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Sisyphean Policy: Borders and Bureaucracies
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11860 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1994 |
3,349 Words |
| Author
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Michael D. Weiss
Michael D. Weiss is an adjunct professor of law at the
University of Houston. He is also a fellow at the Texas Public
Policy Foundation, where he works in American legal reform. |
Sitting on the Friendship Bridge--looking down over the Rio Grande, the river that separates Laredo from itself (Nuevo Laredo)--a bridge that passes the largest inland port in North America (Laredo), one gets a good idea of the magnitude of the illegal immigration problem. Billions of dollars' worth of cargo passes on the trucks, cars, and various "mad max" looking rigs that constantly fill the bridge. It seems like fantasy to think that people can be kept on one side of the bridge when, unlike the rigs, they don't need to pass over the concrete but can cross at any point on the river, which goes from one horizon to the other.
Illegal immigration is rapidly emerging as one of the "hot-button" issues of the nineties. Though once regarded as a strictly regional issue, events have thrust it into the center of the national debate. The bombing of the World Trade Center, the beaching of a shipload of illegal Chinese immigrants within sight of the Statue of Liberty, the interception of similar ships off of Mexico, the increased number of Cuban defectors fleeing to Florida, the continuing influx of Haitian refugees, and a persistent economic recession have brought the immigration debate to a level unknown since the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).
On September 21, 1993, the Los Angeles Times conducted a survey on the subject of illegal immigration. It found that 69 percent of the 1,162 Californians surveyed considered illegal immigration to be a major problem. Seventy-three percent favored deploying National Guard troops to help patrol the Mexican border, 56 percent supported seizing the assets of businesses that employ illegal aliens, 54 percent wanted to deny U.S. citizenship to American-born children of those not legally present in the United States, 39 percent supported keeping the children of illegal aliens out of public schools, and 23 percent would deny even emergency medical care to illegal immigrants.
A similar survey conducted by the San Diego Tribune found that 21 percent of San Diego County residents considered illegal immigration to be the cause of all or most of California's problems. It also found that 59 percent of those surveyed supported issuing a national identification card to all U.S. citizens in order to combat the influx of illegal immigration.
Many of these policies, while politically popular, are of dubious utility, while others are being attacked as direct assaults upon America's tradition of civil liberty. It is clear that something must be done about the problem of illegal immigration into the United States,
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