The Southern Border
Posturing shouldn't supersede common sense
Immigration
THE SOUTHERN BORDER
Posturing shouldn't supersede common sense
Johann Anwar Ryan Smith
Every nation on earth defines itself by its borders. Every nation’s government ensures the safety of its citizens by guarding its borders. Every nation’s citizens pay taxes with the understanding that those resources will be allocated in a way that ultimately benefits the citizens of that nation. Not because outside people are bad and deserve no benefits, but because common sense dictates that no one nation has the resources to care for every single person on the planet. And yet eleven states and approximately thirty-seven cities have labeled themselves “sanctuaries,” thereby crafting policy out of their luxury belief that illegal immigration without any principled limit will not negatively affect them. The “sanctuary” label is far from simply rhetorical, because a designation as a sanctuary city or state limits the extent to which local jurisdictions can cooperate with federal immigration officials. In adopting this label, cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and New York proudly proclaimed their sanctuary status and claimed the moral high ground by denigrating anyone who objected as racist.
Such luxury beliefs were abruptly revised or abandoned when reality knocked at the door. Governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’s Greg Abbott transported illegal migrants from their own states to bastions of liberalism like the Hamptons. Initially deemed a rash and heartless approach to a complex issue, it turned out to be more than that. It woke the country up, revealing the consequences of a divided approach to the fundamental issue of securing the country’s borders. “Sanctuary cities” are now calling for something to be done about the influx of illegal immigrants.
New York Mayor Eric Adams has gone from promising to house and protect migrants, happily receiving them at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, to saying: “This issue will destroy New York City.” Indeed, an influx of approximately 10,000 illegal immigrants a month will do that. Adams has even taken matters into his own hands, flying south on a four-day trip to Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, and the Darien Gap in order to dissuade people from seeking asylum in New York.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, there were 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States in 2018. The sharp growth in illegal immigration over the last couple of years undoubtedly contributed to the Biden administration’s recent announcement that it will reverse course and continue where former President Donald Trump left off, extending the infamous wall that Biden campaigned so vigorously against. For those paying attention, this reversal will come as no surprise. In 2006 Biden, while a Senator of Delaware, unaware he was being recorded, informed a crowd, “I voted for a fence. … I voted for 700 miles of fence. ... And let me tell you something folks, people are driving across that border with tons ... of [drugs].”
Despite the oft-repeated truth that the US is a country of immigrants, illegal immigration does no favors to American citizens. It especially wreaks havoc in the black community. The policies of “sanctuary cities” make urban neighborhoods unsafe. Gang members and illegal drugs that have made their way across the southern border find their way to cities like Chicago, which are already dealing with high crime rates. Sanctuary policies protect criminals by, for example, preventing ICE from receiving notification when an illegal immigrant who has been incarcerated is released from jail. The goal of this policy is to prevent ICE from apprehending and deporting the individual in question. Americans who commit crimes are not protected by an agency or by the state, so it is a mystery why non-Americans should receive such immunity.
The National Center for Public Policy Research quotes a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report showing that illegal immigration “depresses both wages and employment rates for low-skilled Americans, who are disproportionately black men.” Indeed, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, all American workers who are in competition with immigrants have their wages reduced by illegal immigration. We have serious issues here at home, including homelessness and the mental health crisis, to name but two. In the face of such challenges to the native and legal immigrant population, why would the government splash the cash to aid illegal immigrants?
At a Chicago city council meeting where a vote to spend $51 million to help migrants seeking asylum in the sanctuary city was to take place, police had to be called in to restore order. (The spending was eventually approved.) In some states and cities, illegal immigrants can get benefits such as driver’s licenses and city services. This is money that could be invested in benefitting Americans and those legally living in America.
It is not just New Yorkers and Chicagoans who see the migration issue as a serious problem. A Reuters/Ipsos poll has revealed that 14% of Americans believe immigration is America’s number one issue, above both crime, at 11%, and the environment, at 7%, and behind only the economy, at 19%.
Besides securing the border with walls and fences, and the $4 billion for border security that the Biden administration has requested, more needs to be done. Applications have piled up, with over 20 million prospective legal immigrants in the backlog. Expanding and diversifying the system’s processing capability at official ports of entry needs to happen, yesterday. To make the immigration system more efficient, the CATO Institute has recommended limiting unnecessary paperwork, shortening forms, going digital, implementing remote video visa interviews, ending the policy of requiring extensions for dependents, and establishing a centralized immigration agency coordinator position and single, online filing platform. All of these reforms would streamline the immigration process and are long overdue.
Regardless of their nature, strict or lax, immigration laws and secure borders are vital components of a functioning society. The United States has evolved from earlier, more exclusive immigration policies to more inclusive ones, and it has done so through legislation and policies such as the Hart-Celler Act, and through focusing on family reunification and employment-based immigration. Inclusivity, however, does not equate to porous borders. We must strike a balance. Legal immigration is part of America’s DNA. It injects new life into the nation. Securing our borders while maintaining humane values that also boost the net positives of immigration do not have to be mutually exclusive propositions. But in order to properly address the issue, we need to take a page from economist Walter E. Williams and ask ourselves:
“Do people, anywhere in the world, have a right to enter the United States irrespective of our laws pertaining to immigration?”
If we answer “yes” and decide that every single person on planet Earth should be able to move to the United States without restriction, we will find that the country quickly loses the qualities that now make it such an attractive place to live.
Johann Anwar Ryan Smith was born and raised in Hartford County, Connecticut. He is a former professional soccer player and a current undergraduate student at Stanford University, where he studies history and philosophy. Johann is also a student researcher at the Hoover Institution.
As for a prioritized list of problems facing the US, the order is irrelevant. The central problem is: no leadership. None. Were I suddenly president, I'd give Congress the list of problems and tell them to solve them. All of them. I'd veto literally every piece of legislation that came across my desk that didn't solve a problem on the list until all were effectively solved. They might be able to override my vetoes, but given the divisions within Congress at this time, that wouldn't apply to most of them.
Expected result: passage of almost no legislation for quite a while. Which would be a good thing, considering that most of what comes out of Congress is somewhere between useless and harmful. This is, of course, why I'll never be elected. That and the fact that I'd never run for office.
Blacks voting for Ds that keep them in failing schools (thanks, Randi!), in failing economies, and in ever-greater competition with illegals for their standard of living, are like women voting for decarceration policies that put them at personal risk and for tranny policies destroying everything they’ve worked for for 50 years at-risk. If blacks & women voted their own best interests, they’d never again vote D, and the country would be a safer, more-prosperous and more educated place.