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Republicans wont pass aid to Ukraine without a so-called border deal, and although Democrats dont agree on how to do it, they have already agreed with the Republicans restrictionist goal to let fewer people into America. But nearly everything that politicians now use to justify immigration restriction can be traced to the restrictionist policies already in force.

In other words, immigration restrictionists create the problems and then demand ever more restrictions to fix them. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The main problem they assert is simply that people keep entering the country illegally. An inquisitive person might ask: Why dont they come legally?

The answer is quite simple: Legal immigration is impossible for them.

There is no path, other than requesting asylum at the border, that is available to the people who are coming up through Mexico to the United States. If ending illegal immigration was the goal, the government could simply let them come legally.

But thats not the goal. Politicians are saying that the country is overwhelmed and cant handle any more immigrants, legal or otherwise. What nonsense.

The United States has among the lowest population densities of any country in the world, and U.S. population growth in the 2020s has never been lower. America needs people to fill its nearly nine million open jobs and support its growing retiree population.

Immigrants arent the problem. The politicians are the problem.

Border communities are declaring states of emergency because they have so many immigrants sleeping on their streets. Its a real problem, but why are they sleeping on their streets? Because politicians wont let them enter legally and line up transportation in advance, so when Border Patrol unexpectedly releases them, they sleep next to bus depots waiting for the next bus out of town.

Rural border hospitals are begging Congress for bailouts. But many migrants end up needing medical care because Border Patrol intentionally uses walls to direct them to cross through deserts or across rivers where they can become dehydrated or drown. The wall has only added to the chaos with record numbers falling from the wall and severely injuring themselves.

Dont blame the immigrant risk-takersnah, theyd happily enter legally. Blame the politicians who want immigrants to have to jump walls to come.

What about the rise of migrant homelessness in cities across the United States? Surely that proves that we need restriction? Not at all. These immigrants desperately want to work to support themselves, but Biden officials are too scared to let them do so legally because then more will come.

Our political class is choosing to create a homeless crisis, which then creates the justification for more restrictions at the border.

Freeing up Border Patrol would allow it to target criminals who cross the border. But politicians are explicitly not focused on the criminals. They want to keep out those immigrants who the Border Patrol screens and releases, not those who avoid arrests.

Even if more restriction isnt needed, couldnt it fix the problems? No, it would exacerbate the crisis.

Lets review whats on the table. House Republicans want to ban asylum completely at the southwest border and to send a lot more people to Mexico. But we just lived through this exact combination of policies under Title 42 health authority and it was a disaster. More people tried to enter, and more importantly, more people tried to sneak past Border Patrol leading to record numbers of deadly chases.

With no reason to turn themselves in, record numbers tried to evade detection and enter without being screened by Border Patrolthats the opposite of increasing security.

House and Senate Republicans also insist on banning the only legal ways to enter the country for these people by restricting the presidents authority to parole them in at ports of entry. Biden is already capping his use of this authority at such a low level that illegal immigration is continuing anyway, but getting rid of it altogether would unleash a deluge of people who would have otherwise entered the right way.

When restrictionists get their way and all this chaos predictably plays out, theyll go back in their tool bag foryou guessed itmore chaos-inducing restrictions! Theres a better way. Legalize immigration.

Let people come and work legally and contribute to this great country, just as immigrants have for centuries. Thats the border plan of Americas founders. It was our tradition for most of our history.

David J. Bier is the associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

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Want to Solve the Border Crisis? Legalize Immigration. - The Daily Beast

Nationwide, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, has nearly 1.6 million pending applications for work permits, which are granted only to those with permission to be here.

Efforts to improve the slow, cumbersome process are taking shape. Massachusetts has launched what it says is a first-in-the-nation program to provide legal assistance, case management, and other services for new migrants, sending legal professionals into shelters to help people apply for permits and holding two weeklong clinics in Reading in conjunction with federal authorities. Free job training for those waiting on work authorization is also taking place, including one initiative partnering with local employers that will pay shelter residents a $325-a-week stipend during the three- to six-month program.

Similar clinics have been held in New York, Chicago, and Denver. These endeavors to solve multiple problems at once getting migrants into the workforce, out of overflowing shelters, and onto the payrolls of employers desperate to fill jobs are part of a push to address the broken immigration system.

Were doing all that we can to make up for the failings of federal immigration law, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll said during a visit to the clinic in Reading in November. People cant wait to work and weve got employers that are hungry for workers.

There are more than 228,000 open jobs in Massachusetts, many of them in health care more than twice the number of unemployed people in the state.

Federal immigration authorities said that as of Oct. 1., they accelerated the application process for migrants who use the Customs and Border Protection app or come from certain countries, including Haiti. In those cases, the median processing time has dropped from 90 to 30 days, USCIS said. The agency said it adjudicates each [employment authorization document] application fairly, humanely, and efficiently on a case-by-case basis, but did not say what accounted for otherwise long wait times.

Earlier this month, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and a coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security urging more action, including allowing migrants to apply for work authorization at the same time they request permission to enter the country, granting provisional authorization to work at the time they apply, eliminating fees, and automatically renewing their ability to stay in the US if their allotted time expires while theyre waiting for work permits.

But these changes are mostly aimed at new arrivals. Those who came earlier this year are still waiting six months to a year for their work permits, which must be continually renewed. And without authorization, migrants are in limbo; they cant enroll in most training programs or English classes geared toward getting a job.

Thelemarque, who has been waiting nearly nine months for his permit, has been staying with a cousin in Mattapan. He studies English and practices his trombone, which he played professionally in Haiti, and watches his cousins daughter. But hes frustrated he cant do more. Its very difficult for me as a young man full of strength, he said in Haitian Creole, through a translator.

Applying for work authorization which, without a pending green card or asylum, typically lasts no longer than two years is too complicated for non-English speakers to do on their own, immigration specialists say. Migrants have to fill out a seven-page form outlining their arrival details and eligibility status, and if someone forgets to check a box or accidentally selects the incorrect eligibility category, they may have to apply all over again.

They get rejected for ticky-tacky things all the time, said Jill Seeber, executive director of Mabel Center for Immigrant Justice in Boston. Theres a million ways for things to go wrong.

Applicants must find a way to Revere or Lawrence or possibly Rhode Island or New Hampshire, depending on where theyre living to have their photographs and fingerprints taken at a predetermined time. If they dont make the appointment, their application could be denied. Something as simple as changing their mailing address, not uncommon among migrants without a permanent home, could further delay the process.

For most new arrivals, the application costs $410, which can be waived by filling out yet another form, this one 11 pages long involving household income, assets, and poverty guidelines. Theres a lot of math, Seeber said. The biometric information photos and fingerprints cost an additional $85.

Migrants streamed into Massachusetts this year, many fleeing violence and poverty, escalating the states longstanding housing crisis. The influx is being felt nationwide, punctuated by migrants being involuntarily shipped north from the southern border, including two planeloads of Venezuelans who were sent to Marthas Vineyard from Texas last year.

In August, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency due to the skyrocketing shelter numbers more than 5,600 families at the time, roughly half of them migrants. In October, she announced a capacity limit of 7,500 families, which was quickly hit, causing people to be turned away for the first time. In a letter to the US secretary of homeland security, Healey cited the burdensome barriers facing migrants seeking work authorization as a primary reason for overloaded shelters.

During the clinic at a National Guard facility in Reading in late November, migrants in winter hats made their way around a cavernous room bustling with Red Cross volunteers, immigration lawyers, and translators. A National Guard member in camouflage fatigues blew bubbles for a toddler pushing a folding chair along the floor.

In addition to serving as a one-stop shop for applying for work permits free of charge, including biometrics, the clinic offered vaccinations, child care voucher applications, registration for the MassHire employment center system, and drivers license information.

Most of the 2,000 migrants bused to the clinics from around the state were Haitian, including a couple who appeared to have been duped by a notario who showed up at their shelter at a Residence Inn in Worcester. Notarios, based on the term for legal professionals in Latin America, charge migrants for providing services they arent qualified to perform. The couple, there with their 3-year-old son, thought their work authorization was in process, but clinic volunteers determined it had been done improperly and helped them refile.

Several migrants at the clinic may have been defrauded in this way, based on the number of rejected permits from the same shelter, said Susan Church, chief operating officer of the states Office for Refugees and Immigrants.

This is a monumental change, the role that the state is playing, said Church, who has been an immigration lawyer for more than 25 years.

Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint, executive director of the nonprofit True Alliance Center in Mattapan, has never seen such an intense need in his two decades helping Haitian migrants. Following the Reading clinics, he said, he knew of at least several dozen people who got their work permits within a few weeks.

Those people are assets to the government, not liabilities, he said.

One migrant hes assisting has been caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare trying to get her work permit. Claire Petion first applied for temporary protected status, or TPS, and a work permit in August of 2021, and finally got both more than one year later. But her Social Security number wasnt issued, forcing her to apply for that separately in order to work legally. While she was waiting, her TPS and work permit expired, so she applied again. Her Social Security card finally arrived a few months ago, but her new TPS and work authorizations have not.

A former straight-A student, Petion, 21, lives with an aunt in Randolph. She wants to apply for jobs and health care training, and was accepted to several colleges, but cant attend because of her paperwork problems.

When she called up her case on the USCIS app, there were no red flags: Last update: 264 days ago, it read. When she dialed the automated number (which some immigration attorneys derisively call 1-800-USELESS) and tried to connect with a person, the recording said: If you continue to ask for an agent, I will need to disconnect the call.

And then it did.

Katie Johnston can be reached at katie.johnston@globe.com. Follow her @ktkjohnston.

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Migrant crisis: Work permit waits leave some in limbo - The Boston Globe

The village of Fox River Grove found itself as the latest suburban community affected by the migrant crisis on Saturday, as a bus driver dropped off more than 30 migrants, who thought they had reached Chicago.

In a Facebook post, the village said 38 migrants from Texas arrived at the Metra station along Northwest Highway in the early morning hours, and disembarked their bus after being told they had arrived in Chicago. In actuality, they were more than 45 miles from downtown.

Village police officers responded to the station and provided the migrants access to a warming shelter. By 7 a.m., arrangements had been made for the group to obtain Metra tickets and continue to Chicago, the village said.

"FRG is not the only collar county municipality grappling with such situations," the Facebook post read, in part. "Several other communities have encountered similar challenges, highlighting the need for a coordinated regional approach to ensure the safety and well-being of migrants and residents alike."

Another busload of approximately 40 migrants arrived in suburban Westmont on Saturday. As was the case in River Grove, the migrants were dropped off at a Metra station, where they took a train to downtown Chicago.

The drop-offs mirror similarsuburban drop-offs this weekin Aurora, Manhattan and Elburn, where migrants were told to board trains to Chicago after being dropped off.

In the instance in Manhattan, they learned that there were no more Chicago-bound trains for the evening and headed to a station in Joliet to board a train to the city.

One drop-off in Kankakee took officials by surprise, when abus driver told migrants they had arrived in Chicagowhen arriving at a gas station in the rural city over 60 miles south of the Loop.

Some migrants who traveled on the bus began to walk on the expressway covered in blankets, with officials in Kankakee County arranging for a local bus company to transport the migrants to Midway International Airport.

Police are still trying to identify those responsible for abandoning the group at the gas station.

The sheriff's office said it filed an emergency declaration with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency "due to concerns about potential future incidents," saying the department has "limited resources available to accommodate such situations, comparable to the assistance provided in Chicago."

The increase in suburban drop-offs comes as buses try to circumvent policies recently implemented by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson that aim to crack down on buses arriving outside of designated arrival times.

Meanwhile, in suburban Aurora on Friday, the City Council passed an ordinance that calls for drivers and bus companies to notify the appropriate agency at least five days prior to a bus's arrival. Those who don't comply could be subjected to fines of up to $1,000 per passenger.

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Bus drops off asylum-seekers in Fox River Grove; migrants were told they had arrived in Chicago - NBC Chicago

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday complained that he has been unable to obtain a meeting with President Joe Biden amid the surge in migrants his city is experiencing.

During a press conference, the mayor said he has not met with Biden since 2022.

"It baffles me. You know, New York City is the economic engine of the state and the country," Adams said. "I am really pleased that we are now getting a chorus of other cities that are joining us, who are now part of our coalition."

Adams has traveled to Washington, D.C., several times to meet with members of the Biden administration about the surge in migrants. His request for supplemental funding to aid the city in processing migrants was joined by other Democratic mayors in November, including Los Angeles' Karen Bass and Chicago's Brandon Johnson.

Adams has predicted that the cost of providing housing and services to New York City's migrant population, which includes roughly 126,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since last spring, could cost the city more than $12 billion in the next three years.

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NYC Mayor Adams Says He Can't Get Meeting With Biden Amid Migrant Crisis: 'It Baffles Me' - The Messenger

Above: A Border Patrol agent arrives to take custody of a group of immigrants from Texas Border Volunteers.

When Governor Greg Abbott first started bussing migrants to liberal strongholds around the country in 2022, Democratic leaders shot back, calling his political stunt racist and inhumane. New York City Mayor Eric Adams wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: Greg Abbott used innocent people as political pawns to manufacture a crisis. New Yorkers are stepping up to fix it thats our citys values.

But in the past few months, Adams and some other Democratic leaders have sounded more like Abbott and other Republican leaders. In September, Adams said during a town hall meeting, [The migrant crisis] will destroy New York City, and after that traveled to Mexico to personally dissuade migrants from coming to the United States. Now, President Joe Biden, who had campaigned in 2020 to reverse Trumps anti-immigrant policies, is expanding Trumps border wall and embracing other Trump policies, including the expedited removal of migrants at the border without a hearing, making it harder for migrants to get asylum, making permanent pandemic-era border restrictions, and mandating detention for immigrants waiting for a court date.

As leaders from both sides of the aisle converge on policies and rhetoric around the migrant crisis, fueling divisions in communities, we spoke with organizers from immigrant workers centers in both El Paso and New York City who are challenging these narratives to unite workers in their communities. Carlos Marentes is the founder and director of the El Paso organization Border Agricultural Workers Project, which was formed in 1980 to address the diverse needs of farmworkers based in the city and to call for equal rights for them to organize. Joann Lum is the director of the New York City Workers Center National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, which has organized workers across various trades since 1995.

Texas Observer: What does it look like on the El Paso border and New York City with the migrant influx from Abbotts busing scheme?

Carlos Marentes: In the border region, we are experiencing a state of war. We have all these military deployments along the border, state troopers, the National Guard, and all these military officers. We have what the governor of Texas calls Operation Lonestar, which is the military strategy to deal with mass immigration. Although the focus of the plan is to prevent more migrants from crossing into the United States, it is affecting poor people, older people. So, here, we also see an increase in human rights violations against the locals in the border community. Day and night, we have all this military build-up in a poor community on the border, where we lack the essential elements of life. We still have colonias [colonies] in Texas, where there are no public services, water, drainage, or anything. But then we can build walls and deploy an army pointed towards Mexico, ready to contain migrants.

Joann Lum: There have been more than 100,000 [new migrants] in New York City in the last year. Many of our members ask, Hey, what about us? Whether theyre undocumented Mexican workers, restaurant workers, or permanent residents, they all have said similar things. Our mayor has helped to fuel that by announcing that this migrant crisis is going to destroy the city and that in the next three years, we will probably spend $12 billion on this migrant crisis.

Our mayor has helped to fuel that by announcing that this migrant crisis is going to destroy the city.

TO: Traditionally, Republicans or conservatives will say we need to deport migrants, that theyre taking our resources, theyre hurting citizens. On the other hand, Democrats say no, we need more migrants here to build the workforce to resolve the labor shortage. Now, we hear some of their rhetoric starting to converge.

Lum: I think they are two sides of the same coin. So the Republicans and conservatives are jumping up and down saying, We got to stop the migrants from coming in. Theyre criminals; theyre bad; theyre going to take away jobs. Our people are suffering; we gotta protect our communities. But then, at the same time, they dont care about our communities. They dont provide services and programs and make sure jobs are good. And then, on the other side, the Democrats say, No, no; we like immigrants. They contribute a lot; lets help them get work permits, asylum, and things like that to channel them into cheap labor jobs. So, people are resentful here. And its diverting a lot of attention to blame the migrants and taking away attention from the ruling class who are benefiting from all this.

TO: You mentioned that the current immigration policies are not just an attack on migrants but on the working poor. Can you explain how you see this in El Paso and New York City?

Marentes: This concept of the crisis of migration is that most of the problems we face in America today are to be blamed on immigrants coming to this country. They [politicians] argue that migrants are draining public resources, but then we have this crazy spending on defense. In the current debate about the so-called debt ceiling, made by both Republicans and the Democrats, the need to make cuts, especially to programs directed to children and women, is nothing new. The Reaganomics of the 1980s was when the government started cutting social spending. It has been going on for years through Clintons welfare reform. Social spending is so insignificant in this country that politicians have to find the cause somewhere else; now, its the migrants to blame. But our crisis was not created by immigrants but by the continuous cuts to social spending to fuel the military-industrial complex of this nation.

Lum: Right now, we see a lot of restaurant workers and other service workers who do not get even minimum wage or overtime. Most are immigrants. But then, in the homecare industry, we see workers forced to work 24 hours a day for several days but are only paid for 13 hours. This includes immigrant and citizen workers who are members of the big union 1199 SEIU. So everybodys saying theres a shortage of workers in the restaurant industry and in-home care, but its because people dont want to work 24 hours a day, destroy their health, and never be able to see their families. So, employers are hoping for new migrants to address this shortage. But really, theres no shortage. There are a lot of jobs that have become bad jobs because labor laws are not enforced.

TO: Weve discussed the pull factor: employers seek more immigrant labor to super-exploit. But what about the push factor pushing migrants to emigrate from their home countries?

Marentes: Citizens in the United States are concerned about the so-called crisis of migration, but few people ask why these people come into this country; moreover, who is responsible for the displacement of these human beings? Because nobody leaves their family homeland without a reason. In 2009, a lot of the immigrants coming here were from Honduras. In July 2009, the American Embassy in Tegucigalpa organized a military coup in Honduras. At the time, the secretary of state was Hillary Clinton, and the vice president was Biden. That military coup in Honduras increased the violence against the poor people, especially in the rural areas of Honduras. Families from Honduras attempting to get into the United States were trying to escape the violence and the deaths.

Lum: Many migrants coming to New York City now are from Venezuela and Cuba. The U.S. has attempted to control these socialist countries and has put sanctions on the country, messing with its economy. So, the people in Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries cannot afford to support their families there. And so they have to look elsewhere. Thats why we see so many coming from these particular countries.

Marentes: We have a particular responsibility for this massive exodus of these dispossessed people. It is our foreign policy that has created an immigration system that is not working for anybodynot for the immigrants or the local workers themselves.

TO: What is the solution?

There are 12 million migrants in this country who have lived there for many years, whose children were born and educated, and who are part of our communities. We also need to understand the implications of certain measures under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. One is employer sanctions because employer sanctions doesnt punish employers for hiring undocumented workers. It is used to lower everybodys wages, all working people. We also have a system of temporary permits for immigrants that will only work against the interests of working people in general because most of the quick work programs are used to weaken the organization of migrant workers in this country. We need to think about an actual legalization program that brings out of the shadows the 12 million undocumented people who are already here.

The main goal of our current immigration system is to divide working people, to pit us against each other.

Lum: I agree with Carlos that we must repeal the employers sanctions provision and give equal rights to immigrant workers so all workers can organize together. There should be some system of adjustment of status for everyone after several years. We need to acknowledge that our economy is built on the super-exploitation of people so working people need to find a way to come together and organize.

Marentes: I think the main goal of our current immigration system is to divide working people, to pit us against each other. That way, wealth accumulation in the top 1 percent will continue while services to meet our basic needs decrease. As long as we are divided, as long as we are unable to create a political force to confront all these forms of oppression affecting people in the United States, it is going to be very complicated to make changes. So, we need to intensify our organizing efforts. At the end of the day, workers, whether they are undocumented or not, whether they were born in Massachusetts or were born in Tegucigalpa, are the ones here in America who create the wealth in this country.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Working Class Perspectives on the 'Migrant Crisis' - The Texas Observer