mercalia wrote:both points are wrong. if they are caught trying to cross rather than go to a border control they are illegal, The executive order has now made it a criminal offence no longer a misdemeanor?, thats why the kids are being separated from their parents
I suggest you look again at the bar chart from US customs i supplied a few contribution s back. Unless I misunderstand the term "apprehension"
The USA has *always* accepted immigrants for other parts of the Americas in large numbers. There were no controls on immigration into the USA from other North American countries at all until the 1920s. Although it was made a misdemeanor to cross the border outside of an offical entry point in 1929, this was largely unenforced. During and after WWII, there was a shortage of workers in the USA and Mexicans were encouraged to work in the USA under the bracero program, which ended in 1964. In 1965, they set more formal limitations on the numbers of immigrants from other American countries, yet millions of people from other North and South American countries continued to enter the USA both legally and illegally. In 1986, all undocumented Mexican immigrants, without criminal records and in the country since at least 1982 were given amnesty and the opportunity to become US citizens. Somewhat more stringent immigration laws were introduced with the amnesty, but many people feel that the amnesty only encouraged immigration.
Immigration laws continued to be largely unenforced until 2005 when GW Bush began enforcing it. By 2015, illegal entry prosecutions made up almost 50% of federal cases and cost the USA government around 7 billion $. They have a backlog of months, during which people spend their time in detention, and this includes those that present themselves to border control personnel to claim asylum.
A few other points that are relevant....
1) The legislation that made crossing the border illegal was drafted by a white supremicist who felt that Mexicans, were unfit to be US citizens, and signed into law by the US's most racist post Civil War president. The same congress passed immigration laws based on eugenics, and allowing white Europeans to immigrate into the USA, but severly limiting immigration from Africa and banning Arabs and Asians.
2) The border is so big that it is impossible to control effectively. People may not even be able to identify where the border is in many places. Even if they can, it may mean walking hundreds of miles in the desert with no food and water to avoid crossing the border illegally. That seems excessive, even cruel, when they can see a house, or a town where they can get water and food, but it happens to be on the wrong side of the border, when they have not yet presented themselves to border patrol.
3) The majority of Mexcians are native Americans. They have, if anything, more right to be there than those of European descent.
4) People are not illegal.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
