Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account for the Situation at US-Mexico Border

By early 2021, the number of unaccompanied children and asylum-seekers crossing the Southern border reached another peak. In Real Needs, Not Fictitious Crises Account for the Situation at US-Mexico Border, Donald Kerwin argues that the current border crisis is not a “self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration,” but rather the result of pressures built up from the Trump Administration’s anti-asylum policies and its failure to address the needs of displaced people in Central America. Kerwin cites the previous administration’s termination of key immigration initiatives, such as the Central Americans Minors program, violation of their statutory responsibility to refer asylum seekers to the US asylum system, and “zero tolerance policy” as responsible for aggravating the current migration problem. The article also suggests that the root cause of the immigration crisis is at the political level and not at the border. Kerwin proposes that the federal government respond more effectively to the conditions driving forced migration, enhance the clarity and transparency of immigration laws, legalize more of the undocumented population, and reform the US asylum system along with the immigration court system. (Flora Meng for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)