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Karen Tumulty: The asylum system that we have in this country was built in the wake of World War II, to deal with people who were refugees. Even with Biden saying he’s tightening up the border, we don’t really have the resources to even deport the number of people they are talking about. León, what needs to be fixed here?
León Krauze: The answer is legislation. The backlog in the U.S. immigration court system — it’s so immense, it’s absurd. The backlog has tripled since the beginning of 2017. So what needs to happen? There needs to be an increase in the number of judges.
And when you look at the bill that was in front of Congress a few months ago, there are a number of provisions that would have helped. Would it have solved the issue? Probably not. But if you look at the details, it would have added 2,700 Border Patrol agents and [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, billions in funding for border security.
But politics killed it. Yes, the left also put some distance between itself and the bill. But the Republican Party, they did it for political reasons, so that the issue could remain top of mind for voters. And they succeeded! But the decision was about politics, not public policy.
Tumulty: Jim, is that true? Do you think that in turning down the bill that was in front of them, Republicans decided they’d rather have the issue than the solution?
Jim Geraghty: Immigration was also tied in with the funding for Ukraine, for Taiwan, for Israel — a grand deal that was going to unite all these issues together. And maybe it was always a little too ambitious.
But, yes, [Donald] Trump is going to be the nominee again. How many Republicans want to cross Trump on an issue as important as immigration? Not many. And the deal — look, León is correct that the additional funding for Border Patrol, hiring more people — those are good things, important steps in the right direction.
It did not have any additional money for fencing. I think that would have been a help. And the triggers for closing down the border — those were not quite as low as I think a bunch of Republican immigration restrictionists would have liked to have seen.
But the fairest criticism of [Speaker] Mike Johnson and other Republicans back then was that they looked at the deal put together by Sen. James Lankford from Oklahoma, and they turned their noses up at it. They didn’t make a counteroffer.
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