I’m delighted to hear immigration reform mentioned in Congress. Maybe shipping all those assylum seekers to sanctuary cities is getting the message through and changing some attitudes. Something needs to be done.
Not likely to happen as part of the govt shutdown discussion but at least its in the news.
Time to write your Congress person and urge them to take action.
Yes, I noticed the irony of the mayor of NYC now making the same complaints as the Gov of Texas, wrt immigrants’ load placed on housing and social services.
There are other good questions begging to be answered: the refugee laws require the first “safe” country the refugees come to, to accommodate them. Seems to me, that would be most of Mexico, rather than everyone being passed on to the US.
Should employers be sanctioned for hiring illegals? Yes. Should cities and states be sanctioned for ignoring Federal immigration laws they don’t like, rather than working within the democratic system to change the laws? Yes.
But “JCs” want cheap, easily exploited, illegal immigrant labor, so obstruct means to make the illegal “legal”. Certain blowhards are against any immigration by non-white people, so obstruct attempts to make it easier to immigrate legally. Mexico doesn’t want the immigrants, so points them north and tells them to keep going.
There was an attempt to link US/Mexico trade to Mexico stepping up to handle the immigrant flow itself.
So, the “leaders and statesmen” revert to medieval means, like walls. Ask any Border Patrol agent about walls. He will say “if you build a 20 foot wall, they will have 21 foot ladders the next day”.
Steve
Exactly, If you fine business’s that hire undocumented workers enough money they will stop doing it. But then nobody will be working for cheap any longer. Now what are they going to do? Pay people a living wage?
Andy
I think we all know that nothing we do will stop all illegals. But we can make it not so easy for them. Then it takes someone reasonably able to climb that 21 ft ladder.
Nothing you do is perfect, but you can slow them down and make it more difficult. We should make the effort.
You are talking about people who have walked/hitched/jumped freights, from Guatemala and Venezuela. They aren’t going to be stopped by a simple minded wall.
Steve
Oh, please. Immigration reform has constantly been talked about in Congress. Hasn’t happened yet, but various and sundry reform proposals get floated almost every session.
And I doubt it will happen any time soon. One side wants to reduce it. One wants to increase it. Neither seem ready to actually compromise.
–Peter
I have a different mission tonight. Went to an artist’s talk. One of the artists was indigenous. He was getting into art describing the boarding schools in Canada and the US back in 2018 when the mass graves were found in Canada.
The US has not followed suit to find the bodies. I will be writing Congresswoman Hayes tonight.
“Flood Congress”. Literally. Then deny them the ability to leave. Watch what happens next.
In order to reach solutions It is crucial to distinguish between the illegal immigrant flow and the refugees flow(s). The are very different although related.
Refugees from Central America are NOT safe in Mexico, as the refugees are fleeing criminal gangs that have alliances with criminal gangs in Mexico,
This is a problem from hell mostly created by exactly the kind of ignorance and vague indifference of USA citizens combined with rapacious greed by variou USA employers and their political benefactees/servants.
You want action on refugees? End USA cossetting of the hideously wealthy, priviledged, protected families of central america. Want to end illegal immigration? Throw employers into jail or severely fine their businesses,
All the rest is “Watch the Birdie” distraction.
david fb
Can you envision a woman with three small children climbing a 21 ft ladder and handing them over one at a time?
The wall is a useful barrier that reduces the load on border patrol and makes their resources more effective.
The best solution to the refugee or assylum seeker problem is more courts to hear their cases in a timely manner. Now they wait up to 4 years in the US to be heard.
We may also need assylum quotas. We are being overwhelmed. We need to be better at it.
I guess you didn’t see the picture of a Coyote dropping a child from the top of the wall? I guess you didn’t see the tunnels under the border?
The border patrol has been using Drones for years now to monitor the border. This is the 21st century version of a wall and should be the way it is done. We just need more drones, more border patrol, but really what is missing is legislation. A wall or any of the stuff I mentioned isn’t going to do a dang thing without legislation. The only thing a wall will do is provide temporary jobs. If someone really wants a wall let’s start at the Canadian border first. That is were the real problem is. Those people come across the border and nobody even complains about that. I wonder why?
Andy
I would say volume first.
"Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia of the United States Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector indicates his agents have apprehended more than 6,100 persons in the last 11 months. The apprehensions in the Vermont, New York and New Hampshire border sector are more than those in the last 10 years – combined. "
2nd cooperation between Canada and U.S.
The United States and Canada reached a deal earlier this year on a mutual arrangement to turn away asylum seekers at their respective borders, according to NPR. Canada sought tougher rules following a growing phenomenon of migrants arriving from the U.S. in Quebec using New York’s Roxham Road. Many migrants attempt to claim U.S. asylum after flying to Canada to cross the border.
True more come across the southern border but more violent ones come across the Northern border. But why is there no talk at all of building a wall across the Northern Border? None at all. If I was going to come across I would come across the Northern Border. Lots of open land to get across.
** Second, fear of illegal immigrants committing acts of terrorism is not entirely unfounded, but it has previously manifested in unexpected ways. In recent years, the most high-profile terrorism incidents involving illegal immigrants have in fact both been perpetrated by Canadian far-right extremists—an anti-government extremist who attempted to attack Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the build-up to the 2022 midterms, and a neo-NaTi who crossed the northern border and joined a white supremacist terrorist organization known as “The Base” in 2020, planning to attack a gun rights rally in Richmond.**
Andy
I have friends and neighbors in Mexico who cross and re-cross repeatedly using expert “coyotes” with strong connections to their families for decades. They laugh out loud at the idea that enough wall can be built to do anything useful, but most of them cross at normal crossings in vehicles.
If we built excellent walls sufficiently manned it would insure
The stupidity on the part of a xenophobic public manipulated by business and agrarian interests so as to insure a large pool of unprotected underpaid union undermining vulnerable employees has gone on All My Life.
It is stunning. It is dangerous. Wake the fork up!
david fb
david fb
Drones are a good idea; we should have more of them.
But to imply drones are equivalent to physical barriers is unbelieveable.
As to Canada, they seem to have concerns about illegals crossing into Canada. Certainly the volumes on our southern border are huge and needs attention.
Its hard to believe anyone truely believes open borders is a good idea. Inflation, climate change, and all sorts of conflicts continue to make it worse.
Tunnels like the wall are a fixed item. Border patrol should be able to find them easily.
Yes, there are all sorts of ways to bring in illegals. That is not an excuse for not trying to control our borders.
Yes. I have seen literally dozens of pictures of people doing it. I have seen pictures of the impregnable walls being defeated by a $99 sawzall from Home Depot. I have seen people exiting from tunnels underneath the walls.
More to the point, the border between the US and Mexico is nearly 2,000 miles. Before the guy who promised to build the wall there was 650 miles of barriers of some sort. Four years later there was 750 miles. It isn’t so easy, and (hard to believe) they had to replace almost 400 miles of barriers because they were 1) destroyed 2) rotting 3) ineffective 4) all of the above.
You could put a mine field across the border and they’re still going to come; they’re running for their lives anyway.
2000 miles is a lot of area to patrol. Maybe we should just take over Mexico and then only worry about the border between it and Guatemala. Ah heck, let’s just take it all the way down to Panama; surely we can contain a border that small.
Yes. After traveling hundreds of miles through dangerous jungles and across deserts, a silly little wall isn’t going to stand in her way.
—Peter
I am thinking you haven’t spent much time around the borders. Have you seen the drones that they have deployed? I have, they have infrared on them and patrol all along. You think a 10th century solution will solve anything? A wall is nothing. I built a wall around my property only for privacy. People, coyote’s and everything, including drones go across my wall easily. So instead of trying to solve it with arcane methods (Voodoo anybody?) Why don’t we legislate and then solve with 21st century solutions? Please don’t say mines and barbwire.
It really is amazing how people have really forgotten the past.
Andy