The Bleeding Southern Border

 Stephen Kershnar

The Bleeding Southern Border

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

October 31, 2021

 

            The Biden administration is moving the country toward an open Southern border. This is disgraceful.   

This year, the country will let in roughly 2 million illegal aliens. This is based on internal government estimate of 2 million illegal aliens who will be encountered at the border. Many will be let in. In addition, there are 400,000 who will likely sneak past border patrol. The number of illegal aliens is thus larger than the population of San Diego. It is the equivalent to letting in a population equal to Atlanta, Kansas City, and Miami in one year. 

            The loathsome Biden administration did it through a massive across-the-board effort. It stopped building the Southern wall. It tried to put in place a 100-day freeze on all deportation. This applied even to those found guilty of assault, drunk driving, and manslaughter.

The Biden administration then tried to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy. The policy held that asylum seekers from Central America should apply in Mexico or the first safe country. Common sense demands this rule as the vast majority of Central American asylum seekers are ineligible under American law. It also ended a related agreement with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras that – following international law - asylum seekers must file for asylum in the first safe country they get to rather than breaking into the US and filing there.

Having opened the Southern border, the Biden administration then put in place the Obama administration’s idiotic “catch and release” policy. This policy allows illegal aliens who broke into the country to stay subject only to a notice to appear before a judge far into the future. Many do not do so. Some illegal aliens were even released without a court date. The Biden administration then – at taxpayers’ expense - bussed or flew many illegal aliens to different parts of the country in the dead of night and without telling local authorities.

            The Biden administration also eliminated accountability. It ended the “public charge” rule that required that those who were likely to become dependent on welfare were ineligible for permanent residency (green card). It announced that families or employers who sponsor aliens would no longer have to sign an affidavit of support. Such a promise of support would have made them financially responsible if an immigrant went on welfare. And, of course, the administration ended any financial penalty for sanctuary cities. It is even considering a roughly $1 million dollar payment to families separated while breaking in.

            Many of the above policies are illegal. Like the Obama administration’s criminal use of the FBI, IRS, Justice Department, and NSA, open-and-notorious lawbreaking is now the norm.    

            On average, each new legal immigrant sponsors 3.5 other immigrants. Immigrant women have on average 2.9 children (immigrant women without an education have even more). Thus, letting in and amnestying 2 million illegal aliens in effect adds 10 million people. By way of contrast, Pennsylvania has 13 million people.

Most households headed by immigrants from Central America and Mexico are on welfare (73%). This is more than twice as high as the native population (30%). The economic problems of these immigrants continue to a second generation. Specifically, the children of Hispanic immigrants have much lower incomes (including median household income), are much less likely to be proficient in math and reading when in school, and are much less likely to graduate from college.

One of the reasons this matters is that most taxpayers – 61% - pay no federal income tax and, so, we are importing generations of people who ride in the wagon rather than pushing it. If the country wanted immigrants who – both initially and via their children - would perform better than average in terms of crime, education, income, marriage, and welfare, we could easily get them by admitting immigrants from Asia. Such successful immigrants would even come with an obesity rate less than half of current Americans.

Instead of selecting immigrants similar to how an Ivy League school selects its students – which we easily could do – the administration is hell-bent on doing the opposite. Even if the country were committed to admitting Hispanic immigrants, the country could mimic affirmative-action admission in the Ivy League and admit the best Hispanic applicants, thereby ensuring quite talented immigrants, even if not the very best we can get.

None of this is good for current citizens. It is not good economically. See above. This is true whether we compare the illegal aliens to no immigrants or merit-based immigrants.

Nor is it good politically. People who depend on the government for the basics – education, food, housing, and medicine – are much less likely to care about freedom or vote for it. They are also less likely to be bothered by warmongering or gross criminality – see the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations– and more on keeping the gravy train moving down the tracks.  

This is not even good socially. Most Americans do not want unskilled-and-uneducated illegal aliens as their neighbors or dating their 17-year-old daughters. Such preferences have nothing to do with an American’s race or ethnicity. It makes little sense to import people who Americans, on average, do not want as lovers, neighbors, sons-in-law, or spouses.

What is the justification for opening the Southern border? As noted above, it is not economic, political, or social. It is not even the most charitable thing we could so. If we want to let in the poorest and most desperate, we could admit 2 million from the Congo, Niger, Malawi, etc. They live in far worse conditions than Central Americans. We could also admit 10 million immigrants rather than the 3.2 million immigrants – legal and illegal – that we will probably admit this year. In any case, a country facing a debt 130% of its economy, Social Security and Medicare insolvency, a social fabric increasingly being torn apart (see abortion, Antifa/BLM, Covid-mandates, and school board fights), and possible conflict with China, does not have the luxury of this nonsense.