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The immigration situation at our souther n border has become a pol it i cal football for people who see it as a way to retain their power and, for one individual, a way to regain power following his failed attempt to violently overthrow our Constitution.
It is peddled by some in Congress as a “crisis” that’s the fault of the opposition, ignoring that for four years they did nothing about solving the problem save chanting, “Build the wall.”
Even the national media have gone down that rabbit hole, headlining their evening newscasts with “The crisis at the border,” without explaining what the real crisis and its causes are.
Yes, people in the thousands are trying to cross the border.
However, that is not the crisis. The crisis is hundreds of miles away.
The crisis extends south through Central America to Venezuela, east to Cuba and Haiti, and even the Middle East and Africa.
The crisis is these people are all refugees fleeing crime, poverty, and corrupt, autocratic governments.
In his farewell address to the nation on leaving office Ronald Reagan spoke of our country as “a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, Godblessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”
Has that vision changed in 35 years to one where immigrants, “yearning to be free,” are characterized as vermin and “… poisoning the blood of our country”?
The class act that was Ronald Reagan has been replaced by the nadir of national disgrace we all saw on January 6th, 2021 with the very person that our founding fathers feared most, someone who would be king, now echoing the rhetoric of hate and bigotry of a man who led his own country into disaster.
The top year for people coming through Reagan’s door was, surprisingly, 1907 when 1,285,349 were welcomed, 1.5% of the 87.01 million population that year.
In 2022, 1,018,349 received lawful entry into our country, a mere 0.31% of our 333.29 million population that year.
The figures for 2023 are incomplete. The number most quoted is 2.2 million “encounters.” That’s not a count of people actually entering the country. One migrant can be responsible for multiple “encounters.” S till, that w ould only be 0.65% in a population of 336 million.
Arguing that immigrants are a drag on our economy ignores the contribution they make taking jobs most Americans don’t want.
If immigration is a stress on resources, what about the 3.6 million people who enter our country every year legally?
I’m speaking of our newborn citizens, who will require shelter, food, education, and health care. They won’t be joining the workforce for at least 18 years. Over that span, at 3.6 million a year, that’s a minimum of 64.8 million consumers, all at one time, who aren’t contributing to our economy.
Yet our country thrives. And we certainly don’t think of our children as an unwanted burden.
The situation at our border can’t be solved at our border. If we want to curtail immigration we need to solve the problems that make people flee to seek a better life.
During the Cold War the United States rescued western Europe from Russian domination with the Marshall Plan as we rallied to support the recovery of people devastated by war.
As a nation we were committed to help the less fortunate.
As a people we still have that commitment. Volunteers from our own community have traveled to other states and countries to lend aid to others.
Local citizens have welcomed and supported refugees from the unprovoked war Russia makes on Ukraine.
Members of the “Freedom Caucus” are holding U.S. aid to Ukraine hostage in their demand for draconian restrictions on the “crisis” on the southern border.
Our congressman is a member of that group.
If Vladimir Putin is allowed to absorb Ukraine, there will be a real crisis to confront.
Putin will undoubtedly see our reluctance as a blank check to rebuild the czarist Russian Empire in Europe. Other adversaries – China, Iran, North Korea – will see it as a weakening that allows them to be more aggressive.
Our allies, mindful of the lack of our commitment to Ukraine, will fear a waning of our commitment to stand by them.
That crisis will become a global catastrophe for democracy.
