a·sy·lum
[əˈsīləm]
NOUN
- (POLITICAL ASYLUM)
the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee:
This definition from the online Oxford English Dictionary is the crux of the major issue on the border today. This week the Supreme Court allowed the Biden administration to end the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy whereby Central Americans and certain Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers were required to stay in Mexico to have their asylum claims considered.
The procedure is for those coming to the US as political refugees to file a claim with Immigration. Then they are provided with a judicial hearing. Sometimes the process may take three years before it gets to a judge. Before Remain in Mexico was implemented the claimant would be allowed to remain in the US and given work permits. With Remain in Mexico they were prohibited from entering and if entering through Mexico were returned to Mexico where they had to wait for their hearing. The Biden administration has revised the policy to allow the claimant who makes a credible fear assertion to enter and remain in the US.
But who are these asylum seekers? Are they the true refugees such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn or the many refugees escaping the oppression of Castros Cuba? Or are these refugees people who were bullied by their neighbors in Guatemala? Sadly many of those claiming asylum are from places like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, places with which we have good relationships with the governments and political oppression is rare if it exists at all.
These refugees are tragic figures. Most of these are good people wanting an opportunity for a good life with economic opportunity and safety, which they do not have in their countries. But many countries in the world do not have economic freedom. If we allowed people to come here for economic reasons a billion people would make their way here.
To be a sovereign country there must be borders defining the geographical boundaries. Every country has defined borders. Every country controls who can cross their borders. So the US must decide who can come into our country and under what conditions. Congress has done this. We have vast immigration laws and regulations. But they are not being enforced.
Sadly the Biden administration is arguably collaborating with and thereby empowering and enriching the cartels in Mexico so we can have cheap and plentiful labor, and the Democrats can have a permanent majority of voters. While we have tremendous sympathy and compassion for those fleeing the economic hardship caused by bad government management and crime, we cannot allow the nightmare this is creating at the core of our democracy.
Before the 1920s the US needed people. We had an enormous territory to populate and had only 106 million people. Today we have three and half times as many people and our major cities are overcrowded. With two million migrants entering the country last year there will not be enough jobs available.
But worse, the Biden administration is subsidizing the migrants with money and apartments to live in. Who can blame these desperate people from risking their lives? It is a rational act on their part. Just last month 53 died in the back of a trailer near San Antonio. Each one of them is a personal tragedy. But they were coming here and risking all for economic opportunity. All Americans feel the pain they experienced. But if we are to remain a genuine country then we must have respect for our borders and the laws that establish procedures for immigration into our country.
The economist Milton Friedman clarified the dilemma, saying:
Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promised a certain minimal level of income, or a minimum level of subsistence, regardless of whether he works or not, produces it or not. Then it really is an impossible thing.
With this explanation we can see solutions. Texas Latino Conservatives will not ascribe nefarious motivations to those enabling open borders, but their policies have created an unprecedented crisis at the southern border resulting in skyrocketing crime and terrible misuse of our Border Patrol officers who risk their lives every day acting as processors and facilitators rather than the job they signed on for: to protect our borders from unlawful invasion. We would ask them, however, what solutions they would propose if they support the open borders and phony asylum claims without limitations.
In future columns TLC will address solutions that we believe will end this human tragedy and its cost in lives and treasure.