Immigration: Getting the Attention It Deserves?

Given the U.S. media’s attention to the continuing flood of illegal immigrants that cross the Mexican border into the United States, culminating in President Bush’s Monday speech on the topic (wherein he announced the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops to help secure the border), one cannot help but think that this issue is getting more than enough attention. Indeed, by a vote of 83-16, the Senate approved legislation yesterday to add fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the border. But when such inroads are not only so hard-won, but also still challenged, as they were yesterday by television personality Alan Colmes, I grow concerned that people don’t fully understand what’s at stake by leaving the border porous—or even semi-so.

One of the most immediate, but surprisingly seldom-mentioned, threats of an open border between the United States and Mexico is infiltration into the former by terrorists and others who are openly hostile to it. In a post-9/11 world, one cannot help but marvel at the irony of a country that, in the name of national security, employs in its airports customs officers and other law enforcement and security personnel whose zealousness is often so off-putting as to alienate not only business people and travelers from other countries, but also more than a few U.S. citizens while doing precious little to prevent all manner of persons from strolling over from Mexico.

At least a couple of additional threats that an open border poses might be expressed in terms of costs—quantifiable and otherwise. According to several sources, the taxes that immigrants contribute do not cover the costs of their schooling, health care, welfare, social security, and burden on the prison system that total at least $100 billion—an amount that does not take into account the costs associated with the immigrant-imposed burden on land, water, and fossil fuels (oil, coal, and gas).

But these costs, while significant, arguably pale in comparison to more-difficult-to-quantify human costs—and while these might include the lives ruined by drugs trafficked into the U.S. or the loss of satisfaction and self-esteem that come from losing to immigrants the jobs that many ignorantly say U.S. citizens wouldn’t take, I’m talking about something far more sinister: I’m not talking about a quantifiable cost that affects our pocketbooks now, but the long-term effects on our very being, our very existence as we know it, of an open border policy.

Lest you think such statements smack of melodrama, consider the accompanying map, where one sees that the Latino population of 4 states (CA, AZ, NM, and TX) already stands at greater than 25%, with at least 2 additional states (NV and CO) rapidly approaching that figure. In and of itself, these statistics are shocking, but what makes them even more so is the fact that the U.S. is going the way of Europe in the sense that, immigrants subtracted from the equation, its population is crashing—so much so that Euro-Americans will be a minority to whom terms will be dictated by the likes of José Angel Gutierrez, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, who, presumably representing the anti-American sentiment of many Latino immigrants, has been quoted as saying, “We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population. They are [or should be] shitting their pants in fear! I love it.” And just so there’s no confusion about whether or not these terms would stop short of La Reconquista, one need only recall images from the May Day parades and rants from people like Ricky Sierra of the Chicano National Guard who has been quoted as saying, “We’re recolonizing America. . . . It’s time to take back what is ours.”

So, has the immigration issue been getting the attention it deserves? Hardly. Despite not insignificant media coverage, as well as the President’s attention, more needs to be done—but fast. Specifically, the border needs to be secured—and not just with a few thousand more troops and/or a few hundred miles of fence. To finance the endeavor, the U.S. would perhaps be wise to divert at least some of its funds, in the form of troops, from Iraq, a country in whose affairs our only justifiable excuse for meddling could be its threat to our security or sovereignty—which is surely no greater than that posed by an open border with Mexico. A collateral benefit of this course of action would be to placate more than a few members of the world community who mistakenly see the U.S. as a police state (it’s how we treat our visitors, folks) engaged in the business of empire building.

In addition to stopping the infiltration dead in its tracks, the U.S. needs to do something about the 20 million or more illegal immigrants who are already within its borders. Although these people should in principle be deported, such a solution fails to take into account not only the logistical issues it represents, but also a human dimension that can hardly be ignored. (How does the U.S. handle, for example, the case of illegal immigrants whose children have ius soli, or “right of the soil,” by virtue of having been born in the U.S. and who know only English? Can it in good conscience visit upon them the punishment that belongs to their parents?) Instead, at least some of the illegals should be provided a path to naturalization—a solution with which I’m unhappy less because it gives the impression of condoning illegal behavior than because, by having let something analogous to a statute of limitations expire, we have forever compromised the culture and political landscape of the United States and must now live with the consequences of the moral paralysis that got in the way of enforcement at a time when it was unquestionably a viable option. Perhaps this time we’ll come closer to doing not only what we can, but also what we should.