The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
At first glance, on the last Thursday in April, you might have thought President Joe Biden’s border crisis cabinet chiefs were belatedly but finally unveiling their master plan.
They had long known they needed to minimize the massive migrant surge everyone expected when Donald Trump’s COVID-contrived rapid return rule expires on the second Thursday in May. And that meant they needed to communicate a vital message to tens of thousands of frightened migrants who were fleeing crime, terror and poverty.
Biden’s cabinet secretaries needed to tell the migrants what they needed to do — and convince them of what they must not do — if they hoped to start new lives in the USA for themselves and their children. (Just as our ancestors did.)
But then you heard the thin gruel that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken dished to a roomful of Washington reporters. And you slowly realized Team Biden still wasn’t prepared to send that sort of precise, promising and persuasive message to that audience they needed to reach.
What was most frustrating was that they had adopted the gist of a plan that sounded rather familiar.
At the start of 2023, in a column, I had proposed that Biden announce a new way desperate asylum-seeking migrants can achieve their dreams without paying gangs of smugglers and taking their children on that perilous journey where they wind up in homeless masses at the border. Why can’t U.S. officials give them rapid, top-priority consideration in the safety of U.S. embassies, consulates — or new processing centers far removed from the U.S. border?
This was what I envisioned: “Migrants who are terrified by gang violence and fleeing in fear will be processed at a new asylum center to be established in Mexico, perhaps at its southern border with Guatemala.”
So it was that on Thursday Secretary Blinken announced in his department’s briefing room: “Soon we will stand up Regional Processing Centers in select locations in the region” — (soon?) — “I want to thank Colombia and Guatemala specifically for their role as excellent partners of the United States in these efforts. … It’s a new and innovative approach that does right by people who want to migrate, and that enhances security and stability in the region.”
Standing beside Blinken, Secretary Mayorkas added: “We are building lawful pathways for people to come to the United States without resorting to the smugglers. At the same time, we are imposing consequences on those who do not use those pathways and instead irregularly migrate to our southern border.”
But the problem, of course, is that what they announced in April should have been announced in January. At that press briefing and in several others since, Mayorkas couldn’t say when those regional asylum centers will be up and running. But he knew his grand but inoperative new asylum processing plan will be too late to help desperate migrants surging to the border now.
Sadly, Team Biden also missed an opportunity to couple the asylum centers with another humane, highly visual initiative.
What did the Biden officials expect migrant families to do once their asylum is approved? Well, they could have repurposed a news-making ploy of Republican governors.
Let your mind’s eyes view this video: Masses of migrants, waving their asylum approval documents, are leaving the rapid review process center in Guatemala. And they are boarding buses decorated with bright red-white-and-blue letters: “Stars and Stripes Express.”
The migrants, including families that finally no longer seem fearful, will be safely driven to U.S. ports of entry. Then, other buses will take them from the border to cities and towns throughout the USA. When they arrive, they will see private enterprise booths where potential employers hope to connect them with jobs that have long been unfilled.
That’s a dream the White House could have made come true months ago.
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