Recent numbers are way, way up. It is hard to tell from the news coverage though, because the numbers are always "high" and how long is a piece of string? I found one article recently that did give comparative numbers (sorry, I can't get into my computer right now to dig out the link) and they were pretty impressive. It seems like immigr…
Recent numbers are way, way up. It is hard to tell from the news coverage though, because the numbers are always "high" and how long is a piece of string? I found one article recently that did give comparative numbers (sorry, I can't get into my computer right now to dig out the link) and they were pretty impressive. It seems like immigration news coverage always has gaps in it you could drive a truck through. It's frustrating.
"In fiscal year 2023 alone (from October 2022 to September 2023), the United States had two and a half million “encounters” along its 2,000-mile border with Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That is over two and a half times the number just four years ago."
It's actually a precisely defined term (https://www.dhs.gov/ohss/about-data/glossary#4), and it does mean that people /tried/ to enter the country. (It does not mean that that many individuals made the attempt, since each attempt to cross is logged as a separate encounter and some people try multiple times.) A 2.5-fold increase is nothing to sneeze at, even if it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
More meaningful figures might be, for example, the numbers released from ICE detention into the US, the numbers stuck in Mexican border cities, the numbers seen in nonprofit shelters, the number who make it across /without/ an encounter (however the "experts" guesstimate that) ... it'd be nice to see more of those comparative #s in addition to round-up-the-usual-suspects I-haven't-got-my-byline-out-of-this-yet human-interest stories (sorry for the cynicism), but there's definitely something going on.
A place I volunteered briefly a year ago, when I see pictures now I barely recognize it it's so jam packed with people. Texas's performative little feud with the Border Patrol is literally killing people. New York is drowning and other major cities are heading there. The numbers crossing the Darien Gap are way up too. People blog their way through there now (at least, they say they do; the one I watched looked credible to me). The cartels are much more involved than they used to be. This is not sustainable, and the people it's hurting worst are the migrants themselves. The Rs are misrepresenting the situation in many ways, but a phony crisis it is not.
I absolutely agree the cartels are a major issue and illegals are a major issue. I've been angrified by the fact the red states hit hardest are the States whose representatives refuse to find a bipartisan solution to try and alleviate any of this. Their only solution seems to be to ship immigrants to blue cities and force Dems to suffer the consequences. It can't be to force Dems to find a solution because the border states representatives won't work to find one. It seems it's just the cruelty involved in sending illegals north to an ugly winter and force them into a winter of misery. I truly am beginning to intensely dislike this rendition of the GOP. The cruelty really is their only point.
If you'd like to change the subject of this sub-thread from "whether there's a crisis" to "what should be done about it," we can do that.
It's cold on the border, too. Border communities are broke, too. There's no reason the border communities should be expected to shoulder this challenge by themselves. If the numbers are overwhelming in Denver or New York, they're overwhelming in Eagle Pass and Brownsville too. Blamestorming won't fix this. No human being is illegal; you might want to stick to more neutral terms like "undocumented" or "unauthorized" (and when in doubt it's usually safer to refer to human beings with nouns, such as "people," rather than adjectives). It is not the people who are the problem, it is the failure to manage them. It is not the states that are at fault, it is their representatives in Congress. It is not Dems suffering the consequences, it's migrants.
I wonder if there really is a solution. Immigration pressures are global. There are over 30 million war/conflict/political refugees world wide and then add to this the economically driven immigrants.
Libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute think that making entry for work easier and changes in America's drug policies would help reduce human trafficking and undercut the drugs market upon which the cartels thrive.
The imbalance between the "haves" and "have nots" is so overwhelming (and the way us "haves" got our "have" is so tainted, at least regarding the economic drivers of this) that for sure there's no easy solution -- all the more reason that turning this into a political football, and delaying /attempts/ to solve it, is obscene. I am no Christian, but I do remember that when "Lazarus ate the crumbs from the rich man's table," it did not end well for the rich man.
Thanks for the great link, but it doesn't go to the Cato Institute piece. Any chance you could post that too?
There is a PDF link toward the bottom of the link that goes to the original report from CATO. As you probably know libertarian leaning CATO has always supported the freer movement of labor and trade. So it isn't free of bias... but does make some good arguments.
Recent numbers are way, way up. It is hard to tell from the news coverage though, because the numbers are always "high" and how long is a piece of string? I found one article recently that did give comparative numbers (sorry, I can't get into my computer right now to dig out the link) and they were pretty impressive. It seems like immigration news coverage always has gaps in it you could drive a truck through. It's frustrating.
PS: found it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/09/opinion/immigration-in-one-chart.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Mk0.wVdr.9YKBwoD7Fg6F&smid=url-share
"In fiscal year 2023 alone (from October 2022 to September 2023), the United States had two and a half million “encounters” along its 2,000-mile border with Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That is over two and a half times the number just four years ago."
"Encounters" is pretty nebulous. Doesn't mean they stepped foot in the US.
It's actually a precisely defined term (https://www.dhs.gov/ohss/about-data/glossary#4), and it does mean that people /tried/ to enter the country. (It does not mean that that many individuals made the attempt, since each attempt to cross is logged as a separate encounter and some people try multiple times.) A 2.5-fold increase is nothing to sneeze at, even if it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
More meaningful figures might be, for example, the numbers released from ICE detention into the US, the numbers stuck in Mexican border cities, the numbers seen in nonprofit shelters, the number who make it across /without/ an encounter (however the "experts" guesstimate that) ... it'd be nice to see more of those comparative #s in addition to round-up-the-usual-suspects I-haven't-got-my-byline-out-of-this-yet human-interest stories (sorry for the cynicism), but there's definitely something going on.
A place I volunteered briefly a year ago, when I see pictures now I barely recognize it it's so jam packed with people. Texas's performative little feud with the Border Patrol is literally killing people. New York is drowning and other major cities are heading there. The numbers crossing the Darien Gap are way up too. People blog their way through there now (at least, they say they do; the one I watched looked credible to me). The cartels are much more involved than they used to be. This is not sustainable, and the people it's hurting worst are the migrants themselves. The Rs are misrepresenting the situation in many ways, but a phony crisis it is not.
Your cynicism is shared. In your posts here you have summarized the situation better than most journalists.
I absolutely agree the cartels are a major issue and illegals are a major issue. I've been angrified by the fact the red states hit hardest are the States whose representatives refuse to find a bipartisan solution to try and alleviate any of this. Their only solution seems to be to ship immigrants to blue cities and force Dems to suffer the consequences. It can't be to force Dems to find a solution because the border states representatives won't work to find one. It seems it's just the cruelty involved in sending illegals north to an ugly winter and force them into a winter of misery. I truly am beginning to intensely dislike this rendition of the GOP. The cruelty really is their only point.
If you'd like to change the subject of this sub-thread from "whether there's a crisis" to "what should be done about it," we can do that.
It's cold on the border, too. Border communities are broke, too. There's no reason the border communities should be expected to shoulder this challenge by themselves. If the numbers are overwhelming in Denver or New York, they're overwhelming in Eagle Pass and Brownsville too. Blamestorming won't fix this. No human being is illegal; you might want to stick to more neutral terms like "undocumented" or "unauthorized" (and when in doubt it's usually safer to refer to human beings with nouns, such as "people," rather than adjectives). It is not the people who are the problem, it is the failure to manage them. It is not the states that are at fault, it is their representatives in Congress. It is not Dems suffering the consequences, it's migrants.
I wonder if there really is a solution. Immigration pressures are global. There are over 30 million war/conflict/political refugees world wide and then add to this the economically driven immigrants.
Libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute think that making entry for work easier and changes in America's drug policies would help reduce human trafficking and undercut the drugs market upon which the cartels thrive.
https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/15-myths-about-immigration-debunked/
The imbalance between the "haves" and "have nots" is so overwhelming (and the way us "haves" got our "have" is so tainted, at least regarding the economic drivers of this) that for sure there's no easy solution -- all the more reason that turning this into a political football, and delaying /attempts/ to solve it, is obscene. I am no Christian, but I do remember that when "Lazarus ate the crumbs from the rich man's table," it did not end well for the rich man.
Thanks for the great link, but it doesn't go to the Cato Institute piece. Any chance you could post that too?
There is a PDF link toward the bottom of the link that goes to the original report from CATO. As you probably know libertarian leaning CATO has always supported the freer movement of labor and trade. So it isn't free of bias... but does make some good arguments.
Ha, busted! I read the first few paragraphs and bookmarked the rest for later. Found it now; thanks very much.
Thanks for the links.