Since 1964, we’ve been treating immigration as a welfare benefit to be bestowed on foreigners. Before that, immigration served America. One had to have an employable skill that America needed to get in (or a sponsor to support you). That’s what made the USA the most powerful economic and military power on Earth. We took in the best and brightest from everywhere and made them Americans.
In 1964, thanks to “liberals” like Ted Kennedy, “family reunification” became the primary goal of American immigration policy. So if you came from a village in Backwardsistan and had nothing to offer America, you could still get in as long as your second cousin, the doctor working in the USA, was already here. Whole villages where everyone is a cousin or in-law to everyone else then followed. None of them needed any useful skill or sponsor.
As a nation, we have a right to choose our immigrants. Even in the early days when immigrants came in through Ellis Island, we screened people for disease and such. When people sneak in, we have no way of knowing what they may bring.
Yes, we’re a nation of immigrants, but that does not mean we should accept just any old immigrant. If they have nothing to offer, turn them away. Our immigration policy should benefit America. Nothing shameful in that; it’s just common sense. All of America’s policies should work primarily to benefit America and Americans. There’s no reason immigration should be any different. But for too long, immigration policy has expressly not been for the benefit of America but for foreigners living here.
Leftists have been throwing around the figure of 11,000,000 illegals for two decades, as if that number were not increasing every year with new sneak-ins.
Sneak-ins are just part of the problem. There are more visa overstayers than sneak-ins. Probably 30,000,000. They came here legally on student, worker, or tourist visas and just never left. Current immigration policy makes no effort to track them or make sure they leave when their visas expire. Lots more on this where I talk about Ann Coulter’s book “¡Adios, America!”.
Immigration is badly broken overall and a wall or barrier with Mexico is just one part of a comprehensive overhaul of immigration policy that is needed.
Naysayers continue to say that Trump is against immigration Nonsense. He married an immigrant. He’s against illegal immigration. And that’s a big difference.
The left and news media (lots of overlap there) prefer to confuse the matter by calling illegals “Undocumented immigrants.” See my blog entry for my take on that. Undocumented Illegal Immigrant Alien Foreigners (Spoiler: Lots of the illegals are in fact “documented.”)
Then there are anchor babies and the Fourteenth Amendment. Many people argue that anyone simply born on American soil is automatically a U.S. citizen. I don’t know if it has ever been tested in court but the amendment states that: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” and seem to ignore the significance of the words “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Words have meanings. One might think that everyone within our borders is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. But, clearly, those writing the Fourteenth Amendment had something else in mind. We know that ambassadors and those with diplomatic immunity are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. What other classes of persons do not meet the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” criteria to receive the citizenship conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment?
So far, we’ve identified certain foreigners that do not. I think that it’s a no-brainer that Americans are subject to U.S jurisdiction. Who’s left? Other foreigners. Which of them are and which are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.? I would argue that persons here in violation of U.S. law are in fact subject to the jurisdiction of their contries of origin.
It is a matter that, to my knowledge, has not been settled in court.
The great vast majority of contries do not confer birthright citizenship. They don’t because it’s bad policy. We shouldn’t either and I believe the Fourteenth Amendment is being misused to confer citizenship erroneously to children born to non-American parents. Maybe an executive order can fix that. That would lead to a court challenge and maybe the matter could be settled.
But back to the Mexican border wall. Yes, it will be expensive, but less expensive than the current costs of supporting all those illegals. Yes, people will try to tunnel under and climb over whatever barrier we erect. Technology can be used to detect such incursions. We already have permanent dirigibles aloft scanning for people approaching the border at some points. This can be expanded. Use drones. When people are seen sneaking in, drop fluorescent dye on them from afar. Make them easy for ICE to identify.
Should we build a more effective wall? Certainly. Our current barriers are not very effective. It’s just an engineering problem. If we can land robots on Mars, we can certainly build a more effective wall with Mexico.
“Comprehensive immigration reform” has for too long meant amnesty, a road to citizenship and so forth, while never delivering on the promised benefits. Twice before, Congress has passed laws authorizing a wall, in return for amnesty and such. The amnesty materialized, but the wall never did.
I think Trump is aware and intends to fix the problem of visa over-stayers. That is, true “comprehensive immigration reform.”
There are a lot of problems with our current immigration policy and building a wall is just a part of it. But it needs to be done.