US Migration Crisis and Its Consequences for the 2024 Presidential Elections

Abstract

The evolution of US migration policy has run several cycles: at first, the fate of immigrants was the responsibility of the employer (companies, who brought them to the USA), then, with an increase in their influx and their gradual resettlement, the lives of newcomers began to be determined at the state level. Only at the end of the 19th century migration regulation began to acquire the features of the federal government’s established policy with a vector towards liberalization throughout the next century. Starting from the 2010s there is a reverse trend – back to restrictionism and ‘descend’ of the regulation to the level of state authorities, especially for illegal immigrants. Such shift causes a clash between states and federal government, and at the same time emphasises the inability of this government to carry out objectively aspired reform.Today immigration policy in the United States can be divided into two major areas: legal immigration regulation and government attempts to solve the problem of illegal immigration. This division, albeit conditionally, helps to understand why for 30 years now no Congress has been able to work out a comprehensive immigration reform or at least agree on key areas for the implementation of its’ certain aspects. A set of acute problems of socio-economic, moral and ethical nature forms an inseparable set of challenges. It equally includes both the areas necessary for the country’s successful economic development: highly qualified personnel attraction, aging of the nation combating, increase of the birth rate, and the challenges associated with the burden on society and the increase in crime: the influx of refugees, illegal, seasonal and permanent immigrants and their families.Due to domestic political peculiarities in the modern United States, party coalitions cannot agree on even one of these areas, let alone develop a profound working system that meets constantly changing needs of the economy, foreign policy challenges, and is in consensus with states’ authorities, who would finally assimilate newcomers.Will the current crisis on the southwestern border of the United States affect J. Biden’s reelection in November 2024? What strategy has D. Trump chosen to bypass his rival? – you will find from this article.