The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Two weeks ago, a group of Republican governors wrote a scathing letter to Democratic President Joe Biden, blaming him for what it called a ‘crisis’ on the U.S.-Mexico border. They should have included their own Republican colleagues in Congress on the mailing.
“There’s a problem on the U.S.-Mexico border, no question about it. But there has been a problem there for years. Decades, in fact. . . .
“That’s not to downplay the latest surge, which has broken past records. In August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 232,972 encounters on the southwest border, an average of more than 7,500 a day. And that’s not even the high under Mr. Biden of more than 252,000 in December.
“It’s important to bear in mind that those are encounters with U.S. border agents. So the more aggressively the U.S. works to keep people from entering the country illegally, the more encounters it will report. . . .
“But there’s no denying a lot of people are trying to cross the border these days, whether it’s to escape violence, political persecution or severe economic conditions in their home countries or just to pursue the hope of a better life. . . .
“We’ve said for years that Congress could address illegal immigration if only it wasn’t such a useful political tool. Lawmakers came close to a bipartisan solution in 2013 with a package that featured border security measures, a pathway to citizenship for the millions of otherwise law-abiding people who had entered the country illegally, and a host of measures aimed at getting immigrants into a workforce that needed more people, and still does.
“That’s what the Republican governors would have sought in a more sincere letter—a comprehensive approach to the nation’s multi-layered immigration challenge. Instead, they engaged in the same one-dimensional performative politics that has fixed nothing, and won’t as long as immigration remains an issue to milk, not solve. . . .
“But you have to govern not just in prose, but in the real world. America won’t fix its immigration problem until politicians get off what’s become the never-ending campaign trail, and get down to and get down to work.”—Get Real on Immigration, Editorial Board, Times Union, 10/2/23 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This editorial sort of acknowledges that our broken border is a problem. But to understate that problem it suggests that “aggressive” enforcement by the Border Patrol “to keep people out” is inflating the number of encounters. The reality is quite to the contrary. More and more, Border Patrol agents are not tasked with keeping illegal aliens out. Instead, they’re assigned to process them into the country, on the basis of their largely bogus asylum claims. By redefining many illegal aliens as legal, the Biden Administration is deflating the official totals of illegal immigration. The situation on the border is still a crisis, and it’s not getting any better.
The editorialists next inform us that the “solution” for our broken border is something like the infamous immigration bill of 2013 which, if it had passed, would have rewarded close to 11 million foreign lawbreakers in our country with legal status and eventual citizenship. So just how will this discourage illegal immigration. By all known laws of common sense, if you reward certain behavior you’re bound to get more of it.
This editorial misleads when it depicts millions of illegal aliens as “otherwise law-abiding people.” The reality is that after their illegal arrival, they have to break numerous laws to remain here—at a significant cost to American citizens. Advocates of amnesty sometimes offer “border security measures” as a concession to their opponents, but these measures—even if passed—won’t necessarily stem the alien tide. To illustrate, it does no good to hire more Border Patrol agents if the government won’t allow them to do the jobs they’re supposed to do.
Lastly, these editorialists pull out the worn and tiresome cliché that illegal aliens are coming here for “a better life”—as if that justifies their presence here. Economic betterment is commonly the motive of all types of lawbreakers. That point aside, one might ask if the virtual erasure of our borders will bring a better life for American citizens. The collapse of immigration law enforcement is a pathway to anarchy, and anarchy benefits no one. The editorialists say we need illegal aliens to do jobs, but one can be sure the jobs they have in mind are not those done by their class. If illegal aliens offered significant competition to the jobs of journalists, they probably would sing a different tune.