Posted on 07/10/2014 7:11:36 PM PDT by robowombat
The Moral Crisis on Our Southern Border A perfect storm of special interests have hijacked U.S. immigration law.
By Victor Davis Hanson
No one knows just how many tens of thousands of Central American nationals — most of them desperate, unescorted children and teens — are streaming across America’s southern border. Yet this phenomenon offers us a proverbial teachable moment about the paradoxes and hypocrisies of Latin American immigration to the U.S.
For all the pop romance in Latin America associated with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, few Latinos prefer to immigrate to such communist utopias or to socialist spin-offs like Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, or Peru.
Instead, hundreds of thousands of poor people continue to risk danger to enter democratic, free-market America, which they have often been taught back home is the source of their misery. They either believe that America’s supposedly inadequate social safety net is far better than the one back home, or that its purportedly cruel free market gives them more opportunities than anywhere in Latin America — or both.
Mexico strictly enforces some of the harshest immigration laws in the world that either summarily deport or jail most who dare to cross Mexican borders illegally, much less attempt to work inside Mexico or become politically active. If America were to emulate Mexico’s immigration policies, millions of Mexican nationals living in the U.S. immediately would be sent home.
How, then, are tens of thousands of Central American children crossing with impunity hundreds of miles of Mexican territory, often sitting atop Mexican trains? Does Mexico believe that the massive influxes will serve to render U.S. immigration law meaningless, and thereby completely shred an already porous border? Is Mexico simply ensuring that the surge of poorer Central Americans doesn’t dare stop in Mexico on its way north?
The media talks of a moral crisis on the border. It is certainly that, but not entirely in the way we are told. What sort of callous parents simply send their children as pawns northward without escort, in selfish hopes of soon winning for themselves either remittances or eventual passage to the U.S? What sort of government allows its vulnerable youth to pack up and leave, without taking any responsibility for such mass flight?
Here in the U.S., how can our government simply choose not to enforce existing laws? In reaction, could U.S. citizens emulate Washington’s ethics and decide not to pay their taxes, or to disregard traffic laws, or to build homes without permits? Who in the pen-and-phone era of Obama gets to decide which law to follow and which to ignore?
Who are the bigots — the rude and unruly protestors who scream and swarm drop-off points and angrily block immigration authority buses to prevent the release of children into their communities, or the shrill counter-protestors who chant back “Viva La Raza” (“Long Live the Race”)? For that matter, how does the racialist term “La Raza” survive as an acceptable title of a national lobby group in this politically correct age of anger at the Washington Redskins football brand?
How can American immigration authorities simply send immigrant kids all over the United States and drop them into communities without firm guarantees of waiting sponsors or family? If private charities did that, would the operators be jailed? Would American parents be arrested for putting their unescorted kids on buses headed out of state?
Liberal elites talk down to the cash-strapped middle class about their illiberal anger over the current immigration crisis. But most sermonizers are hypocritical. Take Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House. She lectures about the need for near-instant amnesty for thousands streaming across the border. But Pelosi is a multimillionaire, and thus rich enough not to worry about the increased costs and higher taxes needed to offer instant social services to the new arrivals.
Progressives and ethnic activists see in open borders extralegal ways to gain future constituents dependent on an ever-growing government, with instilled grudges against any who might not welcome their flouting of U.S. laws. How moral is that?
Likewise, the CEOs of Silicon Valley and Wall Street who want cheap labor from south of the border assume that their own offspring’s private academies will not be affected by thousands of undocumented immigrants, that their own neighborhoods will remain non-integrated, and that their own medical services and specialists’ waiting rooms will not be made available to the poor arrivals.
Have immigration-reform advocates such as Mark Zuckerberg or Michael Bloomberg offered one of their mansions as a temporary shelter for needy Central American immigrants? Couldn’t Yale or Stanford welcome homeless immigrants into their now under-occupied summertime dorms? Why aren’t elite academies such as Sidwell Friends or the Menlo School offering their gymnasia as places of refuge for tens of thousands of school-age Central Americans?
What a strange, selfish, and callous alliance of rich corporate grandees, cynical left-wing politicians, and ethnic chauvinists who have conspired to erode U.S. law for their own narrow interests, all the while smearing those who object as xenophobes, racists, and nativists.
How did such immoral special interests hijack U.S. immigration law and arbitrarily decide for 300 million Americans who earns entry into America, under what conditions, and from where?
We are going to have to be willing to be a lot more than just rude to preserve what is left of our country. The Mahdi seems to be becoming the Sorcerer's Apprentice as he unleashes forces the Wizards of Smart inside the Beltway cannot call back or control.
ALL Mexican citizens are automatically deputized to arrest any person they reasonably suspect is an illegal alien —a 40 y.o. Guatemalan transitting Mexico can be arrested by a 10 year-old.
ANY foreigner caught at a public political event in Mexico is committing a FELONY.
There are TONS of jobs you can’t do in Mexico w/o having Mexican citizenship.
Ever get VDH started on the stuff he sees outside Fresno as he’s (very often) riding his bike..?
It’s both depressing and totally hilarious —he’s a very vivid describer (of gross Mexican stuff):
Dirty diapers thrown along the highway from screaming babies, taco-truck grease-stain lines, stretching to the delight of crows for MILES down back-country roads, brass fixings torn off seemingly from EVERY ancient public historical site notation...
He’s very academic, yet he excels at jettisoning the broad concepts and instead just smooshes the readers’ clean faces riiiight into the muck.
It’s very enlightening.
VDH is packed FULL of imagery.
Until and unless the limo liberals invite these illegal alien children into their neighborhoods, the middle class will again bear the burden of costs through higher real estate taxes.
Kinda fits the ‘progressive’ mantra of ‘expropriate the expropriators’. Just another example of social justice for theft of lands.
That shows you how desperate they were for decent English teachers.
I can't believe it's any better now.
They had one woman from the Bronx teaching English. She said: "Okay AX me a question." Lol. She simply did not know that "ask" ISN'T pronounced "ax." She didn't last too long there.
California has already been conquered by Mexico with the help of both Democrats and Republicans. I read these articles and feel sorry for the rest of you all.
I am tired of this being called a “moral” or “humanitarian” crisi...it is a LEGAL ISSUE! We are not ENFORCING our laws or PROTECTING American citizens.
I am tired of this being called a “moral” or “humanitarian” crisi...it is a LEGAL ISSUE! We are not ENFORCING our laws or PROTECTING American citizens.
VDH, they are illegal aliens not immigrants of any type or migrants of any type. The word immigrant implies they are comming here to become Americans. They are not, they are coming to take over and of course vote for democrats. The word migrants imply they are here to do work and go home. They are NOT. Words have specific meaning. The words above are being used to brainwash us into acceptance. The language of the left is a weapon used against America. STOP using the language of the left VDH (and others). It is not rocket science, it is psychology.
This is not a damn moral crisis. It is an invasion orchestrated by the POS in the white hut and his sycophant, ruthless cabal. Any means and any price to achieve their goal of transformation ending in destruction of the United States. The are using every loophole and every twist they can to skirt the intent of laws.
What is at issue here is the same thing that has been at issue for decades now... the legal sovereignty of the United States. Entering the country illegally is.... illegal and the intention of the law was the same here as everywhere... stop illegal entry before it happens and eject those who enter illegally. Clearly the intent is not go give them succor but to throw them out.
I screamed at the idiot Hannity this afternoon for doing the same moronic thing that everyone seems to be doing, using the excuse that non-latino terrorists are entering along with the latinos as a reason to protect the border against illegal entry. Does it matter? Both are invaders entering the country illegally. They are criminals in fact by the very act or even the attempted act of crossing the border illegally. You don’t have to apologise or make up reasons to stop illegal entry or to throw illegals out of the country. Just do it damn it!
For about the 10 millionth time.... Protect the damn border. Enforce the law that says it is illegal to enter the United States or any other country uninvited and without proper papers and authority. This is so stupid to even be having the debate upon. Without meaningful protection of the border against illegal entry why have a border? To whit, that is obastard’s intention, a borderless world with him as emperor.
EXACTLY!!!! See my post here echoing your position.
YES! What you wrote!
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