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**NOVEMBER 29, 2023**
On the Prospect website
Hard Times in the Back Yard
Bailed-out major airlines have outsourced ground work to subcontractors.
Injuries and fatalities on the tarmac are taking off. BY LEE HARRIS
The Curious Partner in Big Banks' Drive to Weaken Capital Rules
Why are civil rights groups and Black mayors concerned with the profits
of giant financial institutions? BY DAVID DAYEN
The Medicare Advantage Trap
In 46 states, once you choose Medicare Advantage at 65, you can almost
never leave. BY MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM-COOK
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Borderline Inanity
The immigration mess is not likely to be solved by a bipartisan deal.
The United States faces a genuine immigration crisis, procedural,
political, and humanitarian.
House Speaker Mike Johnson's efforts to hold $106 billion in vital aid
for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan hostage for a bipartisan deal on
immigration restrictions has created a sense of urgency. But any such
deal is politically unlikely. Worse, the deals under discussion would
not solve the deeper problem.
The current system, carrying out U.S. treaty obligations that the U.S.
and other nations agreed to after the shame of the Holocaust, requires
the U.S. to provisionally admit refugees with a well-founded fear of
persecution in their home countries, while their claims are adjudicated.
Even Donald Trump was not able to overturn this basic requirement.
The practical problem is that in recent years, the system has been
overwhelmed by refugees fleeing violence in Central America. Neither the
Border Patrol nor immigration judges can keep up with the massive flow.
COVID restrictions on public-health grounds temporarily reduced the
numbers, but since May 2022, 1.85 million migrants have been allowed to
enter the U.S.
to await court dates to determine whether they could remain as refugees.
But the court system is so backlogged that 1.77 million were simply
released into the U.S., presumably to return to court when their case is
called.
Most found their way to cities to seek jobs. Many are homeless. An
estimated 200,000 are in New York City alone. This has created a
first-class crisis for the nation's big-city mayors, most of whom are
Democrats, and an opportunity for Republicans to cynically embarrass
both the Biden administration and mayors of liberal cities.
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Currently, a bipartisan group of senators led by Chris Murphy (D-CT) and
James Lankford (R-OK) are working on legislation that would narrow the
"credible fear" standard. But that doesn't solve the problem of the
large number of refugees temporarily paroled into the country pending
adjudication of their cases.
The Biden administration is caught between Senate Democrats up for
re-election, many of whom want a much more restrictive immigration
policy across the board, and those who support more liberal standards
based on humanitarian concerns. A group of 11 Democratic senators led by
California's Alex Padilla has put out a statement decrying "harmful
changes to our asylum system that will potentially deny lifesaving
humanitarian protection for vulnerable people, including children, and
fail to deliver any meaningful improvement to the situation at the
border."
Even if the Senate should reach agreement, House Republicans would be
unlikely to support it. Many are holding out for the more draconian
provisions of H.R. 2
,
the Secure the Border Act, which would increase detentions and restrict
legal immigration, in a fashion that Democrats would never accept.
In all likelihood, the military aid bill will eventually pass. But the
linkage to immigration restrictions is all but dead.
The sensible formula of comprehensive immigration reform
,
combining a path to citizenship with better border measures and tougher
sanctions against employers who hire people without proper documents,
will await the return of genuine bipartisanship. It could be a long time
coming.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter
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