The restrictive pandemic-based immigration rule known as Title 42 is about to expire. Its expiration is expected to generate a flood of undocumented immigrants crossing the border. The Biden Administration is aware of this impending event but has not prepared for it.
The Biden Administration has not prepared because the Biden Administration has no immigration policy on which to base specific decisions. But no credit should redound to the benefit of Republicans because, other than barring almost all non- Europeans, Republicans have no immigration policy either.
Neither party pursues a policy because policies are designed to address problems systematically, and to at least attempt to ameliorate them. Immigration generates policy issues of employment, education, and housing. Both parties seem interested instead in merely and cynically weaponizing the immigration issue as a tool of partisan combat.
Nativist Republicans appear to want to bar as many non-Europeans as possible, while Democrats appear mysteriously to believe that every non European added to the rolls will vote a straight Democratic ticket.
Immigration policy constitutes a key component of how a nation defines itself. Instead of an instrumental tool or weapon we need desperately an immigration policy that will help define us as “the last, best hope of mankind." I am Bob Evans, and that is my perspective.
