Q&A of the Day – Immigration – Do we need new laws or just enforcement?
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry...
Neither Mexico, nor any other nation is to blame for our current immigration fiasco; we can only blame ourselves and our practices.
It is: 1) U.S./Global Commercial Interests, 2) the private-interests, corruption,absolutely unrepresentative nature and deceit of our Elected Officials and Institutions, and 3) the ignorance of our citizens and legal residents that are to blame. We have been, for many years now, a MISMANAGED Nation.
We have plenty of Immigration Laws in our books, a mass/mess of Executive Orders and a media and educational system that keeps on broadcasting/misinforming on the edges, muddling the (most) SUBJECT MATTER(s) to an undecipherable mass/mess of emotional tugs and blames.
It is tough to face ourselves, but at this point there is not much else to do -- that is, provided we really want to construct LOGICAL WORKING solutions -- otherwise, let's just shut up!
Bottom Line: No argument here on what you presented but there is more to the story in my view. On immigration alone, I count 41 federal laws that have been passed in our country's history. At some point our immigration policy becomes like our tax code. Even if you have government officials review policy it’s possible to come up with different determinations. The age-old argument for lax enforcement has been the “jobs American’s won’t do”? That’s just nonsense. Mike Rowe proved with Dirty Jobs that Americans will do any job – just perhaps not as cheaply as someone who lacks status. But that’s what a market-based economy does, to your point we do have elements our of economy that are based in crony-capitalism. The two biggest are agriculture and healthcare. Where I do disagree with your thoughts is on what should happen.
Yes, enforcement of existing laws would go a long way towards solving many problems. But that’s also why I think it’s necessary to pass additional law(s)/reforms. It’s also why I’m encouraged by what Florida recently passed regarding “Sanctuary Cities” for example. But there are two areas of need for reform that are obvious based on our laws being enforced.
With open borders organizations discovering how to exploit our existing immigration laws, there’s a real need to have policy that overhauls how we handle people who step foot on US soil. They’ve learned how to become part of the asylum process which has become a cornerstone of our broken system. We have so many asylum seekers in the pipeline that it’ll take a minimum of two years and most likely nearly four to process everyone in the system. That’s without additional asylum seekers joining in the meantime which is happening daily. There’s a steep cost to the all of it as well. The average daily cost to house an asylum seeker is $134. When processed 98.5% of asylum seekers are determined to be illegitimate and ordered for deportation which also comes with a cost. That’s $134 per day for years and then deported. Something needs to change in our policy. This is an example of existing laws being enforced.
Last year illegal immigration cost us as taxpayers about $27 billion. That number is set to soar past $30 billion this year and to give you an idea of how meaningful that is – we'll spend more on illegal immigrants this year than on Science and Transportation in the US. How messed up is that? So, yes – we have policy that’s bad in part due to special interests having influenced policy and yes, we’d be better off if all immigration laws were enforced equitably...but no. The existing policy being enforced isn’t the answer. It’s at the root of our current problem. President Trump’s recent executive order regarding asylum has the potential to help but we need to end the policy of anyone who unlawfully steps on our soil becoming someone who’s afforded due process under our laws as any lawful citizen receives – at a minimum. That’s in sync with your logical solutions. It’s also the very point of President Trump to many voters. To cut through the crap and act in the interests of American’s first.