the border is largely seasonal in nature. We are seeing more migrants than last year, but covid-19 pent up migrations in 2020, leading to more now — and current numbers are swelled by repeat efforts to cross the border by adults expelled under Title 42.

And fourth, the reasons for these migrations are complex and rooted in conditions in Central America.

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What this leaves behind is the actual nature of the challenge. It entails getting more space up and running quickly to deal with children and teens currently jamming border facilities. That will get worse, but as Hamed Aleaziz notes, the real border issue is a management one.

The real challenge also entails addressing problems in Central America to reduce “push factors,” i.e., conditions that spur these migrations in the first place — such as violence, instability, poverty and, this time, hurricanes. As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council has argued, “push factors are at the highest they’ve been" in "quite some time.”

Which is where Harris comes in.

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Harris gained credibility on this issue with the left for sharply rebuking Trump officials over his family separations policy, and for her role in securing legal assistance to separated children.

“The transition to Biden’s strategy is going to be bumpy and difficult,” Frank Sharry of America’s Voice tells me. “The question is whether her credibility will buy enough patience with progressives and activists.”

“A large part of her portfolio will be to develop strategies regarding root causes that generate migrants and refugees,” Sharry continued, “and to create legal pathways from the region that take pressure off the border.”

The Biden reading of the problem is that push factors matter. Republicans want to erase those from the conversation: If push factors are acknowledged, then migrants become more sympathetic. And the problem no longer just turns on mythologized notions about whether our president and his enforcement policies are “strong” (cruelty-as-deterrence) or “weak” (honoring our legal obligation to give asylum seekers a hearing).

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The Biden plan would invest billions in improving economic conditions, combating corruption and strengthening democracy in Central America. It would set up new pathways for migrants and children to apply for refugee status from afar. Those things could dissuade treks to the border. Harris’s task will be to oversee these things.

To be clear, those are incredibly complex undertakings, and success is anything but assured. What’s more, the management problem is also hard: Once adult migrants are allowed to apply for asylum again, streamlining legal processes and tracking them while they wait in the country will pose complex logistical and political challenges.

Beyond that, there’s plenty to criticize in the Biden approach so far. The continued Title 42 expulsions of adults don’t appear justifiable. The administration should allow media access to border facilities. And, as NBC reports, it appears the administration was slow to recognize how serious the space crunch at the border would become.

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But the crisis is not one that is primarily about the border. It’s one that concerns the region and the plight of the migrants themselves, the very thing that is doing so much to spur these migrations in the first place. Harris’s appointment can and should refocus the conversation on those things — and on the constructive role our country can play in helping develop solutions to them.

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