I’m doing a second post on Immigration right away because it’s currently in the news almost every day and in my first post I was pretty light on opinions.  I should start these discussions by sharing mine first.  It’s my blog, so that only seems fair.  Let me take this opportunity to again state that I am not an expert in anything related to immigration.  I’ve done no studies, I’ve interviewed no migrants, and I don’t even live in a border state.  The following are just my opinions which came about from listening to my news sources and poking around the internet a bit.

Current Events

First, let’s look at what’s happening right now on the border.  This is being posted in late November, 2018, so we have the over-hyped migrant caravan at the border station near Tijuana.  Police have just fired tear gas into crowds of migrant protesters.  Reports are that the protest started peacefully, but allegedly there was some rock throwing eventually, though police were wearing protective gear so there were no injuries to speak of.  Women and children were affected by the gas, but that was due to high winds blowing the gas quite a distance away.  Also, our military was involved but only in support – no member of the armed services came into contact with migrants.

Why were the migrants protesting?  Because they have traveled over 3000 miles to legally seek asylum (something protected under US and international law) only to be told that the official port of entry can only process 50 to 100 migrants a day.  That means a wait of weeks to several months before they can even be heard by anyone in America.  A wait that will be in Mexico, a country that doesn’t want them, in places where they can be easy targets for gangs or other criminals.  So, they’re trying to migrate to the US the legal way, but we are making it as hard as possible for them to do so.  From the migrant point of view, it’s either protest in the hopes that the US will show some compassion, or sneak off and cross the border illegally.  Instead of sending more administrators to speed up the application process, Trump has sent the military to keep the foreigners in line.  Rather that help the situation, Trump has once again decided to show force while blaming everything on the families seeking asylum.  It’s a win-win for Trump.  Either the migrants behave, which Trump will claim is due to the military presence, or they get out of hand in which case Trump can claim that he was right and they’re all animals.  It’s a lose-lose for everyone else involved, including America who suddenly is having more human rights issues under Trump than several foreign regimes we’ve denounced.

Military on the Border

So it turns out that the military forces sent to the border are not armed.  Or rather, they have shields and batons, which is technically “armed” but I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way on the ground.  They are there for the defense of CBP personnel (Customs and Border Protection) and given the presence of military engineers, likely to rapidly repair fences and other defensive barriers.  There are currently less than 2000 troops in California on the border at last report, and are there to support the Border Patrol, not engage migrants.

I admit, my first reaction was that sending military to the border was an invitation to make the caravan situation bloody to trump up the President’s position.  It’s a huge overreaction to a problem that isn’t really that big.  Now that I’ve heard the details, I have less of a problem with it.  I still don’t see the need for the military to be there, but it doesn’t seem like they’re making the situation worse.  And if it makes CBP workers feel safer, maybe things will be calmer in the days ahead because of them.

Separating Families

I’d like to say this is old news and it’s no longer relevant, but many children we took away from their parents are still separated.  The government was very quick to break up these families, but they are dragging their feet over bringing them back together.  I don’t want to get into the administrative incompetence displayed in tracking the children and families, nor the logistical hurdles involved in reuniting kids with parents we sent back to foreign countries.  No, I want to talk about the policy itself.

My first reaction when I heard that we were tearing apart families at the border was “WTF?”  It was also my second, third, and fourth reactions.  How can any American justify taking children away from asylum-seeking parents?  This is the sort of inhuman policy that we denounce other countries for, how can we possibly be doing it ourselves?  Trump’s main defense was that legally they had no other choice.  Whatever the law may or may not say, it doesn’t take a genius to notice that every past president in the last few decades had to face the same problem and yet this was never done before.  Clearly, there are other options.  Trump CHOSE to break up families to send a message.  This is yet another example of Trump talking tough, making a situation worse, and not even attempting to solve any problems.  He’s trying to send a message to asylum seekers that America is worse than the lawless chaos they’re freeing.  His entire immigration strategy seems to be about making America worse than the places they’re fleeing.  We are not the promised land and there is no American dream.  We will destroy your families because we think you are less than human.  There is no room at the inn.

I try to look at every side of an issue, but I’m at a loss to see how there was any half-decent reason to do this.  At best, it’s just lazy on the administration.  Let’s not fix our immigration system to make illegal crossings less appealing, let’s just make the whole country less appealing.  At least we won’t have to involve Congress that way.

The Wall

This is, pure and simple, Trump talking big to drum up his base.  It’s a hugely expensive half-solution to a problem we don’t really have.  Seriously, this decade has seen less illegal immigration than the past two decades.  It’s on the decline, and that started during Obama’s terms.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like people crossing the border illegally, but people who are trying to get here for a better life would much rather hit an official port of entry and enter legally.  That is, they would if our immigration system weren’t horribly broken and almost impossible to navigate.

A wall along our border is just another escalation.  No matter how much money you pour into it, it just challenges the professional people smugglers to try harder and get more clever.  Which will challenge us to build an even better wall.  And so forth.  The biggest issue with this, other than it’s deferring the problem instead of solving it, is that we will be spending obscene amounts of money escalating our side, while the smugglers will just get paid more the harder crossings become.  In light of that, it should be obvious that we’ll run out of money before they run out of motivation.

Again, this is just a sound bite for Trump.  Notice how he doesn’t say Mexico will pay for it anymore?  Mexico put a very vocal stop to that nonsense.  Now Trump complains that Democrats keep stonewalling funding of his wall.  Excuse me, that wasn’t part of the campaign promise.  Right now, the wall is mostly a political entity used to fuel the Trump base, and one more piece of ammunition liberals can use against him.  Personally, I’m amazed that this debacle hasn’t exposed Trump as a bullshit artist.  It was one of his most repeated campaign chants (after “Lock her up” which he also hasn’t done) and he’s gotten nothing but black eyes every time he’s tried to pursue it.

Inconclusion

People are a problem.

Some people are so vile that they make living conditions impossible wherever they go – stealing food and supplies, murdering lawkeepers, molesting women and children, and probably lots of other horrible things I can’t imagine.  Other people see these victims fleeing their homes and make it clear that they need to keep moving, threatening and ridiculing them wherever they go.  And yet other people, sitting in their ivory towers, look down at these destitute families and let them know that there is no interest in sharing any prosperity with them.  They need to go away, unless they would like some tear gas to help with their crying.

Ok, yes, that was harsh.  Though I still can’t help but be appalled at the total lack of compassion from people everywhere along the immigrants journey.  Maybe I was just raised in rare circumstances by unusual parents.  Maybe I just watched too much Care Bears growing up (Sharing is caring!).  My first instinct when seeing someone in trouble is wanting to help them.  Somewhere along the line I got it into my head that America was supposed to be the good guys.  That we were “a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.”  I just cannot grasp the concept of not welcoming asylum-seekers.

The question of asylum aside, we need to streamline our immigration system so that official ports of entry can handle the load.  More importantly, we need to examine every step of it to verify we are not committing injustices in the name of red tape.  And there is a LOT of red tape involved in immigrating to this country.  The system needs to be simple enough it can be easily explained to people who don’t speak English fluently and it shouldn’t requite lengthy waits at any point along the way.  I firmly believe that if our system were simple and just, we’d eliminate most of the illegal border crossings.  The only people that would still need to cross illegally would be the ones unlikely to be granted admission – namely those criminals the President keeps mentioning.  I bet our border patrol could handle them in that situation.

One final note:  I know I brought up Trump several times, even though I am loathe to do so.  Trump is a polarizing figure above and beyond the issues, and mentioning him is inviting a flame war between his critics and his defenders.  This is how issues don’t get talked about – they get drowned out by the personalities involved.  Unfortunately, I found it impossible to talk about any of the above facets of immigration in detail without bringing up the White House’s actions.  I beg you to keep things in the comments focused on immigration issues and not about how much you love or hate Trump.  Let’s love or hate Trump’s policies for the purposes of this discussion and leave his personality out of it (as much as we can, anyway).