San Diego County recently became the busiest corridor for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Now there’s a lot of renewed discussion in Washington regarding what to do about the increasing migration into the country.
Timing aside, the two developments have little connection. Regrettably, it seems once again that nothing of substance will come out of Congress unless there’s a sea change in public opinion.
What’s happening locally underscores the breadth of the problem across the border. For weeks, local and national news organizations have been reporting on the border situation at Jacumba Hot Springs in the southeastern corner of San Diego County.
Crossings have been increasing in various border regions for some time, but popular migration routes have continued to shift west from Arizona and Texas, according to Alexandra Mendoza of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The response to what often has been described as a crisis has been reduced to rhetorical maneuvering in the run-up to the November election.
In a nutshell, Democrats are getting hammered on immigration, as polls continue to show more voters say former President Donald Trump and Republicans are better able to control the flow at the border. In addition to President Joe Biden, Democrats in pivotal races, such as Rep. Mike Levin in north San Diego County, are feeling the heat.
The dynamics are such that Democrats have largely capitulated to Republican positions in a bipartisan border security bill, yet it remains moribund in the Senate. The measure would pour considerable financial and technological resources into border enforcement, while making it more difficult for migrants to gain asylum — and easier to deport them.
Not included are what have been past bedrock Democratic provisions, such as a pathway to citizenship.
The GOP appears content to sit on its hands and let Biden and Democrats stew amid public frustration over the border situation.
That has remained unchanged since February, when whatever momentum the bill had was dashed after Trump came out against it, leading potential GOP ers to walk away.
Republicans argue Democrats should back another border security bill still pending, H.R. 2. But that’s for show. The GOP House majority ed the measure with no effort to find a compromise that would get it out of the Democratic-led Senate.
Now Democrats are taking the political initiative to press Republicans for not acting on border enforcement by blocking the bipartisan bill. The move might be optimistically described as Democrats taking the offensive, when in reality it’s a hopeful attempt to staunch the political bleeding caused by the border situation.
In an ABC News poll released earlier this month, 47 percent of respondents considered Trump the better candidate to address immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, compared with 30 percent for Biden. That’s consistent with what other polls have shown for some time.
Until those numbers start trending more favorably for Biden and Democrats, Republicans aren’t likely shift their stance.
Democratic leaders are hoping to change the equation and are jousting with top Republicans over who is really trying to “fix” the border problem.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York brought the bipartisan border bill up for another vote, and it failed as expected.
“We gave Republicans a second chance to show where they stand,” Schumer said after the vote. “Do they want to fix this so-called emergency or do they want to show blind allegiance to the former president even when they know he’s wrong?”
Biden pressed Republicans earlier this week to the bill, which the GOP once demanded to get their for foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and other countries. Republicans weren’t budging.
“The solution is a president who’s willing to exercise his authority, to use the tools he already has at his disposal, and to start cleaning up this mess,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. “If Senate Democrats wanted to start fixing this crisis tomorrow, they would be urging the president to do exactly that.”
Biden has signed several immigration-related executive orders in recent months, according to The Washington Post. One imposes sanctions on people who profit from moving migrants, another moves the disqualification standard to earlier in the asylum process, and another requires the processing of recent asylum seekers ahead of those who have been in line longer.
More executive orders are anticipated.
The enforcement-only approach doesn’t sit well with many Democrats, who have been particularly opposed to tougher restrictions on asylum.
San Diego House Democrats were split over the bipartisan bill in February, with Reps. Sara Jacobs and Juan Vargas of San Diego critical of the measure, and Reps. Scott Peters of San Diego and Levin of San Juan Capistrano ive.
For months, Democratic of Congress and big-city mayors have urged Biden to take stronger action.
Levin, who faces a potentially tough challenge from Republican Matt Gunderson in the 49th District, last week sought to distance himself from the political rancor over border security, contending it was a “nonpartisan” rather than “bipartisan” matter.
His criticism had a bipartisan flavor.
“Far too many on both sides of the aisle use the issue of immigration or border security as a wedge during election years to score political points. That’s just flat wrong,” he said from the Campo Border Patrol station, not far from Jacumba Hot Springs.
He accused Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana of sabotaging the border bill. But he said Biden could do more and, along with more than a dozen other Democrats, signed a letter urging the president to take further executive action.
Given the coordinated Democratic effort, this hardly blindsided Biden. In language later mirrored by McConnell, Levin said the president “isn’t using all the tools at his disposal to better address security at the Southern border, interdict illicit fentanyl, and allow for orderly legal immigration.”
Part of the Democratic strategy is to portray Republican inaction on border security legislation as inaction against the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Last week’s trip to the border wasn’t the first for Levin, and likely won’t be his last.
Jacumba Hot Springs is more than 80 miles from the southern end of Levin’s district, but the issue of border security may well be at the heart of it this fall.
What they said
Adam Ashton (@Adam_Ashton), deputy news director at CalMatters, on X.
“(Gov.) Newsom promised 1,200 tiny homes for homeless Californians. A year later, none have opened.”
