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Border Wars
Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear
Book Corner
Many newsworthy events emanating from President Trump involve the subject of immigration. Davis and Shear, New York Times Washington correspondents, conducted 120 individual interviews with those who, wittingly or not, have participated in the “border wars.” The comments and feelings of these Washington insiders imbue this book with immediacy and urgency.
For some Republicans, the entire chain of events that have occurred around immigration developed for purely political reasons: Immigrants (those who have become U.S. citizens) are expected to vote Democratic, so the fewer the immigrants, the better for the Republican Party. The earliest symbol of the political campaign was Donald Trump’s wall; it had proven a very strong point with his audiences, and he made the wall part of every speech as he campaigned for the presidency. After the election, he became fixated on fulfilling his campaign promises about the wall: The first act of his presidency was to sign the travel ban, which caused great confusion at airports, was instantly suspended by the courts, and was later watered down considerably. The administration’s efforts to shut down temporary protected status also ended up in the courts. By the end of 2018, he had accepted a government shutdown and declared a national emergency, which was immediately challenged in court.
President Trump’s tendency to change his mind contributed to the failure to negotiate with the Democrats in the 115th Congress a deal to exchange some promise of continuing DACA for additional funding for border operations. But dealmaking was also blocked by the most conservative Republicans, who would not vote for a moderate bipartisan compromise.
The most ill-considered policy was “zero tolerance,” which meant that the Department of Homeland Security turned every single illegal entrant over to the Justice Department for prosecution, without adequate preparation of facilities to handle the thousands of persons being apprehended near the border. This led to the separation of adults and children, without adequate records to keep track of the parents’ locations. When the courts ordered the government to reunite the families, the government was simply unable to comply.
This book is highly recommended: It demonstrates the inherent difficulties the federal government faces in managing immigration and helps us understand that these problems will continue to be with us in the future—for example, when the press of global migration due to climate change continues to increase.
—Bob Pendleton, Chair, Immigration Committee
