ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The illegal immigration crisis isn’t going away anytime soon, even if President Obama gets his wish and gets his hands on an additional $2 billion to stem the crisis. The crisis, we’re told, started back in others’ homelands, and that is where it must be abated.
If we merely focus on what’s to be done after they enter the States, we all might as well grab a fistful of dollars and toss them into the Rio Grande.
And do you want to know why?
It’s a setup.
Angel Aleman recently entered the United States from the Mexico side of the border, and he is considered an “OTM,” other than Mexican.
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A Honduran who had crossed at our southwestern border with his infant, Angel was grateful.
About to board a bus to Virginia, he delivered a message via Univision, the largest Spanish-language network in the U.S. “Well, just thank you,” Angel said, “and excuse us for invading the country.”
Now, the Honduras government would dare not consider “invading” the United States, and I suspect literal translation was a culprit with Angel’s message to us.
But violence is a serious problem in his homeland, where rises in street crime and the targeting of American citizens led the Peace Corps to pull out in 2012. Some neighborhoods in Honduras are so violent machetes could be considered upper appendages.
Still, something else underscores what’s happening at our border, where the surge in children and illegal crossings are being attributed to other Central American countries, including Guatemala and El Salvador.
Urban America, too, is wracked with violence and assorted street crimes, and the lead sentence mid-afternoon Monday on an MSNBC.com story painted the starkest of pictures: “At least 82 people were shot, 14 fatally, in Chicago over the long holiday weekend that began last Thursday afternoon.”
Interestingly, you don’t hear of poor, crime-weary D.C. people vowing to move to other countries. Mostly, they and citizens like them simply characterize drug-related violence and assorted other acts of bloodletting as senseless and unacceptable.
So why in the world would Angel want to even come here?
Who and what has led him to believe that this is the land of milk and honey?
Come to America and all will be great and good?
Without the baby’s mother.
Without a job.
Without an income.
Without employable skills.
It’s a setup.
Unnamed (illicit) organizations are giving Angel and the other adults and children — the tens of thousands of illegal crossings every month — a hand up to the border, where on this side it is explained to them how they will get a handout once they get here.
The ladies and gents of Catholic Charities, Red Cross, Save the Children and other good Samaritans are collecting our donations and passing them along. That’s what Samaritans do.
The Samaritans in Washington need to shut the flood gates — to the human traffickers, drug cartels and unhelpful hands of the other Americas.
Besides, if the White House wants $2 billion today, it’ll seek double that amount to sustain the new bureaucracy tending to Angel long after the baby has been potty trained.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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