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WASHINGTON In a video recorded on Feb. 8, Rep. Dan Newhouse stood in front of a 20-foot-tall fence on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and gave his assessment of a crisis that is dominating American politics.

The Central Washington lawmaker was leading a group of a dozen Republicans from the Congressional Western Caucus, a group he chairs that includes representatives from mostly rural districts across the United States and its territories. In contrast to the bombast that pervades the debate over immigration and border security at the Capitol and on the campaign trail, he explained soberly that the wall behind him was built under the Obama administration and is an important tool for border enforcement.

This whole issue can be pretty theoretical when youre sitting in an office in Washington, D.C., Newhouse said to the camera. But I think people really need to see for themselves, and I wish more members of Congress would come.

The situation at the southern border, where Border Patrol agents encountered a record of nearly 250,000 people crossing illegally in December, has captured the attention of lawmakers and defined the presumptive rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. After Senate negotiators proposed a bipartisan border security bill on Feb. 4, a revolt by Trump allies in the GOP sank the deal before it could reach the House, with some Republicans saying they would rather campaign on the crisis than solve it.

But in a phone call from the Tucson airport before he flew home to his farm in Sunnyside, Newhouse said fixing the nations outdated, overwhelmed immigration and border system cant wait.

I just dont think we should go to our respective corners and stomp our feet and yell because we arent getting our way, he said. Wed be asking these communities down here to just put up with what theyre dealing with for another year, because we dont want to do it right now. Thats unconscionable. Its inexcusable. I just think we have a responsibility to do what we can to bring improvements to the system.

When lawmakers returned to the House last week, Newhouse and nearly all Republicans voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a symbolic yet virtually unprecedented move intended to express the GOPs disapproval of the Biden administrations handling of the border.

On Friday, a bipartisan group of House members unveiled their own border security proposal, which would restrict migrants ability to seek asylum and reinstate a Trump-era policy that required them to remain in Mexico while awaiting court hearings in the United States. That bill is likely to face resistance from progressive Democrats and GOP hardliners, making its fate unclear.

Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said its important to put the recent surge in migrants crossing the border in context.

Violence, hunger and limited opportunities for work have driven higher levels of migration and displacement around the world. Criminal organizations have taken advantage of the demand for migrating to the U.S.-Mexico border, creating a sophisticated and lucrative human-smuggling infrastructure. Finally, access to social media has supercharged the spread of information not all of it accurate about getting to the United States.

As a result, Putzel-Kavanaugh said, the situation at the border is completely different from three decades ago, the last time Congress made major updates to U.S. border and immigration laws. Then, most people who crossed the border illegally were single men seeking to work, who tried to evade Border Patrol agents and get into the country undetected.

Now, we have people coming in large numbers who cross onto U.S. territory and wait for Border Patrol to come and apprehend them and process them, she said. And so its created this complete flip in the system and in the resources that are needed and in whats happening on the ground. And our laws and our systems just arent built for this new reality.

In fiscal year 2023, for the first time most migrants who crossed the border illegally did not come from Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. According to Customs and Border Protection data, 51% came from other countries with Venezuela accounting for the biggest share along with Columbia, Ecuador, China, India and other nations.

A massive backlog in the nations immigration courts means migrants who claim asylum are typically released and wait years before their day in court. As a result, Putzel-Kavanaugh said a record number of people are in a liminal status, living in the United States for years without clear legal status, not knowing if or when they will be forced to leave.

The human aspect of this is just horrendous, what people go through, said Newhouse, a longtime advocate of bipartisan immigration reform bills that have failed to gain support among most Republicans.

The desperation to get into our country is real. Most of them are just coming to try to make a better life for themselves and their families. And to the cartels, theyre just a commodity. They dont care about whether they live or die. They just want their money.

Republicans say Biden has the authority he needs to shut down the border, but Trumps efforts to stop border crossings were repeatedly challenged and sometimes overturned by federal courts. At the end of the Trump administration and beginning of the Biden administration, asylum was severely restricted by a pandemic-era public health order known as Title 42, but that expired in May 2023.

While Trump and his allies in Congress claim Biden could do more to shut down the border, in reality the U.S. government doesnt control how many migrants cross the border illegally, only what happens after they do. According to data released by the House Judiciary Committee in October, the Department of Homeland Security released a higher percentage of arrested migrants into the United States under Trump than it did during the first two years of Bidens presidency.

David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, was involved in the last major push for immigration reform in 2013, as an aide to then-Rep. Ral Labrador of Idaho. He said the political environment makes the prospect of immigration reform so hard that he believes the only option is for Biden to use his limited ability to act without Congress.

In some ways, we felt like we were close then, Bier said of the 2013 effort, which fell short amid GOP opposition in the House. But we still didnt get it done despite bipartisan agreement in the Senate, much lower temperature on the issue, much more support from major conservative media. The politics now are just so poisoned.

What Biden should do, Bier argued, is use his existing authority to allow more migrants to enter the country legally with the help of sponsors, as the president has already done for Cubans, Ukrainians, Haitians and Nicaraguans. That move sharply reduced the number of migrants from those countries who cross the border illegally. Bier said doing the same for other countries could undercut the cartels that profit from smuggling people across the border, while helping overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.

If you deal with that, it dries up so much of the smuggling pipeline, he said. If theres very few people being smuggled from Central America through Mexico, then that whole system just gets gutted of all of its infrastructure.

A similar approach for Venezuela hasnt been as effective, Bier said, because demand for the program far exceeds the number of Venezuelans who can enter the United States legally.

Newhouse said he is open to that approach, although he emphasized that Customs and Border Protection still would need more funding to process even a much smaller number of migrants at the border.

If you took away the commodity they deal in the people yeah, that would make a lot of sense, Newhouse said of the Mexican cartels that control smuggling operations.

While Newhouse acknowledged that the political climate makes immigration and border reform harder, he said the country cant afford to wait. He said he believes the 11 Republicans who traveled with him to Arizona including Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, who chairs the hard-right Freedom Caucus feel the same way.

The people on this trip, when they saw firsthand whats going on here, I didnt hear anybody say that we should just wait until the next election, Newhouse said.

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After leading trip to southern border, Central Washington's Dan Newhouse says immigration reform can't wait - The Spokesman Review

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With the presidential election right around the corner and immigration being the biggest issue of discussion, politicians will use whatever tricks they can to gain votes through empty promises. The biggest thing every single year that is used to sway votes is the conversation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.

DACA allows undocumented youth who have lived in the U.S for five or more years, before turning 15-years-old, the ability to live in the U.S. with protection against deportation and eligibility to obtain a work permit and authorization. This program basically gives undocumented youth the same protection and similar rights that American Citizens have, hence why this program is usually looked down upon by conservative politicians and supported by liberal politicians.

DACA has helped an estimated 835,000 undocumented youths obtain their dream careers without fear of deportation according to the data FWD.us collected in 2023, comparing it to the 2012 data when the program was first established. But sadly, even though Dreamers have shown that they care about this nation through their work and how the program helps them achieve greatness, the government lets the program stay on the fence of either being ignored or to be eliminated no matter what political party is in control.

This past year on September 13, 2023, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas ruled the 2021 DACA Final Rule to be unlawful. This has caused DACA to enter a twisted game of roulette once again to see if the program will continue or to be terminated, for it is currently being reviewed by 5 circuits. It is unknown when the final decision will be announced.

Due to being in review, Judge Hanen ruled that no new applicants can apply for DACA, but the current recipients of the program are safe and still get to maintain the protection and rights, as NPR reported. Current DACA recipients are safe until the legal review ends or until the Democratic party does something to help DACA like they promised. But youths that have or are turning 15-years-old and have lived only in the U.S since June 15, 2007, this year cant sign up to gain the protection thanks Judge Hanens ruling.

Sadly, this isnt the first time Dreamers face an uncertain future. This has happened multiple times in the past, especially with the Trump administration, as National Immigrant Forum recalls. Ex-president Trump tried to eradicate DACA many times even during the pandemic, but it was saved by Chief Justice John Roberts, who told the Trump Administration that they failed in providing a good reason to end the program. During that time, according to the data from the 2018 American Community Survey Census, the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) estimates that 43,500 Dreamers work in the health care and/or social assistance industries. More specifically, 10,300 work in hospitals and 2,000 in nursing care facilities across the nation.

Not only were Dreamers on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic in medical centers, but also on the frontlines when it came to transportation, warehouse management, supermarkets, support and waste management services along with so many other jobs according to CMS. Many had to juggle school at the same time, and Trump wanted to take away the program that was allowing them to help the country stay standing. This shows that DACA is trapped in a constant game of roulette to see if it will be disbanded or not with every administration, even in times that Dreamers are helping the survival of the nation in disparate times.

Most importantly, I find it unfair that they havent been rewarded for the great job they did in helping the country handle the pandemic. What they did was patriotic, for they couldve easily stepedp back and rejected the call for help from the nation that hasnt been treated them well. Yet many Dreamers answered the call and risked their lives in helping the country stay strong against the pandemic. The least the government couldve done was reward them by stabilizing DACA or providing them a path to at least residency. But here we are, still with nothing but threats of moving backwards instead of forward.

This game of roulette the government plays with DACA leaves many Dreamers and their families on edge for not knowing what will become of their future and safety in the country. The way DACA has been treated feels like a violation of human rights, which UWT professor Dr. Sonia Del La Cruz confirms. Ever since her undergrad, Dr. De La Cruz has been studying and working with a variety of issues in human rights and labor rights, specifically in community engagement and social justice. Her studies are focused on immigration, which has led her to be involved with DACA.

She explains that DACA is a human rights issue because, although the temporary program allows youths a limited set of activities in their lives, it prevents them from entering many fields in the labor industry, due to being trapped in uncertainty of their immigration status thanks to the lengthy, confusing and constantly changing process.

It prevents people from living their lives with dignity, Dr. De La Cruz said. This includes working and contributing to their communities, homes, and lives in places they find themselves. Citizenship binds us to where we live.

She continues by explaining that the idea of citizenship binds us to our rights and responsibilities to a place. DACA is in fact a small attempt in providing a clear path to citizenship, but the fact the government continues to throw DACA around still prevents people from living their full lives. The lack of clarity has allowed state governments to enact laws that are creating more obstacles that prevent people from living their lives in peace, toying with them.

Its kind of like a steep up hill, youre trying to get to the top but somebody is throwing rocks at you to slow you down, said Dr. De La Cruz. How many roadblocks do people have to face in order to find a place they can live in peace and find themselves emotionally, psychologically, and literally?

This unclear path of citizenship is something UWT alum of class of 2018 with cum laude honor Steffany Duran also points out. Duran has had DACA since the program was instated back in 2012. During her time at UWT the program helped her be lawfully employed to help her pay for tuition and obtain financial aid through Washingtons WASFA. The program helped her obtain her job at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

However, that doesnt take away the fact that she is frustrated with the programs handling. She tells The Ledger that she is constantly thinking about how negatively impacted her life would become if the government were to eliminate the program. She would lose her job and her BA in Psychology would mean nothing, even if she returns to get a Masters. The domino effect of losing the program would also cause her to lose the ability to pay rent and prevent her from growing in her career.

I absolutely abhor being used as a pawn in politicians plans, said Duran. While I am grateful for this program, though it could also be much better with a pathway to naturalization/citizenship, it is incredibly stressful that the security of DACA is constantly being threatened. Politicians love to use DACA as something to gain the vote from the people they seek as if its not real peoples lives and livelihoods that they are speaking on.

This feeling of not having their lives and livelihoods seen by the government is something many current UWT Dreamers feel. One of these Dreamers, a UWT senior, spoke to me about how she feels. She has had DACA for two years, and although the program has opened more doors for her, she cant help but feel frustrated and angry about how the program is being treated, causing her to lose faith in the promise of immigration reform. The treatment the program receives, especially currently, has only made her anxious due to the possibility of losing her protection from deportation. It makes her feel unsafe at school due Tacoma Northwest Detention Center being close to campusa six-minute drive to be exact.

I dont understand why the program needs to be thrown around constantly, said this UWT Dreamer. The government doesnt realize those are our lives their handling. We cant live peacefully like everyone else!

Both Dreamers implore the government to stop toying with their lives and emotions by keeping DACA in limbo. They want to remind the government that they, like others, were brought to the U.S. as infants or children by their families who were either escaping violence of their homeland or seeking a better future for their family. As children, they didnt make the choice to come to the U.S and stay. They wish to live their lives to the fullest without fear of what tomorrow could bring to them if DACA is terminated. They want to grow in their careers and explore the world without fearing that their wings will be clipped without warning. They ask the U.S. government and the judges reviewing DACA right now to help them by creating a pathway to naturalization if not citizenship. Dr. De La Cruz implores a clear path to citizenship that is easy to understand with no yearly changes. By doing so, not only will the U.S. be helping Dreamers obtain their dreams of living normal lives, but also will be benefitting the countrys economy as Duran points out.

See us, understand us and help us, concluded the current UWT Dreamer.

It may not seem much, but I hope this article is a step in the right direction, even if it is a drop in a still ocean. But in the end a ripple can still make a difference. To any Dreamer reading this article, I hope you know that there are those who havent forgotten you and are still fighting to help you.

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Immigration reform for Dreamers: The roulette game with DACA needs to end - The Ledger

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This is a story of migration. No, not the illegal sort at our southern border, though that will feature prominently. The migration Im talking about is that of voters who were once solidly in the Democratic camp to the party of Donald Trump.

This follows a drawn-out history of defection and disaffection, beginning when President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

This inflection point warrants reflection. At the time, journalist Bill Moyers was a special assistant to LBJ. Moyers repeated his boss quip after the signing: I think we may have lost the South for your lifetime and mine. Variations of this quotation became lore in the halls of politics. Whether the president was utterly serious or only facetious, his speculation proved out. Until the 1960s, the South had been known for its Democratic lean. In fact, there was a name: Dixiecrats.

But by the time President Richard Nixons political strategist Kevin Phillips spoke to The New York Times in 1970, the racist Southern strategy of the GOP was paying off.

From the vantage point of today no longer a mountaintop, more like a pitchers mound it is hard to imagine a Democratic South. Governors like Floridas Ron DeSantis and Texas Greg Abbott can count on their constituents including evangelicals who now excuse Trumps mores to oppose a whole host of Democratic issues, from immigration to abortion, sexual preference and schoolbooks. What began with racial civil rights has broadened to take in a host of third rails separating Democrats from some states.

When it comes to immigration, it could be an issue that determines the presidency. In 2022, 2.8 million would-be immigrants were apprehended or turned away at the border the highest number since 1980. Migrants correctly understand that if they reach U.S. shores, it will be years, if ever, before they are sent back. In fact, in 2021, courts removed only 89,000 illegal immigrants, the lowest number since 1996.

More importantly for the nations governance, it is an issue for voters. When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, seasoned politicos scratched their heads over her cultivation of illegal immigrants as a sort of protected class, since by definition those same people were ineligible to vote. She was playing to the wrong audience, a mistake the GOP would never make. If you want to enact policies, you first must gain office. If your platforms doom you to electoral defeat, the things you believe in will remain fairy dust. The Dems are looking pretty dusty these days.

In a recent Gallup poll, 63 percent of voters are dissatisfied with the immigration status quo, a sharp rise over the past two years of polling. Among Republicans, that dissatisfaction is at 71 percent, the highest such number Gallup has ever recorded for this. Even more telling, adult Latino voters are joining the South in migrating away from the Democratic Party. According to a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center, 53 percent of adult Latinos say immigration is in need of major change, and an additional 29 percent say our policies need to be completely rebuilt. In the coming election, this is five-alarm fire.

Yet President Joe Bidens reelection team had their feet stuck in mud. With his back against the wall on arms for a faltering Ukraine, he ventured a deal on immigration reform. Then Donald Trump, dominating the primaries, weighed in. Bidens border turnabout was dead in the water. Trumps GOP was not about to let Biden claim immigration reform. His bully pulpit, in the face of pressure from the progressive wing of his party, had stayed mute too long. Trump, his 77 years ironically vigorous in comparison, understood the potency of his rallying cry from 2016: Build a wall! A vulnerable Biden seemed asleep at a wheel, evidencing 81 years of wear.

Weve been down the road with a well-meaning Democratic president: Jimmy Carter, a man voters tried to like. The hostage crisis and gas lines around the block condemned him to a single term. In addition to Bidens age, the crisis at the border could be the straw that breaks the camels back for him. Its not the polls Im reading, though those are justifiably worrisome. Its a perfect storm of perception. Stir into the mix Russian President Vladimir Putin with no exit strategy in Ukraine and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with none in Gaza. Biden is tangled in both their webs, waiting to be eaten by an Electoral College spider.

In that game-changing year of 1964, the Carter family sang, It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, Im worried now but I wont be worried long. Come Nov. 6, the day after elections, my worries may not have been long, but they might meet Waterloo on the Rio Grande.

Dalton Delan can be followed on Twitter @UnspinRoom. He has won Emmy, Peabody and duPont-Columbia awards for his work as a television producer.

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For Biden and Democrats, immigration reform is a wicked policy problem - Berkshire Eagle

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Black Americans are the most reliable Democratic voters, and yet the Democratic Party betrays their loyalty by neglecting the needs of Black voters, or worse, actively supporting policies that harm Black Americans. Illegal immigration is a prime example.

Whatever those in power do to Black Americans, they will soon do to everyone else. This is why we must call out the Democrats for their push to provide amnesty for the nation's estimatedbut almost certainly undercounted11 million illegal immigrants and the trillions of dollars they support spending on those who enter the country illegally. Meanwhile, the majority of the homeless, the impoverished, the unemployed, and the evicted are Black Americans. This is an unforgivable betrayal.

In 1924, House Democrats voted 158-37 to drastically slash immigration. A. Philip Randolph, one of the most prominent Black labor and civil rights leaders of the day, praised the restrictions, explaining that too much immigration "over-floods the labor market, resulting in lowering the standard of living."

As the flood of competing foreign workers slowed to a trickle, Black workers made gains. Frank Morris, the former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, noted that Black men's wages quadrupled from 1940 to 1980, growing even faster than white wages.

In 1965, Congress changed immigration law to open opportunities for more immigrants from non-European countries to come to the United States. Immigration to the United States since 1965 has almost quadrupled.

This second "Great Wave" of immigration to America has done great harm to Black Americans, much as the flood of immigration from Europe following the Civil War did. According to a study by economists from Harvard and the University of Chicago, the influx of new immigrants between 1980 and 2000 accounts for as much as 60 percent of the decline in wages, 25 percent of the decline in employment rates, and 10 percent of the increase in incarceration rates among less-educated Blacks.

In the mid-1990s, Barbara Jordanthe first Southern Black woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representativeschaired President Bill Clinton's Commission on Immigration Reform. That commission recommended that the government slash legal immigration levels by a third in order to protect, in Jordan's own words, the "most vulnerable parts of our labor force."

President Clinton endorsed Jordan's proposed reformsbut they were ultimately defeated afterwards by business groups. Since then, Democrats have sought to raise legal immigration levels and have supported amnesty for illegal aliens.

They say this policy is compassionate, but where is the compassion for Black Americans who are hurt the most by illegal immigration?

The often cited argument that illegal immigrants "do work that Americans will not do" is simply not supported by data. In my home state of South Carolina, a poultry plant was found to have employed 300 illegal immigrants in 2008. After the illegal immigrants were detained, those jobs immediately were filled by American workers, many of them Black Americans. This same chain of events has played out in Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, and countless other states. Black Americans and working-class white Americans do these very same jobs that we are told Americans are no longer willing to do. We will do the jobs, but for a fair wage. Workers deserve fair wages and no corporation should be able to avoid paying them by importing cheap labor. Cheap labor is cheat labor.

Another matter that is not often discussed is anti-Black racism. While illegal immigration is not the primary source of the systemic racism that Black Americans have faced for centuries, many illegal immigrants benefit from the civil rights fought for by Black Americans, and yet are deeply anti-Black American. A 2006 Duke University study in North and South Carolina showed that nearly 60 percent of immigrants from Latin America living in those states illegally felt that Black Americans were not hard workers and were not trustworthy. A large proportion said they did not have anything in common with Black Americans. Only around 10 percent of white Americans reported such negative views of Black Americans.

There is another potential danger not being discussed in the media: the dilution of the Black vote. Throughout the nation, several municipalities have made efforts to allow illegal immigrants the right to vote. Black Americans are the main constituency of the Democratic Party and yet the party ignores us. If we do not get anything for our vote now as their main constituency, do you think we will see anything for our vote if the party is able to secure votes from millions of illegal immigrants? Corporations should not be able to import cheap labor to avoid paying a fair wage, and the Democrats should not be able to import new voters to avoid addressing the needs of Black Americans.

There's no single solution to the economic problems plaguing Black Americans, especially in South Carolina's left-behind communities. We need to use every tool in the kit. That means ensuring equal access to education. It means helping folks afford reliable transportation. It means reparations for unpaid debts. And it means stopping illegal immigration completely and reducing legal immigration to levels that work for American citizens, not just American corporations.

Gregg Marcel Dixon is a teacher, activist, and candidate for South Carolina's Sixth US Congressional District.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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When It Comes to Immigration Reform, Don't Forget Black Voters - Newsweek

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Nine US Governors Call for Action on Immigration Reform  Voice of America - VOA News

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Nine US Governors Call for Action on Immigration Reform - Voice of America - VOA News

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