Excerpted and edited from an op-ed by Edward Schumacher-Matos in yesterday's Washington Post: The Obama administration is doing a miserable job of selling its successes in immigration enforcement to the American people. The number of unauthorized immigrants is falling. The number crossing the border is lower than it has been in almost four decades. Only a very small percentage of immigrants commit violent crimes (or any crimes) and federal, state and local police are cracking down on them. So why are there no heroic Border Patrol officers on cable TV shows? Why are there no Pentagon-style charts showing this positive trend in a single, clear image? Why are there no photos of the President standing on the border, assuring Americans that the government is in control and there's nothing to be alarmed about? Instead, the President is insulting the Republicans, the Democratic governors complain that they have no idea what the administration is doing about immigration, and the secretary of homeland security is giving an uncharacteristically dry speech to Washington insiders. President Obama has something to show, but he lacks the showmanship skill that is a major factor in good leadership. When I asked administration officials why this success doesn't have a higher profile, it took a long time to get an answer, and they finally reluctantly admitted it's because of the human face of those being punished. Most of the illegal immigrants being jailed or deported, like most of the illegal immigrants who manage to escape detection, are honest, well-meaning people, usually desperately poor, who sneaked across the border or overstayed their visas because they need work and America is the only place they can find it. These images raise the hackles of religious groups, immigrant activists, the huge Latino voting bloc, and the other ethnic groups who are part of Obama's support base. So the administration muddles along, hoping to convince us that it can be entrusted to enforce the law and overhaul the immigration system, but without showing us the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts to avoid offending its base constituencies. It blames Republicans for the plight of the poor immigrants, when it is Democrats who are carrying out the enforcement. In short, the administration doesn't know what it is doing--not for itself, not for the Democrats running for election in a few months, and certainly not for the country. And the Republicans aren't helping, since they pander to the vocal extremists in their base who want to hear only of enforcement rather than progress or dry statistics. The President must find his courage and take this campaign to the American people. Polls always show that Americans support earned legalization for the eleven million unauthorized immigrants now living and working here, but they want to feel confident that the government is committed to stopping more of them from coming illegally. The administration is meeting this goal, but it's not telling us. So Obama has the worst of all worlds: an unconvinced public, a resentful base, and Republicans rising to take advantage of it all. What good is meeting benchmarks if no one knows?
No, don't buy it. Yes, the numbers are dropping, not making note of it has absolutely nothing to do with a "human face". It's because our economy sucks so bad Mexicans are choosing to go elsewhere. As for all the people going nuts over migration. It's what people do under stress. Try to blame someone else for OUR mistakes.
