It appears that the media’s recent focus on immigration issues is moving public opinion a bit.
Seventeen percent of people in the United States say immigration is the nation’s top problem, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.
That’s up from 5 percent in June, and is the highest number Gallup has registered for immigration since 2006, when 15 percent said it was the nation’s most pressing problem.
Gallup’s new survey found immigration is virtually tied with “dissatisfaction with government” as the nation’s top problem.
It’s moved my opinion a bit, too. Ordinarily, I simply do not care about immigration issues. I’m welcoming to virtually anyone who wants to come to America to work, and I don’t mind very much if people circumvent our ridiculous immigration policies to get here. Insofar as I care about immigration issues at all, I wish that we were willing to admit that we need unskilled laborers to do some of our agricultural work and had provisions to accommodate them without treating them as lawbreakers.
But the latest development of unaccompanied minors flooding our borders concerns me from a humanitarian point of view. I don’t think we can adopt a policy of open borders and I do think we need to find a way to disincentivize parents from sending their kids here both because the kids aren’t safe during their voyage and because we can’t deal with them in a rational and humane way.
Of course, it’s hard to get Congress to do anything in a sensible way, so that compounds the problem from a pragmatic and a political point of view. What I think ought to be done is that the State Department should engage with Central American governments to create an information campaign that discourages people from sending their kids to the border. Along with that, some funds should be set aside to help those governments improve their law enforcement. I don’t know if this will work very well but it will at least send a message that we recognize that there are problems with public safety that are causing people to flee. There are probably some issues that are specific to individual countries and governments that need to be addressed, too, but that is beyond my scope here.
If we determine that conditions are so bad in some countries that people should be granted refugee status, then we need to make provisions for that. Doing it on a case by case basis is too inefficient. But, even if we do determine that there are legitimate refugees, we ought to have a plan for changing that circumstance, most likely though foreign aid rather than covert action.
This isn’t an immigration issue; it’s a refugee issue.
That was pointed out last week by commenter Martin on Balloon Juice. He’s right – we would be a lot better off if we dealt with these children as the refugees they are.
Sweet Christ in the foothills on a tricycle, our lawmakers don’t have the stomach to do two simple things to make this right.
Simple Thing the First: Admit that the War on Drugs is a sham and a shame. License, regulate, tax and sell. If the money that now floods into the hands of the narcotrafficantes and gangs dries up they’ll be much easier to deal with.
Simple Thing the Second: America needs stoop labor, doesn’t it? That’s an ugly truth. It seems to border on madness to make fugitives of those who are willing to perform those backbreaking tasks.
At 66 years old I no longer hope that any of our lawmakers will step up and deal with reality. Our government has become bad theater.
>>America needs stoop labor, doesn’t it?
no. If a job needs to be done it should pay a fair wage with decent working conditions.
Absolutely. American industries that rely for their profits on what is essentially slave labor need to be restructured so that they don’t. (I’m looking at you, Big Agriculture). If that means we all pay a few pennies more for a head of lettuce, so be it. I’m sick of participating in the American apartheid system of exploited immigrant labor, which I am evert time I buy produce.
We rely on people, not machines, to harvest some crops. Those who are willing to bring in the harvest should do so under a fair and carefully administered system. As I stated in my original comment, making those who would do this work fugitives is abhorrent.
I don’t know as many migrant laborers as I used to back in the Seventies. At that time, most of those fine people wanted to come up here and follow the harvest then take the money they made back home to Mexico where it would last.
Please feel free to enlighten my ignorance about how it is now. I am in many ways sadly out of date.
these are children, teenagers and younger
Yes, the whole thing is a cynical and very successful propaganda ploy.
Mexico is laughing its butt off.
Good to remember that this wave of refugees are crossing more than one border on their way to the US. Mexico is not only allowing them to cross its own borders but certainly greasing the wheels to their final destination. In our lap. Just a stupid thought, but what would Canada do if the US used the same greased wheels to roll these refugees right up and across their borders?
these are children; many of them have parents here already
When it was workers not children there were still many crossing through Mexico, who are particularly vulnerable when they cross because they have no rights and no means of support. There are some (religious) shelters and social services along the route. I saw the figures once but do not recall how many thousands from South America and Central America are en route through Mexico every day (iirc it was n the tens of thousands about 7 years ago, I imagine there are fewer adults now). The Mexican gov last I knew, and granted my info is a few years out of date since I haven’t researched this recently, is a passive bystander as they are in many other things.
I don’t think any parent needs an information campaign to not want to send her or his 10-year-old across several borders. I think every parent must die a little at the prospect. I can only imagine that the parents who are doing this are making a rational decision, given their situation. I don’t know how we can possibly disincentivise people who are that desperate.
One of my grandfathers walked across Prussia and France as an adolescent, if the stories are true, and from there eventually got to the US. I’m told he stole food, and was jailed at least once, and I can’t imagine what else he did–or what else was done to him. All I know about immigration is that I don’t have the moral standing to keep anyone else out, now that I’ve enjoyed the fruits of this country, though no effort of my own. Morally speaking, at least, it makes at least as much sense to send my ass to Guatemala and let some other family enjoy the privileges for a few generations.
The best way to control our borders is to open them to all in the Americas who want to work and allow free passage to all with passports from across the continent. That way we track, tax, and benefit from people who only want work. We also alleviate the crush on services and gain revenue and consumers.
We also avoid the problems an economic integration would bring; and benefit from people being able to leave and return to their kids.
We can’t fix this alone and can’t simply close our borders to our neighbors. I think this seminar-eurozone could help.
*semi-eurozone, stupid phone
Excuse me.
The problem is that we’re America. God has blessed us and made us the smartest, strongest, richest nation on earth. So we don’t listen to each other any more. We no longer know how to bend, even when bending is better than breaking. At some point, we will, like those other smartest, strongest, richest nations from history, get slapped good and hard upside the head by reality.
At some point, we will, like those other smartest, strongest, richest nations from history, get slapped good and hard upside the head by reality.
Maybe it’s for the best. What good did the British Empire do for the average Brit?
I am, in a very small way, a historian. The British Empire (On which the sun never set) provided the average Brit with cheap gin. That’s about it. The Roman empire managed to provide its voting citizens with some food and much begging (As clients of their better off masters).
The illegal immigration problem stems from the fact that business here in the United States actively recruits people from Mexico and Central America and pays to bring them here.
That isn’t conjecture. Go speak with anyone working in the back of the house at any restaurant anywhere near you. No, seriously.
The current problem is that because of a century+ of US Imperialism in Mexico/Central America/South America/Caribbean, the political systems of a few of these feudal states are beyond decency. So we’re left with a bunch of literal refugees.
It doesn’t stem from that but it’s true that some businesses did contract to bring undocumenteds; I’m pretty sure they are not doing that any more, but as recently as less than a decade ago it was happening. people came here for work, to earn a living, to support their families, that’s pretty much the story.
If businesses didn’t hire illegal immigrants, there wouldn’t be an illegal immigrant working in any part of the United States.
Yes or No
you wrote “recruits” not “hires”. that’s what I responded to
Push them back across the border into Mexico.
Let Mexico be humane.
Think of it as a chance for them to redeem themselves for the lousy job they did as all these folks traveled all the way from their southern to their northern border.
In case no else has told you this today, you’re a bad person. An awful, pathetic excuse for a human being.