On this week’s Political Scene podcast, Sarah Stillman and Ryan Lizza talk with host Amelia Lester about the child-migrant crisis and the politics of immigration reform.
“The numbers alone are just incredibly revealing,” Stillman says. Unaccompanied minors have been travelling across the United States’ southern border for some time, but, since 2012, more and more from Central America have embarked on the journey. And, this year, the number has overwhelmed the border-enforcement apparatus.
Stillman frames the thinking about immigration in terms of pushes and pulls: What makes a person leave a particular place, and what draws that person toward another particular place? “You’re seeing a massive rise in gang violence. The murder rate in Honduras is the highest in the world. There are a lot of reasons that are driving these kids to make what is a very, very dangerous journey. These kids are not choosing to come here on a whim.” Many observers argue that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed in 2008, which provides for systems to protect and give asylum to minors who can prove that their lives are in imminent danger, is a force attracting immigrants.
As ever, arriving at a solution to the crisis is a political matter, and a difficult one. ”From watching House Republicans for the last month, they have no interest in working with Obama,” Lizza says. “Coöperation with Obama is seen as the end-all-be-all betrayal of the conservative base right now.”
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Photograph by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters.
