The main question is, how can the media spin this to be a bad thing?
“Testifying to the committee in a first hearing Tuesday, former Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar said the percentage may be even higher than Mr. Trump teases. Compared with 2016, he said, apprehensions on the southwest border were down 67 percent through March.”
“Mr. Aguilar credits Mr. Trump, who has freed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to pursue illegal immigrants in the interior of the U.S. and vowed to tighten border controls.”
At the risk of being obvious, apprehensions down doesn’t necessarily mean illegal immigration is down. They could reduce apprehensions to zero simply by sitting on their asses.
So yeah, it does seem like illegal immigration is down. I’m not sure if this is a permanent change or due to shock over the new administration. It may take a year or more to see if rates are going to stay lower.
As pointed out, the actual change so far is that he has taken border guards away from the border so they could pursue illegals in-country. As a result, there have been fewer arrests at the border, most likely because, with looser security, they’re getting through. No information provided as to whether or not there is an increase in detainees in-country.
I have two opinions neither of which make this a bad thing, but together suggest that it’s shitty.
Illegal immigration is no big deal at all. People move across borders to find better lives for themselves, and that’s as human as anything.
Laws put in place to stifle that laudable motive are bad laws; the goal should be to allow to the maximum extent the free flow of people across borders while reducing crime and violence that might result. Doing so would require drastically different border control laws than what we have.
Because the new administration is enforcing immigration laws in often draconian fashion, the decrease in illegal immigration is, not itself a bad thing, but not a good thing, and it is a symptom of a bad thing.
It doesn’t take any actual changes in policy to have an effect. The idea is that people that would have made an attempt to cross the southern border illegally don’t as much because they don’t know what the enforcement policies will be even a month from now. There isn’t as much incentive to risk their lives and money making an illegal border crossing if they are just going to get detained and/or deported soon after they get here.
I don’t know if it is true or not but it sounds plausible based on the chatter I have heard coming out of hispanic communities.
Trump has made everything so shitty nobody wants to come here. I’m not surprised to hear illegal immigration is down. Tourism is also down, which certainly hurts my line of work.
This is no different than taking credit for corporate decisions that were already in the works since well before the election. These numbers are mostly true but the implication that this has anything to do with Trump’s still non-existent border wall or any changes to ICE priorities is just opportunistic credit taking on his part.
Some of this was seasonal and is seen every year during the coldest winter months, and some was no doubt from people rushing the border to try to get in before Trump took office. December through February historically have lower numbers than September through November just due to weather and no other reason.
“Is corruption in the Trump administration enabling human smugglers to bribe US border officials in record numbers?”
What does someone living in Central America have to do to raise enough money for the coyotes? Eight grand is a lot of money to me, must be a fortune for them. Save all that, God alone knows how, then risk it all to hike across the Godforsaken Desert for the slim chance that you can become American. And our own people are too lazy and feckless to go vote, half the time.
There just has to be a humane and decent way we can work this out for people like that. Maybe they can stay on the presumption they will not become voting citizens, but entitled to all the same civil rights we are. But the children who come here as children and are raised as Americans, its simply isn’t decent to send them to mean streets they don’t even begin to comprehend.
