The problem comes from within

Bruce Ferguson lives in Callicoon Center, NY, and is chair of the Town of Callicoon Democratic Committee.

BRUCE FERGUSON
Posted 1/16/19

There’s a crisis in America, but it’s not along our southern border. Illegal immigration from Mexico has been in steep decline for almost 20 years. By the time President Obama left …

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The problem comes from within

Bruce Ferguson lives in Callicoon Center, NY, and is chair of the Town of Callicoon Democratic Committee.

Posted

There’s a crisis in America, but it’s not along our southern border.

Illegal immigration from Mexico has been in steep decline for almost 20 years. By the time President Obama left office, the number of people trying to enter the country illegally was down by about 80%. Figures on illegal immigration are often based on apprehensions, and according to data released by the U.S. Border Patrol, more than 1.6 million undocumented immigrants were apprehended in the fiscal year 2000. By 2016, that figure had dropped to 408,000.

 There are one million fewer undocumented immigrants in the U.S. than there were 10 years ago. The Center for Migration Studies  “found a decline in the undocumented population, and specifically those from Mexico, of about one million since 2010.” The Pew Research Center found a peak of 12.2 million in the population in 2007, and a decline since.

It’s simply not true that dangerous drugs are flowing into the country across an unprotected border. Much of the heroin coming into the U.S. is smuggled in at legal ports of entry, according to the Drug Enforcement Adminstration. Most fentanyl comes in from China. Our own pharmaceutical industry has been flooding the country with addictive painkillers for years.

A 2017 release from the U.S. State Department refuted the claim that terrorists were coming into the country from Mexico, saying there was “no credible evidence” of such a pattern.

Finally, estimates from research by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank, show that about half of undocumented workers in the United States actually do file income tax returns. According to the  most recent IRS data, the agency received 4.4 million income tax returns from workers who don’t have Social Security numbers in 2015. Those returns amounted to about $23.6 billion in income taxes. Undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. They comprise an essential part of the workforce in fields such as construction, childcare and agriculture, yet the number of visas that permit immigrants to work in the country legally has been sharply curtailed by the Trump Administration. This only increases pressure on employers to hire undocumented workers.

The national crisis we’re facing is coming from the White House—and it’s completely unnecessary. The Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the authority to pass budgets and appropriate funds. It’s always been this way. Every president has had to achieve policy goals by hard bargaining and compromise. It seems everyone in Washington understands this except President Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell certainly knows it, yet he’s aiding and abetting the president in his effort to get his way by acting like a petulant child.

When the Democrats took control of the House at the beginning of January, they immediately voted to reopen the government while continuing to negotiate immigration and border security with the president. This sensible approach is exactly what Senate Republicans voted for in December. But now, with the House on board, McConnell refuses to bring the issue to a vote even though there’s a solid majority of Republican and Democrat Senators who would vote to reopen the government immediately. He doesn’t want the American people to see that it’s Trump, and Trump alone, who is needlessly prolonging the shutdown.

McConnell and Trump seem to be utterly indifferent to the hardships and dangers they are imposing on ordinary Americans. Eight hundred thousand federal employees are going without a paycheck. Millions more could lose their jobs because businesses with federal government contracts can no longer pay them. Farmers risk losing everything because they can’t access loan guarantees and vital information about world markets that would let them prepare for a successful spring planting. Food safety regulations are unenforced. Our national parks are being trashed. TSA agents and air traffic controllers are not being paid. Some have quit. Others are simply not showing up. Will it take a fiery plane crash to bring Trump and McConnell back to the table?

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Ferguson as a farmer.

border security, illegal immigration

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