Biden administration isn't doing enough to protect Arizona border towns when Title 42 ends
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Every day, Arizona border communities are forced to manage a crisis made worse by the increasing levels of irregular migration coming to the Southwest border.
This crisis is not new.
We grew up along the Southern border — born in Tucson and Mexico, respectively, and both raised in southern Arizona. We’ve seen the challenges at the border our entire lives.
This crisis has progressively worsened year after year, administration after administration, due to the federal government’s repeated failures to address our broken border and immigration system.
Right now, we’re at a tipping point.
Biden adminstration has not proven it's ready
The current administration will end emergency declarations the executive branch put in place to handle the public health challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic on May 11.
Once these emergency declarations end, Title 42 — an executive action allowing the government to deny entry to migrants who have or are attempting to enter the United States — will permanently end.
Title 42 was never meant to be a permanent solution to our nation’s border crisis. It always served as a temporary bandage issued by the executive branch to stop the spread of the coronavirus among migrants and border communities.
The administration has known for more than a year that the clock is ticking on the end of Title 42 — and yet they have failed to demonstrate that they are making the necessary preparations or present plans capable of managing the expected surge of migrants once the order officially goes away.
Let us be clear: this is not a political issue, it’s a security, economic and humanitarian nightmare.
Arizona cannot afford for politicians to continue to retreat to their partisan corners, instead of examining the problem at our border for what it is — not what one party or the other wishes it was — and focusing on finding meaningful solutions.
Arizona's border communities are struggling
That’s why, as leaders who represent Arizona border communities, we’re rejecting the partisan echo chamber and doing the hard work of crafting commonsense and lasting policies that:
boost border security,
reform our backlogged asylum process,
modernize the employment visa system, and
address the status of some undocumented residents.
A few weeks ago, we were honored to bring our colleagues from both the Senate and the House to Douglas, Bisbee and Naco to hear and see firsthand the challenges border communities experience.
By working side by side with mayors, sheriffs, and local leaders across Arizona, we’re showing Washington the impact of its failures, and the need to join us in our nonpartisan approach to solving the border and immigration crisis.
We’re highlighting the crime that comes with increased border traffic in towns like Sierra Vista, made clear by overcrowding at the Cochise County jail.
We’re showing how the overcrowding at our ports of entry in Douglas, San Luis and Nogales slows — or completely stops — the flow of goods, commerce and workers that drive our economy and our farms forward.
And we’re explaining how the San Luis Walk-In Clinic has had to shift its operations to care for sick or injured migrants and cannot conduct its regular patient care.
Problems will intensify as Title 42 ends
We’ve seen the strain our border communities experience every day.
Yuma’s only hospital — the Yuma Regional Medical Center — has more than $20 million in unreimbursed medical bills from treating migrants between December 2021 and May 2022.
In San Luis — a small community of roughly 37,000 — three of the five ambulances available are typically used solely to care for migrants, leaving only two ambulances for the local community on any given night.
And in Sierra Vista — home to Fort Huachuca and thousands of military families — reckless smugglers speed through town on their way north, risking the lives of residents and the migrants they’re smuggling.
As DHS secretary visits: Migrants protest border restrictions nearby
As dangerous as each of these failures are for both Arizonans and migrants, they will only get more dire without proper plans in place ahead of the end of Title 42.
While we do the important work of passing lasting solutions to the crisis at hand, the administration must do its job and prepare for the influx of migrants coming Arizona’s way.
Sending troops to border is not enough
Recent announcements of active-duty military personnel to our Southern border will provide limited relief to the serious strain Arizona border communities face every day, but the administration’s announced deployment comes a week out from the end of Title 42 and leaves us with more questions than answers.
The U.S.-Mexico border is nearly 2,000 miles long, and 1,500 troops means less than one soldier per mile. Further, it’s unclear how our servicemembers will be utilized and where.
For more than a year, the White House has procrastinated, but the crisis Arizona continues to shoulder is not one you can close your eyes and wish away.
The administration must do the work. The burden for our broken federal system should not be placed on our local communities.
That is why we will continue to press the administration to do more and use its existing authorities in the short term to secure our border, while we continue our important bipartisan work to craft lasting policy that secures Arizona’s border, treats migrants humanely and fixes our broken immigration system.
Administration must surge resources now
With a few days until the end of Title 42, we call on the administration to:
provide our communities with emergency resources,
empower our brave men and women serving on the front lines,
increase cross-agency coordination and collaboration to avoid street releases in small border towns, and
increase capacity to keep Arizona communities safe and secure while ensuring migrants are treated fairly and humanely.
We’re committed to doing the hard work of finding lasting solutions that give peace of mind to Arizona families and fairness to migrants.
If we’re willing to put politics aside, the administration should do the same.
Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, is Arizona's senior senator. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, represents Arizona's 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House. On Twitter: @SenatorSinema and @RepCiscomani.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona border towns are at risk when Title 42 ends. Where is Biden?
