While campaigning in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley was asked about the surge of migrants at the border. “When I’m president,” said the former Republican governor of South Carolina, “we’re going to stop catch-and-release and we’re going to start catch-and-deportation.
No president since Democrat Barack Obama has put forward such a tough-sounding policy on illegal immigration. His administration deported more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants, focusing on those who had committed crimes. Illegal immigration was lower under Obama than under Donald Trump, who hides weak enforcement behind tough talk.
Obama was dumped by immigrant advocates, who called him “deporter in chief”. Latino activists occupied some of his campaign offices.
But guess what? When it came time for re-election, Latinos turned out in record numbers to support Obama. Hispanics were credited with giving him three swing states.
So much for the political power of “activists” on this – and other – issues.
Listen to Haley’s views on immigration and you hear the usual things, some wrapped in vagueness. She said that undocumented immigrants should be divided between those who work and pay taxes and “those who feed off the system”. She said: “If they’re feeding off the system, send them back.
Who can argue against sending the freeloaders back? But is she saying that people who work illegally but pay taxes should get a pass? Yes, possibly, but if so, she is proposing nothing to stop unauthorised workers from getting jobs here in the first place.
Mixed messages allowed her to tell an audience in a farming town in Iowa that she would ease the labour shortage – without being specific. Trump didn’t want to burden farmers with having to check the legal status of their workers.
Haley went after “sanctuary cities”, which is a fish in a barrel these days. That some cities wouldn’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities was reckless from the start. The current strain caused by the huge influx of asylum seekers has put an end to that kind of talk.
And there’s a lesson in all this for President Joe Biden. His policies aren’t bad. He just suffers from the Democratic disease of not taking credit for things most of the public supports.
Haley used the phrase “catch and deport” to distinguish it from “catch and release” – a reference to the masses who cross the border, get arrested and claim asylum. If they get past this low bar, it can take years for their case to be heard. Most asylum claims are eventually rejected, but in the meantime the applicants have settled in.
Trump’s famous COVID-era policy, Title 42, was effectively catch and release. It quickly turned people back at the border, but there were no consequences for trying to enter illegally. Anyone turned away could try, try again, and probably eventually succeed.
Under Biden, anyone who entered the country illegally would face a five-year ban on re-entry. That person could face deportation and possible prosecution. Biden has also stepped up enforcement at the border and now supports the construction of more border walls in high-traffic areas.
What is needed now is to modernise the asylum programme so that claims can be adjudicated quickly. The thing is, it takes two parties to fix it, and until a few weeks ago, a collapsed Republican caucus couldn’t even get its act together to elect a Speaker of the House.
Candidates must acknowledge these truths about immigration. The wave of migrants seeking a better life in rich countries is happening all over the world. The number of genuine asylum claims may also be rising. This country may need more workers, but there’s no right to cheap labour.
Truth number one is that the politics of it all are messy.
