Two faces of the border
by Hugh Holub on Jun. 19, 2011, under border issues, politicsSecuring the border has two very distinct and different faces.
One face are the migrants who come to the United States for jobs.
Immigrants -- Photo by Jack McGarvey
Why are we afraid of these people?
Would you pick lettuce in Yuma?
On one hand we have a lot of people who just want to work and take care of their families. They are not terrorists. They actually contribute to the building of America.
The other face are the criminals who cross the border to smuggle drugs and rob the migrants.
Manuel Osorio-Arellanes. Courtesy Mesa Police Department
Illegal alien charged with murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry
Recycling illegal aliens so they can commit more crimes in the United States
What is really important is to see the two faces of the border and deal with them appropriately and differently.
There is the migration of workers and then there is the smuggling of drugs.
One vocal camp lumps the two problems together, demands a secure border, deporting 11 million illegal aliens, and no guest worker program.
They are pursuing an agenda called “attrition by enforcement” which is basically aimed at driving Hispanics out of their states…at least that’s how Hispanic see the efforts of Arizona via SB 1070 and Alabama.
On the flip side we have immigration rights activists who want an “open border” teamed up with environmental activists who want to tear down the border fence and lock up borderlands as wilderness areas so the Border Patrol can’t run around in their trucks and disturb the wildlife. Open border advocates leave our borders open for drug smugglers.
What seems to be difficult for many people to get their brains around is we have two separate problems and we need two separate solutions.
On the immigration side we very badly need immigration reform and a guest worker visa program so that honest people can come to the US and work…and go back home.
“Probationary Presence” not “amnesty” needed in immigration reform
We have got to get working people out of our deserts and mountains and through the ports of entry where they can be screened for criminal records.
And like it or not we’re not going to deport 11 million illegal aliens in the country now. We have to find some way to legalize their status that is not amnesty. Unfortunately there are some who call any solution to this problem short of booting the 11 million people out of the country “amnesty”.
How would you deport 11 million illegal aliens?
I think once you figure out how much tax funding will be needed to deport 11 million people, let alone the firestorm that would start in the country if anyone seriously tried to do this….it is time to quit listening to the “no amnesty” crowd and start thinking about how you would deal with people who basically committed a misdemeanor of illegal entry or the civil violation of visa overstay.
But at the same time we must secure the border and we must do this now and before enacting any kind of immigration reform. Why? Because if the border is not secured, we will have a tsunami of illegal entrants seeking the benefits of immigration reform laws.
The really serious problem facing the United States today is the rise of the Mexican drug cartels into vast criminal empires with territorial ambitions in Mexico.
They are in fact terror organizations.
Fueled by billions in the sale of illegal drugs they are arming themselves to military level capabilities.
Mexican drug cartels need to be designated as terrorists
It is now taken for granted that drug cartel related people are running around the borderlands armed with assault rifles and killing law enforcement agents and residents.
Thus we need to secure our borders…not to keep maids and gardeners out……but to secure our border against drug smugglers.
And we need to quit demonizing immigrants who just want to work hard and feed their families like the rest of us.
We need to create a way for working immigrants to come through the ports of entry with visas and live above-ground in the country.
Chances are good we will not see a significant reduction in Border Patrol staff to secure the border even with immigration law reform…because the drug smugglers are relentless and billions of dollars are at stake.
The role and function of the Border Patrol would change drastically in the context of immigration reform which would get workers through the ports of entry and leave the crininals and drug smugglers trying to sneak into America.
We need to figure out how to open our doors to hard working people who just want to feed their families, and close the door and secure it against those who want to bring drugs into our country.
June 19th, 2011 on 6:38 am
It is a shame the basis of this article is profiling.
June 19th, 2011 on 8:02 am
My take is that on one side the the immigration debate people see all illegal aliens as Arellanes types…and on the other side they see all illegal immigrants as the couple.
The issue is both sides of the issue must be addressed…not one over the other. All immigrants are not drug smugglers or criminals. Some immigrants are.
The border must be secured. Arellanes and people like him are running around in my back yard down here and we have to deal with this daily. And so do the migrant working people who are victimized by the Arellaneses out there.
A legal path for workers must be created which allows the hard working folks a legal way in and keeps the Arellanes version out.
And the gaps in the border must be sealed so that the criminals are kept out and the workers can only come through the ports above ground.
In all the border debates very little is said about the failure of INS visa tracking and the apparent inability for them to come up with a working system to sort the good guys out from the bad guys and process visa applications in anything under years.
June 19th, 2011 on 2:06 pm
You’re off the mark. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, more to do with culture, and a lot to do with over-population and over-crowding. Many Americans feel they’ve already made sacrifices to stop the world-wide over-population and expect others to follow suit, but they haven’t. Instead, many seem to think that their hideously more over-crowded countries can simply send their poor and/or their conduits of money transfers and knowledge transfers (from the USA to whereever) to the over-crowded but not quite so severaly over-crowded USA.
We don’t need to deport and physically remove all 10M to 24M illegal aliens in the USA. But we do know from experience in periods when the US government was less lax that we can deport and remove 1M, and that more will remove themselves when we do so. OTOH, we also know that every time we’ve granted full or even partial mass amnesties or increased various visa categories, it has resulted in sharp increases in illegal immigration, so that’s not an option.
June 20th, 2011 on 3:44 pm
Off the mark as usual. Are you saying we can’t control the invasion of illegal immigrants, therefore surrender and organize it? How many immigrants is enough? 20 million? 50 million? 100 million? America’s strength has been in it’s diversity. Allowing millions of poor illegal immigrants from one country(Mexico) to invade the U.S. hardly promotes diversity. It will have profound effects on social, economic and political conditions for many years to come. None of which U.S. citizens have asked for, nor approved.
And, I see your still tilting at the “environmentalist windmill”. Even B.P. as stated they can work with environmental regulations with little difficulty. Your compassion for human beings seems to come to an abrupt halt when it comes to other forms of life. Does this anti-environmentalist stance come from some right-wing dope who has made it a part of their platform because it sounds good? “Let’s lump all of the lefties, communists, democrats and liberals in with environmentalists”. Or, do you believe if you can’t ranch, farm or mine it, it has no value?