The US’s broken immigration system has become a central theme of the 2024 election campaign. But the discussion on immigration, undocumented immigrants, and asylum seekers – increasingly lurching into dehumanizing rhetoric – extends beyond US borders.
As one former senior director of the National Security Council told me, ‘when the president travels or meets with heads of state from Latin America what comes up –regardless of the country – isn’t US–Cuba policy or even trade. It’s immigration’. How the US talks about and treats citizens of Latin American and the Caribbean matters to elected politicians in the region.
The roots of the US immigration debate go deep and will not be easily resolved, even with a sweeping reform of the system.
According to a January 2024 Pew survey, 78 per cent of Americans ‘say the large number of migrants seeking to enter the country at the Mexico border is either a crisis (45 per cent) or a major problem (32 per cent)’. Worries about the border are not limited to Republican voters: 73 per cent of Democrats feel that the issue is either a crisis or major problem.
Despite the heated popular temperature, the numbers of undocumented immigrants encountered at the US–Mexico border has actually dropped in recent months. US Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) reported 301,981 encounters with irregular border crossings in December 2023; by August 2024 this had dropped to 107,473.
Nevertheless, illegal border crossings have increased under Biden. During his administration USCBP reported 8 million encounters along the Mexico border compared to 2.5 million under Donald Trump.
Mexico
Any attempt to address the issue promises to affect US relations with Mexico, requiring the cooperation of newly elected president Claudia Sheinbaum. Her predecessor and founder of her Morena party, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), proved an unexpectedly cooperative partner for the previous Trump administration and Biden White House.
But that came at a cost, particularly for Biden. In return for AMLO’s cooperation, the US soft-pedalled criticism over his failures to disrupt narcotics trafficking and criminal networks and for his steady weakening of checks on executive power.
Mexico’s borders with other countries are also under pressure. Mexico remains the primary sending country to the US. But political repression and insecurity in countries including Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala and Venezuela has pushed their citizens to travel across Mexico to the US. Economic collapse and humanitarian crises in Cuba and Venezuela have further fuelled the flight.
Rhetoric
The Kamala Harris and Trump campaigns have struck different positions on how to stem the flow of illegal immigration. But as US public opinion shifts, both parties are talking tougher.
Harris is continuing Biden’s hardening stance, including the controversial move to bar those who cross the border illegally from applying for asylum.
Biden’s early ‘roots’ strategy, to provide economic and security support in countries from where migrants are travelling, has fallen by the wayside.
The Trump campaign is taking more extreme positions. The Republican presidential candidate mentions immigration in almost every campaign speech.
He proposes to carry out the ‘largest deportation in US history’, using ICE personnel, the National Guard and local police forces to round up undocumented immigrants, including in their workplaces.
The campaign has also pledged to end birth-right citizenship and Biden’s programme of parole for humanitarian reasons. Trump also plans to restore his first term policies including construction of the border wall.
Trump’s proposals provide little opportunity for a broad, bipartisan consensus on immigration. Should he win in November he is likely, as he did in his first term, to attempt to push his policies via executive action, opening up challenges in federal court.
A Harris victory would at least create space for the resurrection of the Biden administration’s 2024 immigration enforcement bill, originally supported by moderate Republican leadership in the Senate, but defeated following pressure from Trump.
The bill would have toughened enforcement at the border – increasing funding for detention centres, asylum hearings and for local governments and border patrols. It would also permit ICE to shut down the border when crossings surpassed an average of 5,000 per day or 8,500 on a single day.
Undermining US influence
But such legislation, while promising to address domestic US perceptions of the crisis, threatens to reduce US soft power in Latin America. That would be counterproductive at a time when the US is attempting to consolidate global support in its competition with China and conflict with Russia.
For Latin American leaders, US rhetoric on immigration rankles. The priorities of Latin American and Caribbean leaders and their voters are long term: economic growth, improved security, and climate change. These issues require investment and commitment from an engaged and reliable US partner. Sadly, Latin Americans can see such issues are not on the domestic agenda in US politics.
To improve regional perceptions of US intentions after the election, new policy should seek to address the root causes of migration. That will require a multi-pronged, bipartisan approach that focuses attention and resources on US neighbours south of the border.
The US’s immigration system will need to broaden paths for legal immigration to meet US labour needs, while delivering increased support for border security, and accelerated (and humane) processes for detaining and repatriating illegal border crossers and asylum claims.
But any sustainable answer also requires addressing the multifaceted reasons driving migrants north. Any future US administration will need to risk unpopularity with some voters at home and engage with sending countries and their neighbours.
The first order will be ramping up and expanding the Biden administration’s early root causes policy: increasing investment in economic opportunities and social safety nets in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.
Where citizens are repressed by their governments, such as Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the US will need to work with regional partners to promote human rights and peaceful political change – without resorting to the heavy hand of broad economic sanctions: in the past, such measures have only increased migration.
Where governments are confronting powerful criminal networks – as in Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras and Guatemala – the US will need to coordinate with Latin American and European partners to shore up state security capacity, intercept illicit commerce flowing to those markets, and dismantle transnational criminal networks.
All of this will require a sustained economic, diplomatic and security commitment that has often been lacking across both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Either future potential administration should take note: if the US seems distracted and disengaged from the needs of its southern neighbours, it can expect to see other countries, likely its competitors, take up the slack.
Dr Christopher Sabatini, Senior Research Fellow for Latin America, US and the Americas Programme.