Donald Trump’s solution to asylum-seekers at the border is clear: cruelty. Democrats are opposed to that, but they’re also crafting proposals to show what they would do to respond to a major increase in border crossings and backlogs at entry points.
House Democrats are preparing a bill that would increase funding at the border to process refugees, as well as creating centers in Central America to process asylum applications. Because “You don’t just wait for people to show up at the border. It’s the worst way to deal with it,” as Democratic California Rep. Zoe Lofgren said, Democrats would also increase aid to Central American countries to try to combat the conditions that so many asylum-seekers are fleeing.
Senate Democrats are proposing a measure to increase staffing in immigration courts to combat a backlog of immigration cases. Obviously, Republicans will oppose any measures to make current immigration laws work more smoothly or to address the problem at its source, so these plans have basically zero chance of becoming law, but Democrats are at least offering a clear vision of something beyond “not what Trump is doing.”