NWA EDITORIAL: Not the enemy

During the Donald Trump years, the president's policy on immigration can best be described as a dismantling. The election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States promises, at the least, change.

Given the federal government's history on the question, that change doesn't necessarily translate into productive solutions. And certainly we do not stand ready to endorse everything a Biden administration may advocate. But it's times like these where improvements can be found, if the nation's leaders are serious about looking for them.

Undoubtedly, the question of immigration -- both legal and illegal -- is on the minds of residents of Northwest Arkansas, which has a large nonnative population. Whether a person from another country resides here legally or illegally, U.S. policy on immigration and the way it's carried out can be a daily burden.

Immigration policy, instead, should create opportunities. This nation is big and strong enough that it can afford to maintain a system of legal immigration that recognizes it is a magnet to peoples around the world who want to pursue better lives and share in the bounty of the New World.

Immigrants should not be treated as an enemy. But in the last four years, Trump administration policies have looked and sounded like a war on immigration. Conversely, critics of those policies have too often responded as though any changes to past policies represented some sort of attack against humanity.

Somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, reasonable people should be able to fashion a national plan to address (1) an end to or at least significant reduction in illegal immigration, (2) realistic U.S. policies that allow for higher volumes of legal immigration, (3) the acceptance of refugees escaping war, persecution or natural disasters, and (4) the presence of millions of people in this country without legal standing.

The reality is nobody believes the U.S. approach to immigration and border security is serving the best interests of the nation or creating the kinds of legal immigration options a nation like ours should be able to support. Sadly, critics of immigrants want to blame them when it's this nation's failure to adequately address immigration that's created the broken system in place today.

Maybe, just maybe, a transition from an anti-immigration Trump White House to a Biden administration will create opportunities to make a difference. Biden clearly wants to turn back some of the more draconian changes Trump has pursued. And members of the GOP on Capitol Hill suggest there's the potential for improvement.

In recent immigration coverage in The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based website, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said immigration reform "would be a good thing to do," saying inaction on the subject has been "one of my biggest disappointments in my time in the Senate." Newly re-elected Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he'd be willing to work with Biden administration, mentioning immigration specifically as an area for potential progress. Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said advances on immigration would need to be "somewhere in between" extremes pushed by both parties.

"It's kind of a case of the extreme points of view -- like people who think we can load up 12 million people and get them out of the country; if they want to do that, they can't be a part of [a solution]. And for the people who want people to be citizens yesterday, they can't be a part of it," Grassley said.

Biden cannot, at least if he wants to garner support from more than his own party, allow the immigration solutions he advances to be defined by the more liberal components of his party. Calls for an end to deportations or to end the "criminalization" of people based on their manner of entry will go no where. Some predict a surge of migration to the southern border on expectations that Biden policies will eventually reward those already in country with new legal status.

Such developments will test Biden's ability to balance the competing ideas of what the United States' immigration program should look like.

It would seem a realistic goal if Biden were to seek a revival of Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, a program that protects people brought into the United States as children, many of whom have grown up knowing only this country as their home. People on both sides of the aisle in Congress can identify with the injustice of sending those young people to countries they don't even remember living in. A permanent solution needs to be found.

The nation's legal paths to immigration also should be broadened, not diminished. Attempting to clamp down on legal immigration appears incongruous with a program of hard-line enforcement against illegal immigration. Instead, the nation needs to prevent illegal immigration while creating real opportunities for legal immigration that won't require 20 years to get through.

Then there is the issue of refugees, the people who ask to be admitted to the United States because of extreme threats in their nation of origin. Northwest Arkansas, thanks to a group known as Canopy NWA, became home to people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Iraq, Burma and others. They move here with a ready-made support system designed to help them financially and emotionally build new lives. It is a compassionate act well within the reach of a great nation like the United States.

But the Trump administration became a barrier to such admissions. Biden's administration can and should open doors to these well-vetted migrants.

Rather than hope for a weak immigration system, as some critics seem to prefer, the solution for the United States is a strong one that can promote orderly processes, not frustration. Nobody but the United States should dictate the parameters of its immigration-related policies, but the nation has room to broaden those parameters.

Perhaps the first movement a Biden administration can make is to embrace attitudes that will not treat people who are here, working and living their lives without affront to the community, as an enemy. No immigration policy should treat them as such.

Whatever immigration policy woes our nation faces, it will be the result of U.S. political leadership or the failures of it. It will take political leadership to resolve it. Our hope is that Democrats and Republicans will find room for that in the months and years ahead.

The enemy is inaction.