Politicians find the border backdrop irresistible.
Thatโs why you saw Gov. Doug Ducey standing in front of the border barrier in Douglas during a March 19 press conference, accompanied by Sen. Rick Scott from Florida.
Thatโs why Sen. Ted Cruz was prowling along the Rio Grande at midnight Friday with a passel of other Republican senators, who claimed to have been โheckledโ by โcartel membersโ on the other side of the river.
But the border backdrop is just the familiar set for a plot some politicians eagerly play out time and again. These days, weโre seeing another stage remake of the โBorder Crisisโ dramas weโve seen so many times before.
Yes, there are real problems occurring in some places along the U.S.-Mexico border now. Many more families and unaccompanied children are seeking refuge in the United States than were crossing last year during pandemic restrictions. If the usual pattern holds, the numbers will grow for a few more months before descending later this summer.
Itโs a real riddle to be solved with new thinking about immigration. Instead, todayโs border crisis as portrayed by politicians is another version of the same play about dangerous threats that weโve seen before, with a few plot twists.
Nobody has made that clearer than Ducey, with his awkward effort to capitalize on the situation. But across the country it has become a plain-sight campaign of disinformation and exaggeration for political gain.
Here are five ways you can tell todayโs border panic is trumped up.
1. The rhetoric doesnโt match reality on the ground
Standing in Douglas on March 19, with a wall built in the Obama era behind him, Ducey said, โIโve been governor under three presidents, and this is by far the worst situation weโve seen.โ
It isnโt.
Ducey has been governor since January 2015, and just two years ago, in spring 2019, the situation was much more challenging for Arizona. Thatโs when families from Central America and southern Mexico were filling the Benedictine Monastery, at 800 N. Country Club Road, which Tucsonans turned into a temporary shelter.
During the first half of 2019, up to 350 people a day were arriving in Tucson, Teresa Cavendish of Catholic Community Services told me. And Tucson was just receiving a narrow subset of the migrants coming into Arizona at the time.
Now there are around 80 per day, she said, and Tucson is receiving them from areas that stretch from Douglas to Yuma.
Only a couple of small towns in Southern Arizona have had serious issues so far: Ajo in western Pima County and Gila Bend, 45 miles north of Ajo in Maricopa County. Border Patrol officials have dropped off large groups of migrants in these towns that are ill-equipped to help them.
Gila Bend Mayor Chris Riggs declared an emergency in his town, asking the governor to declare a statewide emergency so that Gila Bend could tap available funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But Riggs didnโt get a response to the emails he sent the governor, not to mention a visit, he said.
โItโs funny that he went to a place that wasnโt really seeing the issue, (instead of) Ajo and Gila Bend,โ Riggs said.
But Duceyโs decision is understandable: A politician couldnโt get much buzz from standing in front of the Gila Bend Visitors Center & Museum talking about the need for more migrant buses.
Now, itโs true that South Texas is having significant problems. The Rio Grande Sector, centered on McAllen, is where the families and unaccompanied children are arriving in greatest numbers. That is a real issue for them, for the Border Patrol and other federal agencies, and for us as a country.
But itโs one we ought to be able to solve, and, frankly, should have by now, since weโve been having it off and on since 2014.
โItโs just a logistics problem,โ said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. โWhile there has been a spike in the arrival of families and unaccompanied children, the number of families is still smaller than in 2019.โ
Up to now, the rise in border crossings hasnโt had anywhere near the effect on Arizona that the migrant arrivals of just two years ago did.
Donโt take my word for it. Take the words of the mayor of Douglas and the sheriffs of Santa Cruz and Pima counties. All of them told me not much unusual has been going on in their jurisdictions, though of course that could change.
In Douglas, Mayor Donald Huish said, local churches and groups have got together to ensure migrants find their way through.
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters Sunday at the White House that "at some point" he would go to the U.S.-Mexico border and that he is aware of "what is going on" in the border facilities.
โThe community has come together,โ he said. โOur biggest concern right now is transportation. As we all know, Douglas isnโt their end game. They want to go be with family in Chicago, Salt Lake City or wherever.โ
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said, โWe havenโt had any kind of surge here. Weโve just had the usual evidence of migrant crossing.โ
โWhat is a crisis is the border having been shut for 12 months for legal border crossers,โ he added. โItโs killing our local economy here and in all our border towns.โ
2. Misleading sources and statistics
If you listen casually to Gov. Ducey or other officials describing a current border catastrophe, youโll find they cite seemingly authoritative sources.
He started a Feb. 17 letter to the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by saying โnumerous mayors, sheriffs and nongovernmental organizations have contacted my officeโ about policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Before the March 19 press conference, he said, he was briefed by โprofessionals on the ground.โ
At the press conference, he cited โlaw enforcement officials and leaders in border communities.โ And he made a shocking claim that โofficials shared with us that the administration is seen as the marketing arm of the cartels to traffic drugs and human trafficking.โ
Who are these numerous mayors and sheriffs? The professionals on the ground? The law enforcement and border-community leaders? Who shared the striking claim about the Biden administration helping traffickers?
Nobody knows. Iโve asked but not received an answer.
Mark Adams, of the group Frontera de Cristo in Douglas-Agua Prieta, said he asked the day before Ducey arrived for an audience but didnโt get a response.
โI think perhaps what weโre not helpful with is perpetuating the narrative of fear,โ he said. โIn our meetings, people arenโt talking about what we donโt have; people are talking about what we do have.โ
Citing unnamed โofficialsโ is one way politicians mold perceptions of the situation on the border. It allows them to attribute to experts what the politicians really want to say themselves.
But itโs not just this vague sourcing that undergirds the arguments made by Ducey and many others. Itโs also the bogus numbers they cite.
On a nationally televised program last Sunday, Ducey told ABCโs Martha Raddatz that there has been a โ460% spike in illegal apprehensionsโ for which he blamed Bidenโs policies.
But the figures he was citing actually counted the increase in apprehensions from April 2020 through February 2021. During nine out of 10 of those months, Donald Trump was president. Ducey did not blame Trump.
I asked Ducey Wednesday at a separate press conference in Tucson about how he defends describing the current border situation as the worst heโs seen.
โAccording to President Bidenโs own secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Mayorkas, these are the highest numbers in the past 20 years,โ Ducey responded. โSo Iโm going to stick with the data that weโre getting from the federal government.โ
โWe also, Tim โ and you know this โ never see numbers like this in February, in March. These numbers are 13,000 migrant children in custody and migration continues from Central America and Mexico. So this is something that needs attention immediately.โ
It does demand serious attention โ along with productive dialogue and creative thinking. But as I know, having covered the border in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the only unprecedented number is the minors in detention.
In February 2021, there were 100,441 apprehensions borderwide. Thatโs a lot. But in the first seven Februarys of the 2000s, there were five with more than 100,000 apprehensions. In February 2000, there were 211,328 apprehensions.
None of this is to say we arenโt experiencing a challenge that will probably get worse before it gets better, and which the Biden administration must solve. But weโve dealt with something similar in both recent and distant memory.
3. Border sloganeering gives away the game
If Donald Trump taught politicians one tactic, it was the value of endlessly repeating simple slogans and concepts to make an impact on the public.
We are already seeing this employed across the country to bolster the idea we are in a โborder crisis.โ Not just any border crisis, though โ โJoe Bidenโs border crisis,โ as Ducey called it. It even has its own social media hashtag: #BidenBorderCrisis.
Ducey also has repeatedly trotted out this prepared zinger: โThe Biden administration has been anti-wall and they have been AWOL, absent without leave, on this issue.โ
Politicians from Cruz to Ducey are trying to connect the three words Biden, border and crisis in votersโ minds. It happens in politics: On Friday in the Rio Grande Valley, for example, Cruz blamed Biden for the same kind of migrant housing conditions that Democrats blamed Trump for in 2019.
โWe visited the Donna detention facility where we saw the Biden Cages,โ tweeted Cruz, who, letโs not forget, attempted to disenfranchise Arizona voters on Jan. 6.
While turnabout is fair play, this is still just politics, not to be taken at face value.
In Duceyโs case, his border stand is among several sweeping political positions heโs taken that give away his aspiration for higher office โ possibly the presidency.
Last week, Duceyโs administration initially rejected FEMAโs offer to establish new vaccine centers in Tucson. At his press conference Wednesday he sounded like a man anxious to keep control and claim credit for vaccines, rather than allow the federal government a role. Thankfully, his administration relented on Friday.
Duceyโs rollback Thursday of all COVID-19 restrictions also speaks of his greater ambitions. The Republican activists he needs on his side in future endeavors have been demanding an end to business limits and other pandemic regulations, no matter what the medical experts say. Now heโs given it to them.
And then there was Duceyโs seemingly unprovoked attack on Vice President Kamala Harris. On Wednesday morning, Biden assigned Harris to manage the border situation. Duceyโs reaction?
โSheโs about the worst possible choice that one could make,โ Ducey said Wednesday. โIn no point in her career has she given any indication that she considers the border a problem or a serious threat. If President Bidenโs intent was to show that heโs taking this issue seriously, heโs really done the exact opposite here.โ
He even promoted his comments about Harris to the public, tweeting out video of them.
Now why would Ducey lash out against Harris? Remember that, if his apparent aspirations are fulfilled, heโll be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. And he might be running against Democrat Kamala Harris. If not Ducey, some other Republican candidate could be facing her.
4. Immigration bills reignite jockeying
The other big political context is shorter term: Democrats are introducing a series of immigration-related bills in Congress. The next great immigration debate has begun.
For years, Republicans have staked out a position that any comprehensive immigration bill must establish a secure border before offering a path to legalization for those in the country illegally. Ducey and others continue to make that stand.
โThe Biden administration confuses immigration with border security,โ he said in Douglas. โThese are separate issues. This is a border security issue. Thatโs step one, then we can solve immigration.โ
But that is a blindered view of illegal border crossings, especially those weโre seeing today. In past years, most people crossing the border between the ports were Mexican men going north for jobs. Now they are families and teens fleeing Central American violence, repression and poverty.
Many are seeking asylum, which the law allows them to do at a U.S. port of entry. But they have been prevented from doing so. The people crossing the Rio Grande in boats could easily be walking up to ports of entry if we chose to follow our asylum laws.
I asked Victor Manjarrez, a retired Border Patrol sector chief who is from Tucson, about border security as a precondition to immigration reform. His answer:
โWe need comprehensive immigration reform to help border security,โ said Manjarrez, who directs the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas El Paso. โWe do a disservice when we say itโs going to be one, then the other. Ultimately, border security is getting people to go through a port of entry to ask for permission.โ
Thatโs not a widely held view, though. If Republicans can convince the public there is a threatening border crisis, it strengthens their hand in the upcoming debate.
As if on cue Friday, Republican senators said they wonโt consider any immigration deal until the border is pacified.
5. Humanitarian concerns start, end at border
Traditionally, Democrats have staked out a bleeding-heart position concerned primarily with humane treatment of migrants, not so much with who is entering the country or why.
In contrast, Republicans have taken a security-first, hard-line position, which Democrats then tend to accommodate for fear of looking weak.
But now the GOP is playing on the humanitarian side of the debate as well.
Senators like Cruz have carved out a position that says it is inhumane to tempt Central Americans to take the dangerous, expensive trek across Mexico and the border. That allows the GOP to remain opposed to border-crossing, but for humanitarian reasons.
โThis isnโt just a border security problem, which makes it a national security problem. Itโs also a humanitarian problem,โ Ducey said in Douglas. โThe measure of humane policy is humane results. Thirteen-thousand children in custody is not humane.โ
Thatโs true โ itโs not humane. But if he really wants humane policy, he would support the right of people to claim asylum at ports of entry and reduce the incentives for children to come alone.
Instead, he has repeatedly supported Trumpโs so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as โRemain in Mexico,โ which make it harder to claim asylum, and trap people in dangerous limbo in Mexican border cities.
This humanitarian position is just a cover for rejecting migration and asylum, Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council argued.
โIn many ways, I would say the concerns expressed for those coming to the border are crocodile tears,โ he said. โNo one leaving Central America doesnโt know the dangers they face. You donโt climb on top of a train, โLa Bestia,โ without knowing the risks. Itโs because what theyโre leaving is worse.โ
6. Border manipulation goes on
Nobody should be surprised anymore by the political deployment of what retired Border Patrol agent Chris Montoya, a Tucsonan, labeled the Border Threat Narrative.
Trump showed that it mobilizes a segment of Americans, the same segment that Ducey needs with him if he is to have any hope on his next political adventure.
The truth is, you can find something you want to call a crisis any time you want on the border. The families and children attempting to migrate these days are, almost by definition, in crisis. Smuggling attempts occur regularly โ we could call that a crisis, or not.
That doesnโt make a given situation truly unprecedented or overwhelming borderwide.
But these arenโt harmless political ploys. The border badmouthing and restrictive policies hurt the towns like Douglas and Nogales that live off of legitimate cross-border trade and are withering without it.
Thatโs why I found it particularly off-putting when Ducey, at this Douglas press conference, called the situation โa man-made crisis caused by elites in Washington, D.C., who are totally divorced from the reality on the ground.โ
In truth, he was the elite divorced from the reality on the ground. And he's not the only one.
Special project: Immigration manipulation
This is an investigative project by Arizona Daily Star metro columnist Tim Steller about how government actors in the U.S. and other countries try to mold public opinion on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. It is funded by a fellowship from the Society of Professional Journalists Foundation. The Star is publishing these investigative columns periodically in 2020.
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