Although the death of Jismary Alejandra Barboza González on a bus headed to Chicago from Texas remains under investigation, it sounds like the sort of avoidable tragedy that many feared could result from the toxic politics that put her family on that bus.
Little Jismary, who would have turned 4 this week, died Aug. 10 on a bus chartered as part of the political protest stunt that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched last year to send migrants crossing into Texas on to Democratic-led cities like Chicago.
An Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson confirmed the girl’s name and said the Illinois Welcoming Center, a partially state-funded program to help asylum-seekers, will pay her burial costs.
Unfortunately, the issue is so poisonously politicized that the department’s spokesperson declined to tell reporters which of the program’s 36 welcoming centers would be helping the family.
Abbott’s Operation Lone Star has sent 30,000 migrants in Texas on to such so-called sanctuary cities as Chicago, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles.
He will end his protest, he says, when President Joe Biden “secures the border.” Yet border security as a policy issue is like the old saying about Chicago weather: If you don’t like it, just wait a few minutes.
In early June, for example, the Biden administration boasted that its immigration plan is “working as intended” a month after the Department of Homeland Security replaced its public health order known as Title 42 with a combination of tough penalties for border violations and expanded legal pathways and processes for migrants to enter this country legally.
Fortunately, a feared border surge did not occur
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, and in early June the White House boasted that unlawful border crossings had plummeted by more than 70% in the weeks after the new border policy went into effect.But the administration’s joy dimmed the next month when illegal crossings jumped more than 30%, particularly in the deserts of southern Arizona despite brutal daytime temperatures of more than 110 degrees.
When it comes to asylum-seekers and border security, the contrast could hardly be greater between the alarm of southern Republicans like Abbott and the pragmatic approach of Illinois’ Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker.
While Republicans like Abbott or Florida’s Ron DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate, sound endless alarms over a “border crisis,” Illinois business owners beckon attention to the many job openings they say they haven’t been able to fill.
And though anti-immigrant forces call for moratoriums, border walls or bus rides to another state, one might never guess that a yearslong shortfall of immigrants has led to more than 10 million jobs remaining unfilled — and the shortfall has gotten worse. That’s partly because immigration was brought virtually to a halt by the Trump administration, even before the pandemic.
Business leaders, along with Pritzker, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and other political leaders, have urged the federal government to expedite matters by allowing states to sponsor work permits for new migrants and longtime workers in the country without legal permission.
It helps to remember how, back before then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made promises of a border wall his campaign rallying cry, leaders in both parties were more forthright in recognizing the value of immigrants to America’s social and economic growth, as well as the importance of a humanitarian political asylum policy in our “land of the free.”
In that spirit, this country’s asylum process allows individuals with a well-founded fear of persecution — including victims of serious human rights violation in their home countries — to seek legal protection at the U.S. border.
Those who obtain asylum are offered certain protections in the U.S., such as work authorizations and other federal benefits, along with a path to lawful permanent residence and eventually, citizenship.
A lengthy waiting period is in place because of concerns that providing access to work too quickly only encourages misuse of the asylum system by those who don’t have credible claims.
That’s why we have background checks, forensic examination of identity documents, and established government departments and personnel whose role it is to investigate and identify fraudulent or “frivolous” applications.
Unfortunately, the asylum system is too backlogged. It takes an average of four years for a case to be adjudicated. During this time, asylum-seekers are protected from deportation but otherwise lack status or access to most federal benefits — or permission to legally work for a living.
According to Title 8 of the United States Code, which governs immigration law, asylum-seekers may receive authorization to work as soon as 180 days following the filing of an asylum application. Doing away with this lengthy waiting period could encourage misuse of the system, but it needs to be improved.
Immigration policy is an issue as old as the United States and always changing, largely in response to changing social and economic times. When Americans are feeling prosperous, we tell potential immigrants, “Come on over!” When our own pockets and stomachs begin to feel empty, we say, “Stay away!”
Instead of staging stunts like Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, we should welcome law-abiding asylum-seekers and other newcomers who are ready, willing and able to demonstrate that the proverbial American dream still lives. We should welcome newcomers who will help us to keep it alive.
We don’t need to put them on a bus ride to nowhere.
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