This is the Moment We Should Make Our Immigration System Work

    With some saying we are on the verge of the greatest influx of migrants in twenty years, now is the moment to ensure we will be able to handle them and care for them when they arrive.

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, has criticized the president for opening a facility for children who arrive. "This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay -- no matter the administration or party," she tweeted.

   AOC is wrong. Though the facility for children should not be for-profit, though it should get all the licensing and child care requirements necessary, and though it should not imprison the children, we should offer such a place of welcome and care for the children when they arrive. Having clean, comfortable housing available for children is something we should want to do, staffed with loving, caring workers. 

   We read how the Biden administration wants to process the migrants in in a 72-hour span. No longer will there be the long-term holding centers instituted under the Obama years. We will be back to releasing the immigrants and relying on them to show up for their court dates. 

  As they arrive, we should ensure that we provide them clean and decent housing for their 72-hour stays, complete with medical screening (including for COVID-19, of course). During that 72 hours, we should do as much criminal background checking on them as possible, to determine if they are fleeing criminal charges or criminal backgrounds in their home countries. But, at the same time, we should be ensuring that if they are fleeing from persecution, from domestic violence, from criminal elements, from corrupt governments, or any other such thing, they are safe in our care and not being tracked down by those who would endanger them. When their asylum claims can be processed within that 72-hour span and they declared legal to be here, that should happen.  And, yes, we should make that possible -- even likely. That 72-hour window should largely be enough time to completely process them in. Have background-checkers make calls to verify their stories, and then present to the judge what was found out, and make a ruling.  

   This is a moment we should be reshaping our immigration, making it work. These are things that would be right to do.