4.3M
Migrants Caught at SW Border in Decade — More Than Los Angeles Population
Moises Castillo/AP
Photo, File
30 Dec 2019588
5:00
Border Patrol agents apprehended
more than four million migrants who illegally crossed the southwest border with
Mexico during the past 10 fiscal years. If these migrants were placed into a
single city, it would be larger than Los Angeles by population.
During the past 10 fiscal years,
October 1, 2009, through September 30, 2019, U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned
to the nine sectors that make up the United States’ southwest border with
Mexico apprehended 4,318,200 migrants. The highest year during that decade for
apprehensions occurred during Fiscal Year 2019 when agents apprehended 851,553
— including 76,020 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and 473,682 Family Unit
Aliens (FMUA), according to reports obtained from U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.
Apprehensions by Fiscal Year:
- FY2019 — 851,553
- FY2018 — 396,579
- FY2017 — 303,916
- FY2016 — 408,870
- FY2015 — 331,333
- FY2014 — 479,371
- FY2013 — 414,397
- FY2012 — 356,873
- FY2011 — 327,577
- FY2010 — 447,731
During the past decade, Rio Grande
Valley (RGV) Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended the largest numbers of
migrants. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2019, RGV Sector agents apprehended
1,600,663 migrants who illegally crossed the border into South Texas, the
reports state.
Agents assigned to the Tucson Sector
had the second-highest number of total apprehensions — 946,948. The Big Bend
Sector in West Texas had the lowest number of total apprehensions — 56,149.
The report shows a shifting in
migration traffic during the past decade. In FY2010, the Tucson Sector reported
the highest number of apprehensions — 212,202. This changed in FY2013 when the
largest apprehension numbers shifted to the RGV Sector.
In Fiscal Year 2019, RGV agents
apprehended 339,135 migrants including 34,523 UACs and 211,631 FMUAs.
During the past 10 fiscal years,
Border Patrol agents apprehended a total of 433,216 unaccompanied minors.
Officials reported that more than half of those apprehensions, 235,050 took
place in the RGV Sector.
FMUA apprehension numbers for the
decade were not readily available. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials
provided statistics for Fiscal Years 2013 through 2019. During that period,
Border Patrol agents apprehended 857,328 family units. More than half of these,
463,811, occurred in the RGV Sector.
FMUA apprehensions represent the
largest increase in migrant demographics. The number of apprehensions jumped
from 14,855 in FY2013 to 473,682 in FY2019 — an increase of more than 3,000
percent. Again, more than half of the FMUA apprehensions occurred in the RGV
Sector — 463,811.
With three fiscal years missing from
the FMUA report, FMUA and UAC apprehensions account for 1.3 million of the
total 4.3 million apprehensions. These demographics also represent the highest
cost to U.S. taxpayers in terms of processing, transporting, feeding, and
providing healthcare, Border Patrol officials repeatedly state.
CALIFORNIA: now a colony of Mexico
By Jessica Vaughan
Earlier this week ICE released its 2019 report on
enforcement activity. While overall removals increased due to a record number
of illegal arrivals at the southwest border, removals from the interior
declined by 10 percent. Meanwhile, ICE's caseload grew by 24 percent, with more
than 630,000 cases added to its docket, which has grown to a record high of
more than three million cases.
THOMAS
HOMAN, the former acting head of
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
warned Democrats running in 2020 about
“enticing” illegal immigrants with lax policies.
"They
say they care about these people, they
care
about children dying and women being
raped...
they need to look in the mirror
because
if you keep offering enticements...
'sanctuary
cities'... free health care... in-state
tuition...
people are going to put themselves in
harm's
way to come to this country," Homan
Six-Time
Deported Illegal
Alien Accused of Killing
Colorado Grandmother
GCSO
29 Dec 20192,239
1:57
A six-time deported
illegal alien has been arrested for allegedly killing a 51-year-old Colorado
grandmother after being released from local law enforcement custody.
Juan Sanchez, a Mexican
illegal alien who has already been deported from the United States six times
over the last decade, was arrested last week and charged with vehicular
homicide and fleeing the scene of an accident after he allegedly hit and killed
Annette Conquering Bear, a grandmother, while she was walking home from
Walgreens, 9 News reported.
Sanchez, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) officials revealed, was deported from the U.S. twice in 2002,
three times in 2008, and in 2012. Sometime after his last deportation, he
illegally re-entered the U.S. for the seventh time.
“Sanchez is an ICE enforcement priority,”
ICE officials said in a statement.
Four days before Conquering Bear’s killing,
Sanchez was in local law enforcement custody on suspicion of drunk driving but
was released after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said
they did not have enough time in advance to lodge a detainer against him so he
could be turned over to their custody.
During that arrest, Sanchez was allegedly
driving drunk with a blood-alcohol level of 0.183, which is twice the legal
limit. Police said Sanchez admitted to having had “two beers” before getting in
his car and driving with an “international driver’s license.”
Sanchez was taken into custody at the time
and was then quickly released after he became uncooperative and allegedly
telling officers, “I’ll fight my way out of jail.”
The illegal alien is now being held on a
$500,000 bond.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart
News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Sanctuary City Released Human Rights Violator
And then NYC hit the snooze button on this wake-up call
In my last post, I discussed a Liberian
amnesty provision that was snuck into section 7611
of the National Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2020. I specifically
referenced the case of Liberian human rights violator Charles
Cooper,
who was removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to Liberia in
June 2018. I left out the part about how the New York Police Department (NYPD)
failed to honor an ICE detainer for him, and released him without even
notifying the agency. The incident does not reflect well on those who set the
rules for New York's finest.
Cooper entered the United
States in January 2006 on a nonimmigrant visa, and remained beyond his
authorized return date. He was no ordinary visa overstay. According to ICE,
Cooper "served as a bodyguard to former Liberian President Charles Taylor
and was a member of a paramilitary police unit called the Secret Security
Service (SSS)."
ICE continued:
"Cooper, while a member of the SSS and the National Patriotic Front of
Liberia [NPLF], was directly involved in the persecution of civilians in
Liberia." In addition to identifying Cooper as "a human rights
violator," the agency asserted that he was "a member of an
organization known for setting fires to whole villages."
The aforementioned Charles Taylor is a special case.
He was a Liberian civil servant in the 1980s, and was accused of embezzlement.
He made his way to the United States, but escaped from prison in Massachusetts
where he was being held for extradition, and travelled back to West Africa. He
thereafter formed the NPFL, and in 1989 launched attacks against the Liberian
government from the Ivory Coast, igniting Liberia's first civil war.
Global
Security explains
that between December 1989 and the middle of 1993, the NPFL "is estimated
to have been responsible for thousands of deliberate killings of civilians. As
NPFL forces advanced towards Monrovia in 1990, they targeted people of the
Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups, both of which the NPFL considered supporters
of [then-Liberian President Samuel] Doe's government."
Various factions became
involved in the conflict, including the NPFL; forces that were loyal to Doe;
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and their Nigerian-led
peacekeeping force, ECOMOG; and the breakaway Independent National Patriotic
Front of Liberia (INPFL), which was led by Prince Johnson. INPFL captured, mutilated,
and killed Doe on September 10, 1990.
The first bloody civil war
ended with Taylor's election as president in 1997. According to Britannica, however:
As
president, Taylor restructured the army, filling it with members of his former
militia. Conflict ensued between Taylor and the opposition, and Monrovia became
the scene of widespread gun battles and looting. Governments around the world
accused Taylor of supporting rebels in Sierra Leone, and in 2000 the United
Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Liberia. The country was subsequently
gripped again by civil war, and Taylor, accused of gross human rights
violations, was indicted by a UN-sponsored war-crimes tribunal (the Special
Court for Sierra Leone) in 2003.
Following
widespread international condemnation, Taylor agreed to go into exile in
Nigeria. In March 2006, however, the Liberian government requested Taylor's
extradition, and Nigeria announced that it would comply with the order. Taylor
subsequently attempted to flee Nigeria but was quickly captured. Charged with
crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Sierra Leone's civil
war, he was later sent to The Hague, where he was to be tried before the
Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Taylor was found guilty in
April 2012 on 11 counts "of bearing responsibility for the war crimes and
crimes against humanity committed by rebel forces during Sierra Leone's civil
war", and subsequently sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Back to Cooper. As noted, he entered as
a nonimmigrant with permission to remain until August 2006. When he failed to
depart, he was placed into removal proceedings. He was ordered removed by an
immigration judge and appealed the decision, which was dismissed by the Board
of Immigration Appeals in February 2016.
According to ICE:
On
Aug. 11, 2017, Cooper was arrested by the New York Police Department, and
charged with DWI. On that same date, [ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations
(ERO)] deportation officers lodged an immigration detainer with the NYPD's
Richmond Central Booking. Cooper was released from NYPD custody, without the
detainer being honored and without notification to ICE.
Fortunately, in May 2018,
ICE deportation officers arrested Cooper in Staten Island, New York, leading to
his removal.
As my former
colleague Preston
Huennekens reported:
"In March 2013, New York City began ignoring [ICE] detainer notices."
According to ICE, the agency had "not
been notified about the release of aliens in custody at New York City
facilities since 2014, except for those that fall within the 170 crimes
considered egregious by the Mayor's Office." Apparently, human rights
violators do not make the cut.
Huennekens noted that in just
one three-month period (January to mid-April 2018), the NYPD and the New York
Department of Corrections together ignored 440 detainers; "40 of those
individuals released from custody subsequently committed more crimes and were
arrested again." About this, ICE stated: "In
just three months, more than three dozen criminal aliens were released from
local custody. Simply put, the politics and rhetoric in this city are putting
its own communities at an unnecessary risk."
To restate the obvious:
Sanctuary policies, including those that prevent ICE from finding out about the
release of dangerous aliens and that require police to ignore ICE detainers,
make no sense. They only serve as sanctuary for criminals, or in Cooper's case,
human rights violators.
Cooper should have served
as a wake-up call to those in power who, for purely political reasons, require
the NYPD to turn a blind eye to ICE's requests for help. But instead, as
Huennekens' reporting demonstrates, Gotham's officials simply hit the snooze
button.
“The figures show that
the majority of California's growth will be in the Latino population, said
Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at USC,
adding that "68% of the growth this decade will be Latino, 75%
next and 80% after that.”
"When we hear stories about the homelessness
in California and elsewhere, why don't we hear how illegal aliens contribute to
the problem? They take jobs and affordable housing, yet instead of
discouraging illegal aliens from breaking the law, politicians encourage them
to come by lavishing free stuff on them with confiscated dollars from this
and future generations." JACK HELLNER
“Extensive research by economists
like George Borjas and analyst Steven Camarota reveals that the country’s
current mass legal immigration system burdens U.S. taxpayers and America’s
working and middle class while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth
every year to major employers and newly arrived immigrants. Similarly, research
has revealed how Americans’ wages are crushed by the country’s high immigration levels.” JOHN BINDER
CALIFORNIA'S POPULATION TO
DOUBLE
from ILLEGALS along with
their CRIME
RATES!
Times Staff Writers
Over the next half-century,
California's
population will explode
by nearly 75%, and
Riverside will surpass its
bigger neighbors to
become the second most
populous county after
Los Angeles, according to
state Department of
Finance projections released
Monday.
California will
near the 60-million mark in 2050, the study found, raising questions about how the
state will look and function and where all the people and their cars will go.
Dueling visions pit the iconic California building block of ranch house, big
yard and two-car garage against more dense, high-rise development. But whether
sprawl or skyscrapers win the day, the Golden State will probably be a far different
and more complex place than it is today, as people live longer and Latinos
become the dominant ethnic group, eclipsing all others combined. Some critics
forecast disaster if gridlock and environmental impacts are not averted. Others
see a possible economic boon, particularly for retailers and service industries
with an eye on the state as a burgeoning market. "It's opportunity with
baggage," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County
Economic Development Corp., in "a country masquerading as a state.
"Other demographers argue that the huge population increase the state
predicts will occur only if officials complete major improvements to roads and
other public infrastructure. Without that investment, they say, some
Californians would flee the state. If the finance department's calculations
hold, California's population will rise from 34.1 million in 2000 to 59.5
million at the mid-century point, about the same number of people as Italy has
today. And its projected growth rate in those 50 years will outstrip the
national rate — nearly 75% compared with less than 50% projected by the federal
government. That could translate to increased political clout in Washington,
D.C. Southern California's population is projected to grow at a rate of more
than 60%, according to the new state figures, reaching 31.6 million by
mid-century. That's an increase of 12.1 million over just seven counties. L.A.
County alone will top 13 million by 2050, an increase of almost 3.5 million
residents. And Riverside County — long among the fastest-growing in the state —
will triple in population to 4.7 million by mid-century. Riverside County will
add 3.1 million people, according to the new state figures, eclipsing Orange
and San Diego to become the second most populous in the state. With less
expensive housing than the coast, Riverside County has grown by more than
472,000 residents since 2000, according to state estimates. No matter how much
local governments build in the way of public works and how many new jobs are
attracted to the region — minimizing the need for long commutes — Housing
figures that growth will still overwhelm the area's roads. USC Professor
Genevieve Giuliano, an expert on land use and transportation, would probably
agree. Such massive growth, if it occurs, she said, will require huge
investment in the state's highways, schools, and energy and sewer systems at a
"very formidable cost."If those things aren't built, Giuliano
questioned whether the projected population increases will occur. "Sooner
or later, the region will not be competitive and the growth is not going to
happen," she said.If major problems like traffic congestion and housing
costs aren't addressed, Giuliano warned, the middle class is going to exit
California, leaving behind very high-income and very low-income residents.
"It's a political question," said Martin Wachs, a transportation
expert at the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica. "Do we have the will, the
consensus, the willingness to pay? If we did, I think we could manage the
growth. "The numbers released Monday underscore most demographers' view
that the state's population is pushing east, from both Los Angeles and the Bay
Area, to counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino as well as half a dozen
or so smaller Central Valley counties. Sutter County, for example, is expected
to be the fastest-growing on a percentage basis between 2000 and 2050, jumping
255% to a population of 282,894 , the state said. Kern County is expected to
see its population more than triple to 2.1 million by mid-century. In Southern
California, San Diego County is projected to grow by almost 1.7 million
residents and Orange County by 1.1 million. Even Ventura County — where voters
have imposed some limits on urban sprawl — will see its population jump 62% to
more than 1.2 million if the projections hold. The Department of Finance
releases long-term population projections every three years. Between the last
two reports, number crunchers have taken a more detailed look at California's
statistics and taken into account the likelihood that people will live longer,
said chief demographer Mary Heim. The result? The latest numbers figure the
state will be much more crowded than earlier estimates (by nearly 5 million)
and that it will take a bit longer than previously thought for Latinos to
become the majority of California's population: 2042, not 2038. The figures
show that the majority
of
California's growth will be in the Latino population, said
Dowell Myers,
a professor of urban planning and demography
at USC, adding
that "68% of the growth this decade will be
Latino, 75%
next and 80% after that."That should be a wake-up call for voting
Californians, Myers said, pointing out a critical disparity. Though the state's
growth is young and Latino, the majority of voters will be older and white — at
least for the next decade." The future of the state is Latino
growth," Myers said. "We'd sure better invest in them and get them up
to speed. Older white voters don't see it that way. They don't realize that
someone has to replace them in the work force, pay for their benefits and buy
their house."
MULTI-CULTURALISM and the
creation of a one-party globalist country to serve the rich in America’s open
borders.
“Open border advocates, such as
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to
California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the CIS has
documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills.
How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to
dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegals were
contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, CA, with its 2.6 million
illegals, would be booming.” STEVE BALDWIN – AMERICAN SPECTATOR
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
What will America stand for in 2050?
The US should think long and hard about the high number of
Latino immigrants.
By Lawrence Harrison
It's not just a
short-run issue of immigrants competing with citizens for jobs as unemployment
approaches 10 percent or the number of uninsured straining the quality of
healthcare. Heavy immigration from Latin America threatens our cohesiveness as
a nation.
MEXICO WILL DOUBLE U.S.
POPULATION
By Tom Barrett
At the current rate of invasion (mostly through Mexico, but also
through Canada) the United States will be completely over run with illegal
aliens by the year 2025. I’m not talking about legal immigrants who follow US
law to become citizens. In less than 20 years, if we do not stop the invasion,
ILLEGAL aliens and their offspring will be the dominant population in the
United States.
FINISHING AMERICA OFF: THE
FOREIGN INVASION FOR “CHEAP” LABOR
Open the floodgates of our
welfare state to the uneducated, impoverished, and unskilled masses of the
world and in a generation or three America, as we know it, will be gone. JOHN
BINDER
But many
less-skilled migrants play their largest role by simply shifting small slices
of wealth from person to person, for example, by competing up rents in their
neighborhood or by competing down wages in their workplace. The crudest examples
can be seen in agriculture.
Overall, the
Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via immigration shifts
wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market
with cheap white-collar and blue-collar foreign labor.
"Critics argue that
giving amnesty to 12 to 30 million illegal aliens in the U.S. would have an
immediate negative impact on America’s working and middle class — specifically
black Americans and the white working class — who would be in direct
competition for blue-collar jobs with the largely low-skilled illegal alien
population." JOHN BINDER
The U.S.-born baby is, of course, a U.S. citizen,
whose illegal alien parents are eligible to receive, on the baby’s behalf, food
stamps, nutrition from the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, and
numerous tax benefits, including the EITC.
Most importantly, the newborn is deportation
insurance for its parents. Illegal aliens facing deportation can argue that to
deport one or more parents would create an “extreme hardship” for the new baby.
If an immigration officer agrees, we’ve added a new adult to the nation’s
population. At age 21 the former birthright citizen baby can formally apply for
green cards for parents and siblings, and they, in turn, can start their own
immigration chains.
US now has more Spanish speakers than Spain – only Mexico
has more
·
US has 41 million native speakers plus 11 million who are bilingual
·
New Mexico, California, Texas and Arizona have highest
concentrations
The
Real Purpose Behind the Immigration Debate
How progressive framing of the immigration issue
exposes their true vision for America.
By
The current debate over immigration is noticeably different from
any other time in our political history. Not long ago, the Democratic Party
argued that unregulated increases in immigrant labor would threaten America’s
most vulnerable workers. In his 1996 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton proudly told Congress: “After years of
neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection
of our borders.” The Democratic Party platform from that year read: “Today’s Democratic Party
also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal
immigration and we must stop it.”
The
progressive discourse on immigration contradicts centuries of immigration
history. And how they approach this debate is extremely revealing.
But times, along with
ideologies, have long-since shifted.
Now, according to the progressive left, any enforcement of
immigration laws reflects despicable national racism. Illegal immigrant
detention centers are described as “concentration
camps,” federal immigration officers are branded as Gestapo-like, and national
border enforcement is said to arise from the same evil impulses underlying
genocide.
But the progressive
discourse on immigration contradicts centuries of immigration history. And how
they approach this debate is extremely revealing.
Historically, the United
States has become a nation of immigrants through the legal admission of
migrants from all over the world who seek to thrive under our strong social
institutions. What progressives seek, however, is a fragmented,
resource-strapped nation dependent on an intrusive bureaucratic administration
to survive.
WHAT THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE REVEALS ABOUT PROGRESSIVE POLITICS
TODAY
Early this summer, a progressive movement
erupted and coalesced around the slogan “Abolish ICE.” Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative arm of the Department of
Homeland Security and was established in 2003 in response to the 9/11 terror
attacks. In July, Vice President Mike Pence visited ICE headquarters in Washington to
reaffirm the agency’s critical role in national security:
“I want to make it clear
to all of you and all of those looking on, under President Donald Trump, we will
never abolish ICE … Just when you thought the Democrats couldn’t move farther
to the left, leading members of the Democratic Party, including candidates for
higher office, are actually openly advocating for the abolition of ICE, an
agency that protects the American people and our communities every single day.”
But when they’re pushed to clarify what “abolishing” even means in
the context of ICE, progressive politicians quickly reveal their corrupting
worldview. According to Representative Mark
Pocan of Wisconsin, who went as far as to co-author legislation to terminate ICE,
what progressives seek is a more robust system to adjudicate which illegal
immigrant should or should not stay. It’s the “indiscriminate, random use of
deportations” they object to.
This more nuanced
understanding of “Abolish ICE” is consistent with the progressive push for a
larger and more active federal government. The role of this ever-expanding
government will expand as under-prepared immigrants are released into
under-prepared American communities, both of which will need more significant
federal aid and regulation to cope with the fallout.
Modern
progressives seek a dramatic transformation of society—a change that requires
“abolishing” existing social norms and institutions.
This push for bigger
government provides the key to understanding the otherwise baffling progressive
position on immigration. Modern progressives seek a dramatic transformation of
society—a change that requires “abolishing” existing social norms and
institutions. This explains the progressive attacks on religion, the family,
and now the nation-state.
The growth of government
helps achieve a more destructive goal; it crowds out other social institutions.
As the federal government further expands its role in society, the breathing
space allocated to all other institutions diminishes. Progressives vilify the
past and all our inherited institutions rooted in history. Their drive to
create a new multicultural, politically correct secular society dominated by a
powerful federal government corresponds to their desire to eradicate all other
sources of social authority that progressives depict as oppressive and
intolerant.
As Chris Arnade reveals in his new book, Dignity, institutions like churches provide the primary source of
identity and dignity to working-class Americans.
But progressives, who
cannot control these institutions with the secular government they are
continually strengthening, seek to eradicate the loyalties commanded by those
institutions. By discrediting the old social order grounded in family ties,
patriotic duties, and traditional moral codes, progressives aggressively pursue
a fragmented society composed of increasingly isolated individuals that require
extensive bureaucratic administration to live. Unrestricted immigration—”open
borders”—further breaks down American cultural unity and social order, creating
an atomized citizenry beholden to secular government elites.
The progressive attack on
immigration laws, therefore, reflects a much larger attack on the very notion
of national governance and sovereignty. But this attack is not a frontal
attack; it is hidden behind the tyranny of a new moral discourse.
THE TYRANNICAL MORAL DISCOURSE OF THE LEFT
Some progressives frame
their position in terms of fundamental rights, asserting that non-citizens have
a fundamental right to enter and live in America. Not only is such a “right”
absent from any source of controlling law, but the existence of such a right
would undermine the legitimacy of national borders—the very notion of
statehood.
The charge of
discrimination has become an irredeemable scarlet letter in contemporary
society.
The “rights discourse” of
the left is further undermined by their selective, hypocritical treatment of
our actual rights. Religious freedom, for instance, is key freedom enshrined in
this country’s founding documents, and yet progressives treat religion as a
mode of oppression that needs to be regulated. Freedom of political speech is
another fundamental individual right in a thriving democracy, and yet
progressives continually target free expression, demanding the legislation of
politically incorrect speech.
Of course, if you were to
point out this hypocrisy, you’d risk being branded a racist.
During the 1980s, it was
conservatives that articulated the more compelling narrative around public
morals, based on traditional religious values and individual virtue. Recently,
though, the left has seemingly seized the moral high ground through its
unrelenting moralistic crusade against hate and discrimination.
The trope is simple: every undesirable act or idea is infused with
the same kind of diabolical discrimination underlying early American slavery.
Recently, the New York City Commission on Human Rights banned the use of the
phrase “illegal alien” by employers, housing providers, and law enforcement,
asserting that mere use of the term constitutes a “discriminatory” act.
Through legal
admission and naturalization processes and admitting more immigrants than any
other country on earth, America has always been a nation of immigrants.
The charge of
discrimination has become an irredeemable scarlet letter in contemporary
society. It can be used to end careers and silence all manner of speech—even
the free exchange and Socratic dialogue one would expect on a college campus.
Instead of confronting actual harm and social decay, progressives have
strategically focused on words and language.
It’s no wonder then that
the debate has skewed in their favor.
Through legal admission
and naturalization processes and admitting more immigrants than any other
country on earth, America has always been a nation of immigrants. Its very
identity is rooted in the immigrant experience. Despite this identity, however,
the progressive left now argues that American laws, institutions, and social
mores are rooted in anti-immigrant bias. Since immigration is tied up with
citizenship, and citizenship tied up with nationhood, nationhood and nationalism
get collapsed into “white nationalism,” as progressives attempt to morally
discredit any enforcement of immigration laws as a manifestation of white
racism. Any regulation of immigration is characterized as racist, and any
border enforcement reflects an act of hate.
This is where we are in
2019: upholding laws is considered an act of hate.
ANTI-ASSIMILATION IS ANTI-AMERICAN
Immigrants are encouraged
by the progressive left to cross the border illegally, but are not encouraged
to learn and speak the English language, severely limiting their opportunities
and upward mobility. They often crowd into sanctuary cities administered by a
progressive elites whose advocacy of stringent land-use regulations has made
affordable housing nearly extinct.
The dependency
of illegal immigrants mirrors the dependency that progressive policies foster
for the whole of society.
These immigrants must
then scramble for low-wage jobs, facing relentless competition from the
unregulated and unpredictable influx of new immigrants. They come to a society
in which their traditional forms of community, like families and neighborhoods
and religions, face constant attacks from a progressive left that sees such
entities as sources of exclusion and discrimination. As a result, immigrants
find themselves in a quandary. They have been allowed to enter a strange
country illegally, but now find themselves in a state of dependency, with only
the progressive promise of federal aid to rescue them. And although they need a
guiding national narrative to help them adjust and adapt to their new home, the
liberal message refuses to provide such a narrative.
The dependency of illegal
immigrants mirrors the dependency that progressive policies foster for the
whole of society. By undercutting religion, free enterprise, educational
choice, and family structure, progressives deny to the rest of society the
structural support and opportunities that the elite still enjoy. And when such
pillars of support are removed, a vulnerable population becomes ever more
dependent on the largesse of a federal bureaucracy controlled by progressive
elites, which further entrenches elites in power.
The progressive stance on
immigration isn’t really about protecting fundamental rights or granting new
opportunities and freedom to struggling migrants. It’s about expanding the
reach and control of big government.
Some “progressive
revolution.”
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