Border Security – Put Up or Shut Up (part 1)

            For about a decade now I have been telling anyone who would listen that one of our greatest national security concerns should be international corruption in general, and drug money corruption along our southern border in particular. Massive illegal money corrupts every public institution it touches. Because once a judge or policeman or fire inspector or construction permit bureaucrat takes one bribe from one illegal source, that agent of the government is open to blackmail and additional corruption forever. Ask honest citizens of Chicago how long it took to rid the city of the corrupting influences of organized crime after Prohibition. Some would argue that corruption remains strong there eighty years later.
            In the last several years, corruption along our border has become much worse as Mexican drug cartels have come to control the crossing points and the terrain from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. The days of a poor person desperate for work sneaking across the Rio Grande by himself are over. The cartels control everybody and everything that crosses everywhere. So illegal immigration, drug running, smuggling, money laundering, fire arms trade, and the trafficking of women and children for sex are all run by the same people. And on our side, they all pass through the same distribution network of national, regional, state, and local gangs, right down to individual pimps, gangsters and distributors on our local streets. We cannot solve one problem without solving them all; we cannot ignore one problem without ignoring them all.
            Danny Stewart of The Wall Street Shuffle (AM 1190 in Dallas-Ft. Worth http://www.thewallstreetshuffle.com/about-the-show/ ) heard my sermon recently, and challenged me go beyond talking about problems, and offer some solutions -- focused primarily on controlling the southern border. I am not sure I can solve with my blog  a problem that has eluded the Federal government for 90 years. And I am NOT laying out an argument for what SHOULD be done. I was asked what COULD be done to promote security. Here are some ideas.

1) Put our finger in the chest of the 1% south of our border. People don’t come here just for jobs. They come because even our poorest residents have lights, heat, running water, basic health care, schools, and honest law enforcement. Illegal immigrants coming here have none of that at home. President Obama is fond of castigating productive Americans for not paying “their fair share.” How about sharing that concept with the 1% of 1% living in spender to our south?

2) Bring the law down hard on people paying illegal immigrants to work here illegally. That act is against the law – a law put into place in the 1980’s when we were last told that if we just make those here illegally into citizens, the illegal crossings would stop. The Bush Administration increased workplace raids and prosecuted illegal employers. That approach was effective. The Obama Administration has stopped such efforts almost entirely.

3) Prosecute illegal employers who mistreat their illegal workers. Those who hire illegal workers do so because they can pay them less and treat them poorly, and thus get an advantage over their more honest competitors. Stop that illegal advantage.

4) Close down the system by which illegal workers send money to their home country. Money earned illegally may not be legally transferred between nations. You can’t rob a bank here and send it legally to a bank in Mexico or China. The same should be true of anyone who washes cars illegally. We stopped Osama Bin Laden from moving money internationally. We could stop this illegal movement, too – if we wanted to.

© Dave McIntyre

Continued as part 2 – next . . .