Border crisis ‘slap in the face’ to legal immigrants

Bre Payton | Watchdog.org

CHINO HILLS, Calif. — The humanitarian crisis in U.S. cities along the border is no surprise at all.

Illegal immigration has been an ongoing problem for decades. America is easy to sneak into, and everyone knows it.

Recently, Central American parents have been sending their children here in droves because they think that the U.S. will let their children stay.

They’re largely correct.

Last year, between 23,000-47,000 minors have been detained after crossing the border illegally. Only 3,525 were ordered by a judge to be deported, and of those a mere 1,600 were actually sent back to their home countries, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Since fewer than half of the children ordered to be returned to their home country actually made it there, it seems that many are skipping out on deportation orders and court proceedings.

Right now the U.S government is like “sorry not sorry” about the whole thing.

Instead of putting a stop to the multitudes attempting to migrate illegally, immigration officials are to “do right by the children.”

Obviously, for those who have already made it in and are awaiting for a trial hearing, they deserve to be treated fairly, housed and fed. But let’s remember that this only happened because policymakers didn’t take precautions to secure the border because they were too busy ignoring how easy it is to sneak in.

Quite frankly, its a slap in the face to those who have immigrated here legally.

As a first-generation American, I understand firsthand how difficult it was for my family to come here legally from Argentina.

Buenos Aires in the 1960s was politically and economically unstable, dangerous even. Both of my grandparents had gone without a paycheck in months, due to economic experiments that occurred between leadership changes and military coups at the time.

Before my grandparents and dad could arrive in sunny Southern California, they had to convince the immigration agents they were fiscally independent and would not take food-stamps or other taxpayer-funded public assistance.

There were also numerous trips to the embassy, several interviews, evaluations, examinations, and many, many forms that come along with the legal immigration process.

But I know they were lucky. They were able to complete the immigration process in about six months without any unusual hiccups or delays.

Others I have known haven’t been so lucky.

Like that time when a family we were close to were granted green cards — all except the father. To tell it short, the situation for them was a legal mess and took years before they finally received the proper documentation they needed.

Or there’s those times when America decides they will be strict about who gets to come on a tourist visa, while 52,000 unaccompanied minors walk into the U.S. illegally.

My Auntie Tara and Uncle Arvind, who run a school for deaf children in Pune, India, were denied tourist visas to the U.S. for years. They were told that they were high risk travelers, and there was a risk they may not return to their home country.

Oh yeah, because you know that deaf school that they helped to start will run itself while they sneak into America forever.

Really though, why have a legal immigration process at all when it’s just so easy to slip in and get to stay?

“Oh we can have them just fly into Mexico and walk across the border. I’ll pick her up down there and we’ll drive back,” my dad would say jokingly anytime a friend or relative’s tourist visa got denied. “We’ll have them sneak in fireworks and fruit while they’re at it.”

Bre Payton can be reached at bpayton@watchdog.org, or follow her on Twitter @bre-payton.