Analysts see major hurdles in new US border policy

If people know that they can request asylum and come into the country through legal channels at ports of entry, then they're not going to cross the border illegally. Unfortunately, the administration is not announcing a policy that anyone can request asylum at a port of entry. In fact, it's setting the cap on asylum at ports of entry at about 10 percent of what it estimates the current demand for appointments for asylum are. If they cannot request asylum from Border Patrol, they will seek to evade detection and sneak into the country. That's bad for border security. That's bad for the scenes of chaos and disorder that we're seeing. I believe that there's a decent chance that you'll see a significant reduction for a couple of reasons.

One, people will know that they can be deported back to Mexico, which is unsafe, and they'll have much less of a chance to get into the United States. Two, the parole programs that are put in place will give people at least some hope that they can come here legally and consistent with orderly immigration processes. But it could easily go the other way, particularly because even though the Biden administration has done a decent job of addressing the so-called pull factors for immigration, that is the features of our law and our markets, our economy that draw people in, the Biden administration has not done a lot because it's very difficult to do anything about the so-called push factors, that is the factors in folks home countries, for example, in Central America, Guatemala, and Doris and El Salvador, that lead people to need to leave. And those include economic factors, climate change, and the threat of violence. And it's very difficult to address any of those factors little and all of them.

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