Looking at Illegal Immigration Globally

For John, BLUF:  The Media still doesn't realize that Mr Trump was just the one to fill the gap and that gap is world wide.  We are seeing a revolt of the hoi-polloi.  The coastal elites don't get it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Border Crisis

And it is a crisis, and not just in the Southwest of the United States.  It is a crisis in Europe.  It is a crisis in South America, with a million Venezuelans having gone to Columbia.  Then there is Central America, which is emptying out as people head for the United States.  It is a crisis in Asia, including Afghanistan/Pakistan, Burma/Bangledesh and China/North Korea.  The Chinese have even moved army troops up to its border with North Korea.  One assumes they fear economic collapse on top of serious human rights violations.

This piece is from PJ Media, by Richard Fernandez (of the The Belmont Club), 24 June 2018.

Here is the lede plus four:

On both sides of the Atlantic borders have become a big issue in the guise of the equivalent question of whether a country can restrict the entry of migrants to numbers the electorate regards as sustainable.

In the US the family impact of arresting illegal aliens has intensified political hostility nearly to the point of physical conflict.  The New York Times sadly notes Trump supporters no longer even listen to the media's frequent denunciations of the incumbent president.  How can they stand him?  "This includes portions of the wealthy college-educated people in swing counties ... and the endless stream of tough cable news coverage and bad headlines about Mr. Trump only galvanizes them further."

Both sides have dug in along some gigantic political Western Front.  The NYT argued it was Trump's failure to follow the unofficial policy that immigration law was best humanely ignored or at least, as Kevin Jennings former assistant deputy secretary of Education under President Obama argued in the LA Times, transcended, that caused the crisis.

Jennings wrote "coming here 'illegally' did not even exist as a concept" until a hundred years ago.  With opinion so divided it is not surprising that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders "was booted from a Virginia restaurant because she works for President Donald Trump, the latest administration official to experience a brusque reception in a public setting."  Nor will she likely be the last.  Mother Jones tweeted:  "Trump officials can no longer eat out in peace."

In Europe things are if anything worse.  A growing coalition of parties demanding control over national boundaries was threatening the future of the European Union itself -- or at least the chancellorship of Angela Merkel.  "European Union leaders gather in Brussels on Sunday in an attempt to bridge their deep divisions over migration, an issue that has been splitting them for years and now poses a fresh threat to German Chancellor Angela Merkel."

For those who think the border crisis is just about President Trump, the fact is, it isn't.

The author continues:

The fact that borders have become an issue at all after decades of assurance the circle could be squared is perhaps the most significant fact of all.  For years the bipartisan consensus was to politely pretend it could all be worked out.  As the New York Times wrote, "for more than a decade ... seasonal spikes in unauthorized border crossings had bedeviled American presidents in both political parties, prompting them to cast about for increasingly aggressive ways to discourage migrants from making the trek.  Yet for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the idea of crying children torn from their parents’ arms was simply too inhumane — and too politically perilous — to embrace as policy."

The problem is, it is too politically perilous, across the globe, to no longer work this issue.

If you want some background, read the 1973 novel by Frenchman Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints, summarized here.  By the way, the very corrupt Southern Poverty Law Center has condemned the book.  All the more reason to read it.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff