Sometimes the best way to understand why something is going wrong is to look at whatās going right. The asylum seekers from the border arenāt the only outsiders in town. Russiaās 2022 invasion of Ukraine brought a separate influx of displaced people into U.S. cities that quietly assimilated most of them. āWe have at least 30,000 Ukrainian refugees in the city of Chicago, and no one has even noticed,ā Johnson told me in a recent interview.
According to New York officials, of about 30,000 Ukrainians who resettled there, very few ended up in shelters. By contrast, the city has scrambled to open nearly 200 emergency shelters to house asylees from the southwest border.
What ensured the quiet assimilation of displaced Ukrainians? Why has the arrival of asylum seekers from Latin America been so different? And why have some cities managed to weather the so-called crisis without any outcry or political backlash? In interviews with mayors, other municipal officials, nonprofit leaders, and immigration lawyers in several states, I pieced together an answer stemming from two major differences in federal policy. First, the Biden administration admitted the Ukrainians under terms that allowed them to work right away. Second, the feds had a plan for where to place these newcomers. It included coordination with local governments, individual sponsors, and civil-society groups. The Biden administration did not leave Ukrainian newcomers vulnerable to the whims of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who since April 2022 has transported 37,800 migrants to New York City, 31,400 to Chicago, and thousands more to other blue citiesāin a successful bid to push the immigration debate rightward and advance the idea that immigrants are a burden on native-born people.
To call this moment a āmigrant crisisā is to let elected federal officials off the hook. But a ācrisis of politicians kicking the problem down the road until opportunists set it on fireā is hard to fit into a tweet, so weāll have to make do.
Bidenās excuse is the same institutional racism that is the Republicansā excuse. I mean itās no secret that Biden has race issues too. The problem is that Trump is far worse. So you either hold your nose and vote for Biden, you vote for someone who has no realistic likelihood of winning, or donāt vote. I would suggest that only the first of these will stop that treasonous rapist wannabe-dictator from regaining power.
You have no idea how refreshing it is to not be gaslit about this for once. Honestly, hearing people acknowledge his flaws makes me a lot more ok with voting for him, because I can hold on to the belief that maybe there will be enough political pressure on the party that these mistakes wonāt get repeated by the next Democratic president.
Tell me about it