Until Washington shows some leadership on immigration, many will find it difficult to fault the states affected for acting out.
Governors Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida have taken it upon themselves to deliver asylum-seekers to the liberal enclaves that have for so long extended unassayed invitations to the world’s poor and oppressed, promising succor while building high walls around their mansions at a significant remove from the southern border that has been the scene of horror for decades — a stain that grows by the day.
I’ve been staring at the computer for a while now, trying to decide if I care more about means or ends. The current immigration regime is untenable, but change has been even more unpalatable politically, up until only a few days ago.
Sixty-odd illegal immigrants were found dead in a trailer earlier this summer.
I wrote at the time that “according to Border Patrol statistics, there have been at least 240 border deaths yearly since tracking began in 1998 . . . and I don’t think most people care.”
I initially had written, “I don’t think I care.” Acetose, but true.
After all, I live in Wisconsin. Illegal immigration for me is when residents of Illinois remain at their lake cottages past Labor Day. Never have I had to deal with drug-trafficking crossing my backyard or wondered what, if anything, I should do to help the young mothers carrying children along the side of the road.
Border states strain beneath the burden of the world’s hopeful, broken, and fallen, while many of us, most of all the federal government, are happier not thinking about an ethical dilemma for which there are precious few answers and even less political will to effect alternatives. So while the governors deserve but one-half golf clap for their self-interested machinations’ successes, I concede that their showmanship has netted a news cycle devoted to immigration and its frustrating complexity.
For all the media nattering these past two days, some people are writing laudably insightful columns. Carine Hajjar of the Wall Street Journal (formerly of NR) distills the thrust of the issue best.
Carine writes:
The White House calls Mr. Abbott’s busing “shameful,” but the Biden administration appears to be doing the same thing. Mr. Adams has said that buses are sent by the federal government as well as the state. The city of El Paso, which has a Democratic mayor, is chartering buses separate from Mr. Abbott’s operations and soliciting reimbursements from FEMA, according to the Texas Tribune.
Claims of Mr. Abbott’s “human trafficking,” as Mr. Espaillat describes it, are overblown. New York City has more social services than El Paso or Del Rio. It offers better chances for asylum, too. In fiscal 2021, the New York immigration court granted 3 of every 4 asylum claims. Houston’s granted less than 1 in 20.
The true culprits are in Washington, not Austin. Congress hasn’t enacted meaningful reform to accommodate more legal immigration or stabilize the border, and the federal executive branch has fallen down on the job of administering existing law at the border and elsewhere.
Congress, happily voting to spill trillions from empty coffers for any and every reason of late, must act when it matters. The border needs order, needs leadership. Comprehensible immigration policy would be a start. Until these lawmakers accomplish something, anything, many will find it difficult to fault the states affected for acting out and fomenting a splenetic spectacle in their sister states.
In this house, we believe in semi-competent governance.