While the Sentinel agrees with so-called MAGA Republicans and the Trump Administration that the United States does, indeed, find itself in the middle of an immigration crisis, the government is behind that quagmire, not the immigrants.
Trump’s impractical, dangerous and injurious promise of mass deportations and a far-right ideal of “shutting down the border” has always been a dog whistle for “no more minority immigrants.”
What drives and will solve the crisis is jobs and industry.
For decades, the “problem” of illegal immigration has been primarily about jobs, and the past and current congressional forays into the morass have ignored that.
Despite all the heated rhetoric and emotional arguments targeting both sides of this thorny issue, there is a growing cadre of critical facts:
• There are an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, and their stories and circumstances are astoundingly varied. Officials estimate metro Denver and Aurora are home to about 130,000 undocumented immigrants.
• Many of these immigrants are already settled and integrated into our communities. They have jobs. They own cars and homes. They make more than $60 billion a year from U.S. businesses, according to a variety of sources. They have children in schools.
• Business groups and more than a few industries haven’t been shy in making it clear that these immigrants are critical to their operations. Many metro businesses already can’t find employees even with undocumented immigrants filling the workforce. Rural farmers and ranchers say the issue is becoming critical.
• Deporting undocumented immigrants is far from being a simple matter. Many families consist of citizens and non-citizens, many with varying degrees of authorization. If the father of a family of six is deported, why force his American wife and perhaps three-of-six documented children to live here in anguished poverty and on the government dole, if they don’t leave the country with him? Tearing apart families will only lead to tragedy and increased government expense.
• Repeated studies have regularly shown that immigrants, documented and undocumented, commit crimes at a far lower rate compared to American citizens.
• The cost of rounding up, collecting from jails, housing, processing and deporting millions of immigrants would be astronomical. Even proponents admit that. The federal government has tried to boost its border control and ICE force before, only to find out how difficult, ineffective and expensive it is. Several sources, including in the administration, estimate it will cost about $88 billion a year to round up and deport 1 million immigrants. The cost doesn’t include the hit to local and larger economies. Some estimates predict a nearly 3% hit to the U.S. GDP, caused by the loss of immigrant spending and their place in the workforce.
• Hardest hit would be industries such as farming, ranching, construction and tourism.
Already, the clear warnings issued by police and other experts are materializing. The level of angst and panic among immigrant communities, both documented and undocumented, is soaring.
Aurora police have said repeatedly that creating fear among immigrants makes them easy targets for robberies, assaults and scams because the immigrant victims will not call authorities for fear of deportation, even if they have legal documentation.
The problem has already become dire in rural and industrial communities across the state, and across the country, as documented and undocumented migrant workers quit showing up for work, fearing a workplace ICE raid.
“They sometimes are too scared to work their shift,” Claudio Gonzalez, a chef at Izakaya Gazen in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district, told the Associated Press. The community is near a federal ICE facility, like Aurora. “They kind of feel like it’s based on skin color.”
Douglas Holtz Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Action Forum think tank, said the perception created by the Trump administration’s handling of the ICE deportation project is real.
“ICE had detained people who are here lawfully, and so now lawful immigrants are afraid to go to work,” Holtz Eakin told the Associated Press earlier this month.
The false narrative about millions of lazy immigrants, living the high and easy life off of a luxurious American welfare system, committing bank robberies, car thefts and heinous murders in their spare time, is crude propaganda.
We don’t have to sabotage the entire country to solve the problem, and given the massive challenges the country faces with climate change, health care, infrastructure and foreign wars, this really isn’t even a problem at all, even as it exists.
But we can offer those who live here work permits and work visas that allow them to live legally in the U.S. — under any conditions we choose. They must pay taxes, penalties, document their lives, anything Congress insists on. If they are convicted of felony crimes, they lose their visa. In order to work in the U.S., they must prove citizenship or visa status.
Most importantly, if a business is caught employing someone without work credentials, the business must pay a serious and hefty fine.
It’s all about jobs, industry and accountability.
Congress can turn this from a crisis to an economic and societal boon, just with legislation.
But first, Colorado must stand firm against the Trump administration’s ham-handed, theatrical harassment of places where non-white people live and work.
It is anathema to a free and humane nation to employ gangs of masked thugs to round up mostly Latino and Hispanic “suspects,” sending many to illegal gulags and prison camps in countries like those many have fled.
Congress can solve the self-inflicted U.S. immigration crisis, and then solve the nation’s long-running immigration challenges practically, humanely and effectively. Trump will not.
First we should admit that Congress could solve a great deal by doing the job of a congress and enacting better immigration laws and speeding up legal immigration. Second, we should admit that Trump approaches everything in a clumsy and often hateful way. Next, we should admit that the Sentinel comes from a decidedly biased viewpoint that chooses to ignore real problems with illegal immigration. There are very real costs to illegal immigration. Many years ago, a friend who had moved from police work to ICE, told me that his investigations had revealed that there were twenty thousand houses bought by illegal immigrants in the metro area using fraudulent social security numbers and that they had set up their own systems of realtors and lawyers to facilitate the unlawful activity . His supervisors told him to ignore the whole thing. During my time as an officer, I saw that immigrant crime was far greater than that that hit the news. After covering murders, drunken driving fatalities, Medicare frauds at our hospitals, and a host of other crimes, I saw that the public were not made aware of any of it. Further, my bosses and the City were always politically correct and avoided any mention, lest they be called racist. Governments always lie to protect their reputations. That includes the Trump administration. Trump is clumsy and hateful, but the illegal immugrant problem must be addressed. Most are hardworking and good people. When you are here illegally, you connect with others who also are here illegally and you use whatever illegal systems your friends have found to get by. Human nature. There will be many sad cases. We did not bring them here illegally. Thank Joe Biden and an irresponsible democratic party for that.
Anyone else seem puzzled by the Democrat Party’s obsession with protecting illegal immigrants rather than American citizens. I’ve never seen them fight so hard for any other cause in my life. We’ve all heard the reasons: America was founded on immigration, who’s going to do the jobs Americans don’t want and compassion for the less fortunate. I believe that all of these explanations are simply camouflage. I’ve even heard one Native-American say that since White people came in and stole the land from Native peoples, it is only right that non-Whites are taking it back from them. Now this explanation may be getting closer to the truth. There is something far more sinister than compassion going on here.
I believe it was from the movie “The Godfather” that the quote, “If you want to know who made the hit, figure out who benefits from it.” Likewise, if you want to know why Democrats are so insistent on protecting illegal immigrants, figure out how it benefits them in the future.
To understand the possible reasons for this obsession with immigration, one must understand the changes to the Democratic Party since the Obama administration. Members of far-left coalitions have had increasing influence in the Democratic Party. One such faction is the Marxist/Socialist (Communist) contingent in the party. They believe that capitalism is evil and oppose our free market economy. They also believe in the inevitability of a socialist revolution where capitalism is overthrown by the oppressed working class. As such, they think if they can flood the country with enough poor and uneducated individuals, they and their families will naturally become financially dependent on the government. Once given the power to vote, they will become a large permanent voting bloc who will naturally vote Democrat – the party that invited them in, protected them and is providing for them. This will ensure the Democrat Party’s hold on power for generations to come.
Additionally, there is the “CRT” (Critical Race Theory) faction in the Democratic Party who’s influence has grown considerably and has permeated our educational system. They believe that the biggest problem our country faces is systemic racism and White oppression. They believe that White people have always conquered and oppressed people of color throughout their history, and always will. They understand that one way to fight White supremacy in this country is to flood the country with people of color and get them the power to vote. If White people become a minority in this country, it will be much harder for them to oppress people of color and our largely European/American based cultural norms in this country will have to change.
Are these more right-wing conspiracies, maybe. But we do know that unlike some individuals within the Democrat Party, who may have a big heart, career politicians, both left and right, are motivated by two things, and two things only: acquiring and maintaining power. Their obsession with unrestrained illegal immigration is likely an investment in their future power and control, and nothing more.
And by the way, those statistics regarding illegal immigrants committing less crime than American citizens were taken long before the Biden/Harris administation flung the borders wide open to any and everybody. Believe your eyes.
I agree with the main thrust of this opinion! However, I take issue with the usage of “dog whistle” for the purpose of Trump’s blatantly racist agenda. Take two examples: 1) During his first term, he mused that we needed fewer people from “s— hole countries” and more from places like Norway. 2) He and Musk created a false narrative that white people from South Africa were facing “genocide,” so he created a “special” program to allow them to emigrate to the US. Trump is an out and out a racist SOB -period! Your actions define you! This should no longer be minimized by using the “dog whistle” term. As he tries to marginalize women, brown people, educated people, and all of the countless other enemies he has made over a lifetime of scamming, we need to come to grips with how awful his motives are. I’m not saying here that we need to feel guilty about all of the mistakes of previous generations. I’m saying that we need to be kinder to all people and celebrate the progress we’ve made. Americans used to understand that we need to be better every day, but that concept is lost on those who think they are constantly being persecuted! That, my friends, is more often than not a false narrative!
This Sentinal opinion piece pointing the finger for the “crisis” at the feet of the Trump administration is as predictable as the sun coming up. It was not an unidentified probably at least half the county expressed their pushback directly at the crisis caused by Biden/Harris. Watching four years of these two fumble-bumble around coupled with lefty congress intentionally crippling border enforcement and telling us the border has never been tighter. In the meantime, voters notice cause and effect. Realizing what these two fraudsters with their welcome wagon and calculating congress buddies did not feel they should be bothered. A secure border, who cares? These voters’ minds had been made up to find a way of change. American citizens are the priority, and they were tired of it. And now some of these politicians local and federal are not going to be some church mouse but move to fulfill the mission to show their presence to enforce the law to US citizens. Unlike the Sentinel that thinks it strange still resist the idea that all these illegals need to be vetted. One way or the other, let the chips fall the way they will. Now, to the opportunist the Sentinel does not believe could be. The illegals and the schemes Don Black talk about. I could not agree more, it’s here. Colorado has a CHFA https://www.chfainfo.com/ that has its own ongoing fraud in its state loan portfolio. As Don had mentioned the illegals do have loans and are doctored up in the applications, by realtors, and the willing underwriters sign-off that let these loans slide. HSI and ICE are now active in these financial areas. Homeland security is slowly cracking down on Medicaid fraud. The Governor’s office this week in Denver court over subpoenas by the Feds looking at state applications that may involve illegals and benefits they are not entitled to. So the perception this “crisis” should be done without ever have to breaking an eggshell or two is truly delusional.
Marten Kudlis
I guess the Democrats believe in enforcing laws that they agree with. I am excited as now I only need follow laws I agree with.
So these industries can’t survive without illegal immigrant labor for what reason? Do the industries pay them less, give them fewer benefits, or work them harder? That sounds like slave labor is making a comeback. If industries need slave labor to stay in business, perhaps they shouldn’t stay in business. It all comes down to greed.