The guest editorial by Amy Alcini pleading for compassion for all the children entering the U.S. from Central America demonstrates a lot of emotion, but anything but compassion. It will lead to thousands more children and adults dying in sweltering deserts and being attacked while crossing Mexico to reach the U.S.
The children are not coming to the U.S. because of violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The level of violence has not changed in four years. What is different is President Obama stating—by executive order—that he would not deport children. This created a tsunami of media reports and rumors in those countries saying that children who reached the U.S. would be able to stay forever. And, since we are so “compassionate,” we would not want to separate children from their parents, so there is the unstated promise that eventually the parents of these kids would be granted the pathway to citizenship.
No longer trying to sneak across the U.S. border, these children run into the arms of immigration officials. They have overwhelmed our processing centers and diverted the attention of border agents from catching bad guys and stopping drugs from entering our country.
The sad truth is that, in spite of more empty words, the President has not sealed the border as promised. It is more porous than ever. Another reality is that we cannot absorb an endless number of immigrants with low educational levels and a variety of health problems. Our high-tech society already has far too many American citizens unable to find work. (The stated unemployment rate is misleading because we don’t count most people who aren’t working and do count part-time workers. We have the lowest labor participation rate in half a century.) How many workers with few skills can we absorb?
Scott Dittrich