The Sage Observer

Illegal Immigration

Much has been said during the past election campaign about illegal immigration, how illegal immigrants negatively impact our economy by taking jobs from American workers, and the severe burden these immigrants place upon local economies for which they, arguably, do not pay taxes. This problem is said to be so bad that our President Elect, Donald Trump has promised to spend billions of dollars to build a wall along our Mexican border and, American Mexican relations notwithstanding, force Mexico to pay for it. Let’s think about the logic in this.

President Obama told us on national television that approximately forty percent of illegal immigrants were caused by immigrants overstaying their visas; and, even worse, we don’t know who or where they are and can’t track them. In my view, this is so ridiculous it would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. In fact, it’s absurd. We can track a calf with mad cow disease to a corner of a stockyard half way around the country in the mountains of Montana and we can’t track an illegal alien overstaying his visa when we have his passport on file. I wish someone would explain this to me. It seems to me that solving this visa problem would save millions of dollars over the cost of building a multibillion dollar wall and wrecking international relations in the process.

It is my belief that there is or are logical reason(s) for (or behind) this, not the least of which is the eternal struggle of business interests for cheap labor; but, for now, I’ll postpone discussion of that perspective for one more moderate. We do not follow up or track individuals overstaying their visas due to a lack of money. Our Congress is failing to provide the funds necessary to provide sufficient staffing, computer, and data base support to enable the Department of Immigration to enforce the law. We frequently hear of Congress passing a law only to experience the withholding of funding by the losing minority; or, on the other hand, perhaps the lack of funding is the result of the effect of budget sequestration. I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine; but, with today’s technology, I can’t for the life of me, with all this uproar about illegal immigration, understand why we don’t take immediate steps to take immediate control over forty percent of the problem of illegal immigrants—a relatively quick fix, if you will, of a significant part of this alleged national threat.

Why does everything our government does have to be an exercise in frustration? What’s the problem? What are we going to do about it? When? If our real interest is in the good of our country and our people, special interests notwithstanding, why?

In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller, www.sageobserver.blogspot.com signing off.