Dean Johnson Talks to L.A. Times About Perceptions of Crisis at Border

Dean Kevin R. Johnson spoke to the Los Angeles Times’ Anita Chabria for a May 2 column on the political implications for President Joe Biden of current widespread perceptions of an urgent immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Former President and current presidential contender Donald Trump has promoted the idea of a crisis so successfully, despite a decline in the number of migrants crossing the border, that Democratic and undecided voters believe it, Chabria writes, “and that’s Biden’s real immigration problem.”

Real crisis or political creation, “something is necessary to give Americans confidence that borders aren’t open and porous as many Americans think they are,” Johnson told Chabria.

Kevin R. Johnson is the law school’s dean, Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and professor of Chicana/o studies at UC Davis. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.