Finley: Border crisis will fester until we throw the rascals out

Clarification: This column should have noted the proposed Senate deal would require asylum seekers to be temporarily detained until their claims are reviewed.

Nothing should send American voters rushing to a third-party choice this November more than the complete failure of Republicans and Democrats to work together to secure our southern border.

At a time when the country needs pragmatic governing, it is getting political maneuvering.

During December, an average of nearly 10,000 migrants crossed the southern border each day, and the government has little information on who they are, what they brought with them or where they are now.

At that pace, in just two months enough migrants will enter the nation to roughly equal the population of Detroit, and nearly enough to form an entire congressional district.

Raw partisanship has rendered the nation's leaders incapable of meeting this existential threat.

President Joe Biden, after denying for three years the southern border is wide open, now agrees it is in crisis, but claims there's nothing he can do about it under current law.

Such fecklessness should be infuriating to a nation that remembers one of Biden's first acts as president was undoing the border security policies of his predecessor. He did so not because they were ineffective, but because they were put in place by Donald Trump.

Trump, for his part, is cheering on this disaster, urging congressional Republicans to stop negotiating toward a solution and instead let the catastrophe fester until after the election in hopes it will sink Biden.

That's ruinous political advice from a man who is interested only in his own fortunes, and not those of his fellow Republicans. If they comply, they will be tagged as obstructionists and will see the blame for Biden's border failure shifted into GOP laps.

Instead of leading on the issue that American voters now say is their No. 1 concern, the Republican House is moving articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who like everyone else in the administration is derelict in addressing the challenge.

Mayorkas is incompetent, but he's not the villain. He is carrying out the policies of his boss, who should not be allowed to play the victim.

At great political risk, a few Republicans in the Senate are working with some of their Democratic colleagues on a compromise. Details are sketchy, but reports indicate the deal would give the president the authority to shut the border when crossings by asylum seekers spike.

More resources would be rushed to the southwest for processing migrants who, if they are allowed to enter the country, would be given the eligibility to immediately seek work. That's a nod to Democratic cities overrun by migrants who have no ability to legally support themselves.

There are glaring weaknesses in the compromise. The biggest is that it sets the threshold for shutting the border at 5,000 apprehensions a day. That still allows 1.8 million migrants a year to enter the U.S. across an unsecured border.

Another 1,400 a day will be allowed in at official crossings, even if a shutdown is ordered.

That's more than 2.3 million a year, and is about two-and-half times the number of green cards issued annually to legal immigrants.

The nation can't handle such a large influx of migrants, most of whom disappear after making their asylum claims and for years have no further contact with authorities.

The goal of any new legislation must be to first secure the border. No one should be allowed in who hasn't been pre-approved to make an asylum claim.

Maybe that means reestablishing Trump's wait in Mexico and immediate deportation policies, or maybe negotiators can come up with something better.

But there should be a universal commitment to the principle that the United States has the right to decide who enters its country. A nation can not make a credible claim to sovereignty if it can't control its borders. There's no room to compromise on that.

Complicating a solution is Congress' decision to tie-bar the border to another intractable issue: ongoing assistance to Ukraine in defending itself against Russia. So the fate of a people struggling to remain free rests on an American political poker game.

We've reached the point where practical governing is beyond the reach of our political leaders, who are so mired in partisanship they can no longer be trusted to act in the nation's best interests.

Replacing them and breaking this political duopoly is the only hope.

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