Recent immigrants to the U.S. talk on the sidewalk in New York, Jan. 30, 2023. Mostly from Venezuela and other Latin American countries, they were told to leave a temporary shelter. (AP/Seth Wenig)
The Biden administration has agreed to help relieve the financial strain on cities such as New York by making 470,000 Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the U.S. by July 31 eligible for work permits as asylum seekers.
When Title 42 — a Trump administration policy that made it easier to expel migrants from the U.S. during the covid pandemic — officially ended, experts expected a surge in immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border.
In September, the number of migrants caught after illegally crossing the southern border soared to near-record levels, testing the Biden administration’s migration strategy. Border patrol agents arrested 140,000 migrants who crossed unauthorized during the first 20 days of the month — about 6,900 a day, according to the internal agency data, CBS News reported. That’s a 60 percent increase from July’s daily average.
Lower migration during covid border closures led to a slowdown in labor force growth and contributed to a tightening U.S. labor market, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Reopening borders in 2022 and easing immigration policies brought a large immigration rebound and helped alleviate the shortage of workers relative to job vacancies. The foreign-born labor force grew rapidly in 2022, closing the gap created by the pandemic. Analysis suggests that if immigration continues, it could further ease overall labor market tightness.
In a Newsweek poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, respondents ranked immigration as the third-most important issue facing the U.S. after the economy and health care. Immigration is expected to play a major part in the 2024 election, especially if former President Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. Among Biden voters, 57 percent of those polled said they were either satisfied or neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the government’s approach to illegal immigration.
The Biden administration is congratulating itself on taking historic steps to secure the border and rebuild a “safe, orderly, and humane immigration system that was gutted by the previous administration.” Over the past two years, it claims to have secured more resources for border security than any Biden predecessor and deployed the most agents ever—more than 23,000—to address border issues in “dealing with changing migration patterns that are impacting the entire Western Hemisphere.”
The White House says its budget will allow customs and border protection to hire 350 more border patrol agents and 460 more processing assistants for borders and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The administration said it has expanded and expedited legal pathways for orderly migration for migrants from countries with dire conditions, including Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
The Temporary Protected Status or TPS program offers protection from deportation and the ability to work legally for at least 18 months for Venezuelans — a particularly challenging migrant demographic for the Biden administration. Without diplomatic ties to the country, the U.S. has virtually no ability to deport people to Venezuela once they arrive, Wall Street Journal reported.
Venezuelans are especially attracted to cities such as New York, where local laws mandate offering them space in a homeless shelter if they ask, according to the White House.
Millions of immigrants have been the Fed’s surprise ally in the fight against inflation, joining the workforce to help fill job openings that far exceed available workers, Politico reported: “If (Biden) avoids a recession before the 2024 election, one segment of the population will be a key reason why: immigrants,” Victoria Guida wrote for Politico.
