A Border Has 4 Sides

Let's look at this whole AZ thing from the perspective of the legal, the illegal, the politically expedient, and the corrupt.

The federal government says that the US has a legal process for anyone from another country who wants to live in the USA and benefit from the lifestyle America has to offer. It does not matter the country of origin: the process is the same for all immigrants. The US shares a physical border with both Canada and Mexico, but, it seems, the Canadians are the immigrants who follow the citizenship process, while the Mexicans choose not to do so. If an American leaves his/her country, s/he must have passport in hand to both exit the US and enter the bordering country. On the return trip, same rules apply: no passport, no re-entry into the US and, perhaps, jail in the country into which the American enters illegally. Canada favors deportation for the offense, while the stories of Americans held in Mexican jails without legal counsel or options are legendary.

Complicating the situation is the law enforcement angle between bordering nations: our federal government requires that the border be kept secure, most particularly since 9-11. While the Mexican border agents seem able to keep illegal Americans out of Mexico, the US agents are unable to keep illegal Mexicans out of the US because the border is too porous. Corrupt officials, as well as drug runners, leap over the border fences, dig huge tunnels under the borders, transport vans filled with desperate Mexicans, and defy all attempts by the US to secure the borders. However, the failure to secure the border between Mexico and the US is necessary for Mexico because the Mexican economy depends on Mexican workers earning money in the US to support their families in Mexico. Based on its own inadequate financial viability, if the US border is secured (and illegal drug trafficing is stopped), Mexico faces financial collapse, providing a very real reason for the Mexican officials to turn a blind eye to the "highways" that transport illegal Mexicans (and drugs) across the border and into the US.

Another layer to the problem is that federal law requires that the borders are secure and that any illegal immigrant is arrested, detained, and deported, not just illegal Mexicans. The law is pretty darned clear on this process, but enforcement is impossible because arrests, as well as immigration sweeps, hit the front page of the media outlets and set up a hue and cry of racial profiling by illegal Mexicans and US politicians who benefit from the publicity. The issue about illegal immgration is swept to the side so the accusations of racism can abound. Why would any law enforcement agency want to deal with the negative publicity and public exposure of its personnel, who are just doing the job they are hired to do? The federal government refuses to support its own laws, which puts the agencies tasked with the duties of the law into jeopardy both from within its own bureaucracy and from the media standing outside its front doors.

This circle of ineffectiveness has come to a head in Arizona, a state that has taken a stand in the sand of their borders and challenged the federal government to put its money where its mouth is: if the federal law requires that illegal immigrants are arrested, detained, and deported, then provide the personnel and the financial resources to do the job and stand behind the legal process in the courts, but especially in the media. Stop telling the states to do the job and then accuse enforcement officers of racial profiling in a border state whose target population is Mexican. The efforts of any agency to deal effectively with illegal immigration is hamstrung by accusations of racism and racial profiling as anyone who has white skin is accused of being racially motivated and found guilty by the media and the politicians who refuse to risk their political futures by taking a stand against illegal immigration.

The discussion should not be about racism, but about upholding the law of the land -- whatever it takes. Accusing AZ of racial profiling and dragging Sheriff Arpaio into the confrontation for his strong stand against coddling criminals is simply using a straw man to take the fall for the federal government's own unwillingness to enforce its own laws. Of course, that stance is severely jeopardized by a president who chastizes the enforcement of those laws with his own accusations of racial profiling being the motivation for the laws. When the president challenges both the laws he has sworn to uphold and the agencies created to enforce the laws, he challenges the very foundations of the will of the people to make the laws, enforce the laws, and change them when that becomes necessary.

The message is what the media is reporting: if you personally do not agree with a US law, flaut it. Do whatever you want, rather than what is legally required. If you are arrested, carry placards that accuse the enforcement agents of racism and shout into the reporter's mic about racial profiling. Take the focus off the illegality of your actions and protest the legal actions of the enforcement agencies in the media. If you are loud enough long enough, you'll earn a get-out-of-jail free card.

Our laws are not wrong; lack of adequate enforcement, however, extends the welcoming hand of even greater floods of illegal immigrants into border states that are already on the verge of financial collapse from having to provide mandated services not just to their own residents, but to literally millions of residents of other countries who are in the US illegally. President Reagan extended amnesty to approximately 6 million illegal immigrants during his presidency, which opened the borders to anyone else who figured out that if you come here, you stay here, and you refuse to leave, you, too, will win. There is no process as powerful as public protest, and if you have the louder voice and the ear of the media, you, too, will be granted amnesty.

As for the lyrics Cher sings, we cannot "turn back time" and deal effectively with the purported 12 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the US, but we can secure the borders from this point forward. We can arrest, detain and deport those illegal immigrants who commit crimes and who do not have legally-required papers that allow them to be in the US. We can plug the tunnels and set guards in the desert to stop the coyotes from bringing in more illegal immigrants whose families work in the US and send millions of dollars to their family members in Mexico, jeoparding the economy in the southern border states that are mandated to provide services to even those individuals who are in the country illegally, including medical care, unemployment benefits, educational opportunities, and social services.


We can be proactive, rather than reactive, and work toward building a strong immigrant base of US citizens who live here openly and honestly, who get an education, who have job skills, who support the system from which they benefit, and who are proud to say that they are Americans, not hyphenated Americans whose first allegiance is to another country's laws.