I am for stricter border control, but I am against stricter immigration enforcement. Is that an oxymoron? Possibly. I have been having a hard time reconciling the seemingly opposed views myself. But hear me out, and maybe you will find that you agree with me.
I am for stricter border controls because I fear terrorists will see our unprotected margins as easy ways to transport WMD's into our country. As much as I wish it were just a plot in an action movie, I am not naive enough to believe that. It could, and sadly probably will happen in my lifetime.
But, I am against stricter immigration enforcement. I don't think that the current process is fair or appropriate. I know that most of the folks that come into this country illegally are doing so for one reason: To better their lives and the lives of their families. A very vast majority are not drug smugglers, but rather hard working individuals willing to hold two minimum wage jobs that no American would do. They deserve the same chance my ancestors from Italy had.
Is there a solution that could solve both our porous border and illegal immigration issue?
I don't know, but I am going to use this post to keep track of my ideas, and those of others so that someday I may find one!
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Update: 8/21
Well, I was ready to go to bed for the night after writing a post about Blackwater. But then I saw an article on CNN's website that states:
"A 'major gunbattle' between drug traffickers and Mexican federal police broke out Saturday evening in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just 30 yards from the U.S. border at El Paso, Texas, causing U.S. authorities to cordone off a section of the city, according to a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman [Ramiro Corder]. . . 'The gunbattle is still going on right now,' Cordero said 30 minutes after the incident began, just south of the University of Texas at El Paso."
(Source: Drug traffickers, Mexican police battle within yards of U.S. border)
TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE AND SARCASTIC COMMENT TO FOLLOW...DO NO READ IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED.
I wonder what would happen if we pulled all of the contractors we have in Iraq and Afghanistan out, and sent them to the border in Mexico where all of this BS is going down. I'm not saying that it's a good idea, I am just curious. Blackwater/Xe vs. the Ciudad Juarez Drug Cartel. It would be like a team Celebrity Death Match. I am taking bets, and I put $50 on the Mexicans.
Back on topic. I find it really depressing that the country less than 30 yards from one of our University's is in a constant state of chaos. The folks in charge of maintaining law and order there are getting murdered left and right, and even doing the murdering, or so it seems. (Mexican Police Help Murder Their Own Mayor) No wonder why so many decent folks are trying to flee to America with their families!
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Update: 8/28
U.S. diplomats told to send their children out of Monterrey
In a statement released by the U.S. consulate in Monterrey, the following message can be found:
"Local police and private patrols do not have the capacity to deter criminal elements from areas around the schools attended by the children of U.S. personnel assigned to the consulate."
Monterrey is in northern Mexico, but not directly on the border. Still, the statement above is eerily similar to the one I read about Iraq earlier this morning. The only difference is, Iraq is on the other side of the world. Mexico is in our backyard.
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9/1
I finally found some information about what the United States is doing to enforce our border. According to this article on CNN, some of the 532 additional National Guard troops assigned to the Mexico/US board are beginning to arrive there. Furthermore, the President recently signed a bill allocating an additional $600million to border enforcement.
"Among other things, the bill provides for roughly 1,500 new law enforcement agents, new unmanned aerial vehicles, new forwarding operating bases, and $14 million in new communications equipment."
Finally! It sounds like we are getting ready for war where it is actually needed. If we are not going to realistically consider ending the war on drugs, the intense violence on the other side of our southern border will likely continue. I imagine a military presence of well over 2,000 National Guard troops by this time next year.
Furthermore, the need for "comprehensive immigration reform," as it has been touted in Washington, is becoming more obvious to me everyday. I would be trying to get my family out of there too if I lived in Mexico right now. Murder is rampant, and the cartels don't care who they hit in the crossfire.
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9/1
After reading the interviews in an article from MSNBC's website that is no longer linking properly, I am even more convinced that we need to make immigration reform a top priority. Our current laws, even the new, stricter ones in Arizona, are not deterring mass migrations of illegal immigrants across the desert.
"Deaths of illegal immigrants in Arizona have soared this summer toward their highest levels since 2005 — a fact that has surprised many who thought that the furor over the state's new immigration law and the 100-plus degree heat would draw them elsewhere along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border."
The stories of the immigrants interviewed are touching, however their determination is what I will remember. Most of those caught, according to the article, were just going to pack up and try the crossing again. Using our National Guard to try and stop them seems like putting a calendar under a faucet to catch water. What doesn't get through right away, will makes its way through eventually.
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9/10
A US circuit court has ruled that Hazelton, PA cannot enforce it's illegal immigrant rental law. Under the law, "tenants would have had to prove they were citizens or lawful residents, register with the city and pay for a rental permit in order to receive an occupancy permit." (U.S. circuit court rules against illegal immigration laws)
Though the law has been shot down for now, the attorney for Hazelton has vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court.
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9/10
The violence across the border in Mexico has risen to its worst level in three years, according to this Reuters article I found on MSNBC's website. And still, the Mexican police and military have been unable to detain the drug lords suspected of the violence in Ciudad Juarez.
"Since January 2008 more than 6,400 people have died in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez," (Hitmen kill 25 in bloodies day on Mexico-U.S. border)
*Note: Links now go to article titled: "85 prisoners escape jail on Mexico-U.S. border"
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9/20
Colin Powell says he doesn't hire illegal immigrants
The above headline is very misleading. In fact, Powell said that illegals frequently helped with repairs around his house in a NBC interview on 9/19. Now, he is being forced to back-peddle to please the right wing nutcases currently running the Republican party.
What gets me the most mad is that Republicans favored immigration reform in 2006. Since the birth of the "party of no, however, they are now against it in favor of border security. I don't understand why the two must be mutually exclusive. I don't believe most moderate Republicans, like Powell, do either. It's unfortunate their eccentric, extremist counterparts are yelling louder.
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9/24
Mexico: Guns from the U.S., not illegal immigrants, are the real problem
According to Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa "Violence in the United States is not related to illegal Mexican immigrants, but violence in Mexico is connected to vast shipments of weapons from the United States."
I agree with Ms. Espinosa's sentiments (as do most available statistics), but not necessarily her resolutions. A vast majority of the illegal immigrants in the U.S. are not drug-trafficking, AK-47 toting, cartel lackeys. They are mostly god-fearing, humble people, trying to escape the violence that has perverted their once beautiful and hospitable homeland. If the exodus continues, the only things left in Mexico are going to be guns, drugs, and the criminals who handle them. We need to offer illegal immigrants some fair way to become citizens, that does not involve shipping them back to the war-zone that much of Mexico has become.
Immigration and border control are two very different entities, however. I do not think the exceptional morals of a majority of illegal immigrants should exempt Mexico from doing it's fair share to protect the border. I feel that our neighbor to the south has done a lot of finger pointing, but not a lot of personal examination, and development in this area. I see plenty of American troops being called to monitor our side, but have not heard of any Mexican patrols being summoned to theirs.
I do understand where Arizona state governor Jan Brewer is coming from. Regardless of whether the numbers shrunk slightly on on our side from 2005-2008, I don't think anyone would argue that the violence along the border is real. One of the articles I linked on this thread was titled "Drug traffickers, Mexican police battle within yards of U.S. border." Perception is reality. Because the line between the two countries is so blurred, it doesn't matter which side the murders and kidnappings are really on. They feel too close to home.
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10/12
Mexican investigator in Falcon Lake case beheaded, officials say (CNN, 10/13/2010)
The headline alone is shocking. To learn that the police officer's head was then "delivered Tuesday in a suitcase to the Mexican military," is equally shocking. The fact that this crazy development in the ongoing murder-mystery has occurred on the same morning as the Chilean mine rescue is unfortunate. If Americans were to hear about this beheading, maybe they would finally be shocked into realizing just how close we live to a war zone as dangerous and backwards as Afghanistan. Only if we all voice our dissent loud enough, will change ever come to Washington. The drug war needs to end. Immigration policies need to be reformed. Then, if the fighting continues, the military needs to summoned.
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10/13
Beheadings, hangings plague Tijuana amid festival (Yahoo News/AP, by Mariana Martinez, 10/13/2010)
In a town with a normal homicide rate of two per day, you would think things couldn't get any worse. They can. In an attempt to send a message to President Calderon, telling him who is boss, the drug cartels have upped the violence in Tijuana over the past week.
"Some resident feared the cartels were trying to send a message just as the city is trying to promote itself to the outside world. Calderon last week inaugurated 'Innovative Tijuana,' a two-week festival featuring discussions on aerospace, auotomotives and other industries that drive the city's economy."
The article reads like a horror story, complete with a still unidentified, headless body swinging by its feet under a bridge, before splatting onto a roadway. The photograph on the left shows a police officer looking down at a bowling-ball-size bag containing a human head. This type of excessive, gruesome violence is not unusual in the border town. In 2008 one cartel kingpin became notorious for disposing of bodies by dissolving them in vats of acid. Which leads me to wonder why we are not terming these cartels as terrorist groups? They seem to fit the definition. Even the end of the article reads like war reporting, with casualty counts for minor cities and regions listed.
"In Chihuahua state Wednesday, six prison guards were killed while driving to work in Chihuahua city, the state's capital, authorities reported.. . In the northern state of Sinaloa, wo police officers were killed when gunmen ambushed their patrol in Mazatlan. It was the second ambush of police in Sinaloa this week — eight officers were killed Monday when gunmen opened fire on their patrol cars."
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11/1
Immigrants Top Native Born in U.S. Job Hunt (CNN Money, by Aaron Smith, 10/29/2010)
Why are immigrant unemployment rates better than that of native born Americans? "One of the reasons why immigrants tend to outperform native-born Americans (in unemployment statistics) is because they're willing to take less desirable jobs," according to Rakesh Kochhar, association director of research at the Pew Hispanic Center and co-author of the recent study. According to Kochhar, they came here for one reason, and that is to work. Immigrants don't care where they work. Immigrants don't care how much, and when they work. And immigrants don't care what they get paid for working. Native born Americans can probably claim that only one of these variables is negotiable.
The jobs in question don't get many native applicants to begin with. The "Take Our Jobs" campaign that ran through the past summer helped establish this fact.
"Most applicants quickly lose interest once the reality sinks in that these are back-breaking jobs in triple-digit temperatures that pay minimum wage, usually without benefits, according to the union. Some small farms are not required to pay minimum wage and in 15 states farms aren't required to offer workers' compensation."
So if you hear reporters and politicians trying to blame immigrants for stealing jobs, don't be fooled. Pinning our current economic woes on the immigrants will never solve our current problem, because they are not the reason for our suffering.
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11/2
3 Americans shot to death near Mexico-U.S. border (CNN, 11/2/2010)
If 3 Americans had been murdered anywhere else in the world, our diplomats would be throwing a fit. But, since these poor souls died in Mexico, their deaths are expected and accepted. The article is no more than the normal blurb relaying the daily death toll in the war we ignore to our south.
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11/4
Authorities investigate mass grave in Mexico (CNN, 11/4/2010)
Yet another mass grave has been discovered close to our southern border with Mexico. This time, the bodies have turned up just outside the once-safe tourist destination of Acapulco. "There was speculation that the bodies were those of 20 Mexican tourists from Michoacan who were kidnapped from a bus in Acapulco in September." Every post I make in this thread convinces me more and more that we are ignoring a raging war to our south, while waging a useless war on the other side of the world. No wonder immigrants are willing to risk everything to get into the United States.
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11/5
"[T]he Obama Administration has been wildly successful in reversing the tide of illegal immigration across the Mexican border. The number of illegal immigrants declined by an estimated 800,000 in 2009."
Source: Joe Klein, Time Magazine, 11/15/2010
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2/4/2011
Napolitano's good words, short memory on immigration (CNN, by Ruben Navarrette, 2/3/2011)
In the above opinion piece, Navarrette argues that Latino's have a right to be angry at Obama for failing to live up to his campaign rhetoric. As a former Obama supporter, and current immigrant-sympathizer, I couldn't agree more. Nothing has changed along the border or in our law books, but the President has completely muted his "I love Latinos" trumpet. My only regret is that it will be a cold day in hell before Republicans offer a better candidate to fight for the rights of America's newest members of the melting pot.
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2/21/2011
Italy: al Qaeda will exploit North African migrant flood (CNN, by Tim Lister, 2/17/2011)
I couldn't help but chuckle as I read the above headline. Some folks will say anything to scare others into being anti-immigrant. I am not claiming that Italy isn't facing a real crisis. With more than 5,000 Tunisians arriving on its island between Africa and Europe since protests broke out in January, Italy must figure out what to do. Historically, the country has been anti-immigration. "One EU-wide poll in 2009 found illegal immigration was twice as important to Italians as the rest of Europe, with 69% of Italians rating it top priority compared to an EU average of 31%." A couple years ago, Italians faced criticism for ousting the Roma from the edges of their metropolitan areas. But, given the reason for their fleeing, you would think Italians would show a little compassion to the Tunisians. Instead, I find headlines like the one linked above. What a sad world we live in.
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