Trump seems to care a lot about immigration. He seems to think that fixing immigration issues will Make America Great, Again.
I couldn’t agree with him more. The immigration laws of this country are a mess.
Did you know that in order to satiate our need for cheap labor, immigrants have to cross our border illegally because congress hasn’t authorized enough work visas?
Did you know that refugees have to wait somewhere in the realm of 2-3 years to get through our extremely vigorous vetting process, years that could be spent practicing their professions or getting a much needed education for their children?
Did you know that the US government has created orphans of US Citizens by deporting their parents for no real reason other than being born on the wrong side of an invisible line in the sand?
Did you know that asylum is up to the discretion of individual judges and two people with identical cases can get different rulings based only on the judge that hears the case?
Did you know that thousands of children continue to flee across our southern border seeking refuge from gang violence that would consume their futures and their lives to be met by unbearable bureaucracy. Then they’re expected to defend themselves in their deportation hearings without the right to an attorney? Imagine your five year old facing off against a well-trained, government-funded attorney. Sound fair?
Did you know that the backlog on awarding some categories of visas is so bad that they are just now processing applications made in the mid 1990s?
Did you know that immigration detention centers are for-profit businesses that profit off the incarceration of people who are convicted of no crimes? Immigration violations are largely civil offenses on the same level of a traffic ticket. When was the last time you were locked up for a busted tail-light? The answer to that depends largely on what country you were born in…
Did you know that a small clerical error can lead to someone being deported from our country and being barred from reentry for 5 or 10 years?
Sadly, Donald Trump’s campaign promises and current actions will do absolutely nothing to address these issues. They will only make it worse.
Want to stop the flow of unlawful immigration? Building a wall will do nothing to fix that problem. Instead, make legal ways for the workers we need to come here with visas. Declare Central American peoples fleeing violence and corruption to be refugees. Create compassionate laws that can reunite families separated by misinformed immigration policy. If you do that, then most of the people crossing in the desert would be those trafficking drugs or humans, not the migrant worker trying to make $2000 picking tomatoes.
Want to protect our nation from radical extremists? I doubt banning refugees will do anything. Why would they try to infiltrate a thorough vetting process that takes years and has no promise of entry into the US when they could just get a European national whose passport gets them a tourist visa on arrival? Or why not rely on the person radicalized in our country. Not to mention we face a larger threat not from foreign extremism but from our own demons of racial hate and extremism that gives birth to our own terrorists.
So, Donald Trump, you want to address immigration issues? I do too. Let’s talk about real solutions. But if you just want to make insane suggestions like building walls in the desert and refusing to provide refuge to victims of war and persecution, then expect my full resistance. Because these “solutions” will only make the problem worse.
Blake Hart 
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