Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net
A scene from the U.S./Mexico border. In the foreground, behind a barbed-wire fence, U.S. Border Patrol agents speak with each other in El Paso, Texas. Across the Rio Grande, in the background, is Cuidad Juárez, Mexico.
U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small led a congressional delegation to Alamogordo on Monday. President Donald Trump says he’ll visit the border Thursday. N.M. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham says she’ll be there Friday.
It’s all part of an escalating battle over the federal government shutdown and a crisis at the border that Trump has created, or at least exacerbated. Political leaders in Washington are talking about increasing “security” at the border, with the only real fight being about whether that should include adding more miles to the physical barriers that already exist at many points between the United States and Mexico.
But Trump’s argument during an address to the nation on Tuesday for why the border needs better security was riddled with falsehoods. And Democratic leaders aren’t articulating why they think the border isn’t secure enough already.
Trump said little that was new in his prime-time address on Tuesday. While border crossings are well below their peak from the 2000s and the numbers of people crossing illegally have remained relatively steady the past several years, he said, “we are out of space to hold them, and we have no way to promptly return them back to their country.”
As the Washington Post reported, there has been an increase “in border crossings by families, which have been at record levels, and that has tested the government’s ability to deal with their situations.” It’s also true that many of those people aren’t hiding. They’re intentionally seeking out federal agents when they reach the United States to ask for asylum — which is legal.
The Trump administration has tried to deter family crossings in many controversial ways, including separating children from their caretakers last year. Those actions have helped create the humanitarian crisis Trump referred to on Tuesday.
The surge in families coming to the United States might seem to necessitate the need for better facilities to house them, or comprehensive reform that streamlines legal immigration. But that isn’t the primary conversation in Washington. Trump focused on building his wall and trying to stop people from coming to the United States at all during his Tuesday speech. He said wall funding is necessary to reach a deal that will end the government shutdown.
The Democratic leaders in Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose party largely supported the expansion of border barriers before Trump took office, also focused on the government shutdown and border security in an address to the nation on Tuesday.
“We all agree we need to secure our borders, while honoring our values: we can build the infrastructure and roads at our ports of entry; we can install new technology to scan cars and trucks for drugs coming into our nation; we can hire the personnel we need to facilitate trade and immigration at the border; we can fund more innovation to detect unauthorized crossings,” Pelosi said.
Added Schumer, who sponsored a 2013 bipartisan immigration reform bill that included funding for hundreds of miles of border barriers, a bill all Senate Democrats voted to pass: “Make no mistake: Democrats and the president both want stronger border security. However, we sharply disagree with the president about the most effective way to do it.”
In other words, after decades of increased spending on border security, including funding for hundreds of miles of border barriers, more agents and better technology; even though illegal crossings are way down and terrorists aren’t entering the United States through the southern border; though cities like Las Cruces and El Paso are surrounded by what are essentially militarized checkpoints; though people living near the nation’s borders have fewer legal protections; and though there appears to be a capacity and processing issue, not a security problem, created by the flood of families seeking asylum here, the leaders of both parties in Washington agree that we need to do more to secure the border — even if people who live along the border don’t see the same reality.
The political leaders in Washington just disagree, in 2019, on whether border security should include more walls and/or fencing.
I’ve been seeking to better understand this sentiment recently. What about the border isn’t secure? If this isn’t a secure border, what would a secure border look like? Are we going to keep increasing spending until the number of illegal crossings reaches zero? Is that even an attainable goal?
Torres Small, a Democrat who in November narrowly won a chance to represent a district that usually votes Republican, says on her campaign website, “We need secure borders to keep out traffickers and violent criminals.” She talks a lot about personnel and technology, and said recently on CNN that a physical barrier makes sense in some locations along the border, but not others.
So in a Q&A Torres Small agreed to conduct with NMPolitics.net in late November, I asked her to help me understand. I asked, “The United States has invested lots of money in physical barriers, additional agents, and better technology in recent decades in an attempt to reach this goal. What does the secure border you seek look like? How will we know when we’ve reached that goal?”
She hasn’t yet responded to that and other questions I sent by email.
Torres Small, Lujan Grisham and other Democrats have indicated in recent statements that border security must increase but be balanced with funding and policies to help care for the families crossing the border. “The president’s wall is an outdated, ineffectual idea that should never, ever come to fruition, and meaningful border security investments should be on the table,” Lujan Grisham said following Trump’s Tuesday address.
Referring to the recent deaths of two immigrant children in New Mexico while in federal custody, Lujan Grisham said, “The federal government must be proactive in caring for and recognizing the dire needs of the children and families who come to us from unimaginable hardship and through life-threatening conditions seeking a better future.” She was, however, thin on details.
During a week in which political leaders are battling over building a wall, and while many Democrats are rushing to tell Americans they favor increased border security even while they hammer Trump, it’s noteworthy that U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., isn’t following the party line with a statement touting the need for more border security. Because it stands out as more nuanced and less focused on security than many other comments from Democrats, I thought I’d share Udall’s full statement about Trump’s speech:
“President Trump needs to end his shutdown now, before his reckless tantrum hurts more New Mexico families. New Mexicans didn’t hear anything new tonight from the president. Instead, they just heard more fear-mongering about immigrants, and dishonest and out-of-touch talk about the border from a president who doesn’t know the first thing about border communities. The president certainly did not provide struggling New Mexicans with any good reason for why he continues to hold their livelihoods hostage to try and force taxpayers to pay for his offensive border wall. At the very least, the president could have apologized to the innocent people who have been caught up in his mess – but he didn’t do that either.
“Eighteen days into this Trump shutdown, families all across New Mexico are paying a steep price for the president’s act of political extortion. Over 5,800 workers in New Mexico are furloughed or working without pay, many of them wondering how they’ll make their next mortgage or rent payment. Lives in Tribal communities are being endangered as critical public health and public safety programs grind to a halt. Many of our most iconic national parks remain closed or badly neglected – as waste and garbage pile up – threatening not just these special places but also the economies that depend on them. These are the real and devastating consequences of President Trump’s shutdown.
“There are serious humanitarian issues that exist at our border, but the president’s heartless and chaotic policies have only made them worse – much worse — while demonizing immigrants who are vital members of our workforce and our communities. And President Trump’s thoughtless demands for an ineffective border wall would do nothing to make our nation safer or more secure, which is why New Mexico’s border communities and broad majorities of Americans reject the president’s wall. It is time for Senate Republicans to end this ridiculous Trump shutdown, stand up to the president’s governance-by-extortion, and pass the clear bipartisan solutions that Democrats have offered to re-open the government.”
We’ll see what happens when Lujan Grisham and Trump visit the border this week. And while I know Torres Small has been busy, I hope to be able to share her responses to my questions with you soon.