I want to dispel another bit of demagoguery that is beginning to dominate the 2022 midterm election season. It deals with our borders, north and south.
Now I shall declare that the southern border isn’t an “open border,” which is what Republican candidates for state and national office keep insisting.
Normally I might chuckle at some of the rhetoric coming from Texas GOP candidates. They keep attaching their Democratic opponents’ name to President Biden, suggesting that Biden and all other Democrats favor “open borders.”
This makes me want to pull my hair out … which is saying something, because I don’t have quite as much hair on my noggin as I used to have.
The demagogues, of course, refer to our southern border, which is where so many of these migrants are approaching. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently declared his department would send those from Venezuela back to their country if they seek to enter it without proper documentation. Is that the policy of an open-border-loving administration?
Hah! Hardly.
Yet the GOP continues harping on that falsehood. To suggest a politician favors “open borders” implies someone who wants to turn a blind eye to criminals who might be among the migrants seeking entry into the Land of Opportunity.
Well, demagoguery manages to score political points. It does nothing else if it doesn’t include policy proposals. I hear damn little in the way of policy discussion from the GOP demagogues.
I agree with those who contend that the Biden administration needs to treat the southern border problem as the “crisis” that many of us contend it is. However, I will not accept the notion that U.S. immigration policy has turned our borders into a thousand-mile-long sieve.
We continue to round up illegal migrants every day. Thus, the borders aren’t open.
