Why Can't We Control Illegal Immigration?

A Snarky Response to Continued Bloviation by the Isolationists

at Both Ends of the Political Spectrum

(c) 2011 by Tom King

Got one of those e-mails describing how tough countries like Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, even Mexico are on illegal immigrants. It ignores one thing, however. It's not quite true.  Afghanistan does have a flood of illegals in the form of Taliban soldiers, who regularly cross their borders from sanctuaries in Pakistan. Iraq faces waves of foreign jihadists pouring over the borders from Iran and Syria. The current Venezuelan government started out as illegal immigrants working from rebel safe bases across the borders. Even Mexico, which has tough immigration laws on its books, only selectively enforces them. In spite of those laws, there is a steady stream of South American refugees crossing their southern borders headed for "El Norte",.

So the premise is already flawed.  But even presuming that these nation's draconian policies toward illegals were enforced (though they really aren't), why can't Americans do something like that and control our own immigration problem?

Why?  Let me count the ways.....

1. Because Americans are good, decent Christian people who cannot bear to see someone suffer.
2. Because we feel a bit guilty because our country is so blessed and the only reason we're in it is because our ancestors used every means at their disposal to get here in the first place and so we sympathize with anyone who wants to come here.
3. Because we know that there, but for the grace of God could go we. A lot of folk, like me, have a sneaking admiration for the courage, love of family and really profound work ethic of these folks who are essentially refugees - at least the ones who aren't drug mules or terrorists..
4. Because the evil people who run Mexico take advantage of the misery of their own people and the kindness of the United States to solve their problems with poverty, poor education and overpopulation among their own people and the drug runners with whom those evil people in government and law enforcement are in cahoots know they can use these people as drug mules and decoys to ship their crap to the Charlie Sheens of America who fund their lavish lifestyle.
5. Because corrupt business people in the U.S. use them as virtual slave labor. They can't complain or they'll get shipped back to the hellhole they just escaped. It's a priceless opportunity to make some real coin and we like our roses, lettuce and chicken products cheap (or at least we apparently want growers and manufacturers to make as much money as possible producing those goods).
6. And finally, because the libs on the left and right (liberals and libertarians) think we can sit behind our borders and defend it without actually going over there and rooting out the problem at its source.

Unlike the other folk my friend's e-mail mentioned, none of those countries have the slightest problem sending someone to murder, blow up or make disappear those who cause them problems. Also, people want to get OUT of those countries, so there isn't much problem with people sneaking in.  Nobody wants to go there except, of course, terrorists looking for a place to train.

How long do you think the drug cartels would remain unmolested if they were sitting just across the Iranian or Chinese or Afghan border and bothering those governments. The only reason Al-Quaeda is sitting safely within the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran is because those governments find them a useful tool to use against the weak Americans who obviously have no intention of offending anyone by rooting out the problem at the source. Oh, there was that scare with the two Bush's, but the US Congress and public squeamishness eventually made sure that neither one finished the job he started. Once her realized the U.S. wasn't going to follow through, even Libya's Ghaddafi, eventually got his courage back and put on some dry pants after watching those grainy Youtube videos of Saddam swinging from that hemp necktie!

Conclusion:

Right or wrong, we're not going to stop it, even if we spend a fortune trying to shut off the flow of human misery across our southern border. We'd just be punishing people for trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. We up here in "El Norte" just don't have the capacity for that level of cruelty. We find it difficult to swat refugees back into the floodwaters of misery that is Mexico.

And without the will to go down there and root out the bad guys in their dens for ourselves, all we do is leave evil unmolested, festering and spreading just outside our borders. It's like living in a beautiful house with well-stocked pantries, paying an exterminator to come in regularly to protect our own house and hoping that the ravening hordes of plague rats living in the nearby sewers and infesting the houses around us, won't cross our fences looking for a meal and driving terrified field mice and waves of insects before them.

To solve your problem, you clean out the rats nests where they breed. That's the only thing that works.

And before someone attaches my name to this "chilling" quote, let me explain that I'm talking about the cartels and their allies in the ancient and corrupt Mexican government - not about the poor folks just trying to get out of there alive..

I ain't saying it would be a pretty solution or that it would make anyone love us, except possibly the Mexican people, but it would work. I mean, after all, the Japanese are our friends and we dropped a couple of A-bombs on them. I'm not recommending dropping A-bombs on Mexico, but it's tempting to send some SEAL teams in to make the cartels go away at the very least.  I think the Mexicans would probably forgive us.

As to issues of morality, I'm not speaking to that. I'm talking about what would be effective. In this evil world, evil people respect and fear only strength. They find compassion laughable. That's why the only solution to the ultimate problem of evil was for God to intervene directly to provide a way to save the good people and let the evil people destroy themselves.

That's why Jesus' second coming will be accompanied by waves of death and flames and horror. Once we good guys, whom every evil jerk that walks the planet takes advantage of because they see us as "suckers", leave this place, the universe will see the ultimate consequence of sin.....................death and death, I suspect, will come for the evil people in this world by their own hands. I don't think God will have to lift a finger.

Just one opinion. I'm sure there are others. They would be wrong, but you guys just talk among yourselves.*

Tom

*Sorry, I'm tired of political fantasy today and I'm not sending this to ten of my friends, although, I assure you, I do care and I do love Jesus.

Politics and Compassion - Compassion Nearly Always Comes Up Short

I worked for a residential treatment center that was one of the best in the state. We had the best outcomes rate of any residential treatment center in the state at the time. We were closed twice, both times when the director was scheduled to testify before the state sunset commission that the half dozen confusing, fragmented child care agencies in Texas should be combined into one. I don't think the timing of the closures was an accident.

A consulting agency once told the governor that the child care system was a string of private fiefdoms, often working at odds with one another and the most "woefully inefficient" system they'd ever seen. Our director was right that the system needed to change and her decision to stand up for reform was courageous in that those agencies also paid our bills. Bravery can have its cost.

I will always believe that the state agencies wanted to discredit the director before the Sunset Commission met that October and that they were looking for an opportunity to do so. We took on a child that even the state hospital wouldn't attempt to treat. We took him in and it cost us dearly. They closed us over a serious incident in which the boy lost his life. The state hospital knew that might happen and simply kicked him out.  We tried to help and failed.  The agencies smeared the boss to keep her away from the Sunset Commission a few months later. The agencies managed to keep the system from being changed and survived in their fragmented condition till 2004 when the new Republican legislature combined 22 separate health and human service agencies into just 5.

I was proud to be part of the lobbying effort to get that done. I remember a guy came around to speak to a meeting of nonprofit folks.  He said that he represented a citizen group who opposed the proposed amalgamation of the agencies. He quoted scary statistics and scenarios where little old people and starving children died homeless on the street if the reorganization went through.  In the midst of the meeting, I began to smell a theme to the presentation and, possibly, an accompanying rat!  I raised my hand.

"Who do you represent?" I asked.

I'm with the Citizens Council....."

"No, no," I interrupted.  "I mean who do you work for.  Who writes your paycheck?"

"Uh, uh," he stammered.

"I mean somebody let you off work to do this speaking tour," I said helpfully.

"Well, I work for the Federal and State Employees Union," he finally admitted, "But..."

"Thank you," I smiled.  "I understand now why your organization opposes this legislation.  You guys are worried about all the state employees that could be laid off."

"Well, of course," he explained. "Without all those employees, who will deliver the services?"

"How about if we just have to only go to one office to get services we need instead of to 4 or 5."

He scoffed at me. I think he actually gave a little snort of derision.

I love bureaucrats. It's so easy to make 'em snort.  

I once went to a transportation stakeholder's meeting (trust me, you don't want me to explain what that is. We had about 50 social workers in the room, all complaining that about half their clients couldn't drive and couldn't find a way to get to the places where the services they need are delivered. The rural transit manager kept interrupting us to tell us that her organization could provide that transportation. If we'd just call the 800 number, she insisted, we'd have all our clients' transportation problems solved.

I raised my hand.

"If you have all these transit services," I asked, "Why is it that I'm sitting in a room with 50 social workers who don't have any idea that these services are available?  Why don't you market or advertise?  Let people know you have all these wonderful transportation services."

Her eyes grew wide with horror, I kid you not.  "Oh, we couldn't do that," she snorted derisively, "We'd be swamped!"

"So, let me get this straight," I said, scratching my head. "You deliberately don't advertise because you couldn't handle the demand?" I sat down. "Then you ain't got the transportation stuff what you just said you got."

I used to get hate mail from their agency. I later discovered that they demanded old people living out in the country build circular drives before they'd send a bus after them. I used to have to call the transit provider to remind them that they actually did have to deliver the services their grant called for them to deliver, I don't care how inconvenient  it might be.  They used to complain that I "didn't understand how transportation worked" and suggested I shut up in meetings.  They hated me so much that when I served on the state rural transit advisory committee and tried to triple their budget, they opposed it.  

And there is the problem.  Politicians and bureaucrats may say they are all about helping people and that they are the Grand High Poobah's of compassion, but where the rubber meets the road, where compassion is stacked up against power and position, compassion turns to something that looks vaguely like compassion, but primarily serves the need of the apparatus rather than the folks the apparatus was intended to help.

I'm just sayin'

Tom King