Editor,

Joe Biden caused a border crisis by undoing Trump’s “stay in Mexico policies.” According to the Pew Research Center, U.S.-Mexico border immigration went from 303,000 to 1,659,000 in 2021 alone. Over 1 million of these immigrants involved people from countries other than Mexico and over 1,063,000 were single adults. The flood of immigrants makes it impossible to screen out drug and human traffic smugglers, criminals and terrorists from around the world. It’s essentially a catch and release policy.

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(5) comments

Ray Fowler

Good morning, Ed

I agree with the last sentence in your LTE... "The answer to immigration is to enforce our current immigration laws and encourage balanced merit based immigration from all countries of the world at a rate we can absorb."

I also agree with the majority of Americans who believe immigration is a good thing for the US... but we desperately need a fair and common sense way of bringing new folks to our shores.

Last year, Gallup reported that 42 million adults would like to move here... and that's just from Latin America and the Caribbean. How many other tens of millions from other parts of the world would like to do the same? This ain't a blue issue or red issue... it's an American issue.

Tafhdyd

Ray,

You caught me by surprise. As I was reading the LTE from Mr. Kahl I was kicking around a couple of ideas to comment on and then I got to the last sentence and said to myself, well, he got that part right. What surprised me was that knowing how Mr. Kahl, IMO, likes to generalize and play loose with the facts in his LTE's, I was expecting one of the other readers that jumps on the loose fact bandwagon to make a comment praising him and his letter. I scrolled down and bingo, it was Ray not ABC or XYZ.

BTW, once again you have a concise and direct comment that I agree with without any whataboutery on my part.

edkahl

I see you back at your old game of going after me instead of the facts I present.

Tafhdyd

Mr. Kahl,

I would have gone into more detail and discuss the facts you presented earlier when I commented to Ray, however I was unable to access the Pew Research report while waiting for my medical appointments. Now that I am home I was able to check the report and I stand by my comment once again. In my opinion, you play loose with the facts to suit your narrative.

Here is an example. Immigration went from 303,000 to 1,659,000. Those physical numbers are correct but not your explanation of them. As quoted in the beginning of the Pew article “It’s also important to note that encounters refer to events, not people, and that some migrants are encountered more than once.” Your letter makes it sound as though there were 1,659,000 individual immigrants.

The following quote from the same Pew article seems to tell me that you didn’t fully explain your numerical "facts". I will grant you that it doesn’t change the big picture but it does take a bit of the steam out of your position. “While the number of encounters was the highest on record last fiscal year, the number of individuals encountered was considerably lower. That’s because more than a quarter of all migrant encounters at U.S. borders in both fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2020 (27% and 26%, respectively) involved repeat crossers, according to CBP statistics.”

One other item that may or may not be intentional is your comment “Democrat politicians….”. Donald Trump specifically said that he called them Democrat politicians because he knew it was a slur used that way rather than Democratic politicians. The politicians are members of the Democratic Party not the Democrat Party.

Ray Fowler

Hey, Tafhdyd...

I'm sure Ed means that we should stop and detain those without documents... treat them humanely... before turning them back, however, we should still accept asylum seekers who show up at ports of call. Merit based immigration cannot be rigged in favor of any particular group, but those standards have to be adjusted in accordance with our ability to absorb newcomers.

Like I said... most Americans feel immigration can make our country better, and I'm one of them.

Where we might start arm-wrestling would be "birthright citizenship." You'll find it virtually everywhere in the Western Hemisphere except Colombia, French Guinea, and Suriname. Remember, 42 million folks in our hemisphere would like to move here. Outside the our hemisphere where will you find birthright citizenship accepted? Pakistan, Tanzania, and Lesotho. Interestingly, European countries do not allow birthright citizenship except Luxembourg... and then only in certain situations.

A fair and sensible policy... yes!

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