Immigration reformWhat you haven’t heard about immigration reform and border security
The Senate and House must find a way to resolve our current immigration dilemmas. We owe a fairer, more just system of laws to all our immigrants, both illegal and legal. And, yes, we must find ways to address issues of national security as well. It’s not going to be easy to shape such legislation, but we should demand no less from both Democrats and the Republicans.
Border security and immigration reform continue to conflict // Source: HSNW
Our duly elected senators and representatives of both parties now face the risky task of explaining their stance on new immigration reform to their constituents who don’t live within driving distance of Washington. In particular, the voters back home want to know why those in office seem mired in gridlock after the farblondzhet Senate, lost and confused, finally passed their version of legislation to bring the Immigration and Reform Act of 1986 in line with contemporary issues and challenges(see Robert Lee Maril, “Our farblondzhet senators,” HSNW, 28 June 2013).
Most Americans, according to recent polls, want to fix the broken system which a majority of politicians, including the present administration, readily admit is dysfunctional and can be counterproductive. The question is how to best fix it; the Senate took its best shot and passed the task on to the House.
But immigration reform is complex, just as complex as the history of immigration to our country.1 Rife with myths and misconceptions, this same American immigrant history is, in fact, rarely taught, or taught well, in our public institutions of learning. Voters can find themselves ill-informed of their own local, regional, or national history, and simultaneously befuddled by the sheer variety of ideological positions held within both parties. Countless, often contradictory, new laws have been suggested by various officials in both parties that few, with the exception of Congressional staff members, may actually understand.
One such area is “border security.” I recently spent a week along the Texas-Mexico border (my first research there began in 1977). I interviewed a variety of respondents including border residents, officials, and local experts. Border security is complex and, at the same time, frequently misunderstood by many within the beltway. As I walked down the jetway in McAllen, Texas, the outside temperature hovering at 103 degrees and a wind from Mexico, a few miles to the south, gusting to 35 miles per hour, the debates about border security resounding in Washington seemed both surreal and insubstantial.
