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.
Please - Come to Texas & tell us it’s over
And you believe him? No, I didn't hear what Marco said. I don't ever need to hear him again. I'm a Floridian. I've already heard all I need to hear from that lying traitor. You are naive enough to be fooled by him but people in this state already know him and his lying, anti-sovereignty, amnesty loving ways too well.
Marco talks out of both sides of his mouth. He says one thing to us and something opposite to his hispanic buddies. How much he supports amnesty depends on what part of the election cycle he happens to be in. Right after being elected he'll be cozying up to Chuck Schumer (D-Giant Rat) and paling around with Mark Zuckerberg while he tells the world that real conservatives love amnesty. Leading up to the election he switches his speech to flag waving, reform immigration, only let the good ones in talk. We know full well the only thing he wants to change about immigration is to remove all restrictions keeping people out. Marco thinks conservatives are heartless. But he'll keep talking the talk as long as he believes he can still fool people like you.
You may well be one of the one or two people here who unfortunately believes in amnesty. Because that is the only type I can imagine would like to believe anything Marco Rubio has to say.
Buuut, we should trust that they'll keep that up instead of instituting the same policy here that they claim is succeeding in Mexico? If there's a lull in illegals, then, good, it'll be easier to build the wall. Then when they inevitably surge again, we'll be ready for them.
Which simply proves that we are right that the whole purpose of illegals is to give Democrats a majority in government that can never be voted out. And they see that the plan could go up in flames with the next election unless they fast track it now.
LOL, so if you were a Chinese translator, I assume you would be worried the Mexican illegals were crowding out Chinese illegals.
The idea that we have more Chinese illegals than Mexican illegals is absurd, preposterous and something everyone with a brain knows is false.
Which it did by importing American Capital and jobs.
I like Trump's "dance with the one what brung ya" attitude!
Make the domestic business environment friendly, and punish the shit out of those that bail on us.
Yeah, cause every house I see under construction is swarming with...Chinese.
You can't be series.
This is the Washington Examiner. NOT Washington Times...
I know I goofed
Pure insanity. And from the Washington times editorial board
I goofed. Yikes. It was not the times
No problem...just wondered if the 2 publications were related—many are. Regards! :)
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