The Border Migrant Crisis Is A Big Test for the GOP

The crisis at the border has already started impacting the broader debate over immigration reform.   The most interesting immediate change we are seeing is that the crisis is making it much harder for the House Republicans to maintain their current position that the status quo is preferable to some set of legislative fixes.   With GOP House Members starting to introduce bills to address the border crisis, we have stumbled now back into a debate over what Congress can do to fix the broken immigration system.  The White House and the Senate have a powerful answer to that question, Senate Bill 744 and other requests which will come from the President this week.   What will the GOP response be?  

Will the GOPs’ answer to the latest manifestation of a broken immigration system really be limited to just giving the President expedited authority to remove minors at the border?  No fixes to the legal immigration system? No legalization process for undocumented immigrants here prior to 12/31/11 as the Senate bill provides?  No additional money for more humane detention centers?  No additional monies for the immigration courts to help remove the judicial backlog which is contributing to the crisis?  No additional money for Central America to help stabilize and improve conditions there?  

It is our view that the single most powerful thing Congress can do now to help bring an end to the border migrant crisis is to pass the Senate bill in the House.  It will send a loud and clear signal to Central America and Mexico that our Congress, our parties and our President are united in improving our immigration system.  It will make clear that those who’ve come or will come after 12/31/11 will not be able to stay.   It will help alleviate the growing judicial backlog which has contributed so much to the current crisis.  It will give DHS even more powerful tools to make an already improved border even safer.   All of these things will be critical to bringing a rapid and humane end to the crisis. 

The Obama Administration is taking prudent and smart steps to bring an end to the border migrant crisis, including making clear that passing the Senate bill is a needed and important piece of what is required.  But the House GOP cannot continue to cry that the house is on fire and then prevent the Administration from using all the water we have to put the fire out.  While the border migrant crisis is clearly a test for the Administration, it is also an important test for the House GOP – and our hope is that they will work with the President in the days to end the migrant crisis while bringing long needed reform to our broader immigration system.  Failure to do so means that they will be acting to extend the crisis, worsen human suffering, slow our economic recovery, add to the deficit and strengthen the cartels profiting from the increased human trafficking from Central America.  America deserves better than that.

Update: See our recent essay, "What Congress Can Do To Help With the Central American Migrant Crisis;" and this one from earlier this year, "GOP Attacks on Obama's Immigration Enforcement Record Are Ridiculous."