"Man, there's refugees everywhere you look..."
Agreed, oh hypothetical white man. They're even over there.
Violence in the Third World has made living in Syria untenable. People leave war zones, whether they are civil wars or drug wars. Right now, it's hitting Europe hard. Hungary's government has proven incapable of making intelligent decisions, as has the "Fox News of Hungary." Children die while legitimate refugee status gets delayed purposely. People make analogies to Latin American immigrants coming to America illegally. Donald Trump has exploited the "Texas Weakness" by hating Hispanic immigrants more than, say, Jeb Bush (W's brother). Mitt Romney used that same weakness to take out Rick Perry four years ago.
Then there is the other side, where people a clamoring for an influx of Syrian refugees into the United States. One article speaks to the comparison of Syrian refugee numbers to Bhutan, Burma (Myanmar?) and other countries. I could address each country (especially Burma), but that would be dropping into the weeds on this argument.
The immigration issue is not an east-west issue. It runs south to north. This happens in both hemispheres. Last summer, there was a massive influx of unaccompanied children. The majority of those children (along with mothers and smaller children) entered the United States through Hidalgo County.
That was last summer. 2014. We fixed that one. Right?
We built "this:"
But it looks like this. Ummm... Well, those pictures are kind of hard to find. Maybe an official picture of the unaccompanied minors or such. Here's something:
Yep. We handled it like we've done for the last two decades. We built a detention center. Several detention centers, really. Karnes City is bigger, but I like Dilley (if only for that name). Dilley, Texas is one of the more interesting centers. In Dilley, we have a situation where "...these women are living in an environment that often exacerbates the trauma they have already suffered."
A couple of weeks ago, pro-bono immigration attorneys got thrown out of the Dilley Detention Center. That may be related to a lawsuit from some of the women regarding poor medical care and general neglect. Broken fingers? Drink more water.
Why are they still detained? The Obama Administration claims that this is to deter others from making the flight to America. This same administration produced an immigration speech summed best by Dan Kowalski:
The detention and deportation machine will continue as before. No mention, in the President's speech, of releasing the mothers and children from Artesia, from Karnes City, from Dilley, from Berks County.
Want the real answer? Ask Corrections Corporation of America. They made well over $60 million last quarter. Guess how they became so profitable? Uh-huh. That story hit less than an hour ago down here.
We're not good at handling refugees. We're not good at soccer, for that matter.
I know this sounds ridiculous to some. I get that. Here it goes, anyway:
We need to handle our own refugees first.
Now would be a good time to get that done.
Now.
