If Biden wants Arizona's votes, closing the Lukeville border is a bad way to show it

Arizonans bound for Rocky Point must now detour two to three hours out of their way across potentially dangerous roads in Mexico.

This, to accommodate migrants who are crossing the border to claim asylum.

“In response to increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals, CBP is surging all available resources to expeditiously and safely process migrants,” Customs and Border Patrol announced on Dec. 1.

For a guy who needs to win Arizona if he wants to be reelected, President Joe Biden has a strange way of showing it.

Biden has no clue how to control the border

The Biden administration’s move to indefinitely close the Lukeville Port of Entry is just one more sign that this president has no clue how to get control of that hunk of Swiss cheese we call a border.

Arizona officials are irate, as they should be.

Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani has repeatedly called for the Biden administration to send out the Arizona National Guard, saying border agents in the Tucson sector are being “overrun and undermanned” by a massive surge of border crossings.

“The situation is far past a breaking point and those on the frontlines of this crisis are in need of immediate support,” he wrote in a letter last week to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, meanwhile, finally echoed that call on Dec. 8 -- fully five days after Lukeville closed. Hobbs asked Biden to dispatch Guard troops to assist in reopening Lukeville and also billed him $512 million for state costs “due to the federal government’s failure to secure our border.”

Don't hold your breath waiting for repayment.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, meanwhile, have said the closure of Lukeville “further destabilizes our border, risks the safety of our communities, and damages our economy by disrupting trade and tourism.”

“Enough is enough,” they and Hobbs wrote earlier in the week. “Arizona deserves real solutions to our border crisis.”

Yeah, don't hold your breath on that one, either.

Dispatch the National Guard to Lukeville

Real solutions would start with an immediate order to dispatch the National Guard to the border and get that port of entry reopened. 

Guardsmen can’t enforce federal immigration law, but they can take up support roles, freeing the Border Patrol to both reopen the Lukeville crossing and deal with the migrants who are swarming the border.

And the Guard could start shoring up those ridiculous gaps in the border wall, not to mention the new holes being cut every day by smugglers armed with power tools.

Even Biden has come to realize that a fence is needed. That’s progress, when you consider his administration wouldn’t even acknowledge until recently that there’s a crisis along the southwestern border.  

While we’re pointing fingers, feast your eyes on the Republicans who refuse to consider any sort of compromise when it comes to reforming our immigration laws. They seem more interested in screaming about amnesty and invasions than in finding a practical solution that will allow us, at long last, to get control over the border.

Ditto for Democrats who cry racism every time there is talk of making it easier to deport immigrants who don’t qualify for asylum. Not until those migrants are dumped into their own communities thousands of miles north and east of here do they begin to think maybe there’s a problem.  

How to fix a broken immigration system

The closing of Lukeville and of the international bridge at Eagle Pass, Texas, is not an answer.

It should serve as a wake-up call — or the latest wake-up call, that is — about our crying need to confront and fix this issue.

First and foremost, we need to control who and what is coming into our country. That means more fencing, and that means more Border Patrol when those fences ultimately fail.

Big mistake:If Texas passes a SB 1070-like immigration law

We need to retool the asylum system to provide protection more quickly for those who qualify for it and turn away those who don’t. That means more immigration judges and fewer people released into the country to wait years for a hearing on their claims.

And yes, we need to offer a path to citizenship to those “Dreamers” who as children were brought illegally into this, the only country they have ever known. In America, we don’t punish children for the sins of their parents.

At least, we shouldn’t.

The border wasn't meant to fence us in

Will any of this happen?

Of course not. It’s always an election year, when there are points to be scored and scores to be settled.

Or it’s the year before an election year, when there are points to be scored and scores to be settled.

And the only thing our leaders can think to do is to make it harder for Arizonans to hit the beach or go the dentist?

Last I looked, the border wasn’t meant to fence Americans in.

Send out the National Guard, President Biden.

Lukeville should reopen now.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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