Recent polls tell us that immigration is the top voter issue. While bipartisan immigration reform has failed in Congress, the showdown continues between the Texas National Guard and the U.S. border patrol at Eagle Pass. Meanwhile, House speaker Mike Johnson has called for President Biden to enact an executive order to completely shut down the border.
UCLA has experts to comment on humanitarian, political and legal concerns.
Jason de León, professor of anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American Studies, says the news overlooks the bigger issues:
“The border is a complicated place and news reports that inflame conservatives and push them to get involved in law enforcement issues only make matters worse. More importantly, the inflammatory news about the border often overlooks the much bigger issues of displacement in the global south and that phenomenon’s connection to poverty, violence, and climate change.”
Urban planning associate professor and associate faculty director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute Amada Armenta says what is happening in Texas is political spectacle:
“The state of Texas is treating migrant newcomers who are exercising their legal right to apply for asylum as a political spectacle, while Congress has abdicated their responsibility by failing to lead on a sensible immigration plan. Mixed status immigrant families are American families. They deserve legal recognition and a path to citizenship.”
Sociology professor Cecilia Menjivar, an expert on the impacts of U.S. immigration laws on immigrants and their families, says it’s disingenuous to focus only on the border:
“All the visits to the border, photo ops, and Congressional bills that focus on border security frame the border as out-of-control for political purposes, even though it is completely militarized already. It’s an election year and some elections will hinge on how tough a candidate appears to be regarding border enforcement, when migration and the immigration system as a whole is much more than about the border.”
Political science professor Natalie Masuoka, an expert in race, ethnicity, immigration and politics, explains why immigration is becoming more personal for a growing number of voters far from border areas:
“Immigration is increasingly guided by personal experience, which explains why it is a core issue in the 2024 election cycle. Americans hold diverse and complex views on immigration -- not always captured in the 30-second sound bites offered by political candidates.”
UCLA School of Law’s Ingrid Eagly, a scholar on immigration and criminal law, says:
“The political battle playing out over immigration enforcement today presents a grave threat to humanitarian protections, immigrant integration, and federal supremacy over immigration.”
