The Region's Staggering Immigration Crisis
The United States of America has always been a nation of immigrants. Ever since the first English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, the colonies that would eventually become the United States would see people from all over the world populate the territory.
Spain had already sent explorers to the Americas before the English arrived on the East Coast of North America. By the time the 104 English settlers landed in Jamestown, explorers had landed in what would eventually become New Spain and had ventured northward into California, Texas, and as far away as Florida.
Europeans brought new animals, foods, and disease to the New World. If Cortez, and the English, would have brought flowers rather than muskets, they still would have killed off the majority of the Native American population with the illnesses they brought.
Eventually, the United States would be established after the colonists, with the help of the French, fought a war for independence against the British. After a second war with the British was fought in 1812, they would retreat across the Canadian border never to challenge the Americans again.
After purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France, settling a border dispute with Texas, and gobbling up the northwestern territory that once belonged to Mexico after engaging with the Mexicans in a war, the United States took the shape most people recognize today.
Throughout the United States' early decades as a nation, immigrants from every part of the world came to start new lives and find new opportunities for success. Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe started arriving first, followed by immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The labor shortage during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, along with the famine in Asia, brought waves of Chinese immigrants into the United States.
Global conflict during the 1930's and 40's would see a new wave of Latin American and Mexican immigrants come to the United States as the government implemented the Bracero Program; a massive works program designed to allow people south of the border to come work in the American agriculture industry.
This nation was built on the backs of immigrants. This country would not exist in its current form had it not been for immigrants.
In the modern era, illegal immigrants have also played a crucial role in the country's labor force. Many people have made their way into the United States and have taken low paying jobs in construction and in the service industry. On any given day in many cities along the US-Mexico border you will find several undocumented day laborers looking for work in construction or manual labor congregating in public parks or home repair, big box retail stores.
Illegal immigrants have always been a part of the equation, particularly living on the southern border. However, recent shifts in the political climate have shown things along the border with Mexico are starting to get out of hand.
There has been a surge in the amount of illegal immigrants trying to enter the United States. The situation in many Latin American countries has caused people to leave their homes and try to make it to the United States. Many of these immigrants have family members already living in the United States, and they hear their relatives talk about the opportunities they have living, and working; making a better living here than they ever could in their home country.
This hope for a better life has caused tens of thousands of people to make the dangerous trek from South and Central America, through the rugged Mexican terrain through to the deserts of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Others try to swim across the Rio Grande River into Texas.
Once these immigrants are arrested and detained in the United States, they would normally be released to continue on to their destination and given a court date and told to report to a specific immigration court for a hearing with an immigration judge. However, due to the increased numbers in arrests and detainments, these immigrants are no longer given a specific date, or location, for their hearing. Instead, they are given a list of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement offices and simply told to report to one of them.
Our immigration policy has now turned into an elaborate fishing expedition where "catch and release" is the order of the day. It isn't even "catch, tag, and release."
Whatever it is, it isn't working. Less than 15% of the illegal immigrants arrested and released ever bother to show up to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement center. Over 85% of the immigrants disappear into the United States never to be heard from again.
The previous administration didn't do much either. Building an ineffective fence or wall and separating families and locking children in cages wasn't the soution, either.
The current policy has reached people who still live in Latin America. Are things going badly for you back home? Make your way to the United States. Even if the Border Patrol arrests you, you'll be released and taken to a bus station where you'll be free to buy a ticket that'll take you anywhere you want to go. Bring your children along with you. Once you get to where you're going, they'll be set up with government subsidized public school education and government subsidized healthcare.
This has led to a sharp increase in border crossings and detainments. In one week, one section of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande saw 20,000 arrests. The Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are being overwhelmed and overrun.
Brownsville, like many other Texas border towns, is seeing the negative effects of the spike in illegal immigration. A squatter's tent city popped up around the outskirts of downtown, and the area surrounding the bus depot behind the Immaculate Conception Cathedral is teeming with released immigrants looking to board buses going to Houston and all points north. Scores of unsupervised children are being released with little more than a change of clothes the address and phone number of a distant relative scrawled on a piece of notebook paper on their person.
Scarier still is the fact that some of these immigrants being released and being put on a crowded bus are testing positive for COVID-19.
Texas is seeing a sharp rise in COVID cases. We certainly don't need to be importing more infected people.
I am not writing this to promote hatred for illegal immigrants and the immigrant population. I am not a member of the far right. I am not a loyal follower of Fox News or the Neo-Republican establishment. I am not writing this because of some unsubstantiated claim I saw on a Facebook meme or social media post. These are things and stories I'm hearing from Brownsvillians. Several people in town are frustrated with the current state of events and our government needs to do something about this crisis.
Why have immigration laws and enforcement been ignored? Why is Customs and Border Protection powerless to do what they're supposed to do? It isn't difficult. Arrest the illegal immigrant and deport the illegal immigrant. If we stop catching and releasing these immigrants, there won't be an incentive tor them to keep trying to come in to the United States.
The current administration must revisit their immigration enforcement policies. We can no longer afford to shoulder the immense costs associated with operating our current immigration machine.
The government won't lift a finger to help American citizens who are in need. yet they have no problem taking in illegal immigrants by the thousands and releasing them into the country free to do as they please.
The immigration system is broken and the government doesn't seem to be to interested in fixing.
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