Iowa Democrats are obscuring the failing Biden-Harris immigration agenda

More than a dozen unaccompanied migrant children were secretly flown to Iowa this spring, a troubling example of President Joe Biden’s failing immigration policy.

State leaders were not notified of the flight to Des Moines, where some passengers reportedly unboarded. For weeks after the state became aware, federal immigration officials denied any connection to the flight.

Sure, it’s less than ideal for the federal government to move around children in the dark of night with no oversight or accountability, and maybe it was unwise for the feds to mislead governors and members of Congress. But the real problem, according to Democrats, is Gov. Kim Reynolds.

“She’s only focused on dividing and distracting Iowans from her own record and using a fake crisis to further attacks on our friends and neighbors. Iowa Democrats want to solve the real problems within our own state borders, not play partisan politics that only seek to divide us further,” Ross Wilburn, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said in the statement.

Yes, Reynolds is using the children as political pawns, and her opponents are more than happy to do the same in a bid to divert attention away from their own leader’s ineptitude.

"I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come,” Vice President Kamala Harris said during a trip to Guatemala this month.

In April, Reynolds was widely and righteously panned for saying migrant kids are “not our problem” and rejecting a federal request to help house them. The Iowa governor’s refusal to offer assistance to children in need is wrong but it’s not what’s stopping Biden from effectively addressing the immigration situation.

You can call them cages or detention facilities depending on the party in power, but the reality is much the same: Kids are being held in unsuitable conditions for days and weeks and our government has no real plan to respond. Worse yet, prevailing policy is likely exacerbating the crisis.

One reason parents send their children unaccompanied to the United States is that the children are likely to get better treatment than the adults, giving rise to a practice called self-separation. If we opened legal pathways to adults, many of those families probably would remain intact.

Well past his 100-day benchmark in office, Biden has made some progress at reversing the former Trump administration’s immigration restrictions, but the pace of change has been sluggish. That’s unacceptable when thousands of vulnerable people are languishing near the border and in temporary placements.

Not until this month did the Biden administration formally end Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy and ease controversial barriers for asylum-seekers. Another Trump holdover, known as Title 42 expulsion, remains in place.

That policy allows the government to expel migrants arriving at the border, even if they would otherwise be eligible to apply for legal status. It was imposed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic under the guise of protecting public health. If it ever was necessary, it surely is obsolete now.

The new administration is not quite like the old one, but they’re more similar than it might seem.

"I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come,” Vice President Kamala Harris said during a trip to Guatemala this month.

It’s “country is full” all over again, but now with a D behind the names.

adam.sullivan@thegazette.com; (319) 339-3156