Immigration

There is another crush of immigrants on the Texas-Mexico border. We’ve seen it before, last year, the year before and going back to 1910 when as many as 1 million Mexicans crossed the border into the United States to escape the Mexican Civil War.

We hear partisan wailing about the millions of immigrants apprehended at the southern border without acknowledging or comparing it to the 1.8 million entries in 2000.

Border communities have borne, and continue to bear, the greatest burden of migration from Mexico — physically, economically, psychologically and reputationally.

Policies implemented over the past quarter-century by Republicans and Democrats, presidents and governors have been ineffective.

Since the most recent major immigration reform in 1986, the undocumented population of the U.S. has nearly quadrupled from an estimated 3 million to 11.5 million people in 2022. In that same period, Border Patrol funding increased from $164 million to $6.2 billion, while staffing increased from 3,638 to 21,460 and the border fence grew from dozens of miles to hundreds.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott deployed the Texas National Guard, added buoys with plates that resemble circular blades in the Rio Grande River and installed miles of razor wire on the river’s banks.

Yet immigrants still come, as they have for more than a century. Clearly, the surge in border enforcement has had little effect in reducing unauthorized immigration to the U.S., most likely because each new round of immigration policies failed to consider long-standing economic and social realities.

With a new “crisis” on our doorstep, what should our leaders do? First, Congress should avoid being caught in the trap of “security first.” An exclusive focus on immigration enforcement, as demonstrated by results over the past several decades, will not result in a well-managed border. The Texas Border Coalition has advocated for years that the most important factors for improving overall border management are to adopt immigration reforms that would provide legal avenues for workers to enter the United States when needed, allowing border officials to focus more resources on criminal and terrorist threats.

In considering how we manage the border, we must be mindful of our relationship with Mexico, which is the top U.S. trading partner, with bilateral trade totaling $263 billion in the first four months of this year, accounting for more than 15% of total U.S. trade.

To improve border management, it’s essential that Congress break the impasse that prevents legislative action. The Texas Border Coalition has backed comprehensive measures in the past and supports the bipartisan Dignity Act that combines immigration and border management provisions, beginning with initiatives that already enjoy broad bipartisan and public support.

Immigration reform would also unclog the ports of entry, helping facilitate legitimate trade and travel, and restore the integration of commerce and culture in border communities.

We should not respond with the same old partisan finger-pointing. Instead, Congress and President Joe Biden should roll up their sleeves and reform our broken immigration laws, which are the key to securing the future of the southwest border and border communities.

—David Stout is an El Paso County commissioner. He is the chairman of the Texas Border Coalition.