The “Difficult Dimensions” of Immigration and Border Security
What to do about illegal immmigration and border security? This week’s Creators Syndicate column consider near-term proposals and long-term solutions (via StrategyPage).
Excerpt:
…Securing economic justice and political reform in Mexico is key to any truly effective long-term solution. The Mexican people know it. A decade ago, I met with a number of businessmen and women in northern Mexico who were “dollarizing” their businesses because they did not trust the corrupt central government. I also met several northern Mexican political activists who detailed their plans for ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) decades of one-party rule.
In 1997 and 2000, those plans led to opposition-party victories. Vicente Fox’s presidential election, however, was the end of the beginning for Mexican reformers. Mexico’s bitter mix of statist economics, poverty and elite corruption frustrate quick change.
Mexico’s elites do indeed export their unemployed, as well as potential political dissidents. That policy must end. On the other hand, U.S. businesses benefit from low-wage workers (many coming from Mexico). The U.S. birthrate has declined, and immigrants compensate for that decline. America must confront those facets of the immigration problem.
U.S. demand for illegal narcotics feeds Mexican corruption. Narcotics trafficking negatively affects political and economic conditions in Mexico (and thus has an impact on immigration). Getting real control of the borders means curbing America’s appetite for illegal drugs.
All too often, “difficult dimensions” like demography, corruption, political reform and drug smuggling are ignored when U.S. leaders slap together immigration and border security legislation. We can’t let that happen this time.
Drug prohibition is just as much a self inflicted wound as was alcohol prohibition. In additiion if what many doctors believe is true - that drugs do not cause addiction - then we are fighting . Wouldn’t it be better to spend the money we spend fighting drugs on dealing with the real cause of drug abuse - which in America is mostly caused by the trauma of child abuse induced PTSD with a rising secondary cause being war time PTSD?
Comment by M. Simon — 4/5/2006 @ 8:16 am
We have no better way of encouraging corruption and enriching criminals than our drug prohibition regime.
Comment by M. Simon — 4/5/2006 @ 9:43 am
[…] I rarely post reader emails (this site has a comments section). However, one line in this week’s Creators Syndicate column caught an informed reader’s attention. Glenn Reynold’s […]
Pingback by Austin Bay Blog » Border Security/De-criminalizing “illegal drugs” — 4/5/2006 @ 9:52 am
Hundreds of thousands of foreign citizens recently marched in our streets, demanding rights to which they aren’t entitled. 1. What happens if they don’t get what they want? 2. Are any foreign governments involved in agitating their citizens inside our country? 3. Do you agree that any country should have a right to expel foreign citizens, as long as done lawfully? 4. If we absolutely needed to deport, say, a million illegal aliens in, say, six months, could you detail exactly how we’d do that and what might happen if, say, they resisted? Bear in mind: we absolutely need to expel those foreign citizens. How would we do that and what would happen? In the historical context what are #3 and #4 usually called?
Comment by TLB — 4/5/2006 @ 9:58 am
This was a good article, but it just touched on the problems without conveying how massive these problems are. To most Americans, I imagine illegal immigration is almost an “abstract” problem, as it was for me even though I grew up about 120 miles from the Mexico border. However, my outlook changed drastically about seventeen years ago when I moved to within sixty miles of the Mexican border, and more on the migration path. In this area we definitely feel like we are on the “front lines” of a war zone. There is a strong uniformed (Border Patrol) presence, there are numerous illegal immigrants seen walking the back roads and through the brush off the roads, most ranchers have had multiple encounters with large groups of immigrants passing through their land (often damaging property in the process), crime (burglary, breaking and entering, theft, assault, etc.) is commonplace in what would normally be a crime-free rural setting, most hunters have also witnessed numerous large groups transit through the hunting areas (to the extent they have been frightened), and there are signs (damaged fences, discarded clothing and trash, foot prints, etc.) everywhere you look where illegal immigrants have been. There are also the occasional bodies that are found of the immigrants that didn’t make it. This is a deplorable situation and makes a mockery of “homeland security”. By definition, all these groups and individuals are conducting illegal activities, but many of them are much more dangerous than a “benign” immigrant just looking for work and a better life. Furthermore, our common practice of capturing and releasing detained immigrants is total nonsense! For these reasons I agree with the President’s desire to allow work permits for immigrants looking for work and other relatively “benign” reasons for entering; keep these individuals accounted for, and on the roads and using public transportation. All other immigrants with dangerous motives would still be in the brush, but because of smaller numbers in the brush, they would be easier to catch and our Border Patrol would be much more effective and not overwhelmed. I also do NOT want to see “citizenship” as an expected outcome or reward of entering the United States on such a program. The normal restrictions for achieving citizenship should apply, including background checks, normal delays and processing, and our government’s determination of just how many can be accepted and assimilated. I don’t like the drug traffic, either, but as you say, that discussion is for another day. This situation is incredibly similar to prohibition almost a century ago.
Comment by ETP — 4/5/2006 @ 2:49 pm
I totally agree with the Email on drugs and the Border Security post.. I have been exchanging email with Groupintel on the subject.
Comment by scattershot — 4/5/2006 @ 5:22 pm
It’s been several hours, so anyone have an answer to my last comment? Maybe others could try and ask question #4 of all those politicians and pundits who support “guest” worker schemes or just plain old illegal immigration. Or, if anyone else could ask that of experts on such issues, please post their answers and send me a link or leave it in my comments.
Comment by TLB — 4/5/2006 @ 9:13 pm
Sir: The argument over drug legalization is fallacious. To compare illegal drug use to the problems caused by prohabition is misleadin g because alcahol use was very widespread before prohibition. The government was trying to change what was essentially a way of life. Illegal drug use is not a way of life for most Americans. I would suggest that the last thing we want to do is add another legal sets of addicive subsatnces to the mix.
Comment by davod — 4/6/2006 @ 3:27 am
Drug consumption is a matter of the self-regulating restraint of the individual. In previous eras, significant time, energy and resources were consumed in efforts to sustain an individual or family (i.e. food, shelter, security, clothing, energy, etc.) There was no infrastructure that would supply all these needs with remarkable reliability at surprising low cost as today. Recreation and/or leisure were something out of fairy tales for most. In our age you can stay quite stoned or addicted without experiencing the material depravations the sober experienced in former times. In fact, huge industries exist, legal and illegal, to assist one with their drug use or dependency. Currently our culture can’t spell self-restraint let alone employ it. Under these circumstances, drug use will be with us a very long time.
Comment by Brad Lena — 4/6/2006 @ 1:52 pm
I know Austin is not much interested in the drug debate. Here goes anyway. My researches show that PTSD is a big factor in drug abuse. There are three main causes: 1. Child Abuse 2. Wartime trauma 3. Emergency services trauma If those are the actual causes then you are not going to get much “self restraint”. In earlier ages (the Civil War) alcoholism was a well known and accepted coping mechanism for war time PTSD (it was not called PTSD then). If we actually want to do something about drug use we are going to have to deal with the root preventable cause: child abuse. We have been trying to prohibit our way out of the problem with results similar to alcohol prohibition. Perhaps better understanding of the problem and programs based on that understanding are in order. Or as some of you prefer we can continue subsidising criminal probing of border weak spots. I don’t see the advantage in that if you want to seal the border. But hey, maybe sealing the border is not your real goal. ED NOTE: Could you provide links to your research on PTSD? Thanks.
Comment by M. Simon — 4/7/2006 @ 11:11 am