On The Texas-Mexico Border, Migrants Are Overcoming Every Obstacle In Their Path

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The Federalist

IMMIGRATION

On The Texas-Mexico Border, Migrants Are Overcoming Every Obstacle In Their Path

Every day in the Rio Grande Valley, hundreds of migrants maneuver a border crawling with patrols and unscrupulous smugglers. And still they keep coming.

 By John Daniel Davidson

MARCH 8, 2018

MCALLEN, Texas — What does it mean to secure the border? We hear the phrase every time Congress debates immigration reform, usually from immigration hawks who insist that before we extend any leniency to illegal immigrants, even a limited amnesty for those brought to the United States as children, we must first secure the border. President Trump has taken it a step further with his dogged insistence on an actual border wall, which has become synonymous with border security in the broader immigration debate.

Regardless of Trump, Republicans and Democrats approach the border question from opposite poles. The incessant calls from the Right for border security imply that our southern border is not secure, and that if we would only hire more Border Patrol agents and build more walls, we could secure the border once and for all. Democrats tend to recoil at the mention of a wall and insist, despite all politically realties, on a standalone legislative fix for the Dreamers, no changes to chain migration, and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants now living in the United States.