Page 6
June 29, 2016
O PINION
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Ineffective and Inhumane Border Enforcement
Doubling down
on our policies
is ridiculous
J ill r iChardson
I recently stayed
with a friend who
lives just a few
miles from the Mex-
ican border — and
from the start of the
Paciic Crest Trail.
Since I was there anyway, I
thought, what the heck? I might
as well hike a bit of it.
I’d walked less than a quarter
mile from the wall at the border
— yes, there’s already a wall
along much of the border —
when Border Patrol stopped me.
“Out taking nature photogra-
phy, Miss?” the man asked. “That
your Toyota?”
The next time I went out, I
returned to ind Border Patrol
by
parked behind me, inspecting my
car.
The last time I was on the
trail, at about nine miles from the
border, I could see the highway
for a brief section of my hike. I
watched a white and green
Border Patrol vehicle pass.
Then another.
I jokingly thought I
should start counting them,
but I doubted I’d see any
more. Then three more
passed in about as many
minutes.
I hope they’re either making a
major drug bust or going to a staff
meeting, I thought. Because oth-
erwise this is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, “ridiculous” is
winning out.
Our country will shell out up-
wards of $14 billion to blanket
our country with Border Patrol
agents this year. Yet about 40
percent of undocumented immi-
grants arrive legally and overstay
their visas, so any effort to “se-
cure the border” with a wall or
patrols won’t catch them.
As for the people actually ap-
prehended at the border, NPR re-
ports that a growing number are
refugees leeing violence in Cen-
tral America who turn themselves
in voluntarily.
I don’t know about you, but
I’m not all that concerned about
letting in 13-year-old Salvador-
ian girls escaping murder threats
back home.
The other major stick the gov-
ernment uses with undocumented
immigrants is deportation. But
that may be making the situation
in Central America worse, since
deported gang members contrib-
ute to the violent situation there,
driving more people to lee north-
ward.
And consider how crops rotted
in the ields in Alabama and Geor-
gia when those states stepped up
immigration enforcement and
the undocumented laborers who
worked on farms there were
forced out.
In short: What are we doing?
I don’t claim to have all the
answers, but it appears that sim-
ply doubling down on border en-
forcement isn’t one of them.
In the era of Trump, any pol-
icy that can be called “amnesty”
may sound politically toxic. But
what if we did grant amnesty to
law-abiding undocumented im-
migrants who are already here?
That could free up our immi-
gration authorities to focus on
criminal drug cartels and terror-
ist threats, instead of people who
came here peacefully to support
their families.
As for the drug gangs, wouldn’t
it be smarter to deprive them of
their lucrative business? Already
there are signs that the legaliza-
tion of marijuana in a few states
has taken a big chunk out of their
proits.
Or we could modernize our
immigration quotas, so that com-
ing here legally wouldn’t mean
waiting upwards of 20 years, as
it does now for Mexican families.
It stands to reason that if one
could come here legally, one
would choose to do so. The al-
ternative — crossing a desert on
foot at great expense and risk
of death, and then hiding in the
shadows once here — is a much
worse option.
Instead of simply focusing on
border policing and deporting
anyone who lacks documentation,
we should take a more systematic
approach to assess our priorities
— and then craft policies that
achieve them in a cost-effective
and humane way.
Otherwords columnist Jill
Richardson is the author of Rec-
ipe for America: Why Our Food
System Is Broken and What We
Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.
org.
Do Everything in Our Power to End this Scourge
Inaction cannot
be an option
m arian W right e delman
Inaction is not an op-
tion. In the wake of the
worst mass shooting in
American history we
can and must do ev-
erything in our power
to end this scourge of
terror, hate and bullets
that ly across our land killing and
maiming and breaking hearts and
traumatizing communities with
ever increasing frequency. How
can inaction continue to be an op-
tion in the face of senselessness
and intolerance fueled by guns?
We must act to save our country’s
soul and the lives of our people —
all of our people.
The June 12 attack at the Pulse
nightclub in Orlando was both
our nation’s worst act of terror-
ism since 9/11 and a hate crime.
A large number of victims were
gay people of color who were cel-
ebrating Latin Night in what many
said they trusted and believed was
a desperately needed “safe space.”
But as we have seen over and
over again, America is running
out of safe spaces. Not Pulse. Not
Bible study at Mother Emanuel
A.M.E. Church. Not an ofice hol-
iday party in San Bernardino. Not
a movie theater in Aurora. Not a
dorm or university hall at Vir-
ginia Tech. And not a irst grade
by
classroom in Newtown, Conn., in
a country where hate, bigotry, ter-
rorism, and mental illness collide
with unfettered access to these
weapons of war that leave us with
no hiding spaces unless
we do something now.
Connecticut
Sen.
Christopher
Murphy
couldn’t face the families
of the children of Sandy
Hook unless he did some-
thing. The Senate ilibus-
Closing the loopholes in existing
background checks to reach sales
at gun shows and through the In-
ternet to keep more criminals,
would-be terrorists, and others
from buying guns should be an-
other easy decision. The evidence
is clear that expanded background
checks work. A recent study found
that a Connecticut law that ex-
panded background checks on
all handgun purchases helped
achieve a 40 percent reduction
support reinstating the ban on as-
sault weapons and high capacity
magazines that have been used
time and time again: To kill the
innocent children at Sandy Hook
Elementary School, the innocent
people in the Aurora movie the-
ater, the innocents in San Ber-
nardino, and now Orlando. Why
should it be perfectly legal to buy
an AR-15 in a Five Guys parking
lot in Vermont the day after the
massacre at Pulse with no back-
Since 1963 more than 176,000 children have
died from gun violence in America — over three
times more than all the soldiers killed in action in
the Vietnam War and every external conlict since.
Our children have a right to grow up in a caring
and decent society that protects their right to live
and learn in safety.
ter he led in the aftermath of the
Orlando slaughter lasted for more
than 14 hours before there was bi-
partisan agreement to allow a vote
on two common sense amend-
ments that would make all of us
and our nation safer.
Creating a “No Buy List” so
that the more than 800,000 people
on our terror watch lists cannot le-
gally buy guns in America should
be an easy decision for all of us.
in gun homicides during the irst
10 years following the law’s en-
actment. These are measures the
majority of Americans strongly
support — and it’s long past time
that Congress followed the will of
the people instead of the will of
the National Rile Association and
gun manufacturers whose prof-
its are soaked in the blood of our
people.
The majority of Americans also
ground check and no paperwork
at all? Weapons designed for war
are now as easy to buy as a loaf
of bread.
Since 1963 more than 176,000
children have died from gun vi-
olence in America — over three
times more than all the soldiers
killed in action in the Vietnam War
and every external conlict since.
Our children have a right to grow
up in a caring and decent society
that protects their right to live and
learn in safety. That right must
take precedence over anyone’s
right to own assault weapons or
high capacity magazines that have
nothing to do with self-defense or
hunting and have no place in the
hands of non-military and non-law
enforcement personnel. Without
these weapons of war how many
would be alive today? How many
Newtown or Aurora or Orlando
victims would have survived?
Unless we want to give up and
agree that the only way to survive
our nation’s gun violence crisis
which goes on and on and on in
this land of ours, is for every adult,
teenager, and child in America to
own a gun, we need to provide
common sense safety solutions
like a “No Buy List,” universal
background checks, and a ban on
assault weapons and high capacity
ammunition magazines — now.
Our children are afraid for their
friends, their families, and them-
selves. And this needs to change.
We all need to stand up until we
are heard and laws are changed.
Contact your senators and repre-
sentatives in Congress right now
to urge them to support these com-
mon sense safety solutions all of
us so desperately need. Please act
now. Inaction cannot not be an op-
tion in a decent, caring nation that
purports to value human life.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children’s De-
fense Fund.