Immigration is a world-wide issue, as the vote in England on leaving the European Union made clear.
Donald Trump has made it a major issue here at home in the presidential campaign, adding a lot of heat, but shedding no light on it.
It a subject too important for that, one that warrants serious attention and thought. That is why I want to spend a couple of blogs talking about it, hopefully making it worth your while to read them.
To begin, we need to focus on two aspects of the issue constantly in the news: (1) securing our borders; and (2) the threat of Islamic extremists.
First, is it true that the government is doing nothing about securing the nation’s borders?
I understand we have tanks spread across the northern tier to shoot any Canadians coming into the U.S. illegally for being stupid enough to want to. (just kidding)
More seriously, according to the respected Pew Research Center, illegal immigration is now at its lowest level in more than two decades. That’s right. It is going down, not up.
The nation’s population of illegal immigrants tripled to 12.2 million between 1990 and 2007. Since then it has has dropped by 1 million. In addition, the typical illegal immigrant is now someone around 35 years of age or older who has been living here for 10 years. Only a few years ago most illegal immigrants were young males.
A Washington Post article about immigration quotes R. Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who said, “The border is much more secure than in times past.”
What about all the children being sent from foreign countries? Immigration officials have found that most of them have been sent here because of political unrest at home, a problem that has decreased on its own as Latin America has become less brutal and volatile.
The record shows that both President Bush and President Obama have done a great deal to secure our borders, adding money and people power to border patrolling, helping Border Patrol make better use of technology, and working with countries from which immigrants are coming to deal with the problem on their end.
At the same time, it is a persistent problem that never goes away, and helped in no way by silly ideas like building a wall to solve the problem.
I have actually seen the wall we have already built down in Arizona, something the Donald is apparently unaware of. I’ve parked next to the border patrol electronic surveillance trailer looking down on the valley where the wall stands.
My first response was to think how absurd it is to think a wall is going to solve the problem of illegal immigration. People can dig under it or climb over it in the dark, if they want to take the chance.
We can, of course, shoot them as they do, though I’m not sure we want the images of Border Patrol agents killing men, women, and children to be shown around the world.
The point is, building more walls would be a waste of money and would create the illusion of doing something about illegal entry into the country when it would actually do nothing. We need, instead, to keep doing what we are doing because it is working.
What, then, about Islamic extremists getting into the country?
The Donald says it’s such a problem that we need to ban all Muslims until we figure out what to do about the problem. The real problem, though, is figuring out what problem he is talking about.
According to an FBI report, from 1980 to 2005, attacks attributed to Islamic extremists stood at 6%. Attacks attributed to Jewish extremists was 7%.
According to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, of the more than 300 American deaths from the time of the 9/11 attacks to 2013, 33 came at the hands of Muslim-Americans. None from Muslims who were not already American citizens.
Based on these facts and others to support them, the Donald is talking about a problem that doesn’t exist. He has chosen to talk about securing our borders whenever there is a mass killing when the truth is, they are two separate and distinct issues.
The problem comes in when either or both are politicized.
All that does is to reinforce the belief among some that America “is not the country it used to be,” and that illegal immigrants are the reason why.
The reality is this. The urgent need to protect our borders and the potential threat of a radical Islamic attack here at home have been vastly exaggerated. We are dealing effectively with both, while neither is a serious problem.
What is a problem is what to do about the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants who are currently living here.
That is the issue, and it will take good thinking to give a better answer than the knee jerk response that we should just send them all back to where they came from.
Next time we will explore what, if any, good thinking is being done on this issue. It’s too important to be ignored.
What is more, the person we vote for to be our next president will be the one who will have to do something about it, and their actions will make matters worse or better.
linnposts.com 