Washington Post Got It Wrong on Immigration

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Washington Post Got It Wrong on Immigration
The fallout from failing to enforce U.S. immigration and naturalization laws was demonstrated on the editorial page of The Washington Post on Monday, July 25, 2011.

The headline that read, “Illegal immigration is way down and falling fast,” was misleading to say the least. Short in length, the editorial also was short on facts and came off as a political elitist bofetada (slap in the face) to the American people and their angst about the growing cost of uncontrolled illegal immigration.

The editorial writers cited a New York Times report of July 8, 2011, that in turn cited Douglas S. Massey, a Princeton University professor who is co-director of the Mexican Migration Project. Massey opines that immigration skeptics are wrong to portray the southwestern border as lawless and violent.

The Post editors, in turn and with true liberal myopia, attempted a sarcastic belittling of the southern border situation, saying that it is a much safer place than alarmists would have us believe. They failed to mention the Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC) that are taking over human smuggling operations and now control major portions of southern Arizona federal lands.

Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded with a letter to the editor on July 30, 2011, entitled, “The myth of the ‘tranquil’ border.” In it, he noted that tranquil is hardly the word that Texans would choose to describe their border communities.

The same can be said for other southern border states, whose residents find themselves living in increasingly dangerous places. Facts do not lie, as the following attest:
• The Tucson Citizen noted in July 2011 that crime rates have decreased along the Arizona-Mexico border, but only because crimes are not being reported. Apparently several south Arizona sheriffs are playing number games with local murders to reflect a lower crime rate.
• Within the last year, a U.S. citizen/rancher, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, and numbers of illegal aliens have been murdered by vicious criminals operating along the Arizona-Mexican border. The existing state of lawlessness is reflected in federal government signs along I-8 warning citizens to be aware of drug gang criminals and illegal alien smugglers. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) warns citizens that they enter tax-supported federal lands at their own risk.
• The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) section of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a press release covering the period June 6-12, 2011. It reports that the Arizona Joint Field Command seized $11.4 million in drugs, apprehended 2,390 illegal aliens, and blocked and captured $564,451 of illegal outbound currency.
• Each year for the past decade, the U.S. Border Patrol has reported a rise in Other Than Mexican (OTM) apprehensions among them border crossers from “special interest countries” that include sponsors of terrorism.
• During July 15-17, 2011, the Tucson sector of the U.S. Border Patrol reported drug seizures that included 8,248 pounds of marijuana and 387 pounds of cocaine. Agents apprehended and prosecuted 189 illegal border-crossers (repeat crossers, gang members, or “special interest” persons). Other illegal crossers were deported immediately. From October 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011, Border Patrol agents seized a total of 791,000 pounds of narcotics.
• U.S. federal and local law enforcement officials report that many forest fires along the southern border are started by illegal border crossers. In southern Arizona’s recent forest fires, an illegal alien started the Murphy Complex fire that burned 68,000 acres of the Coronado National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS), concluding that the fire was set as “a signal fire under life and death circumstances,” excused the individual.
Among other indicators of lawlessness along the border are the body counts of illegal border crossers who have died in transit. As many of these counts indicate, illegal border crossers from Mexico and Central American countries are not immune from violence.

They are subject to kidnapping, rape, robbery, and murder. National Public Radio reported in July 2011 that despite these dangers, Central Americans say they will continue to attempt illegal border crossings due to the lack of opportunities in their homelands.

These are not tall tales. Ask any American living within 80 miles of the southern border if they are safer today.

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