Developments
A Yahoo News / YouGov poll found contradictory views of border and migration policy among U.S. respondents. Fifty-one percent agreed with Donald Trump’s statement that “It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease and destruction to communities all across our land.” At the same time, though, 73 percent agreed with Kamala Harris’s statement: “I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose either between securing our border and creating a system that is orderly, safe and humane. We can and we must do both.”
Forty-nine percent favored “rounding up, detaining and expelling millions of undocumented immigrants,” 37 percent favored moving U.S. troops from overseas to the border, and 52 percent supported building more border walls. However, 51 percent support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants.
- Andrew Romano, “Yahoo News/Yougov Border Poll: Voters Say Trump Would Do a ‘Better Job’ on Immigration — but They Prefer Harris’s Plans” (Yahoo, October 9, 2024).
In what he calls “one of the most dramatic swings in the history of U.S. public opinion,” Rogé Karma at the Atlantic pointed out that the share of U.S. respondents telling the Gallup polling organization “that immigration should decrease” has risen from 28 percent in 2020 to 55 percent now. This shift has hardened both parties’ rhetoric during the 2024 election campaign.
- Roge Karma, “The Most Dramatic Shift in U.S. Public Opinion” (The Atlantic, October 9, 2024).
The foreign minister of Honduras stated that U.S. aerial deportations of Honduran citizens fell 35 percent from 2023 to 2024. This decline corresponds with a 35 percent drop in Border Patrol apprehensions of Honduran citizens at the U.S.-Mexico border, comparing an average month in fiscal 2023 to an average month in fiscal 2024 (for which 11 months of data are available).
- Kelly Ortez, “¿Disminucion de Migrantes Retornados Sera Senal de Menos Migracion de Hondurenos?” (Criterio (Honduras), October 9, 2024).
The Southern Border Communities Coalition and the Sierra Club filed an appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to overturn a lower-court ruling prohibiting the Biden administration from using appropriated funds to remediate environmental damage caused by border wall construction.
- “Southern Border Communities Coalition, Sierra Club, and Aclu Appeal General Land Office Case to Defend Border Wall Remediation Settlement” (Southern Border Communities Coalition, October 9, 2024).
Donald Trump said that if elected, he would bring into his administration Tom Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) known for his hard-line, pro-deportation views. Homan ran ICE during the 2017-2018 family separation controversy at the border. In 2023, Homan told the Conservative Political Action Conference: “I’m sick and tired of hearing about the family separation… I don’t give a s***, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.”
- Flynn Nicholls, “Donald Trump Says Project 2025 Author “Coming on Board” if Elected” (Newsweek, October 9, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
After 30 years of “tough” border policies that have not discouraged people from migrating, Vicki Gaubeca of Human Rights Watch wrote at The Nation, “It’s time for U.S. leaders to acknowledge the folly of policies aimed at deterring immigration and to rethink how borders can be managed in a way that respects human rights.” The current drop in migrant numbers at the border, Gaubeca argued, is temporary: “the pendulum eventually swings back, no matter how much pain our policies inflict.”
- Vicki B. Gaubeca, “‘Tough’ Border Policies Don’t Work. It’s Time Harris and Trump Accepted That.” (The Nation, October 10, 2024).
Cuba’s El Toque spoke with Cuban citizens who applied to enter the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program for up to a combined 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. They found the parole procedure so backlogged that it was faster to go to Mexico and wait several months for a CBP One appointment at the border.
- Alberto C. Toppin, “Parole Humanitario para Cuba: ¿Que Han Vivido Quienes Esperan?” (El Toque (Cuba), October 10, 2024).
The administration revealed last week that recipients of the two-year humanitarian parole status will be unable to renew it. A Voice of America article pointed out that most Cuban parole recipients can apply for adjustment of status under the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 after they have been in the United States for a year, while Venezuelans who arrived before July 2023 can apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Nicaraguan parole recipients arrived after their countries’ cutoff date for TPS; applying for asylum within a year of arriving in the United States may be an option for remaining in the United States with documented status, if they can prove credible fear of persecution upon return to their countries.
- Salome Ramirez Vargas, “¿se Vence el Parole Humanitario? Estas Son Otras Opciones Migratorias en Eeuu” (Voz de América, Tal Cual (Venezuela), October 9, 2024).