The U.S. Migrant Issue. Record Number Yet Unmoving.

Posted on Facebook, Oct 2022. Pasckie Pascua. 

THE NEWS. “New York Faces Record Homelessness as Mayor Declares Migrant Emergency.” / “In Record Numbers, Venezuelans Risk a Deadly Trek to Reach the U.S. Border.” 

New York City Mayor sends SOS for state and federal aid as the number of people in city shelters topped 61,000. And the migrant trek seems endless on Bidentime.

       New York Times adds: “Two crises are converging at the perilous land bridge known as the Darién Gap: the economic and humanitarian disaster underway in South America, and the bitter fight over immigration policy in Washington.”

       That is the main issue: Clashing immigration policy. And as a common fix is in discourse, relative laxity pervades on the borders. That’s despite after President Biden set the admission cap at 125,000 last year to keep pace with the 2023 budget. Middle of last year, the U.S. Border Patrol reported nearly 200,000 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, the highest monthly total in more than two decades.

       And the record number of arrivals keeps on. I lost track of the figures since another all-time high stat was again registered about a month ago. 

FUNDING refugees has evolved into a fiscal management bottleneck than a quixotic humanitarian aid. The Office of Refugee Resettlement provides resources for refugees, asylum seekers, and other new arrivals to the U.S. to assist with their integration into their new community.

       In Fiscal Year 2019, Refugee and Resettlement Assistance comprised a discretionary budget of $1.905 billion. Under FY 2022 funding, each refugee is provided $1,225 per capita grant. From the date of granted asylum, asylees may receive up to 12 months of aid to help meet their most basic needs, such as food, shelter, and transportation. Other sources give a higher number. Children or Unaccompanied Alien Children receive a much higher grant.

       Since FY 2008 there has been a seventeen-fold rise in the numbers of border apprehensions who are unaccompanied children. With rising overall apprehensions, this represents a striking eight-fold increase just between FY 2008 and FY 2019 in the proportion of all apprehensions who are unaccompanied children. There has also been a striking five-fold rise in all children when both unaccompanied and accompanied children are considered.

       Of course, that is expected. Until the U.S. government rework its immigration policy and corresponding relations with Latin American governments, this trend is expected to carry on. But first, legislature needs to set aside party narcissism and arrive to a common agenda.