A perfect storm of special interests have hijacked U.S. immigration law.
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?
© 2014 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Discussion (13)
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非洲艾可力魔力净
I felt like cheering as I read your article! Everything I am thinking and feeling about this current immigration crisis accurately outlines my utter disgust with the leaders in the countries from where these immigrants come and the so-called leaders of my own government. The protesters of this invasion have one main thing in their favor, their complete and 'real' aversion to what is happening. They are not hiding their displeasure, nor do I believe they should. Bravo for a well written article that gives those of us who protest this invasion a logical voice. Sometimes the logic is hard to find when emotions are engaged.
President Obama has 12 Million dollars now, why doesn't he support these kids instead of forcing us working people to do it.
I thought America was broke... I thought we were deeply in financial trouble.........I must be wrong, we are going to force working americans to feed, house, support, give medical to MILLIONS...........I can't afford dental for my own family, I cannot afford to take care of more. SEND THEM HOME.
Mr Hanson, Your writing is spot on. I often wonder myself how many of these proponents of unabated immigration would take these people into their own homes. Hypocrisy, it isn't just for breakfast any more. Keep up the good work.
What if the plan was this: a) Progressives, seeing the November election results looking dismal, planned a year ago... to get South of Mexico sourced... babies, children, teenagers and pregnant mothers to flood the Southern borders... Such young ones are an huge expense! b) Knowing Congress might deny funds to such, Obama knows he can enact some emergency stimulus which is part of the plan (but not entire plan.) THIS stimulus (more borrowing) works to get the velocity of money where the GDP doesn't evidence a depression by Fall voting time (which it otherwise will, unless other ways of cheating the numbers aren't used by statist-towering-genius-masterminds.) c) This, uh hum, "voting" stimulus works to keep a complete change of admin happening in Fall of 2014. d) However, just before 2016, when the still existent depression WOULD make a complete house-cleaning full sweep of Tea Part Patriot voting results... the BIGGEST plan, the LONG plan... would kick in, conveniently. e) A 100-year overdue financial meltdown will be permitted to finally happen. It's cause is actually from 1913, the creation of a state-planning financial system (the Fed Reserve & endless government debt & currency devaluation & fractional bank money-making & bankster skimming plenary powers & amplification (vs. natural lessening) of every boom-bust swing cycle (it gives "towering genius" their reason d'être) SO THAT... f) By 2016 a newer, worse financial system will be put into place than the one in 1913, 1932, 1944, 1971, 2008...) (Then, it won't matter if a Tea Party Patriot majority runs things for a while... a newer, more statist, more controlling, more difficult-to-remove financial world system will be fixed in place....) g) This way the NEXT 100 years will be MORE master-minded, more Communistic, more state-planned... than the last 101. h) The LONG game being played is possible to be played by the excellencies sucked out of the Industrial Revolution, the electronic revolution, the digital revolution, the medical revolution, space revolution, etc. i) Because of the internet, people are seeing that 7 billion planners (the earth's population) are better at planning, by free-market choice and liberty and banning mastermind egos from levers of control, than a few hundred masterminds running the IMF, G-20, Russia, Wall Street Banks, the Fed, the WSJ, CNN, Universities, seminaries.... and the masterminds know this. So they are trying to retain control for the next 100 years.
Let's get this into the NY Times!!!
I remember a few year back when one of the rounds of fires were burning through California, when it turned out that many of the big employers of illegals were driving them back out to work in the fields with threats of deportation if they didn't work even in areas under mandatory evacuation. It struck me that many of these were the same people clamoring for a steady stream of illegal immigrants, and agitating against anyone who objected. It seems to me that the leaders of the amnesty faction are really trying to create a new serf class, maintained at the public's expense, but at the same time, subject to arbitrary law enforcement at the whims of the amnesty leaders, and that they are further attempting to distract these new serfs from the people who are actually abusing them by agitating them against the legal citizen who pay for their upkeep. Basically, they are playing an elaborate game of "let's you and him fight" between the legals and illegals, and looting both parties for all they are worth.
Today African Americans have begun to revolt against this invasion and the demands that the poor accept the continued loss of jobs and opportunities to illegals. The Mexican and Central Americans keep wages low for poor American citizens. Especially African Americans. They also face violent racism in their schools and neighborhoods which is never reported because the media can't place the culpability in white folks. There's another onerous political outcome. The pro-illegal crowds have been chanting " this is stolen land " which obviously means they want revolution. The American southwest is in great danger of eventually being carved up like the Balkans in the early 90s. We can only imagine the slaughter and conflict which could truly occur with the support of the American left.
And what does Mexico gain from their complicity in this invasion? Obviously the Mex govt has a long term strategy to allow their lower classes to emigrate to the US. But don't they fear a backlash from the invasion will cutoff the emigration of their mestisos?
Will the outrage that most voters feel over this illegal invasion overseen my the Obama Administration translate into votes against his fellow travelers in Congress in November?
Surely Obama will be telling us that "unexpectedly" comes a medley of community organized race riots?
Mr. Hanson you have articulated the situation perfectly. The difficulties in the U. S. stem from an amoral ruling elite. What's even worse is their sense of moral superiority over us unwashed masses.