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If the GOP is answering the “influx” of undocumented immigrants with increased border security, then they’ve got the entire issue wrong.
For the seventh consecutive year, visa overstays have been consistently outpacing illegal border crossings. Visa overstays accounted for 62 percent of new undocumented immigrants while illegal border crossers accounted for only 38 percent of those same immigrants. At the same time, illegal border crossings have been recorded at its lowest levels in the past three decades.
Sure, conservatives might care about the seriousness of illegally crossing the border, but look at the racial composition of those overstaying their visas.
Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy–largely Caucasian countries–comprise 40 percent of the top 10 countries whose citizens are responsible for visa overstays–with Canadian citizens making up over 1/7th of that population.
It makes no sense for any reasonable policy maker to ignore the massive influx of visa overstays–committed by those with a lighter skin color–to focus on a declining number of border jumpers–committed by those with a darker skin color.
Therefore, liberals default to the next reasonable explanation.
Racism.
COMMENTS (3)
I’d hotly dispute this. I think you’re disregarding the fact that (in non-racial ways) border jumpers differ from overstays.
Overstays are in many ways a “known quantity”. We know who they are, in many cases *where* they are, and we know *nearly all* of them are law-abiding if we discount the immigration violation.
We know none of these things for border jumpers, and we know that a *non-trivial fraction* are criminals and ne’er-do-wells. Not likely a majority – but not a negligible proportion either.
If we had a substantial problem with “coyotes” smuggling people across the Canadian border such that we didn’t know who was coming in or where, and Canada had a similar crime rate to the southern nations of emigration, then Canadian border-jumpers would be just as much of a problem as the border-jumpers from the south.
https://www.quora.com/Would-anti-illegal-immigration-supporters-mind-if-white-immigrants-came-to-the-U-S-illegally-or-would-you-rather-they-were-deported-as-well/answer/Anthony-Zarrella
Your comment about the “known quantity” of so-called border jumpers is exactly the point. We DON’T know that quantity…..and it’s almost certainly considerably fewer than those who overstay their visas. Since we don’t know their numbers – or their location – how can we possibly know whether or not they’re criminals and/or ne’er-do-wells? Your assumption only perpetuates the notion that these border jumpers are here to continue their criminal activities, and there’s no actual evidence to prove that, since we know (from uniform crime statistics) that immigrants are much less likely to be arrested for ordinary crimes than US citizens.
Your comment is precisely the point…..we DON’T know the number of so-called border jumpers – nor their location – and those numbers are almost certainly considerably less than the number of visa overstays on a year-by-year basis. If that were not so, then our Border Patrol is essentially useless. Unfortunately, your comment also helps perpetuate the myth that border jumpers are here to engage in criminal activities, and the evidence simply does not support that idea. In fact, uniform crime statistics have shown, time and again, that immigrants are far less likely to engage in criminal behavior than US citizens.