Toward the end of summer, we asked AJC readers to tell us what was on their minds. Many of you asked about immigration enforcement and the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. That wasn’t too surprising. Few issues are looming as large on the campaign trail this year as immigration.
Mike Luckovich
Mike Luckovich
The number of illegal border crossings regularly made headlines throughout President Joe Biden’s first term in office, reaching a monthly peak of 225,000 in December 2023 — an all-time record — before coming down in 2024.
Between 2021 and 2023, Border Patrol agents encountered an average of 2 million migrants per year who crossed into the country illegally.
That’s a far cry from 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the closing of the southern border. In April of that year, border agents recorded just 16,000 encounters.
Why did so many people go on the move after the worst of the pandemic? Experts say it was a mix of pull and push factors. COVID, for one, roiled many developing countries’ economies, making it harder for folks to provide for their families.
The recent immigration surge has brought along a shift in the demographics and backgrounds of the people trying to enter the U.S. In the past, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have accounted for the bulk of crossings. But by December 2023, more than half of the migrants encountered by Border Patrol involved citizens from nations other than those four, including significant contingents from places such as Venezuela and China.
What are our current immigration laws and why can’t they be enforced? — from Michael Nance
I think to answer this question, it would be helpful to give a little historical context. In the past, migrants who illegally crossed the border were typically single adults who tried to evade detection by law enforcement. That changed starting roughly 10 years ago, when the bulk of border crossers began turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents and asking for asylum — many of them coming as family units. Asylum is a form of legal protection for people who face persecution in their home countries.
The immigration system, which was last reformed in 1990, proved to be woefully ill-equipped to process the burgeoning number of asylum applications. Massive backlogs in the country’s immigration courts have functionally allowed migrants to live in the country for years while waiting for cases to come up — even when their claims for asylum are flimsy (fleeing gang violence or poverty, for example, are not grounds for asylum protections). Nationwide, the average wait time for an asylum hearing is more than four years. In Atlanta’s immigration court, more than 85% of cases are denied.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan border security bill would have allowed the government to process more asylum claims more quickly, by providing resources for thousands of new asylum officers and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel. After that bill failed, President Biden signed an executive order in June that sharply limited migrants’ ability to make asylum claims at the border, and gives agents the power to quickly turn people back.
As a result of that policy change, alongside more vigorous immigration enforcement within Mexico, the number of arrests at the border has fallen.
What happens to the people who enter legally or illegally? We hear about sanctuary cities, flying immigrants to another state, etc., but it’s hard to know what is really going on. Where do all these people go, what happens to them? In what time frame? — from Jan Rose
I can share a bit about my conversations in the last couple of years with immigrants in the Atlanta area who are new to the U.S. after having crossed the border illegally. Most of these folks have told me they turned themselves in to immigration agents, who processed and detained them, sometimes for several months, sometimes for just a couple of days. They signaled their wish to apply for asylum, and were released with a court date.
In recent years, some state governments bused migrants from the southern border to other parts of the United States, including New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. There were never concerted busing campaigns targeting Atlanta. Some decided to come here because they had family or friends in the region; others came with no connections, having merely heard jobs were plentiful. Most newcomers in recent years have arrived with next to nothing, and relied on local nonprofits to keep them off the street. Until their court date, most have to periodically check in with the local ICE field office, located on Ted Turner Drive in downtown Atlanta. Early most weekday mornings, you can see lines snaking out of the building.
This broadly captures the experience of most of the migrants I’ve spoken with from 2021 to the beginning of this year. There are always case-by-case differences and peculiarities. As I mentioned earlier, getting released in to the U.S. with a court date pending has become exponentially more difficult, following new Biden administration restrictions on asylum.
Why does no one mention that under Article 2 in the Constitution that Congress is in charge of immigration not the president? President is the executor, Congress decides. — from V.B.
This is a great thing to keep in mind. Even though immigration looms large during campaign season, it has been decades since Congress last passed comprehensive reform, leaving the immigration system woefully outdated and increasingly dysfunctional. Because legal avenues to immigrate haven’t been updated to reflect 21st century trends or labor needs, attempting to enter illegally becomes many migrants’ only option.
In the absence of a comprehensive reform bill, presidential executive actions have sought to address challenges at the border, but those policy changes tend to prove marginal or temporary, with legal challenges quick to be taken against them.
It appears that you have underestimated the number of illegal immigrants that have entered the country since Jan. 2021. You mentioned 30,000 from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela but don’t mention the hundreds of thousands if not millions allowed in through a suspected illegal expansion of the parole program flown into cities throughout the country and released. Thoughts? — from Mike Brown
This question makes reference to a parole program that was implemented across 2022 and 2023, that allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come legally every month. People from those nations are eligible for parole if they have a sponsor — someone who is already living legally in the country and can financially support them when they get here. The sponsors apply while the would-be beneficiaries are in their home countries and the latter fly to the U.S. directly (at their own expense) if approved. Parole gives migrants the ability to live and work in the U.S. for a two-year period. It does not provide a pathway for permanent residence or citizenship. The Biden administration created the parole program as an alternative to entering the country illegally.
In July, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security suspended the program over allegations of mass fraud, with concern that a small number of sponsors were applying to bring in large groups of migrants. The program was resumed in August, after the government took measures to more thoroughly vet sponsors.
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