Immigration Policy: Ask ‘Why?’, not Just ‘How Many?’
People around the world are leaving their homes for new countries; Cuba offers one example of how even small policy changes can have big impacts
Americans’ love of quantifying everything defines the public debate over immigration. The emphasis on how many are entering the U.S., especially those crossing illegally, obscures the bigger and more important discussions that are needed around immigration policies.
There is no question that those coming illegally to the U.S. is at a crisis point. In fiscal year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 3.2 million people tried to enter the country without proper documentation. While the border with Mexico has received the most attention, illegal crossings coming from the north have skyrocketed. Nearly 190,000 illegal crossings from Canada were reported in FY 23, a more than sixfold increase from fiscal year 2021. For those who think a wall is the answer to controlling illegal immigration, the U.S.- Canadian border is more than 5,500 miles, the longest international border in the world.
Immigration policy is horribly complicated. Security issues (not just borders between countries, but the other ports of entry into the U.S.); paths to citizenship, residency or deportation; who should qualify for visas for work, school or other purposes; funding; and on and on. Add politics to the mix, with Republicans and Democrats having very different and often competing priorities, and it’s no wonder that the last comprehensive immigration bill passed nearly 40 years ago. Subsequent efforts have failed under both Democrats and Republicans.
It’s not just the U.S. that struggles with immigration. An estimated 30 million people around the world fled their countries in 2022, according to the UN. And the drivers of this migrant flood - wars, criminal violence, weather disasters, collapsing economies - are intensifying.
The point often lost in our fixation on how many are entering the U.S. is the question of why so many people abandon their homes to start new lives in places that are so different and often hostile to their arrival.
Consider just one example, the current wave of immigrants to the U.S. from Cuba. Between the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the end of the Obama Administration, some 1.2 million Cubans emigrated to the U.S. Many came legally, welcomed as political refugees. Others came across the 90 miles of water that separates the Florida Keys and Havana. While there have been other waves of Cuban immigration to the U.S. since the island’s 1959 Revolution, nothing compares to today. The number of Cubans leaving their island since 2021 is greater than the 1980 Mariel boatlift and 1994 rafter crisis combined.
There are many reasons for the exodus, especially the crisis created by the Cuban government’s own mismanagement of the economy and the impact of Covid. But seemingly small policy changes also can have a huge impact.
President Obama relaxed many of the restrictions on travel to Cuba and Americans took advantage. President Trump, in turn, reversed many of Obama’s actions. Among Trump’s decisions was his 2019 ban on the most popular form of travel to Cuba by U.S. tourists - cruises.
Hardliners cheered. “The Trump administration deserves tremendous credit for holding accountable the Cuban regime. The United States must use all tools available under U.S. law to counter the Cuban regime’s deceitful activities to undermine U.S. policy,” said Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
Of course, Marco Rubio doesn’t live in Havana. Triple-digit inflation and low wages bring new urgency to the old Cuban joke that there were only three things wrong with the revolution: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day-to-day living is a constant struggle. Monthly income is about $20 USD. Professionals and government workers might earn a bit more, but they are paid in Cuban pesos (CUP) at the official exchange rate of 25 CUP for $1 USD. On the street, a U.S. dollar will bring 225 to 300 CUP. While the government provides a range of subsidies, they fall far short of covering basic needs. Fuel is in short supply, creating long waits (hours or even days) for even a few liters of gasoline. Blackouts are as common as they are unpredictable. Havana, a city of 2.1 million, is as dark as a rural town at night. Dim streetlights shine on only a handful of streets and there are few cars or well-lit homes or offices, all to save fuel.
Tourists are well-cared for, but no one is immune from shortages and inconveniences. Hotels may or may not have towels, hot water or other basics. A sandwich shop had no bread and a restaurant was able to serve a guest only a single glass of wine before the supply ran out. First-world problems for tourists; an hour-to-hour, day-to-day struggle for residents.
Trump’s decision to ban U.S. cruise passengers from Cuba did deny the Cuban government revenue from lucrative docking fees and other sources. But it also crushed tourism jobs. In the peak year for U.S. travel to Cuba, 600,000 Americans visited the island, most arriving on cruise ships. When cruise passengers left, many tourism jobs went with them. The few jobs left were almost completely wiped out by the worldwide travel shutdown caused by the pandemic.
In 2021, only about 7,000 American tourists went to Cuba. Cubans unable to provide even basic necessities for themselves and their families grew eager to leave. In that desperation, Nicaragua saw a revenue opportunity. In 2021, Nicaragua allowed direct flights from Havana and without requiring visas from Cubans. Suddenly, Cubans who could cobble together the price of air fare to Nicaragua had a gateway to the U.S. In the last two-plus years, an estimated 500,000 Cubans - about 5% of the country’s total population - have emigrated with most entering the U.S. illegally.
The last two years have brought a bit of a rebound to Cuban tourism, although it is far from fully recovered. In 2023, 2.4 million tourists from around the world traveled to Cuba, about one-third less than Cuban officials expected, according to Reuters. Among last year’s visitors were 160,000 Americans traveling on sanctioned tours. But President Biden has maintained the ban on cruises, making it unlikely that Havana will recapture the pre-2019 share of U.S. tourism and the dollars it brings to workers.
The latest Cuban exodus is an important reminder that immigration policy isn’t as simple as building walls or creating sanctuary for new arrivals. The U.S. has the strongest and most stable economy in the world today. Jobs are plentiful. Inflation is coming under control.
America will continue to be a beacon for those who seek an escape from violence and crushing impoverishment. The U.S. has a self-serving interest in looking beyond building physical barriers to creating thoughtful, comprehensive policies that control immigration for our benefit and for the sake of those seeking better lives. Cuba is a reminder that immigration policy is about more than just numbers.
I'm open to other entries in the category of "most dysfunctional public policy issue in America" - and sadly there's no shortage of contenders - but for me immigration is the hands-down winner. Nothing about it is simple, it is an issue of both domestic and foreign policy, nothing exists in a vacuum and it practically defines the phrase "unintended consequences."
As a center-left sort of guy, I tend to favor more immigration than less. And, as an amateur student of history, I steadfastly believe a generous immigration policy has been America's superpower and remains so <if> we can rationalize a system that is loaded with inconsistencies and distorted incentives.
To do so, though, requires finding consensus on an issue where the trends are pulling us apart. Where, for example, do the worldviews of Stephen Miller, the General Hux of the last administration, and Rashida Talib - who proposed giving undocumented immigrants $2,000 a month during COVID - intersect? That's not a rhetorical question - the scope of the debate is so broad that both of them are in the "mainstream" (which is another sign of our overall political dysfunction IMHO) - so we have to find a solution that pisses them off more or less equally while finding something more broadly centrist that most can agree on.
I can't say that it was ever "close" to a reality but the Lankford bill was the best attempt on this I've seen on this issue. Absolutely no one would have been happy with that bill but it would have been at least a step towards rationalizing and irrational system.
And until we can achieve that threshold - rationality - we can't have a meaningful policy debate on the topic.