Mark Krikorian believes that measures to curb illegal immigration have yet to achieve an acceptable level of functionality given the scope of the problem. His take on the issue is "Much needs to be done before the United States has the enforcement arrangements necessary to permanently reduce illegal immigration to a nuisance rather than an ongoing crisis." (Krikorian, 2012) He begins his argument with statistics that point to the prevalence of the problem. While immigration has decreased, Krikorian's interpretation of the data suggests this decrease to be deceptive. Though there is an all time decrease in illegal immigration, Krikorian links it to other factors, and believes a correct understanding of that data leads one to conclude "there is little reason to conclude this is a permanent development ushering in a new migration paradigm for the United States" (Krikorian, 2012).
His essay and the argument it makes considers as self evident that illegal immigration is harmful to the country, that some measures have been taken and are effective but that not enough is being done because illegals still come into the country. There is no discussion of the labor economy, which spurs these migration trends, or the economic benefits citizens from both sides of the border glean from the phenomenon. At President Obama's suggestion that positive gains had been made, and illegal immigration was no longer the problem it once was, Krikorian seemed to take particular offense. He cited a sound bite from a speech where Obama uses hyperbole to describe Krikorian's position, which Krikorian considered Obama's "Mockery." Krikorian's solution is single minded. He wants more comprehensive fencing, more border police and seems that he will be satisfied when the number of migration steps significantly down from the "crisis" level that he sees it at now. He makes intelligent observations and uses data and stats to make his argument, but he neglects the micro sociological phenomenon that is fueling what he calls a crisis. At no point in his argument were illegals considered as more than statistics whose numerical values the author considered too high. This is a dangerous approach to the understanding of the issue. All legal and political solutions must first and foremost recognize illegal immigrant for what they are, human beings with rights and needs often composing complex family networks consisting of members stationed in the home country and a mixture of legal and undocumented immigrants. While the author is hostile to ideas of amnesty, he offers no other solution to the fact that nowadays there are many children who are United States citizens who depend on their undocumented parents in order to survive.
My analysis of the article attempts to look at the audiences that the author is addressing. His focus is limited to those already against migration patterns, and an audience that is pro increasing preventative measures and deportation measures against illegal immigrants and those who would attempt to be illegal immigrants. He does not make an argument that they should be deported. His title of the piece “The Perpetual Border Battle”, carries with it a hopeless connotation of the situation. The author admits that there is progress being made, but is against the notion that anyone should congratulate themselves on it. It seems a face assuming he is sympathetic to right leaning politics on this issue. He uses statistics to make the case for tightly controlled borders and is hostile to the idea of an amnesty program to solve the problem of existing immigrants in the United States. The problem to solve he argues is that illegal immigrants must be prevented from entering, and foreigners must not be permitted to overstay their legal welcome and become illegal. He cites a New York Times article, but believes “The New York Times op-ed had it wrong, and this issue is certain to roil American politics for decades to come” (Krikorian, 2012). The premise he believes the New York Times had wrong is the following: "The immigration crisis that has roiled American politics for decades has faded into history" (Krikorian, 2012). The author admits that migration has stagnated. He admits that it could be in a small part to measures built up during the Clinton and Bush years. However, he believes that it has mostly to do with economic factors and that we should have every reason to believe that migration patterns to the US will continue in business as usual. He focuses on Mexican and Central American migrants and justifies their being the largest ethnic group, who are illegal immigrants in our country. Most of the measure he wants to be expanded and seen through has to do with measures that seem to target Mexican and Central American worker population. The author does bring up families of multi-citizenships but only in the context of understanding the figures of a statistic. He writes, “Since it includes three hundred thousand U.S.-born (and thus U.S. citizen) children of Mexican immigrants, so even Pew finds continued net Mexican immigration, but the increase in departures (most of them voluntary) and the drop in new arrivals are striking” (Krikorian, 2012).
Lacking in the author’s assessment was any compassion towards the migrant people within our country. There seemed to be an implicit animosity between them. He was not viewing them as the macro sociological reality they were but as people who must be kept out of and taken out of the US. More important than “removing them,” what should also be looked at is what responsibilities our country has to them while they are within our borders. Certainly Krikorian had a thesis, and he stuck to it, but it is dangerous to have an article those only presents’ human beings as numbers and forgets their humanity. Krikorian understands this issue from an ivory tower. Understood from a macro sociological perspective, one would see immigrants as players in a much larger game, over which they had no control. Deportation for some illegal immigrants might not be a practical option when seen from a realistic standpoint. Many illegal migrants were brought as children into the United States; they grew up with this culture, and many even learned English as a first language. Deporting them to what to them is a foreign country could be extremely damaging.
A central flaw in Kriorian thesis appears to be the use of the term illegal immigrants. The very basis of the foundation of the American society is “immigration” while the understanding of illegal immigration in the article is from a very narrow perspective. While illegal immigrants are the undocumented immigrants strictly from a legal perspective, the genesis of the immigration issue is historic. In addition, the thrust of the article appears to focus on strict policing to control the influx of illegal immigrants, while the issue has historical, social, economic and cultural ramifications. In other words, there are limits to addressing the problem purely from the policing perspective. The obvious loopholes in the policing strategies are already pointed out in the article. The Government Accountability Office shows this flawed approach has resulted in just 15 percent of the border being actually controlled. In addition, the claims of record deportations are an eye wash in comparison to the number of illegal immigrants who are not deported. The article claims that the growth in deportations has stopped.
Krikorian has done well to identify the current problems with law enforcement and policing against illegal immigration. He also recommends some key enforcement tools such as E-Verify system, a system that can track all visitors from foreign nations, and political will that are currently not being utilized at their maximum potential. Nonetheless, Krikorian offers no systematic solution to the problem that he so painfully highlights. The author concludes on a pessimistic note that there appears no solution to the problem anytime too soon. The author analyzes the problem but the problem as well as the analysis is rather too well known. The readers do not feel enlightened after reading the article. However, those who thought that the illegal immigration issue will come to an end soon with strict policing and monitoring of borders are in for a rude shock at the gigantic proportions of illegal immigrants who go undetected. There is no doubt that the problem will not come to an end anytime too soon. However, the author should have ideally recommended policy prescriptions to tackle the issue. For instance, a policy framework that systematically filters out illegal immigrants at different social and economic levels on one hand and a slew of bilateral measures with the nations that send the maximum number of illegal immigrants, on the other might go a long way in addressing the issue of illegal immigrants.
Reference
Krikorian, Mark The Perpetual Border Battle | Center for Immigration Studies. Center for Immigration Studies
