The current border crises is a complex beast. For years now the United States has been struggling to balance the protecting of our borders with the processes to issue work visas, process immigrants the proper way to become citizens, and stopping drug and human trafficking. We wholeheartedly agree the border should be more secure, to the point it can stop 99% of all illegal crossings. We ARE a great nation and we are a mixture of cultures, races, religions, beliefs, upbringings, and ideas and we have an opportunity to better each other’s and our nations capabilities because we have the freedom to collaborate, invent, invest, an express ourselves. In order to keep bringing in ideas and potential, we need to allow immigration. There absolutely does need to be a better and more streamlined process than what we have now.
The current process can be confusing. It can take a few months to a few years to petition and go through all of the paperwork to get a green card, then live in the U.S. for 5 years, then another possible 6 to 12 months before finalizing documents an taking the Oath of Allegiance. The wait should be worth it and once you are living in the U.S., you are already enjoying most of what the U.S. has to offer. The issue for most individuals will be applying for a green card to begin with. The USCIS is just one organization dealing with immigration. Our Border Patrol is another, and is a great organization. There’s sure to be flaws like every facet of government and every other organization, but generally speaking a great organization.
The men and women of the Border Patrol are under funded, under manned and deal with 3 types of encounters, according to U.S. Homeland Security. These types are apprehensions, inadmissibles, and expulsions. Between October 2019 and June 2024, there have been an estimated 11 million unauthorized border encounters. That’s approximately over 8 thousand encounters a day. There are also 1,954 miles of land and 30 miles of maritime southern border, with only 50 authorized border crossings along this span. There’s nearly 6,000 total miles of land border and 2,000 of maritime border between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada combined. With approximately 20,000 Border Patrol agents covering every aspect of security and processes for 24/7 support of our borders, it is obvious that the support needed to secure our borders is more than what is in place. This needs to change, especially with the volume of persons that try to and succeed at crossing our border. Since President Biden took office, illegal/unauthorized crossings have skyrocketed, but actually began to drop in June of 2024 after the Presidential proclamation was made the month prior, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website.
The unintentional repercussions of allowing illegal immigrants into the country unchecked do have an economic impact as it has taken away jobs, altered the flow of money, crowded communities without population updates (which have additional second and third order impacts), and impacted our prison systems due to violent immigrants that are arrested. This doesn’t account for the ones that have not been caught. There are also the families and communities impacted when their friends, neighbors, children, co-workers, etc., are raped, killed, robbed, or threatened by people that have not legally came into this country. We could say they have not earned the right to be here, but every person in this world has a right to basic freedoms, security, food, water, shelter, etc. There is a formal way to become a citizen for a reason. It counters every negative impact listed above. It helps keep a balanced economy, and federal/state funding is adjusted to support growing communities, it helps keep violent persons out of the country. The purpose of a successful immigration process is not black an white, but it is in fact extremely important.
President Trump plans for a large scale immigration raid on Tuesday, 21 Jan, to capture and deport a large number of illegal immigrants who have settled in Chicago. As great as this sounds, great care still needs to be taken there will most likely be individuals arrested that are simply looking for asylum. They are still here illegally and this should be addressed, but who has the perfect answer to handle every scenario, every person, and ensure it happens correctly and without incident every time?
Every person illegal or not has a story, a life, and every person should take great care in protecting themselves, each other, and our nation. To state it simply, there is no simple solution. There is no catch all fix that will work for everyone and have 100% approval by all citizens. The best we can do is work together and keep moving forward.
https://usafacts.org/articles/what-can-the-data-tell-us-about-unauthorized-immigration/
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-june-2024-monthly-update
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