A high school friend of mine posted on Facebook, in a discussion about the border wall and immigration in general, the assertion that, “we now know… that most people in the country illegally have simply overstayed legal visas of one kind or another.”
My Facebook reply became so long and detailed that I decided to share it on dailydiatribe.net. This has the dual advantages of making it available to a broader audience and also helping me honor my resolution to avoid talking politics on Facebook. It’s a bit more of a “stream of consciousness” than my usual articles but…
Here goes:
I question “what we now know.”
What are the chances that you “now know” that “most people in the country illegally have simply overstayed legal visas of one kind or another” because somebody in the media or some politician told you that as part of their argument against the wall?
I apply to both these sources the same credibility criteria that I do to aviation ground school instructors, or anyone else making an assertion regarding rules, regulations, statistics, or any other presumably measurable quality: “If you can’t provide a (reliable) reference, then you’re just making it up.”
i.e. “Casual assertions do not create (or confirm) reality in the temporal universe.”
And just because somebody wrote it down in a newspaper or magazine article (or their Blog!) doesn’t automatically give it any credibility either….
As someone who has conducted at least 5,000 visa interviews and issued visas to only a small fraction of those applicants, I can tell you that “legal visas” are by no means easy to obtain. And while there are overstays and some people do actually remain illegally, the numbers are not as great, when compared to those who just appear here, as some people seem to think.
Neither are really reliably measured.
The relatively lower numbers of overstays by folks holding legitimate visas is for the simple reason that before a non-immigrant visa can be issued, each individual must establish “…to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa, and the immigration officers, at the time of application for admission, that…” he has “a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning and who is visiting the United States temporarily for business or temporarily for pleasure…” – Section 214(b), Immigration and Naturalization Act
He must satisfy BOTH a consular officer overseas AND immigration officers at the port of entry (A Visa is really just permission to travel to the port of entry for purpose of requesting admission from an Immigration Officer) that his life situation will compel him to return to his home overseas when his visit is finished. I can tell you from personal experience and training, that this is a significant burden to overcome. Most American citizens would struggle with it, if they had to satisfy a foreign government official that they wouldn’t stay in their country illegally, except for the fact that we can already stay HERE.
The biggest and most important difference between the people who overstay a legitimate visa and those who just walk across the border is that WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE!
We have their name, date and place of birth (standard minimum information to conduct a background investigation), and basic background information. Most importantly we have their FINGERPRINTS so we can RELIABLY IDENTIFY THEM. They have also sworn, under penalty of perjury, that their statements are true, which makes it easier to convict/expel them if it turns out they lied.
Somebody who walks across the border (or comes in a sea container or clandestine submarine or cloaked space ship) is an unidentified and undocumented human. We don’t know where or when they were born, what their background history is (criminal or not? Terrorist or not? Human trafficker or not?, etc.) or even, with any certainty, what their name is.
These people don’t just show up in El Paso with their passports, birth certificates, etc. because having those documents MAKES IT EASY TO KNOW WHERE TO DEPORT THEM TO! If someone gets on a plane with a fake passport/visa, they tear it up and flush it down the toilet so the authorities have nowhere to start vis a vis where to send them back to. This earns them “due process” under our system and the chance they will be released on their own recognizance, pending their court date. The no show rate to immigration court in these cases is well over 90%.
The word “undocumented” has a much, much deeper meaning than just to sound nicer than the naked truth that they are ILLEGAL.
But the general public will never know these things as long as we get our information from sources with a vested interest in our believing things that are simply NOT TRUE or presented in extremely misleading context.
People that WE KNOW staying illegally pose a much lower risk of being a danger to our society (except for not paying their taxes) than people who just magically appear here with no permission and no reliable means to identify them. We must simply take their word about their name, date and place of birth, and criminal history.
The only way to reliably and safely know and control who enters our country across our Southern border is to erect an obstacle that is both a physical barrier and can be efficiently monitored by human and technological means in a way that channels people into the established formal ports of entry.
The only reason that our Northern border is not a similar threat in any great numbers is that there is no longer a land bridge across the Bering Strait.
One of the reasons that the process is so difficult (obtaining a visitor visa) is that we simple don’t have the resources to track down and catch illegals in our country. We see on TV great dramatic immigration “raids” to catch illegals but they happen at such a small rate that it could be likened to “urinating into the tornadic air flow.”
To me, the wall is not a political question. It’s a security question and a practical one.
Even if we do eventually get around to changing our laws and allowing guest workers or even increase the legitimate immigration into our country, there will still be those (the most dangerous groups) that will, for their own purposes, want to bypass the system.
We need a wall to help with the effort to defend against this.
Thanks for reading.
I question “what we now know.”
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