Reflections on Illegal Immigration

Our archaic fear of invasion by foreigners may be used to distract and manipulate us.

As someone who married an alien and sponsored her Green Card petition, I am intimately familiar with how rigorous and expensive it is for foreigners to become lawful residents of the United States. I therefore believe it’s the height of unfairness to impose these rigors and expenses on the law-abiding while turning a blind eye to innumerable others who illegally enter the country.

On the other hand, I’ve met many illegal immigrants over the years who are—in every respect apart from their illegal entry—far more hard-working, law-abiding, and polite than most Americans.

To ascertain what precisely is happening on our southern border would require far more investigative research and tracking that I have seen thus far. For various reasons, I suspect that the HUGE number of illegal immigrants bandied about—up to 20 million in recent years—is a gross exaggeration.

Anyone who has ever waited in an airport lounge and watched passengers de-board a plane knows that even 250 people can seem like an endless train. I lived in Vienna in 2016 during the Syrian refugee crisis. Just a few hundred refugees hanging around the First (central) District gave the impression that they were ubiquitous.

My objective with this post is not to try to quantify how many illegals have entered in recent years, or just how much of a danger they pose. I only wish to encourage our readers to consider that our archaic fear of invasion by foreigners may be used to distract us from noticing and addressing a host of other crimes committed by our political class.

Note that even the mainstream media and Democratic Party are now acknowledging the problem of illegal immigration. This should give us pause to consider at least the possibility that we are—at least to some degree—being manipulated with this story.

To give just one example: Republican members of Congress frequently express outrage about illegal immigration while voting in favor of sending hundreds of billions in money and weapons to Ukrainian oligarchs. Many politicians are as adept as pickpockets and magicians at the fine art of misdirection.

POSTSCRIPT: At NO point in my original post did I deny that illegal immigration is happening and is a major problem. I have spoken with several witnesses who have property near the border or who have done investigative reporting about the situation in border cities such as San Diego. They have confirmed that there are indeed large numbers of illegal immigrants coming across the border.

The point of my post is to encourage people to consider the possibility that the number of illegal immigrants is being exaggerated for the purpose of distracting the people from thinking about other crimes committed by our political class in both parties. As I mentioned in paragraph four, just a few hundred Syrian and Iraqi refugees hanging around the Vienna inner city in 2016 produced the impression that they were on every street corner.