Border Security

The "heinous" use was hyperbole on my part. I don't recall anyone using that term specifically. My sense of it is that because the crime was committed by an illegal, it becomes especially "heinous" in the eyes of those delivering or receiving the message.

The gangs message by trump is fear mongering, and very misleading to think tighter border security is going to fix the issue. Not to belabor the point, but it's as feckless a solution as more gun laws to stop gun violence in a country with 330+ million guns in circulation.

For what it's worth, gang violence and gun violence are peas in a pod, and would get resolved if we put gang members away, and keep em locked up when they cross the line.

On the same vein, the illegal immigration that sticks in our craw, goes hand in hand with welfare. End the welfare, and not many of us would bat an eye if people were crossing over to work in the fields, as they've done for decades.

The point of increased border security has never been to “fix” any of those problems, not even the gang problem.

the point has always been to be one piece of the solution.  None of the issues connected to illegal immigration, have one single solution.  

But gangs will have greater difficulty moving drugs, people, and guns across the border with a fence than without one. Illegals will have lower motivation to cross when states start prosecuting employers, AND have greater difficulty getting up here across a border fence.

et cetera.

 MDDad, I did check and legal immigrants are included as well as illegal aliens. Legal immigrants make up 4% of the group. Also, these are federal statistics.  Local and state crimes are not included and only federal statistics of those convicted are tracked. There are many more crimes committed by legal immigrants and illegal aliens at the local and state levels, but they are not tracked. So the numbers are actually much higher. 

What you are referring to above is the media and the left using the word immigrants and not ever using the term illegal aliens. 

No, that is not true. 

Opponents of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress repeatedly claim that illegal immigrants are “less likely” to commit crimes than U.S. citizens – and thus represent no threat to public safety. But that’s not true when it comes to federal crimes.

Non-citizens constitute only about 7 percent of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that non-citizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37 percent of all federal arrests were non-citizens.

These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Non-citizens accounted for 24 percent of all federal drug arrests, 25 percent of all federal property arrests, and 28 percent of all federal fraud arrests.

In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40 percent of all federal arrests.

In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.

Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1 percent of such arrests in 1998 to 20 percent today.

Critics will try to downplay the importance of the Justice Department’s report by pointing out that the majority of crimes in the United States are handled by prosecutors in state and local courts. But even there the data is shocking.

A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 non-citizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are non-citizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.

The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.

According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.

www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/crimes-illegal-immigrants-widespread-across-us-sanctuaries-shouldnt

Clicking on the link and reading the full article should help clear up  your confusion. 

The Cato Institute is an organization with globalist views that advocates for open borders. Cato's goal is to allow anyone from anywhere in the world to freely enter the US and take a job at whatever wage and for whatever benefits they are willing to work for. Cato looks at immigration as a purely economic issue that never puts the US or American citizens first.

Cato is against E-verify because they do not want any limitations on who American employers hire, which means that workers enter the country freely and work regardless of their immigration status.

The Cato Institute is no friend of American citizens and workers. 

We're in agreement cato is about open borders, but I believe their core values would be counter to that of a globalist view, which is more about gov't control.

I see the argument for freedom of movement of workers across borders, as I think it coincides with the concept of free trade. Where it doesn't work here, is the addition of the welfare benefits, or consumption of resources without much in the way of contribution.

If we had open borders, there wouldn't be illegal immigration to deal with. Alternate reality, I get it.

I don't understand what you mean by saying that Cato doesn't have a globalist view. Cato wants less government control which is consistent with the globalist doctrine. The goal is to adopt a world view, not an American view. Can you explain what you mean please?

Do you really believe that free trade is attainable? Free trade means having no restrictions on international trade such as tariffs and quotas. I don't believe that is doable, do you? Concerning welfare benefits with regard to less government control will open the door to massive fraud.

Without the protection of our government and strict immigration laws American workers will suffer a terrible drop in their standard of living with respect to open borders. 

What libertarian views do you favor?