Joe Biden announced strict new rules today for asylum seekers who enter the country illegally:
Under the new rules, the US would generally deny asylum to migrants who show up at the US southern border without first seeking protection in a country they passed through....Exceptions will be made for people with an “acute medical emergency”, “imminent and extreme threat” of violent crimes such as murder, rape or kidnapping, being a victim of human trafficking or “other extremely compelling circumstances”. Children traveling alone will also be exempted, according to the rule.
Alternatively, asylum seekers can notify border authorities through a mobile app of their plans to seek asylum and then show up at a legal port of entry.
With that in mind, here are a few basic facts and figures about asylum in the US. First off, here are the number of new asylum seekers per year:
Next, here are the countries that are the top sources of asylum seekers:
Finally, here are homicide rates over time in these countries. This is a rough proxy for how violent the country is:
If these numbers are to be believed—and that's always an iffy proposition—the homicide rate has been steadily decreasing in most of these countries at the same time that asylum applications have skyrocketed.
Isn't the core problem - the choke point, if you will - the almost total dysfunction of the system for processing asylum claims? The result is that ever greater numbers of notional asylum-seekers pour into the country ostensibly to have their claims expeditiously dealt with but in fact to live in limbo for years and years.
I expect that a considerable majority of the people who cross the border are not entitled to asylum. The government should cut through the bureaucratic gridlock and devote whatever resources are necessary to handling claims to finality within months of them being lodged. Once the people-smugglers' potential customers understand there is little chance of them being allowed to stay in America for more than a few months, the number of people willing to try their luck might diminish.
I agree this is a huge problem. 99% of these people don't have legally recognizable asylum claims and are going to be stuck here for *years* before any of it gets adjudicated. Then what do you do? By then they have a new life, family, kids who are US citizens, etc. and deporting them becomes an ethical as well as legal mess.
If immigration weren't so politicized right now, we could have a reasonable conversation about the need to expand opportunities for legal immigration for people who might not be threatened as political dissidents or whatever, but are just fleeing the socio-economic clusterfucks in their home countries and seeking a better life. Right now, some poor peasant sharecropper from Honduras has no real way to legally immigrate to the US.
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"Once the people-smugglers' potential customers understand there is little chance of them being allowed to stay in America for more than a few months, the number of people willing to try their luck might diminish."
You cannot possibly be serious can you?
Is the threat of murder the primary cause of displacement and asylum requests?
Not my area of specialty.....but medical care, food, gangs, disasters, changes in govt all seem like critical factors that might not be tightly correlated with homicide rates. Homocide probably cant explain the large change in 2021 and likely explains little of the overall story.
Yes, this. It is not a 1:1 comparison. While threats to life or being in danger of being killed or imprisoned for non-criminal reasons (i.e., political prisoners) are prime reasons for seeking asylum, murder itself isn't one of those.
Just a quick google for the causes for the Venezuelan refugee/asylee crisis points to 2015 as being when the "main phase" of it started.
I'd like to point out that 2014 is an extremely terrible point in time to choose for the murder rate. Here's Venezuela's murder rate since 1998: it peaked in 2014. Big peak, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1998_to_2018_Venezuela_Murder_Rate.png
"the homicide rate has been steadily decreasing in most of these countries at the same time that asylum applications have skyrocketed"
Kevin is letting his Inner Tucker out to play for a little while.
It's cell service, folks. It has spread to Central and South America, and though many folks who are desperate to come probably didn't have a phone themselves in their Country of Origin, they saw what it's like here in America on other peoples', looked around and said "I am OUTTA HERE!"
Well, technically, "¡Ay-yi-yi! ¡Me voy de aqui!"
Those charts aren't really adequate enough to say that though, are they?
None of the countries listed in the homicide rates chart extends up until 2022. Of the four that include homicide data up to 2020, two look like they're increasing (Brazil, Ecuador). Venezuela, the top current source of asylum seekers, only has homicide data going up to 2017, and its four up-and-down data points are hardly enough to determine a trend, and most definitely not for five years into the future.
Murder rates are a terrible proxy for political oppression.
Agreed. Some of the safest countries in the world in terms of risk of being murdered by another person* also have extreme political/religious/ethnic/etc oppression.
*I doubt any country lists “murdered by the state” in their homicide stats.
OK, let me do this again...
Let it first be noted that I have done immigration law on a spec basis, and there is no greater feeling in the world than winning the Asylum case for a family or green cards for people, but conversely there's nothing worse than losing these cases also. Especially for young adults that have to be sent back to their home country and very adverse consequences. To me, this felt like losing a death sentence case.
Be that as it may, there will be no comprehensive immigration reform until the 400,000 backlog of cases are resolved. Therefore please note that the solution is really quite easy. This is not rocket science:
1. 25 double wide trailers made into courtrooms and strategically placed along the border, ie San Yisdro, Otay Mesa, El Paso, etc
2. 25 immigration judges, 25 bailiffs, 25 court clerks and supporting staff. These are easily within the capability of the United States of America. To say that we can't buy 25 double wides and staff them is absurd.
3. 20 cases per courtroom per day, five days a week, that would be 1000 cases per location per week times 5 locations will be 2500 cases per week across the system, 10,000 per month and just move these through.
Employers will be screaming for their workers, and the humanitarian toll will be significant but the problem as currently perceived by the American population will have been solved and therefore force a real solution.
The fact that this would be so easy to do, just goes to show how Terrified people are of any real solution,
Best Wishes, Traveller
Could it be that many of the folks are really economic migrants.
For example, GDP per capita in Venezuela ~ $5,000, Honduras ~ $3,000, El Salvador ~ $4,500 and in contrast the US ~ $70,000. Note, I used PPP figures (adjusted for cost of living in each country).
Even if there was no crime challenge, one materially (14 X) raises their potential economic situation by coming to the US. Yes, I know I used averages and not everyone achieves the average.
I have been interested in the logistics of the folks coming north. Someone or some org must be aiding these folks. Is it all just folks acting on a whim and hoofing it north? They have to have food, water, shelter, medical care and transportation. Is that all provided out of pocket?
I have a bit of sympathy for the folks looking north and saying I'M OUTTA HERE!!!
There are plenty of enterprising people who transport the migrants. They can pay a few pesos for a trip by bus, van or truck up from Central America, and they can carry enough food for a few days.
Can you chart remittances to these countries over the same time frame?
Unfortunately, no data for Cuba and Venezuela. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/remittances_percent_gdp/#:~:text=Remittances%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP%2C%202021%20%2D%20Country%20rankings%3A&text=The%20highest%20value%20was%20in,available%20from%201970%20to%202021.
Thanks!