Fewer border crossings, same border problems

Donald Trump was a bit confused during Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate.

He seemed to think the issue of illegal immigration “wasn’t a subject” discussed by the media before the GOP presidential hopeful announced his candidacy.

In Texas, it’s been an issue for a long time — a fact that has little to do with Trump and a lot to do with a lack of comprehensive, long-term solutions to a very complicated problem.

Last month, U.S District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that family detention centers that house about 2,000 migrants (mostly women and children) who flooded into the Rio Grande Valley last spring and summer should be closed and their occupants set free pending immigration hearings.

In a scathing order, she declared that the detention facilities in Karnes City and Dilley violate a 1997 settlement setting legal requirements for housing immigrant children.

But according to the government, Gee’s ruling could have the deleterious effect of encouraging more migrants — particularly those with children — to cross the border into the U.S.

In its brief, government lawyers also said immigration officials are transitioning detention facilities into “processing centers” that would hold immigrants for brief periods of time before they are released.

Whether undocumented immigrants are held for long or short increments, the government admits that 40 percent of the 25,000 women and children who were released at the border last year and had their initial hearings between June 2014 and May 2015 never showed up in court, leaving them in legal limbo and rendering the current system largely ineffective.

Whether due to increased border enforcement or improved economic conditions in some nations, border crossings are down from last year, although “substantially higher” than in years past, officials have said.

But problems abound and continue to make headlines, while few policymakers are proposing long-term solutions.

And none of Trump’s bluster changes that.

This story was originally published August 7, 2015 at 7:25 PM with the headline "Fewer border crossings, same border problems."