Guy Farmer: Deporting illegal immigrants

I really don’t understand the big uproar that greeted President Trump’s decision to deport thousands of illegal immigrants who have been ordered out of our country by immigration judges. If you read or listen to the mainstream media, you’d think our president was deporting law-abiding “innocent” people, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids began rather quietly last Sunday in nine major cities around the country. As usual, Trump announced the raids with great fanfare — certainly not the best way to carry out such raids — but ICE managed to keep its activities low-key and out of the public spotlight. Nevertheless, the mainstream media reported that “anxious” immigrants awaited the deportation raids. Well, they should be anxious because they have no right to be there.

ICE is merely carrying out its responsibility to enforce our nation’s immigration laws despite all of the unhinged hollering and screeching emanating from the Open Borders/Abolish ICE wing of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, mayors of “sanctuary cities” like Chicago, Denver and San Francisco vowed not to cooperate with federal authorities in order to protect illegal immigrants, including murderers and drug traffickers like the illegal alien — excuse me, “undocumented worker” — from El Salvador who is accused of killing four people in Douglas County and Reno earlier this year.

All of us can see with our own eyes that there’s a genuine humanitarian and security crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border, but the Open Borders/Abolish ICE people want to ignore it so they can accuse President Trump of being a heartless autocrat and racist who hates immigrants. As you know, I’m no fan of our president, but I believe in enforcing our nation’s immigration’s laws because a country without borders is no longer a sovereign country with secure borders as guaranteed by our Constitution.

The Washington Examiner recently identified the main problem in an editorial that said the border crisis “is getting worse and worse as Congress (the Democrat-dominated House, that is) sits on its hands and does absolutely nothing” to help. In fiscal 2018, border agents apprehended nearly 108,000 asylum-seeking “family units” at the border, the Examiner reported, but “that number tripled to more than 316,000” by last month. Of course, Congress could resolve the crisis by passing legislation to eliminate “pull factors” and close glaring loopholes in our asylum laws, but that’s not going to happen as long as Democrats control the House.

On the other hand, Mexico seems to be cooperating in an effort to stem the tide of destitute, unskilled Central American asylum-seekers flowing north from its border with Guatemala on up to the U.S. border. After President Trump reached a deal with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (“AMLO”) on June 7 to “work together to immediately implement a durable solution” to the border crisis, the numbers of asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border dropped significantly. Mexico stationed 6,500 National Guard troops on its southern border and 15,000 in the north, resulting in a decrease of nearly 30 percent in asylum-seekers on the U.S. border — from 132,000 in May to 94,400 in June. Part of that drop was due to hot summer weather, but increased Mexican cooperation is encouraging.

AMLO’s “Remain in Mexico” policy is expanding rapidly with the numbers of asylum-seekers remaining in Mexico, more than doubling between June and July. So we can thank Mexico for attempting to help resolve the border crisis while urging our Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, including new and effective asylum laws. And in the meantime, let’s deport illegal immigrants who have been ordered out of our country.

Guy W. Farmer is the Appeal’s senior political columnist.