Borderline Advocacy

Campus Report ^ | Bethany Stotts

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Borderline Advocacy

by: Bethany Stotts, June 11, 2008

Little seems to have changed about the illegal immigration debate within academic and media circles since the demise of “comprehensive immigration reform” in the last Congress. Opponents of strict border enforcement strategies continue to emphasize how enforcement strains government resources. Others continue to emphasize how illegal immigrants come to America merely to gain better jobs.

Many of these issues came up in a recent Washington Post article by Spencer S. Hsu titled, “Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High.” The subtitle reads, “Critics Say Increased Use of Criminal Charges Strains System.” The article, which could have highlighted the successes of Operation Streamline—a program which has decreased border apprehensions in certain areas by 70%—focuses instead on criticisms of the program.

“Operation Streamline in its current form already strains the capabilities of the law enforcement system past the breaking point,” Hsu quotes Ted Kennedy (D-MA) spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner as opining. “Skeptics say that the government lacks the resources to sustain the strategy on the border and that the effort is diverting resources from more serious crimes such as drug and human smuggling,” writes Hsu.

The Washington Post report goes on to quote T. J. Bonner as likening this policy to “good election-year politics.” The President of the National Border Patrol Council, a union of border patrol agents, Bonner has long criticized enforcement-only measures along the border. He told that PBS in 2006 “Both sides seem to be missing the central point, which is most people coming across that border are coming across for a reason: to get work in the United States.” In his PBS interview, Bonner likened enforcement-only strategies to a “revolving-door policy.”...