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Five Big Immigration Reform Roadblocks

The Wall Street Journal discusses The Five Biggest Roadblocks to Trump’s Immigration Agenda

1: Immigration-court backlog

Most immigrants in the U.S. illegally can’t be deported without a hearing in immigration court, where they have a chance to ask for asylum or another avenue to stay in the country. But immigration courts are so backlogged that hearings are being scheduled as far into the future as 2029.

Outside experts estimate that Congress would have to hire about 5,000 immigration judges—the system now has roughly 500—to efficiently sort through all existing cases as well as new ones.

2: Lack of ICE agents

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is responsible for arresting immigrants in the country illegally, detaining them and deporting them. It has roughly 6,000 agents on staff and funding to jail about 40,000 immigrants at any given time. It doesn’t have nearly the fleet of planes needed to deport millions of migrants back to their home countries.

Republicans are hoping to use a budget process known as reconciliation to pass billions of dollars in spending for ICE as well as Trump’s border wall without needing Democratic votes. Even if the money comes, it will take the government time to recruit and train new ICE officers and make new detention space available.

Trump plans to declare a national emergency soon after taking office, which could unlock additional money taken out of the Pentagon’s budget for projects such as border-wall construction. Members of the National Guard or other troops won’t be allowed to perform immigration arrests, however; at best, they could be used for ancillary tasks, such as transporting immigrants. Trump’s designated border czar, Tom Homan, told The Wall Street Journal that military bases and planes could aid a deportation campaign.

3: Blue-state resistance

Immigrants living in the country illegally are often concentrated in big, Democratic-led cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a CNN interview recently that he wouldn’t be cooperating with federal immigration authorities. “The law is very clear,” he said. “Local police officers are not federal agents.”

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has expressed support for limited deportations for migrants who crossed illegally and have committed violent crimes, but he is strongly opposed to mass deportations. Johnston has said he was prepared to go to jail to resist Trump’s plan and encouraged others to protest.

While it is still possible to arrest people living illegally in blue-led cities, it is far more challenging without local cooperation. Trump’s immigration advisers, including Homan, have publicly discussed cutting off federal grants and even pursuing criminal prosecutions of the officials enforcing sanctuary policies.

4: Lack of cooperation from foreign countries

Among the reasons President Dwight Eisenhower was able to pull off a broad deportation program in the 1950s, which Trump cites as a model, was that everyone he sought to send out of the country was from Mexico. But over the past few years, immigrants crossing into the U.S. illegally have come from record numbers of countries, such as China, India, Mauritania and Uzbekistan.

Many of the newly arrived migrants in the U.S. come from countries where diplomatic relations are frayed or even nonexistent, such as Venezuela.

U.S. immigration law allows immigrants to be deported to third countries if their home countries won’t take them back, but getting a third country to agree is rare. Trump has pledged to strike safe-country agreements with countries in Latin America and even Africa. He managed to reach an agreement with Guatemala during his first term to send asylum seekers from elsewhere in Central America there, but the agreement was short-lived. Only about a thousand people actually were sent.

5: Legal challenges

Many of the changes proposed by Trump and Stephen Miller, his incoming deputy chief of staff and longtime immigration adviser, can only be done through Congress—or perhaps even through a constitutional amendment.

A core issue they have attempted to surmount is that under existing law, migrants can legally ask for asylum even if they have entered the country unlawfully. Trump, and even Biden, sought to get around this by making asylum seekers live in Mexico while their claims were being weighed, jailing them, or coming up with new rules to make asylum seekers otherwise ineligible. As long as the law remains on the books, however, the government will struggle to find legal ways to narrow that right.

Trump’s pledge to end birthright citizenship, the practice of designating any baby born in the U.S. as a citizen no matter their parents’ immigration status, likely can’t be changed by Congress—let alone the executive order Trump has proposed. Most legal scholars say it would require amending the Constitution, a rare and difficult process.

Economic Insanity of Deport them All

There is no national mandate to deport 15 million people. Besides, the cost of doing so would be enormous.

There would be an immediate labor shortage on construction jobs, hotel cleaning, agriculture, and restaurants.

Only One Sensible Approach

The only sensible approach will require cooperation from Democrats.

Republicans might be able to get funding issues passed with perfect cooperation from Republicans, but that would not fix legal challenges to “Remain in Mexico”. Nor does it fix Blue State Resistance.

Ending birthright citizenship is not going to happen so it would be stupid to waste any political energy on the idea.

Path to a Deal

The way to a deal involves giving legal status for dreamers and mixed families in return for more funding for a wall, more judges, and ICE agents.

Throw in some additional funds for cooperation for cooperation from cities and states and you will have a solid deal.

Republicans could ram through some funding issues, but not remain in Mexico because it is a non-budget item subject to filibuster.

Deport them all would lead to legal challenges and blue state resistance. It would also increase the costs.

Also, Trump could easily lose four Senators if he were to opt for the economically foolish deport them all scheme.

Finally, there is overwhelming public support for getting rid of the criminals.

What’s a Good Deal?

I discussed the essentials of a good deal in The New Home for Hispanics is the Republican Party

Florida Congresswoman Maria Salazar, a Republican, has some great ideas.

Her “Dignity Act” would allocate $35 billion in funding to enhance and improve infrastructure and technology between and at ports of entry. It also reforms the U.S. asylum system to make a final determination of asylum eligibility for most asylum seekers at the border within 60 days.

Start there, seal the border, reinstitute remain in Mexico, and move on.

As long as the sanctuary cities and states understand the only agenda is deportation of criminals, most of the mayors and governors will go along.

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