Dear Neighbor– If there’s one thing Americans can agree on when it comes to immigration, it’s that our system is deeply broken. How to fix it is where we diverge. Here’s where things stand in Congress. Senate leaders unveiled their long-awaited national security and border package. As of today, that bill’s chances of passing the Senate are dwindling, and Speaker Johnson has already said that it’s “dead on arrival” in the House. Meanwhile in the House, instead of putting forth bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation, Speaker Johnson put forth two messaging bills – one to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas and one that failed to secure our border, provide humanitarian aid for those suffering in Gaza, and support our democratic partners in Ukraine. Both of these bills did not pass. You’ll find my statements on these bills here and here. Understanding and knowledge are key to addressing the real problem at the border (not media talking points). Last week, I got to see up close just where our border policy is failing when I visited our southern border. So, I want to share a bit from my trip so you can better understand as well. Before I share, I want to hear from YOU about how you’re thinking about this issue.
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Do you think that Congress needs to do more to address the crisis at the border?
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Our visit traced the steps of migrants from a point of entry (at an established port) to the point of release into the community after processing. Stop #1: Paso Del Norte Port of Entry
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Last year, CBP had over 300,000 migrant encounters along the southern border–the highest on record–nearly 65,000 were at the Paso Del Norte port (one of four bridges in District El Paso), which is also home to one of the largest crossings for unaccompanied children across the border. We met with CBP agents, medical professionals, and migrants (including children). The biggest takeaway from this stop was that our system is simply not set up to handle the sheer volume of individuals who cross here every day. While legally there is the authority here to screen and expeditiously remove individuals, there’s not the space or personnel to do that on-site. So, migrants are transported to a nearby holding facility.
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Watch my reflections on the stop here. The region is also filling up its detention centers at a rapid clip. The holding facility that we visited is brand new, built within the last year, and is already at capacity nearly every day. It’s a sprawling 360,000-square-foot facility that houses children, adults, and families in separate units. It has a capacity to house 2,500 migrants at a time, and it costs a whopping 1.2 MILLION dollars a day to operate. The materials needed to erect this facility are thin and often do not hold up in the baking sun or win, so sometimes migrants have to be transported to other facilities to endure the conditions (this also costs money and personnel time). Individuals wait in this facility for the next step in the process–a hearing with an asylum officer, release into another agency's custody, or if they do not have a legal manner to enter or stay in the country, they are returned to their country of origin. One major problem with returns, however, is that large numbers of migrants today are coming from Venezuela and Venezuela is largely refusing to take individuals back once they are ordered removed from the U.S. Stop #3: Safe House
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Our last stop was at a charitable safe house run by volunteers. This is a house that shelters migrants temporarily once they are released from DHS custody and before they transition to their next location. Here, we got to speak with the shelter’s operator who shared how he’s seen the flow of migrants dramatically increase–and change–over the past 49 years of its operation. At once a small refuge for a few individuals to take shelter when the system glitched and they didn’t have anywhere else to go to now, a central PART of the system, serving nearly 150,000 individuals annually across their multiple centers. During our conversation, the shelter director said that they were just not set up for the sheer volume of individuals they’re seeing crossing. The tragedy of our failed immigration policy is multi-fold: 1. It’s a humanitarian nightmare–families are traumatized in the journey, separated from loved ones and often exploited and abused and every turn; 2. It’s a national security crisis–the surge and the flow make it impossible to fully know, track, and vet every individual who is crossing. At a time of powerful American enemies around the world, this is simply unacceptable; 3. It’s an economic disaster–rather than fixing the system, we continue to put on VERY expensive bandaids ($1.2 million A DAY at just ONE facility in ONE part of Texas–imagine what we could do with $1.2 million a day in West Michigan). And what’s more, the vast majority of these people are peaceful, good souls who just want to work hard and pursue the American dream like so many of our ancestors. With an astounding 330,000 jobs created last month and record unemployment–we’ve got the jobs for them to help us continue to grow our economy. But the system doesn’t allow them to work. So that’s the problem. It’s heavy. Fortunately, I’m not alone in refusing to accept the status quo. Our bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform bill (the Dignity Act) addresses so many of the issues we encountered, and what’s more– it pays for itself and then some. It secures the border by adding additional border personnel and facilities, it creates in-country processing facilities where individuals can be pre-screened for their humanitarian claims and requests for employment, it CREATES legal pathways for individuals to come and fill those jobs, and it fixes asylum processing so individuals aren’t waiting here for 5 years, only to be told they never had a valid claim to begin with. You can read more here. As always, it’s an honor to serve you, West Michigan.
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Congresswoman Hillary J Scholten |
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