Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Carter like I.C.E. Ike certainly would like I.C.E., as would JFK, LBJ, FDR, Truman, Poppy, Tricky Dick, Mr. Nice Guy, and the Great Communicator.
If you do not know who Mr. Nice Guy is, watch the badge change to see if you recognize our modern Presidents.
ly become popular for some politicians to call for the abolition of I.C.E. It makes a snappy hashtag, #AbolishICE, but anybody who actually knows what I.C.E. does also knows that that it is ludicrous to suggest that it be abolished.
Why We Need I.C.E
Simply put, I.C.E. protects us from a lot of bad people, not just at our borders but all over the country and all over the world. It has evolved into a unique organization, the kind of 21st century organization we need to protect our Liberty from threats we have never known before.
Read about the history and mission of I.C.E. HERE.
Among a poorly informed segment of the our population, I.C.E. has become synonymous with anti-immigration sentiment. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We need legal immigration! We need people with the education, skills, and YOUTH to carry our economy forward in the face of declining birth rates.
Allowing people to come in for humanitarian reasons is admirable but the capacity of any nation to do so is limited. The consequences of excess illegal immigration, or even legal humanitarian immigration, will inevitably be seen in social disruption and damage to the economy. These things take years to play out so those responsible for making mistakes are long gone.
Deciding whom to admit into the country is the duty of congress. It is a duty they fail to fulfill well. To simply allow a president to allow everyone to enter by executive order amounts to legislative malpractice.
So until congress can learn is job, and the President can take his oath to protect the country seriously, we need the professional institutions, like I.C.E., that have become experts in administering the nation’s immigration laws to keep us safe long term.
Abolish I.C.E. Rhetoric
In the summer of 2018, the #AbolishICE campaign started with activists, not politicians. Soon a few politicians, eager to jump in front of a popular movement, shamelessly joined the hashtag chorus.
(Who finances activists is another question. Follow the money.)
Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced a bill to abolish ICE and set up a commission to structure a replacement. The usual suspects were eager to join in: Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Adriano Espallat, (D-NY), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), and Jim McGovern (D-MA).
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Attractive Nuisance Doctrine
Read the following definition of the Attractive Nuisance Doctrine from Wikipedia and imagine how it applies to the United States:
“ The attractive nuisance doctrine applies to the law of torts, in the United States. It states that a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children.[1] The doctrine is designed to protect children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object, by imposing a liability on the landowner.] The doctrine has been applied to hold landowners liable for injuries caused by abandoned cars, piles of lumber or sand, trampolines, and swimming pools. However, it can be applied to virtually anything on the property of the landowner.
There is no set cut off point that defines youth. The courts will evaluate each “child” on case by case basis to see if the “child” qualifies as a youth.
If it is determined that the child was able to understand and appreciate the hazard, the doctrine of attractive nuisance will not likely apply.”
The United States Is an Attractive Nuisance
El sueño Norte Americano (the North American Dream) is an attractive nuisance.
It’s not only attractive to Spanish speaking people, whose close proximity to the border makes it irresistible, it’s attractive to the world’s poor and suffering who would gladly sneak past the border if it were possible.
For them it is a quick fix. No need to escape poverty through traditional means of education and hard work. Indeed the education and availability of work may not even exist under the economic conditions of their home countries.
As much as charitable Americans want to help the plight of the world’s suffering masses, it immediately becomes obvious that there are limits. If suddenly every poor person in India or Nigeria were allowed to emigrate to the United States, the United States would itself become among the poorest nations on earth.
The World Data Lab in Vienna Austria publishes the World Poverty Clock to illustrate that people world-wide both escape from poverty and slip into poverty at varying rates.
Many people are oblivious to the cost of admitting great numbers of poor people. The rich among us are most oblivious, while the poor among us are the first to feel the impact of mass illegal immigration. Competition for jobs among the unskilled is fierce. Because there are many unscrupulous people and businesses eager to exploit a cheap supply of labor, there appears to be little political will to repair a broken immigration system.
The Cost of Illegal Immigration
It is very difficult to estimate the true cost of illegal immigration because a lot of necessary data are lacking. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has studied the problem for many years and appears to have reliable estimates of the cost to the nation. Their data support their conclusion:
“A continually growing population of illegal aliens, along with the federal government’s ineffective efforts to secure our borders, present significant national security and public safety threats to the United States. They also have a severely negative impact on the nation’s taxpayers at the local, state, and national levels.”
Border Patrol Locked Out of Indian Reservation Known for Mexican Drug Trafficking – Judicial Watch
The Border Patrol Keeps Order at the Borders
The Border Patrol is charged with keeping order at the borders and admitting people into the country who have a legal right to enter. It tries to prevent chaos at the border but it has been overwhelmed at our southern border.
But there are places where the Border Patrol cannot function. The 75 mile long open border on the Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation is wide open to drug smugglers and human trafficking. What cannot be stopped at the border becomes the responsibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to clean up the mess after it penetrates into our interior.
I.C.E. Is Charged with Cleaning up the Mess
Every day the men and women of I.C.E attempt to clean up the immigration mess that Congress created and refuses to correct. At the same time its considerable resources are directed to preventing terrorism and investigating the illegal movement of people and goods.
Ideology has so divided the nation that even the highly regarded nonsense called “compromise” cannot come up with a solution that is any better than all the previous ridiculous compromises.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was an amnesty law passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan. It is the example to which opponents of Comprehensive Immigration Reform point when they want to highlight a failure.
President Clinton tried his hand at pushing immigration reform and he too failed. All he managed to get as part of a spending bill was a modest increase in border security and a slightly more difficult asylum law.
President Clinton Understood the Problem
“Comprehensive” Is the Problem with Immigration Reform.
When you listen to President Obama outline why he favored the a so-called “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill,” it is hard to argue with the lofty goals such legislation hoped to attain.
Why then did it fail?
The answer is simple: It was “Comprehensive, ” which is another way of saying it is so full of stuff that no one TRUSTS that it will be enforced.
It was also a compromise. Senate bill S.744 was sponsored by Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Chuck Schumer. It could have enjoyed bipartisan support except for that huge problem: The trust gap. The public simply does not trust the political class.
National Review Article – Why Did the Senate Amnesty/Immigration-Surge Bill Fail?
Obamacare – Another Failed Comprehensive Law
Obamacare was comprehensive. It was full of adverse incentives and violations of human freedom that its failure should have been obvious from the beginning. Nancy Pelosi famously said that the bill had to pass for people to understand what was in it.
Oddly she was correct. Large, complex laws are full of adverse incentives that only become apparent when the genius of the American people finds ways to either escape those adverse incentives or exploit them.
Targeted Legislation can Incrementally Solve Problems
The Brooking Institution is public policy organization based in Washington, DC. In a 2017 editorial, they made a strong case for fixing the mistakes in Obamacare through incremental change:
“Former President Obama’s impulse to conduct an intensive intervention to fix major parts of the U.S. health system was understandable, but unwise. Seeking to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with another intensive intervention would also be very unwise. “
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/replacing-obamacare-needs-to-be-done-incrementally/
Fix Immigration Incrementally
In 2019, there are so many immigration issues that have accumulated and gone unaddressed for so long that the probability of rolling them all up into one grand comprehensive bill is remote. The current partisan rancor and impending presidential election only compound the problem.
In no particular order, here are some of the issues:
Illegal Immigration. (undocumented)
Abuse of Asylum Laws
Border Wall
Abuse of Family Based Immigration
Merit-based immigration
DACA
Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
Sanctuary Cities
Customs Enforcement (Ever heard of Fentanyl? )
Is foreign aid to corrupt regimes the way to curb to flow of desperate poor people to the U.S.?
Until the American people are willing to accept their responsibility as citizens and elect qualified people to Congress (Instead of Twitter Queens), the slow atrophy of the American Dream will continue.
“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.”
Hosea 8:7 New International Version