Borderline Advocacy

Little seems to have changed about the illegal immigration debate within academic and media circles since the demise of “comprehensive immigration reform” in the last Congress. Opponents of strict border enforcement strategies continue to emphasize how enforcement strains government resources. Others continue to emphasize how illegal immigrants come to America merely to gain better jobs.

Many of these issues came up in a recent Washington Post article by Spencer S. Hsu titled, “Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High.” The subtitle reads, “Critics Say Increased Use of Criminal Charges Strains System.” The article, which could have highlighted the successes of Operation Streamline—a program which has decreased border apprehensions in certain areas by 70%—focuses instead on criticisms of the program.

“Operation Streamline in its current form already strains the capabilities of the law enforcement system past the breaking point,” Hsu quotes Ted Kennedy (D-MA) spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner as opining. “Skeptics say that the government lacks the resources to sustain the strategy on the border and that the effort is diverting resources from more serious crimes such as drug and human smuggling,” writes Hsu.

The Washington Post report goes on to quote T. J. Bonner as likening this policy to “good election-year politics.” The President of the National Border Patrol Council, a union of border patrol agents, Bonner has long criticized enforcement-only measures along the border. He told that PBS in 2006 “Both sides seem to be missing the central point, which is most people coming across that border are coming across for a reason: to get work in the United States.” In his PBS interview, Bonner likened enforcement-only strategies to a “revolving-door policy.”

“This strategy pretty much has it backwards…It’s going after desperate people who are crossing the border in search of a better way of life, instead of going after employers who are hiring people who have no right to work in this country,” Hsu quotes Bonner.

The facts that Operation Streamline “accompanies other get-tough immigration-enforcement efforts”—or that remittances have dropped—are mentioned much later, about 400 words into the article. Indeed, a reader must search deep within the article to find data on how much apprehensions have actually decreased along sections of the border. Skepticism of and ethical problems with the program, on the other hand, are placed up front.

Could it be that the problems with the prosecution of illegal immigrants stem from the idea that border crossing is not a crime at all? Hsu’s comment that critics believe more “serious crimes” such as drug and human trafficking demand greater government resources implicitly deemphasizes the importance of prosecuting such “migrants.” And if David Kyle, a sociology professor at UC Davis, is to believed, illegal immigration isn’t a crime at all. He said,

“Think of any other kind of criminal group—if we want to characterize illegal migrants as some do. Buchanan just came out with a book talking about the invasion of the third world and kind of advocating even deeper criminalization of these migrants. I would say, though, I don’t see cocaine-dealers taking to the streets in large numbers. I think this is a clearly, this is an economic phenomena and they don’t feel that this is a real crime and I think with some reason.”

Law and Chicano studies Professor Kevin Johnson also sympathized with illegal immigrants in the college Frontiers report, saying,

“So it’s a very difficult life on the margins, very difficult to establish the kinds of roots that we expect people to establish here once they’re in this country and it’s really a shame the way that many undocumented immigrants are treated in this—[in] the periphery of American social life…”

According to the moderator, Johnson, who grew up with relatives in both America and Mexico, has “family members whose immigration status varied.”

The moderator of the 2007 UC Davis broadcast, “Undocumented Workers and Civil Rights,” asked both professors whether there is a “link then between migrant trade then and [the] slave trade?” This was Kyle’s response:

“Yes, absolutely. If we didn’t have the large numbers, as Kevin has said, the increase in migrant smuggling leads to the opportunities for criminal syndicates as the bottom feeders of this phenomena to trick and take advantage of these migrants, especially in the vulnerable process of trying to cross the border,” said Kyle (emphasis added).

Kyle also said, “We talk about globalization, we tell other countries that you need to find something to export and so that’s exactly what they’re doing. As Kevin said, they wouldn’t be coming here if we didn’t have jobs.”

Sonia Nazario, award-winning Los Angeles Times journalist, has also expressed her skepticism about the viability of border enforcement. In a 2008 Messiah College Commencement speech, she likened helping illegal immigration to a high Christian value and emphasized the economic reasons for what she simply termed “migration.” “[Two illegal immigrant children] taught me to be grateful every day for the opportunities I have by sheer luck of having been born in the United States,” she said.

With perspectives like these pervading both the media and academia, it is not surprising that the Washington Post considers increased prosecutions of illegal immigrants a troubling development.

Bethany Stotts is a Staff Writer at Accuracy in Academia.