Guest Column
THE NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM
Immigration Policy Center
- We’ve been hearing a lot lately from some politicians that undocumented immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border is a national security issue. We know for a fact that thousands of immigrants cross the southern border without authorization every week. But is this really a security issue? And, if so, are our elected leaders devising effective solutions to the problem or merely serving up rhetoric on the issue?
- In a special report from the Immigration Policy Center, Dr. Walter Ewing argues that stepped-up border security measures could be undermining rather than enhancing U.S. national security in the absence of new pathways for legal immigration to the United States.
- Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants will continue to cross into the United States from Mexico each year as long as they can find jobs and U.S. restrictions on legal immigration fail to accommodate U.S. labor demand. The vast majority of these immigrants come from Mexico and other Latin American countries that present little security risk for the United States. Only one in five thousand undocumented immigrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border come from any of the 35 countries deemed by the U.S. government to be of “special interest” to national security. However, undocumented immigration on this scale could help hide foreign terrorists who might try to enter the country from Mexico.
- According to Ewing, U.S. government efforts to fortify the southern border have merely encouraged more undocumented immigrants to find help in getting across. Consequently, the number of undocumented immigrants who hire “coyotes” to smuggle them into the United States is rising rapidly. This smuggling infrastructure could be utilized by terrorists as well. As a result, current border enforcement policies have the perverse effect of making it easier for terrorists to sneak across the border.
- Dr. Ewing’s report is available from the Immigration Policy Center at www.immigrationpolicy.org or by calling the IPC Public Affairs office at 202-742-5608.
- Tim N. Vettel
- Public Affairs
- Immigration Policy Center
- http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/
- 202-742-5608 (ofc)
- 202-297-5530 (cell)
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