This commentary is by Jill Martin Diaz. They are the executive director of Vermont Asylum Assistance Project and a member of the New England Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
“Border brain” was how one congressional staffer described Capitol Hill’s myopic focus on U.S./Mexico border fortification during the 2024 National Day of Action hosted by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, also known as AILA.
The staffer and their fellow congressional representatives were speaking to the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project on behalf of AILA’s New England Chapter, while the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project offered local context to AILA’s call for comprehensive, legislative immigration reform.
Our chapter was joined in Washington, D.C., by hundreds of other AILA National members calling on lawmakers to advance bipartisan solutions that address the needs we see each day in our law practices and communities, including:
- Adequately funding U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Labor and the State Department to reduce backlogs and delays;
- Expanding legal pathways to entry to alleviate pressure at the border;
- Expanding legal pathways to permanency to alleviate pressure on individuals, families and communities.
Throughout the day’s meetings with congressional delegations from about 40 states, our message was clear: America is made stronger in its economic growth and prosperity by immigration, and legislative updates to the U.S. immigration system are crucial to ensuring the needs of American families and businesses are met.
The needs of New England’s families and businesses are somewhat unique. Economic stagnation relating to New England’s emigrating and aging native-born population has been top of mind for many state legislators this session.
Vermont lawmakers, for example, began the 2023-24 session with a presentation by Tom Kavet, state economist and principal economic adviser, on the dispositive role foreign-born residents will play in growing and sustaining New England families, workforces and economies. Already, the American Immigration Council reports that Vermont’s foreign-born residents account for $438.5 million in tax revenue and $1 billion in spending power.
However, welcoming immigrants at the state level will only go so far toward sustaining New England’s economy and future.
Without congressionally legislated pathways to regularized status and a meaningful investment in the agencies that make these pathways function, “border brain” will leave Congress at an unproductive stalemate and leave foreign-born New Englanders at risk of Customs and Border Protection’s enforcement. Recall that a significant proportion of New England falls under the border patrolling and enforcement jurisdiction of the agency, and it is not just recently arrived immigrants who are affected.
Only two months into my role at Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, as was true throughout my work as a Vermont Law and Graduate School professor of immigration law, I’m already seeing increased media attention to calls for northern Customs and Border Protection investment prompting a growth in harmful encounters between the agency and the longstanding noncitizen community members Vermont is relying on for a sustainable future.
The Vermont Asylum Assistance Project echoes AILA New England’s gratitude for our congressional delegations’ time and attention during the National Day of Action. We join AILA National in calling for concrete congressional action as well.
State-based solutions to “border brain,” alone, will not meet the needs of American families and businesses. Instead, we need a bipartisan focus on sweeping immigration legal reform to make America stronger, together.
