Making Sense of Chaos at the Border

With an aging population and declining birthrates, the country is far from “full,” as President Donald Trump has claimed. And yet, our immigration system has been pummeled by record numbers of migrant families flooding the border.

The administration has pushed to make it much tougher for those seeking asylum to win protection in the United States. And yet, the federal government wants to issue more visas to foreign workers in fields like landscaping and housekeeping.

Now, as my colleagues reported from San Ysidro, California, the immigration system may actually be reaching a breaking point.

Here are the top takeaways:

— The situation isn’t new.

Experts have been warning for years that the immigration system was heading for a major failure, as trends shifted. Instead of a migrant population of mostly young men crossing the border in search of temporary work, it has been largely families since 2014.

That has placed more strain on systems meant to aid children and others who say they’re fleeing from violence.

And while members of both political parties have called for overhauls over the years, none have been successful.

— The people coming to the U.S. are coming for different reasons.

That shift from men seeking work to families seeking refuge has taken place alongside other changes in the population of migrants crossing the border.

Many more are seeking asylum than in years past, which means they say they are fleeing their home countries — increasingly in Central America, rather than Mexico — over fears for their safety.

— One of the biggest pressure points is a backlog in immigration courts.

The influx of migrants means immigration courts have been flooded with cases, which can drag out for years.

Immigration courts now have more than 800,000 pending cases. They take an average of 700 days to process.

— The president’s efforts at deterrence aren’t working.

The Trump administration has tried a series of strategies to communicate that migrants aren’t welcome, including prosecuting everyone who crosses illegally and taking their children from them.

Most recently, the administration implemented a policy of forcing those seeking asylum to stay in Mexico while their cases are resolved, but that was blocked by a California judge.

None of those efforts have worked; the president’s talk about shutting down all immigration — legal and illegal — has actually spurred smugglers to advertise by claiming that now is the time to try to enter the United States.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.