Posted on 09/17/2015 4:25:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Donald Trump had a relatively poor performance in Wednesday night's CNN debate. But one of his stronger moments — at least from the point of view of his supporters — came when the topic of immigration arose.
"We're going to have a country again," he said in defending his ambitious (and probably unfeasible) plan to build a wall along the entire Mexican border and deport 11 million illegal immigrants. Each time Trump, who is number one in the Washington Examiner's presidential power rankings, describes how hordes of foreigners are overrunning and destroying the country, he speaks to what many perceive as a major and underappreciated threat facing America.
But in reality, the problem over which Trump obsesses now ran its course long ago. Mass immigration was last decade's big problem in the U.S., not today's. It's not just that immigration levels are lower today than they were in previous periods of greater peace and economic growth, such as the turn of the Twentieth Century. It's also that mass illegal immigration just isn't happening anymore, the recent influx of child migrants notwithstanding.
As the Pew Research Center has illustrated with data, illegal immigrants are also leaving the U.S. since 2007 faster than have been coming in. And there are fewer illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States today than there were in 2005.
Why? A major reason is that Mexico, the largest source of illegal immigrants to the U.S., became a better place to live. It shed its socialistic one-party political system in the late 1990s and adopted the very sort of free-trade policies that Trump now criticizes. Mexico signed free trade agreements with 44 different countries. Its exports increased six-fold. The share of Mexicans surviving on less than two dollars per day plunged from 20 percent in 1996 to just 4 percent in 2012.
Thus, the economic desperation that causes mass migration from Mexico has declined. Meanwhile, Mexico's new crackdown on Central American immigrant traffic will likely lower the rate of illegal immigration to the U.S. even further.
This is not to say that immigration enforcement is a non-issue. For example, President Obama's unilateral attempt to confer legal status on millions of illegal residents is a brazen, lawless challenge to America's constitutional order.
Moreover, the idea of politically correct municipal governments protecting convicted criminals from deportation is something no reasonable person should accept. This is why the much-maligned establishment GOP leaders in Congress are set to pass a law against sanctuary city policies (it has already passed the House).
Yet even on that very legitimate issue of safety, the available evidence suggests a criminal immigrant problem that is much smaller than Trump's rhetoric.
Take his own question, designed to cater to feminist hysteria: "Who is doing the raping?" In Texas, whose government tracks immigrant crime, legal and illegal immigrants together comprise about 16.5 percent of the population and (averaged over a four-year period) about 19 percent of those charged with rape and the other crimes that fall under the state's definition of "sexual assault" in any given year.
Part of taking the immigration issue seriously involves talking about it. Trump has done that. But another part involves talking about it truthfully and offering realistic solutions. There, he continues to fail.
Little Hungary managed to build a fence along its border with Serbia very rapidly, using soldiers and prisoners. Israel of course has a security fence to protect themselves from Muslim terrorists. So a fence sounds feasible to me. I just hope it is not some massive federal contractor project - instead we should deploy the Army Corps of Engineers and just build the thing working around the clock, similar to how the highway to Alaska was built during the Big One.
Not Times....
What about the 30 or 40 million illegals here?
What about the Obama Dreamers and other illegals still streaming across the border?
The plan is to destroy America and make it a turd world Shiite hole where the rich and connected can play and enjoy their power and perks and the rest of us can just go to hell or suffer like everybody else in the current turd world.
Then ‘the editors’ shouldn’t have a problem with moving them back to mexico, certainly deportation is easier for them than straddling The Beast, wading through the Rio Grande and humping it over the border states to lefty Sanctuary Cities.
Washington Examiner is usually a good source. This is a rehash of a Salon.com article (IIRC).
The slowdown in illegal immigration is because the economic benefits aren’t as good as they were in 2006. When things get better, it will start up again in force.
On the other hand, even if it’s true right now, it will be a lot easier to send the ones who are here back south. And with a wall, we won’t have a repeat of the results of Reagan’s mistake when the economy improves.
Oh. I know. I deserve it Multi tasking. I must be more careful
The Washington times is a great and trusty paper
This is the w examiner. Big difference
The author is volunteering to take the place of the next family destroyed by an illegal driving drunk? Stand in front when the next illegal alien felon who decides, on his sixth round trip to Mexico, to shoot up some random house?
I noticed the author pointed out that 1 in five of all reported sexual assault cases in Texas are by illegals - so a possible 25 percent drop in sex assault cases SIMPLY BY ENFORCING THE ALREADY WRITTEN LAWS is an empty and useless gesture?
Sure wish we could put all of these idiots in areas infested by gangs filled with illegals with a board saying 'I want you to stay, undocumented criminals!' Wonder who will take them out first, the illegals, or the blacks who are sick and tired of burying their children killed by illegals.
Fast tracking 8 million more Democrat voters for the 2016 election. What to do?
Yeah....I’ve never made a mistake. /s
Mr. ‘Gang of 8’ Rubio? Are you serious?
What is Aunt Zeituni’s plan? Uncle Omar’s?
There is no slowdown.
Mass immigration was last decade’s big problem in the U.S., not today’s.
***
Oh, how come nobody told me that before? Silly me. I could have sworn I saw all of those “unaccompanied minor” invaders from Central and South America within the last year. Time flies, huh? Okay, then, I’ll switch to Jebbie now.
“Fast tracking 8 million more Democrat voters for the 2016 election. What to do?”
Looks like we will have to depend on the warriors in the Republican Congress.
Byron always looks to me like he’s ready to be the next Caitlin.
Would that be Marco Rubio you speak of? Rubio, the amnesty shill?
Did you hear Rubio’s response? Rubio was excellent and said that the problem needs to be broken down and dealt with from three different angles.
There’s no easy solution, alas, regardless of what Trump tells you (and he’s already backed down and said, well, maybe he can’t really deport 11 million people all at once...).
I guess you didn’t hear Rubio’s response either.
One thing he came out very strongly against, btw, was “family reunion.” He said that people should be admitted here if they benefit us, not just because they have relatives living here. This is the source of a lot of the abuse - the Tsarnaevs, for example, got in that way, and then several of the family members just overstayed their visas.
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