America’s challenge to fix its democracy starts with immigration

The current situation is the result of decades of accumulation of shortcomings in the undertaking of a comprehensive overhaul of the American immigration system. Instead, the policies advanced by the Trump administration brought along continuous chaos to the immigration services, hamstrung by decisions put in place to curtail not only illegal crossings at the border, but also, to drastically limit legal immigration with a goal to reduce it by 63%.

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The harrowing images coming out of the Hamid Karzai International airport during the past two weeks have been testing our capacity to admit yet another humanitarian crisis in the making. Thousands of mostly Afghan refugees rushing desperately to leave the country, in one of the “largest, most difficult airlifts in history”, as President Biden described it, provoked outrage among experts and pundits across the media. Following the harsh criticism of the first few days of the evacuation, in a rare moment of bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats, demanded the Biden administration ramp up the number of evacuees, adding to the crisis, the dissatisfaction around the delay in processing thousands of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV).

This grievance came as a surprise, especially from lawmakers, given the efforts that were being made, not only in the Biden administration, but in Congress itself, to remedy the years long backlog of close to 18,000 Special Immigrant Visa applications that take an average of two years to get processed. There was an additional 8,000 visas Congress overwhelmingly approved (with 16 Republicans voting against the bill), along with funding for the resettlement of Afghan allies. On the other side, the Biden administration moved to create an additional program, “Priority Two” for those that didn’t meet the criteria for the SIV. There is a limit of 26,500 SIV in total to be assigned until the expiration of the program on December 31, 2022, with approximately 15,600 being having been issued.

However, what has been missing from the news coverage and analysis these days is the failure to address the underlying circumstance of a broken immigration system that has been intentionally driven to be incapable of providing a successful response to immigration processes and demands. The current situation is the result of decades of accumulation of shortcomings in the undertaking of a comprehensive overhaul of the American immigration system. Instead, the policies advanced by the Trump administration brought along continuous chaos to the immigration services, hamstrung by decisions put in place to curtail not only illegal crossings at the border, but also, to drastically limit legal immigration with a goal to reduce it by 63%.

Amid recriminations from Republicans and Democrats for the delays in the adjudication of SIV’s, a former Trump administration official who advised Vice-president Pence on homeland security, Olivia Troye, issued a stark rebuke at those Republicans shifting the blame on the Biden administration for failing to provide support for the Afghan allies trying to leave the country, while attempting to clear Trump from any responsibility for the fallout. The recount offered by Troye confirmed what immigration advocates and agencies had been warning for the past four years. The former administration purposely sought to reduce the number of SIV’s, as part of an effort to strike down the Refugee Program, effectively reaching 80% of reduction.

This was a firmly executed policy put forward by the Trump administration, that was broadly considered to be essential by the Republican base. The efforts in closing the country to immigrants, undocumented and legal, were deployed from the beginning of the former administration. The cruelty of the child separation process under the ‘zero tolerance’ policy was followed by a succession of other legal initiatives in accordance with the America First approach, amplifying the isolationist principles that guided the Trump administration’s bid to overturn other immigration programs such as DACA and TPS, that are critical to the immigrant nature of the country.

The Trump administration went as far as to cut financial aid assigned to Central American countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) that failed to stop the surge of asylum-seekers from entering the United States, partially restoring it only after an agreement was reached with them to work toward preventing potential asylees from making the trek. In addition, the Remain in México policy established by the former administration, that was upheld by the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the Biden administration’s intent to revoke its application. The effects of the former administration’s anti-immigration policies continue to have an impact on America’s tradition as an immigrant nation, even after a new administration with a much different approach is in office.

The Republican Party’s initial disapproval of the Afghanistan withdrawal was grounded on the abandonment of the war and its allies, but is was rapidly backpedaled with the rejection of Afghan refugees coming from current and aspiring lawmakers. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since this is the same party that not only supported but demanded the consolidation of an anti-immigration agenda that was part of the former president’s electoral compromise.

The double standard of the Republican Party has been clearly exhibited during these past weeks where the warmongering has been accompanied by the smear of Afghan refugees implying safety threats, or immigrants at the Southern border being blamed for covid-19 surges. The fact that the former administration had plans to continue dismantling an already cluttered immigration system, with broad support among the Republican base, explains the anxiety, intensified by the 2020 Census results, within an already susceptible constituency confronted with the moral obligation to take care of those whose lives have been shattered by the war.

This month the country has seen two fundamentally American traits being seriously questioned by reality: the notion of war as an instrument for nation-building, and the premise of the United States as a nation of immigrants. The current conversation is undoubtedly about the end of a failed twenty-year war, and the undertaking to resettle thousands of Afghan refugees. Nevertheless, the long-term challenge is if this nation of immigrants can amend its current path and honestly become a safe place for a diverse population.