Immigration Matters

2021 Year in Review

Immigration Matters by Rishi P. Oza

While the immigration landscape continues to be marked by constant change and churn, 2021 was a year that was truly like no other in terms of policy and potential changes to our current immigration system.

The year started with the obvious change in administrations, as the outgoing President Trump and his Administration’s hardline immigration policies were met with incoming President Biden’s softened stance on global immigration.

From the outset, President Biden immediately sought to get rid of the existing Migrant Protection Protocols (aka: Stay in Mexico policy), but that was immediately met with pushback from the federal courts, which ruled that the Biden Administration had changed a federal policy without thoroughly considering the consequences of the change. As a result, MPP continues to be in effect, grudgingly being implemented by an administration that does not believe that the policy is worthwhile or humane.

President Biden’s election also corresponded with a huge surge in migrants coming north, mainly from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, along with Mexico and select South American countries. The surge has been unprecedented, and Customs and Border Protection numbers reflect the dilemma – according to available data from CBP, land border encounters through September 2021 total 1,734,686. In 2020, that number was 458,088 (obviously impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic), but 2019 numbers show 977,509 encounters.

In short, 2021 is showing almost an 80 percent rise in encounters across the country’s southern border, a situation that is unsustainable and has led to appalling conditions at the border. When compounded by the turmoil in Haiti and the Administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the flow of refugees from

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