Border Wall Debate: Lies, Deflections and Diversions From the Left
Today, we debunk eight lies, deflections and diversions from the hysterical, political-media establishment:
On establishment media channels illegal aliens are always called “immigrants.” This is a lie. Here’s a brief primer from US immigration law (US Code, Section 8) to explain why illegal aliens are not immigrants. In US law, the term that describes ALL non-citizens who are present in the United States, legally or illegally, is “Alien.” The law sets forth two broad categories of aliens:
- Immigrant aliens are foreign nationals who have permission to enter the US and to live and work here permanently. This is consistent with the dictionary definition of immigrants – people who, with permission from their adopted country, intend to remain for life. Some immigrant aliens become citizens through an application and education process called “naturalization.”
- NON-immigrant aliens includes several sub-categories. Two of those sub-categories are:
- Foreigners in US with permission, on temporary visas, for business or education, or just to visit. Their visas come with expiration dates, when they must leave. They are called NON-immigrant aliens because they are not authorized to stay permanently.
- Illegal Aliens are in the country unlawfully. They crossed the border into America without permission. Or, they were admitted on a temporary visa but failed to leave when the visa expired. These people are designated as Illegal Aliens in several sections of the law. Sometimes the term “unlawfully present alien” is used.
Again, there’s the term “immigrants” instead of “illegal aliens” in an effort to deceive us. There is little statistical evidence to back up this assertion. The so-called “studies” reach this conclusion from indirect indicators, not precise counts of illegal alien convictions. Nobody knows how many illegal aliens live in the US. The most often heard estimates range from 3% – 5% of our total population. Yet 35% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
Additional studies of illegal alien crime rates are here and here and here and here and here. But we don’t have to determine if this assertion is precisely true or not, because even if true, a lower illegal alien crime rate is irrelevant.
What if, hypothetically, we guess that only 1% of the estimated 12 to 22 million illegal aliens commit crimes in addition to unauthorized entry into the US? And suppose they committed only two crimes each in 2018. That would mean 240,000 to 440,000 citizens and legal immigrants were victims of illegal alien crimes. What if they commit a crime every month? Then it’s 1.4 to 2.6 million crime victims per year. And, again, these estimates presume that only one percent of illegal aliens commit additional crimes.
Because we’re human there will always be a few bad apples in our own, citizen population. But that doesn’t justify importing more! If the border were perfectly enforced there would be no illegal alien criminals at all and there would be millions fewer crime victims. While absolute, perfect enforcement is probably not possible, we certainly can choose to dramatically reduce unauthorized border crossing which absolutely would reduce the number of citizen and legal immigrant crime victims.
Again, of course, they conflate legitimate, legal immigrants and illegal aliens to deceive us. AND, this history is utterly irrelevant unless those who bring it up go on to explain their point. What specific border policy does this history support? They don’t say.
High profile Democrats condemn the men and women who work for the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. They call ICE agents racist and/or cruel. Some Democrats want to abolish ICE. They say the Border Patrol can prevent unauthorized entry. However, 12 – 22 million illegal aliens living in our country are proof the border patrol can’t prevent all unauthorized crossing. ICE performs a critical, imperative function.
After decades of lax enforcement the perception in Mexico and Central America is that illegal aliens who manage to travel past the immediate border zone, to the interior of our country, face very little risk of ever being caught and deported. Thus, a powerful incentive to give it a try. But stepped up deportations change the popular perception, remove the incentive, and slow the flood of illegal border crossing to a trickle.
Trump’s criticism is not of “immigrants” in general. In fact, he married an immigrant. He complains about illegal aliens. BUT, even if it were true that the President disparages genuine immigrants, that fact would not, in and of itself lead to the conclusion that we should leave the border unprotected and continue to allow tens of thousands of people to simply walk across it every month. Trump advocates border enforcement.
The burden is on the opposition to explain why border enforcement is a bad thing. Trump’s alleged personal faults are not a logical argument against border security any more than Nancy Pelosi’s faults are an argument in favor.
Here’s just one of many alarming statistics: In fiscal 2018 (the government’s fiscal year ends September 30) 396,579 individuals were apprehended as they crossed the border illegally, between official ports of entry. In the first four months of fiscal 2019 the border patrol apprehended 201,497 such individuals.
At this rate the 2019 total will exceed the 2018 total by more than 50%. And, this is a count only of apprehensions! Not included are those who successfully evaded the Border Patrol and moved beyond the immediate border zone to the interior of the country.
Democrats apparently have decided these statistics don’t meet their subjective definition of “crisis” and therefore, no action need be taken.
Politicians and pundits insist a majority of the 12 to 22 million illegal aliens currently believed to be living in the US did not come across the Southern border. Instead, they originally entered the country legally on temporary visas, and then simply failed to leave when their visas expired. This claim, never backed up with verifiable data, makes so little sense as an argument against a border barrier it’s almost unworthy of a response.
Since there is no accurate, official count of illegal aliens–and Democrats consistently oppose any effort to count them–we don’t know how many there and thus can not know how most of them got here. But even if this assertion could be verified it’s irrelevant to the border security debate. We know that millions of illegal aliens did enter via the open Southern border. It simply does not matter if that number happens to be more or fewer than the number who have overstayed their visas. The government should take action against both categories of illegal alien.
This assertion is offered as a reason to buy high tech sensors to detect drugs in cars and trucks, not in addition to, but instead of a wall. Since all illegal drugs that reach American streets are smuggled, undetected into our country, it’s impossible to know what percent passed undetected through ports of entry vs undetected over the hundreds of miles of border with no barriers.
And, Trump’s perfectly reasonable response was to immediately request funding for the sensors at ports of entry as well as a wall. Why not stop all drug smuggling? But it should be obvious to even the most naive Democrat that if sensors do put a stop to smuggling through ports of entry the drug cartels will simply pivot to other places along the border, places where there are no sensors and no barriers or old, decrepit, ineffective barriers! Thus, the need for new, strong barriers becomes even more obvious, not less!
