8 ms·

The Border Crisis Won't Be Solved at the Border

54 points by bikenaga 2y ago

jmyeet 2y ago
Archive: https://archive.is/NDHD9 https://archive.is/NDHD9
throwup238 2y ago
> But one metric stayed virtually static: the number of managers arrested for hiring undocumented immigrants. This was especially obvious during the last administration* when ICE was raiding businesses left and right to deport people and as far as I know, almost never went after the meat packers and farms and other businesses that knowingly hired the migrant workers. As long as the employers don’t see any penalties or they’re so small as to be the cost of doing business, there will always have a large pool of undocumented immigrants who will replace the ones deported. I think if they were actually investigated the well would run deep with plenty of employers actively helping their new hires commit fraud to get past their I9 verification. It’s unfortunate that this approach has never been politically viable because I suspect a majority of the population is willing to approach illegal immigration humanely while punishing the actual lawbreakers upstream to address the core economic impacts. * It was obvious to anyone paying attention during the Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations too but the media focus during Trump’s made it especially stark how little enforcement was going on at the employer level.
- next_xibalba 2y ago
  This just goes to show you how unserious the whole debate is. You start imprisoning employers, and illegal immigration would dry up with quickness. Everyone in power knows it. But they also know doing so would absolute cripple the U.S. economy. Republicans create window dressing in the form of tough talk, raids, and somewhat increased border enforcement. Democrats don't even bother. They just leave the border wide open. What in god's name will it take to cause politicians to get serious about sensible, economically viable immigration reform? My guess: there would have to be a very significant terrorist attack on U.S. soil in which the perpetrators are shown to have crossed the Southern border illegally without a shadow of a doubt.
  - BryantD 2y ago
    I'm sure that scenario would create something, but I'm not sure it would be serious. See the security theater around wearing shoes through airport security.
- dbcurtis 2y ago
  That "knowingly" part is more subtle than it sounds. A friend of mine managed a restaurant in Sili Valley for many years. He was required by law to accept workers' documentation at face value. He could get in trouble for accusing someone of using forged documents. So.... by the nature of his business he had constant turn over in dishwashers and bus staff, and hired a lot of staff with "correct", but obvious to the most casual observer, forged paperwork. All he could legally do is shrug and add them to the payroll.
threeseed 2y ago
It's the same situation in most countries. You need young, cheap labour from somewhere in order to sustain domestic agricultural and manufacturing industries. In the US it comes from people crossing the border, UK it was Schengen migration and in Australia legal immigration via loopholes that were never closed. And as we've seen in the UK the minute that goes away those businesses fold en masse as either (a) they make themselves uncompetitive to attract domestic workers or (b) they don't and they have no workers at all.
- switch007 2y ago
  UK was never part of Schengen. Freedom of movement is for all EU citizens not just the Schengen countries And net migration hit record levels post Brexit.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    Boris Jonathon stated that the migration was essential to keep a lid on inflation by suppressing wages.
jmyeet 2y ago
This is actually a decent article but it misses a few things. People need to understand that undocumented migrants are nothing more than a political football. The article (correctly) points out that nobody really wants to "solve" the problem. I'd go even further and say there is no problem. It's completely made up. The article points out that if you really wanted to address this (made up) problem, you'd go after the employers. Nobody does that. It has been tried, however. For example, the Alabama agriculture sector collapsed when they tried [1]. Chicken farms are notorious for bad practices. Underpay undocumented migrants. When they start demanding safer working conditions and more pay, you simply call ICE for a sweep, pay a token fine and then start with a new batch. Undocumented migrants, from the perspective of employers, are about cheap labor and suppressing wages. The easiest solution for this is to document them. We used to do this. It was called the Bracero program [2]. Top of this political theater is the "migrant crime" panic. For example, in a country with >20,000 homicides per year, so far this year 27 of them have been committed by noncitizens [3] and that includes documented and undocumented people. Construction and agriculture are utterly dependent on undocumented migrant labor. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigr... [2]: https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program [3]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/criminal-noncitizen-statistics https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistic...
- Onavo 2y ago
  > People need to understand that undocumented migrants are nothing more than a political football. The article (correctly) points out that nobody really wants to "solve" the problem. I'd go even further and say there is no problem. It's completely made up. For the American political class, nobody really cares about the immigrants except to make sure they don't get too uppity. Perpetuating an underclass is the entire point. If they truly cared, they would issue easy to get short term work visas like the Gulf states. This is the legacy of the Monroe doctrine, the Hispanic countries are basically taken for granted as a cheap labor pool given that no other country will try to uplift them and their general corruption and crime are tolerated by the US so long as they don't go full Cuba.
- 2y ago
smb06 2y ago
Agree with the premise. If you want to stem immigration, you have to help potential immigrants where their original home and roots are.
Dig1t 2y ago
So why isn’t this a problem in China, Russia, Korea, Japan, or Taiwan? There are many poor countries with people who would benefit from the increased standard of living in the countries I listed. Also it’s obvious that many incoming migrants are not from central or South America, there are significant numbers of people coming from Africa and Asia to the US southern border. Is the only way to secure the US southern border to raise the standard of living in every country in the world?
- foogazi 2y ago
  US is way more immigration friendly than those countries and more accessible Current problem is due to US processing asylum claims internally. Make them apply in home country or first neighbor. This policy has been a huge magnet for immigrants, and created problems for Mexico since everyone now tries to come through the southern border What used to be Mexicans only has turned into Mexicans + the rest of the world So before you had to contend with security with 1 neighboring ally, you could share info with, but now you get people from who knows where
- jmye 2y ago
  Why isn’t immigration via Mexico into the US similar to immigration into Taiwan? Uh. I suppose you could start with the difference between a land border and roughly 100 miles of ocean separating the nearest country. Why isn’t it similar into Russia? From where? Whose life is going to be that much better in Russia? Why isn’t it similar into Korea? I mean, I imagine the highly militarized border might play a role. Did you think these were serious questions?
systemstops 2y ago
To have an honest debate about immigration, we need to admit two things: First, that the issue is global and is affecting most developed nations. Second, that the primary concern is demographic change, not the economics of immigration. This demographic change is the primary reasons for the "populist uprising" of Brexit, Trump and the recent victories of right-wing parties in Europe and, in my opinion, will likely provoke a civil war in at least one Western country in the near future. Demographics arguably determine the future of nations, and we have been under this bizarre delusion the last few decades that it was no big deal that mass migration was causing demographics of many nations to radically change.
- kibwen 2y ago
  I can't speak for those other countries, but here in the US wringing our hands about "demographic change" is as old as the country itself. "Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious" ~ Benjamin Franklin on the topic of German immigrants, 1753 As the descendant of German immigrants, I'm not too bothered about demographic change. Transmitting the values of liberty are all that matters, regardless of demographics.
  - systemstops 2y ago
    Yes, and the most stable and prosperous time for this nation was during the period when we mostly halted immigration. That was also coincidentally the period when our social cohesion was the highest. A nation can't just be based on an idea (liberty). There have to be common bonds between people to make it work. Also, I would add that there is no reason to believe that your values are somehow universal to all of humanity.
    - foothefoo 2y ago
      Assuming you're in the US, the problem is that no party takes this viewpoint anymore, even though this was a common sense position shared by both at one time. "As long as they have our values!" they cry. But they refuse to admit that values are downstream of culture, and culture is not shared between different peoples.
southernplaces7 2y ago
Aside from the content of this article and its merits (or problems), that header photo is just excellent. The photographer perfectly captured the visual essence of what it sometimes means to be an illegal migrant.
- rstuart4133 2y ago
  Not only the header photo. Scrolling through the article just to look at it's 14 photos is worth the effort. In these days of "slap a shutterstock image on it and move on", it's a beautiful thing to see.
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    If you enjoy good photography, on Fridays The Atlantic has a 'photos of the week' post curated by Alan Taylor for events that happened over the past seven days: * https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alan-taylor/ https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alan-taylor/ * https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/about/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/about/ There are also 'off schedule' posts for notable events like the Olympics, hurricanes, or (like this week) if the winners of a photography competition were announced, etc.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - rstuart4133 2y ago
      I guess there are a least two classes of good photos. The examplar of the sort I see on those links is this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/The_Terror_of_War.jpg/500px-The_Terror_of_War.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/The_Ter... To this day it remains one of the most powerful photos I've come across. But what makes it special is the subject matter. There is nothing special about the phtograpy. Those photos on the texasmonthly were different. The second one was a titled "A National Guardsman standing watch in Del Rio". It was literally a photo of a national guard's man doing his job. He is probably bored silly. There is nothing about the subject matter that would hold your attention. But the composition is something else. It's a piece of art. Suspiciously, most of the 14 photos were like that. How do you find 14 topical photos of that quality to put in a story? Seems like an impossible ask, unless the photos really are art. By that I mean they were heavily modified. So, my guess is they are a chimera of camera and imagination, which does take the gloss off them a little. Still, I haven't seen any website put that much effort in to the photos on a single page, nor have I seen it done so consistently well. Very impressive.
dmckeon 2y ago
It may be worth noting that a significant proportion - 42% - of "other-foreign-nationals" or "undocumented immigrants" arrived here at airports or other ports with a legal visa, and then overstayed their visa, thus never crossing the "border" (implicitly with Mexico) that looms large in all discussions of this topic. [1]https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/R47848.pdf#:~:text=An%20estimated%2042%25%20of%20the%20approximately%2011,legally%20but%20overstayed%20their%20period%20of%20admission https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/R47848.pdf#:~:text=An%20esti....
- ritcgab 2y ago
  So those immigrants are actually "documented", in some way, because they have got their visa after passing some screening processes.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    they "were documented" -- who knows if they're still at their stated location / job / school / whatever.
shaunxcode 2y ago
borders are simply meant to indicate the demarcation of a process : they are dynamic and permeable : to make them literally concrete is folly of the highest order.

54 points by bikenaga 2y ago

Archive: https://archive.is/NDHD9 https://archive.is/NDHD9

> But one metric stayed virtually static: the number of managers arrested for hiring undocumented immigrants. This was especially obvious during the last administration* when ICE was raiding businesses left and right to deport people and as far as I know, almost never went after the meat packers and farms and other businesses that knowingly hired the migrant workers. As long as the employers don’t see any penalties or they’re so small as to be the cost of doing business, there will always have a large pool of undocumented immigrants who will replace the ones deported. I think if they were actually investigated the well would run deep with plenty of employers actively helping their new hires commit fraud to get past their I9 verification. It’s unfortunate that this approach has never been politically viable because I suspect a majority of the population is willing to approach illegal immigration humanely while punishing the actual lawbreakers upstream to address the core economic impacts. * It was obvious to anyone paying attention during the Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations too but the media focus during Trump’s made it especially stark how little enforcement was going on at the employer level.

next_xibalba 2y ago
This just goes to show you how unserious the whole debate is. You start imprisoning employers, and illegal immigration would dry up with quickness. Everyone in power knows it. But they also know doing so would absolute cripple the U.S. economy. Republicans create window dressing in the form of tough talk, raids, and somewhat increased border enforcement. Democrats don't even bother. They just leave the border wide open. What in god's name will it take to cause politicians to get serious about sensible, economically viable immigration reform? My guess: there would have to be a very significant terrorist attack on U.S. soil in which the perpetrators are shown to have crossed the Southern border illegally without a shadow of a doubt.
- BryantD 2y ago
  I'm sure that scenario would create something, but I'm not sure it would be serious. See the security theater around wearing shoes through airport security.
dbcurtis 2y ago
That "knowingly" part is more subtle than it sounds. A friend of mine managed a restaurant in Sili Valley for many years. He was required by law to accept workers' documentation at face value. He could get in trouble for accusing someone of using forged documents. So.... by the nature of his business he had constant turn over in dishwashers and bus staff, and hired a lot of staff with "correct", but obvious to the most casual observer, forged paperwork. All he could legally do is shrug and add them to the payroll.

threeseed 2y ago

It's the same situation in most countries. You need young, cheap labour from somewhere in order to sustain domestic agricultural and manufacturing industries. In the US it comes from people crossing the border, UK it was Schengen migration and in Australia legal immigration via loopholes that were never closed. And as we've seen in the UK the minute that goes away those businesses fold en masse as either (a) they make themselves uncompetitive to attract domestic workers or (b) they don't and they have no workers at all.

switch007 2y ago
UK was never part of Schengen. Freedom of movement is for all EU citizens not just the Schengen countries And net migration hit record levels post Brexit.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  Boris Jonathon stated that the migration was essential to keep a lid on inflation by suppressing wages.

jmyeet 2y ago

This is actually a decent article but it misses a few things. People need to understand that undocumented migrants are nothing more than a political football. The article (correctly) points out that nobody really wants to "solve" the problem. I'd go even further and say there is no problem. It's completely made up. The article points out that if you really wanted to address this (made up) problem, you'd go after the employers. Nobody does that. It has been tried, however. For example, the Alabama agriculture sector collapsed when they tried [1]. Chicken farms are notorious for bad practices. Underpay undocumented migrants. When they start demanding safer working conditions and more pay, you simply call ICE for a sweep, pay a token fine and then start with a new batch. Undocumented migrants, from the perspective of employers, are about cheap labor and suppressing wages. The easiest solution for this is to document them. We used to do this. It was called the Bracero program [2]. Top of this political theater is the "migrant crime" panic. For example, in a country with >20,000 homicides per year, so far this year 27 of them have been committed by noncitizens [3] and that includes documented and undocumented people. Construction and agriculture are utterly dependent on undocumented migrant labor. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigr... [2]: https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program [3]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/criminal-noncitizen-statistics https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistic...

Onavo 2y ago
> People need to understand that undocumented migrants are nothing more than a political football. The article (correctly) points out that nobody really wants to "solve" the problem. I'd go even further and say there is no problem. It's completely made up. For the American political class, nobody really cares about the immigrants except to make sure they don't get too uppity. Perpetuating an underclass is the entire point. If they truly cared, they would issue easy to get short term work visas like the Gulf states. This is the legacy of the Monroe doctrine, the Hispanic countries are basically taken for granted as a cheap labor pool given that no other country will try to uplift them and their general corruption and crime are tolerated by the US so long as they don't go full Cuba.
2y ago

smb06 2y ago

Agree with the premise. If you want to stem immigration, you have to help potential immigrants where their original home and roots are.

Dig1t 2y ago

So why isn’t this a problem in China, Russia, Korea, Japan, or Taiwan? There are many poor countries with people who would benefit from the increased standard of living in the countries I listed. Also it’s obvious that many incoming migrants are not from central or South America, there are significant numbers of people coming from Africa and Asia to the US southern border. Is the only way to secure the US southern border to raise the standard of living in every country in the world?

foogazi 2y ago
US is way more immigration friendly than those countries and more accessible Current problem is due to US processing asylum claims internally. Make them apply in home country or first neighbor. This policy has been a huge magnet for immigrants, and created problems for Mexico since everyone now tries to come through the southern border What used to be Mexicans only has turned into Mexicans + the rest of the world So before you had to contend with security with 1 neighboring ally, you could share info with, but now you get people from who knows where
jmye 2y ago
Why isn’t immigration via Mexico into the US similar to immigration into Taiwan? Uh. I suppose you could start with the difference between a land border and roughly 100 miles of ocean separating the nearest country. Why isn’t it similar into Russia? From where? Whose life is going to be that much better in Russia? Why isn’t it similar into Korea? I mean, I imagine the highly militarized border might play a role. Did you think these were serious questions?

systemstops 2y ago

To have an honest debate about immigration, we need to admit two things: First, that the issue is global and is affecting most developed nations. Second, that the primary concern is demographic change, not the economics of immigration. This demographic change is the primary reasons for the "populist uprising" of Brexit, Trump and the recent victories of right-wing parties in Europe and, in my opinion, will likely provoke a civil war in at least one Western country in the near future. Demographics arguably determine the future of nations, and we have been under this bizarre delusion the last few decades that it was no big deal that mass migration was causing demographics of many nations to radically change.

kibwen 2y ago
I can't speak for those other countries, but here in the US wringing our hands about "demographic change" is as old as the country itself. "Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious" ~ Benjamin Franklin on the topic of German immigrants, 1753 As the descendant of German immigrants, I'm not too bothered about demographic change. Transmitting the values of liberty are all that matters, regardless of demographics.
- systemstops 2y ago
  Yes, and the most stable and prosperous time for this nation was during the period when we mostly halted immigration. That was also coincidentally the period when our social cohesion was the highest. A nation can't just be based on an idea (liberty). There have to be common bonds between people to make it work. Also, I would add that there is no reason to believe that your values are somehow universal to all of humanity.
  - foothefoo 2y ago
    Assuming you're in the US, the problem is that no party takes this viewpoint anymore, even though this was a common sense position shared by both at one time. "As long as they have our values!" they cry. But they refuse to admit that values are downstream of culture, and culture is not shared between different peoples.

southernplaces7 2y ago

Aside from the content of this article and its merits (or problems), that header photo is just excellent. The photographer perfectly captured the visual essence of what it sometimes means to be an illegal migrant.

rstuart4133 2y ago
Not only the header photo. Scrolling through the article just to look at it's 14 photos is worth the effort. In these days of "slap a shutterstock image on it and move on", it's a beautiful thing to see.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  If you enjoy good photography, on Fridays The Atlantic has a 'photos of the week' post curated by Alan Taylor for events that happened over the past seven days: * https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alan-taylor/ https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alan-taylor/ * https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/about/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/about/ There are also 'off schedule' posts for notable events like the Olympics, hurricanes, or (like this week) if the winners of a photography competition were announced, etc.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rstuart4133 2y ago
    I guess there are a least two classes of good photos. The examplar of the sort I see on those links is this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/The_Terror_of_War.jpg/500px-The_Terror_of_War.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/The_Ter... To this day it remains one of the most powerful photos I've come across. But what makes it special is the subject matter. There is nothing special about the phtograpy. Those photos on the texasmonthly were different. The second one was a titled "A National Guardsman standing watch in Del Rio". It was literally a photo of a national guard's man doing his job. He is probably bored silly. There is nothing about the subject matter that would hold your attention. But the composition is something else. It's a piece of art. Suspiciously, most of the 14 photos were like that. How do you find 14 topical photos of that quality to put in a story? Seems like an impossible ask, unless the photos really are art. By that I mean they were heavily modified. So, my guess is they are a chimera of camera and imagination, which does take the gloss off them a little. Still, I haven't seen any website put that much effort in to the photos on a single page, nor have I seen it done so consistently well. Very impressive.

dmckeon 2y ago

It may be worth noting that a significant proportion - 42% - of "other-foreign-nationals" or "undocumented immigrants" arrived here at airports or other ports with a legal visa, and then overstayed their visa, thus never crossing the "border" (implicitly with Mexico) that looms large in all discussions of this topic. [1]https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/R47848.pdf#:~:text=An%20estimated%2042%25%20of%20the%20approximately%2011,legally%20but%20overstayed%20their%20period%20of%20admission https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/R47848.pdf#:~:text=An%20esti....

ritcgab 2y ago
So those immigrants are actually "documented", in some way, because they have got their visa after passing some screening processes.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  they "were documented" -- who knows if they're still at their stated location / job / school / whatever.

shaunxcode 2y ago

borders are simply meant to indicate the demarcation of a process : they are dynamic and permeable : to make them literally concrete is folly of the highest order.