The New York Times suggests that the Arizona border situation isn’t as bad as the locals perceive it. On Border Violence, Truth Pales Compared to Ideas asserts that “It is a connection that those who support stronger enforcement of immigration laws and tighter borders often make: rising crime at the border necessitates tougher enforcement. But the rate of violent crime at the border, and indeed across Arizona, has been declining, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has illegal immigration, according to the Border Patrol. While thousands have been killed in Mexico’s drug wars, raising anxiety that the violence will spread to the United States, F.B.I. statistics show that Arizona is relatively safe.” Ahh, Statistics again. Do we believe them this time? Tell me, should we? Could we?
That [mild-mannered rancher Robert Krentz]’s death nevertheless churned the emotionally charged immigration debate points to a fundamental truth: perception often trumps reality, sometimes affecting laws and society in the process.
… what social psychologists call self-serving perception bias seemed to be at play. Both sides in the immigration debate accept information that confirms their biases, she said, and discard, ignore or rationalize information that does not.
Go figure – IMO, that’s the dominant paradigm of news these days. Give people a wide choice of outlets and they will filter out what doesn’t support their beliefs and post what does on Facebook.
I have a hard time believing that we can both effectively close the long border with Mexico to stop the heavily armed drug wars from “spilling” into America while allowing employers to save money employing non-citizens (at the same time while being the largest market for illegal drugs).
To my mind, if someone is good enough to work here, they are good enough to live here and participate in society.
But shutting down illegal employers would probably anger some large campaign contributors, while granting citizenship to los illegals is at least grossly unfair to those who have applied through the system, if not tantamount to opening the borders to all comers.
Hence we find ourselves with a large nether population ripe for exploitation and heavily armed banditos running rampant on the other side of the Rio Grande. And another issue that the MSM can use to divide us down the middle.
