A story in the Los Angeles Times caught my eye as I was reviewing the spate of anti-immigrant bills making their way through state legislatures across the country. In it, reporter Richard Marosi documents the boredom that has entered the lives of many border patrol agents. The reason: people aren’t making it across the border any more. In fact, fewer and fewer are even trying.
One might associate this drop to the economic conditions here and assume it is driven by the lack of jobs which is, it is thought, the primary reason for the illegal immigration in the first place. However, this drop was occurring even when times were good, so that theory doesn’t wash.
According to Marosi, due to a dramatic decline in attempted crossings, “From 2005 to 2010, apprehensions of immigrants dropped 95 percent, from 138,460 to 7,116. Vehicle drive-throughs fell from 2,700 to 21 during the same period. Farmers are now able to plant crops in once-trampled fields. And residents don’t find immigrants hiding under their cars anymore.
“Apprehensions along the Southwest border overall dropped more than two-thirds from 2000 to 2010, from 1.6 million to 448,000, and almost every region has lonely posts where agents sit for hours staring at the barrier, watching the ‘fence rust’ as some put it.”
This is not the story that wild eyed anti-immigrant crusaders want out. They look for support, and money, for their vigilante schemes to take over what, they allege, the US government refuses to do. However, the statistics belie that notion. In plain fact, the effort to reduce illegal border crossings has been very successful.
So, why the disconnect between reality and perception? Simply put, it’s the politics of immigration….and the politics of guns. If law enforcement is working, then the reason for being for groups like The Minutemen goes away…including the money that helps support them. If the government is up to the task the law requires, then arming everyone within 500 miles of the border to “protect us from the gathering hordes” loses its power.
Political hacks are best at piggy-backing on issues and morphing them to their own desires. The result in Arizona was a misbegotten attempt to take over immigration policy from a Federal government which, they alleged, was not doing its job.
But the statistics, those boring numbers that hold no political perspective, indicates that they were, in fact, doing their job.
The issue of illegal immigration is a real one. While the focus has long been on the southern border, the porous northern border is probably an area of greater concern. Resources need to be put there as well as in the south to make sure the gains we have made will continue.
But, we should all be speaking from the facts…and looking to the future, not the past.
