Former Vice President Joe Biden wants illegal immigration to stay illegal.
That’s what he said during the second Democratic primary debate, and it reveals just how little he understands about the nuances of immigration policy.
Debate moderators had just questioned former HUD Secretary Julián Castro about his plan to decriminalize immigration, which would repeal Section 1325 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Under Castro’s plan, it would still be illegal to enter the United States without a visa, but it would be a civil violation, not a criminal one. That simple change would drastically alter US immigration enforcement, because no one can be jailed for a civil infraction under federal law. That change could singlehandedly end much of the cruelty of an immigration enforcement system that has allowed President Donald Trump to separate families and put children in cages and internment camps.
Biden clearly doesn’t understand this. When moderators questioned him about the rise of deportation under President Barack Obama, Biden pivoted. Instead, he suggested that decriminalizing immigration means Democrats want open borders.
“If you say you can just cross the border, what do you say to all of those people around the world who want the same thing — to come to the United States and make their case — that they have to wait in line. The fact of the matter is … if you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It’s a crime,” he said.
Biden was either intentionally misrepresenting the plan or just showed how little he knows about immigration policy. Either one is a bad look for him. But he stood by his nonsensical argument, repeating it a few minutes later.
“I have guts enough to say [Castro’s] plan doesn’t make sense. The fact of the matter is, when people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they’re seeking asylum,” he added. “People should have to get in line. That’s the problem.”
That’s not the problem. The problem is that current immigration laws allow the president to detain immigrants for months (even years) on a misdemeanor immigration charge while their cases go through court. This happened under the Obama administration. It happened under George W. Bush. The only difference now is that Trump is amping up the cruelty by keeping migrant children and families detained in awful, unsafe conditions.
Decriminalizing immigration would stop this. And no one explained it better than Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).
“No, Mr. Vice President, we are not going to let people cross the border,” Booker said. “An unlawful crossing is an unlawful crossing if you do it in the civil courts or the criminal courts. The criminal courts are giving Donald Trump the ability to violate the human rights of people coming to our country. They’re human rights. And so doing it through the civil courts means you won’t need these awful detention facilities that I’ve been to, seeing children sleeping on pavement, people being put in cages, nursing mothers, small children. This is not necessary. We have seen, using the civil system, pilot programs that have 100 percent compliance with the civil courts where people are evaluated. If they have no reason to be here, they are returned.”
Booker isn’t the only candidate who supports Castro’s plan. So does Elizabeth Warren. It’s one of several issues that have pushed the Democratic primary further to the left. But it also makes sense.
How criminalizing immigration led to children in cages
Illegal entry has been a crime for 90 years, but only recently has prosecution for it become common.
Decriminalizing illegal immigration is not open borders. People coming to the US without papers could still be deported if they were caught and brought before an immigration judge. But it would make unauthorized immigration purely a civil offense, instead of a criminal one.
As Vox’s former immigration writer Dara Lind explains, this distinction matters a lot:
Right now, it’s already a civil violation — not a crime — to be in the US illegally. If someone is arrested in the US and can’t prove their legal status, they can be deported. But if border agents catch someone crossing the border between ports of entry without papers, that’s a federal misdemeanor. It’s called “illegal entry,” and immigration judges can jail immigrants and fine them, in addition to deporting them.
The crime has been on the books since 1929, but for most of the 20th century, it didn’t really matter. Immigration agents didn’t track down and deport people who came to the US without papers. Most presidents didn’t think it was worth US attorneys’ time to prosecute loads of misdemeanor immigration cases. Those who were caught crossing the border were generally informally returned.
“Under the Bush administration, however, as an independent immigration enforcement system began to develop and mature, both civil immigration cases (in separate immigration courts) and widespread criminal illegal entry prosecutions became common,” Lind writes.
The result swamped federal criminal courts along the border. For the past several years, immigration offenses — illegal entry and reentry — have been the most common crimes for which people are convicted in US federal criminal courts. (In fiscal year 2016, immigration offenses made up a majority of all federal criminal prosecutions.) And the courts along the border where entrants are prosecuted are routinely the busiest in the country.
More recently, the Trump administration’s attempts at “zero tolerance” prosecution of illegal entry were the legal basis for its widespread separation of families in 2018: Children were separated because their parents were being transferred to criminal custody for prosecution.
That would end under Castro’s immigration plan. Crossing the border without papers would be treated like the civil violation of being in the US illegally. It’s a far cry from “open borders,” as Biden suggests.
Sourse: vox.com
