This column originally appeared in Real Clear Politics on April 9, 2021.
I recently traveled to the southern border with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to see the unfolding crisis firsthand and come up with solutions. The surge and resulting chaos is well documented.
Sen. Rob Portman.
Customs and Border Protection reported more than 172,000 total encounters at the border in March, up 70% from February and more than five times the March 2020 numbers. This includes more than 53,000 migrant family members, a more than 1,000% increase from March 2020; nearly 100,000 single adult migrants, an increase of 275% versus last year; and nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children, double the amount that crossed our border in February and a nearly 500% increase from March 2020.
I recently traveled to the southern border with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to see the unfolding crisis firsthand and come up with solutions. The surge and resulting chaos is well documented.
More than 100,000 migrants were apprehended in February, the most in 15 years. This included more than 9,500 unaccompanied kids, a 200% increase from this time last year. March numbers will be even higher, easily surpassing the surges in 2014 and 2019. And it hasn’t reached its peak.
The reason for the crisis is clear. The Biden administration’s policy changes encouraged families and unaccompanied children, mostly from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, to come to our southern border and apply for asylum. Traffickers are telling families they can come into the U.S. if they pay to make the treacherous trip north, then apply for asylum at the border. Under the Biden policies, there is a lot of truth to that.
University of Ghana Director at Centre for Migration Studies (CMS), Professor Joseph Teye
Professor Joseph Teye, the Director, Centre for Migration Studies (CMS) at University of Ghana, Legon has said a sharp increase in conflict situations in the sub-region led to deterioration in forced displacement over the decades.
He said from 2012 to 2019, the number of refugees went up by 120 per cent; asylum seekers by 404 per cent; and internally displaced persons, 3,825 per cent.
Prof. Teye was speaking at a day’s virtual academic conference organised in collaboration with United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) dubbed, “70 years protecting people forced to flee.”
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Bill Nemitz: When immigrants like him come knocking, he’ll be waiting at Maine’s door
Reza Jalali, the new head of the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center, is the right person at the right time for a crucial job.
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To fully appreciate the new job Reza Jalali starts next week, you need to go back to the very beginning.
It was 1985. Jalali, a Kurdish refugee from Iran, had just arrived in Maine from India, where he’d gone to attend college and, with the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent war with Iraq, he could no longer return home.