U.S. Immigration Crisis: The Big Picture

Ahead of the 2024 election, immigration has crawled to the forefront of the national political debate. Recent data shows that illegal immigration reached 2.2 million in 2022, the highest it has been in 100 years, a significant rise from the 400,000 seen in the last year of former President Trump’s term. Despite these steep numbers, the migrant crisis is more complex and thus deserves a more thorough analysis, as federal and state governments face the pressure arising from an immense number of immigrants and resulting concerns from citizens. Seemingly, the divide between the Democratic and Republican parties intensifies with each side proposing distinct solutions.

The Southern Border

The surge in illegal immigration has raised concerns regarding efficient border patrol, overcrowded detention centers, and immigration court backlogs. According to the Brookings Institute, hiring border patrol agents takes hundreds of days due to the strict vetting process, causing the management of the surge to become increasingly difficult. In October 2021, there were 71,929 encounters at the southern border; by October 2023, this figure had tripled to 240,942. In just two months, it had quadrupled to 301,983. The surge has also caused immigration court backlogs to rise to over 3.3 million cases by early 2024, with only approximately 700 judges available to process them.

In June 2024, Biden signed an executive order that would shut down the border once requests for asylum reached an average high of 2,500. Illegal immigration did decrease due to this, but “apprehensions exceeded 1.3 million during the first nine months of the 2024 fiscal year," which put political pressure on Biden and his administration.

Part of this pressure arose from resultant public concerns over safety. In March 2024, the murder of a University of Georgia student named Laken Riley was linked to a Venezuelan migrant allegedly in the U.S. illegally. Another case involved Rachel Morin, whose suspected killer entered the U.S. illegally in 2023, fleeing a murder warrant in El Salvador.​​

Many posit that Biden’s reversal of Trump-era policies allowed the people who killed women like Riley and Morin to be released into the country. In an October interview with Fox News, Vice President Kamala Harris was questioned on her work as “border czar” and the Biden administration’s immigration policy. Harris admitted that the cases were indeed "tragic,” but insinuated that had a border security bill proposed in Congress nine months earlier not been blocked by Republicans, “it would have been nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks working around the clock trying to hold it all together to ensure that no future harm would occur."

Citizens & The State

The migrant crisis also has negative implications for city and state governments, causing financial strife for large states like Texas and New York. In August 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order that aims to hold the Biden-Harris administration accountable for its open border policies. Abbott claimed that “Texas has had to foot the bill for medical costs for individuals illegally in the state” and will seek reimbursement from the federal government. The executive order requires the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to collect and report incurred healthcare costs for illegal immigrants in the state. Texas has also spent about $148 million dollars in an initiative that buses migrants to other states like D.C., New York, and Chicago. According to Governor Abbott, it aims to prevent the state from “shoulder[ing] the burdens imposed by open-border advocates in other parts of the country.” Asylum advocates argue that it provides free, quick, and safe transportation for newly arrived individuals from the southern border to bigger cities. However, critics of the initiative deem it to be inconsiderate of these cities’ resources as immigration numbers have risen uncontrollably. 

Tens of thousands of migrants from the southern border have made their way to NYC under the first three years of Biden’s presidency. These individuals have sought shelter in the city, which it is legally required to provide, resulting in accommodations having to be made in hotels and office buildings, for example. “Sanctuary states” like New York and Illinois have policies that guarantee refuge for immigrants but the overabundance of immigration is putting a major strain on financial resources. The city’s mayor, Democrat Eric Adams, has declared a state of emergency, demanding more federal funds to relieve the resource-exhausted city. Adams deems it a humanitarian crisis that will cost the city billions of dollars in the next few years. In a speech from City Hall, Adams said, “If we don’t get the support we need, New Yorkers could be left with a $12 billion bill.” Even with President Biden’s 2024 quota-based border shutdown executive order, “​​the city continued to shelter nearly 64,000 migrants as of early August, creating quality-of-life concerns in some neighborhoods with migrant shelters.” 

According to the New York Times, the overflow of immigrants into these cities has led to many of these individuals having to sleep on sidewalks outside facilities being used to shelter already large numbers. New York City has had to turn to emergency shelter options like public school gyms and the parking lot of a psychiatric hospital, noting that Mayor Adams even considered sheltering migrants on cruise ships. However, reports that immigrants are being housed in hotels free of charge, receiving generous financial welfare from the government, and engaging in dangerous activity, for example, have caused some outrage among citizens. Pushback from NY residents has led to dangerous altercations, in one instance resulting in the death of three migrants in two August shootings. 

Partisan Policy Approaches

While Trump’s immigration policies are criticized for their uncompassionate stance toward asylum seekers, conservatives argue that his approach protected American jobs, targeted criminals attempting to enter the U.S., and reduced welfare misuse, whereas Biden’s more lenient, compassionate policies have raised concerns about public safety and potential welfare system abuses.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, former President Trump invoked Title 42, which allowed U.S. authorities to expel migrants at the border, even those seeking asylum.  He also ended the longstanding “catch and release” practice, which allowed illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. pending future hearings regarding their immigration status. Instead, Trump entered agreements with countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (which accounted for 72% of migrants arriving in the U.S. in 2019) to ensure that illegal immigrants were securely returned to their country of origin pending their immigration hearing. For example, in January 2019, Trump implemented a policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, that saw about 70,000 people return to Mexico to wait for their U.S. immigration hearings. 

When Biden entered office in 2021, his administration sought to reverse Trump’s immigration policies. For example, Biden paused the construction and funding of the border, one of Trump’s most controversial solutions to controlling immigration. Biden also undermined Trump’s MPP policy as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allowed thousands of migrants to re-enter the U.S. and await their hearing. He also terminated the agreement Trump had established with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, citing his new priorities “to address the root causes of migration, protect refugees, and maintain a collaborative relationship with regional partners.” Looking toward the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Harris emphasizes that her presidency “will not be a continuation of Biden’s presidency.” Harris publicly agrees that unauthorized border crossings are illegal. She emphasizes that by signing into law the border security bill that failed to pass in 2024, she wants to “create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border,” as she stated at the Democratic National Convention in August.

The Path Forward

U.S. citizens, the government, and immigrants all bear the consequences of the staggering immigration issue, but the country is divided on the right response. 69% of Democrats and 43% of Republicans say that creating more opportunities for individuals to legally immigrate would improve the border situation. Meanwhile, 77% of Republicans say that increasing deportations of illegal immigrants would improve the situation at the border, while only 30% of Democrats agree. There is hardly a consensus on the best approach to the immigration problem. A solution that considers both sides of the political spectrum will allow for a compromise between competing Democrats and Republicans in Congress and hopefully, a resolve to the anomaly that immigration has become.