Roman Catholic Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of latin america, immigration
Monday, July 24, 2006
Latin American cardinal on immigration- “It’s the economy, stupid”
Roman Catholic Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of latin america, immigration
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4 comments:
I do not often find myself agreeing with the Roman Catholic Church on matters of economics and politics, but in this case, the Cardinal is very much on point. As argued in a July 13 post on the Going Global blog entitled "Will We Lead or Will We Hide", a policy which focuses only on enforcement is doomed to be a short-lived solution. The U.S. should exercise some leadership on this issue and instead of seeking to wall off our strategic neighbor to the south, we should be working with the government of Mexico to address the economic development challenges that underlie the immigration imbalance between the two countries.
Point taken, Craig, but critics to your plan would point out that building a wall along the border and additional enforcement would help U.S. national security. How would you respond to that?
First off, I am not arguing that there be no border security, but rather that a reasonable border security policy be one part of an overall policy that addresses the root cause instead of merely the symptoms of the problem. It seems to me from reading their various websites that the proponents of a wall see sealing off the problem as the principle focus of any policy (actually a comment was posted to the Going Global article referred to in my earlier comment by one of the proponents of a privately funded wall which I think pretty well illustrates the mindset). I am all for a solution to the problem, but I think it needs to be sustainable.
Second, I would point out the obvious fact which undermines I think the sincerity of the national security argument made by wall proponents -- the 9/11 terrorists all entered into the U.S. via Canada, and yet I don't hear a hue and cry for a wall along the Canadian border. The fact is its not so much about national security as it is about economic disparity and a wall will not do anything to solve that problem.
I understand that your overall argument is not against border security and I'm glad you were able to clarify that. Certainly whatever strategy is formulated must go beyond the short-term or else we will end in a worse quagmire than that after the '86 amnesty.
While I do agree with you that the U.S.-Canada border has been, for the most part, ignored the counter-argument to such a view would be that the Harper government has taken a stronger stance on border enforcement and immigration control than the Chretien administration. In the end, the reality is that the U.S.-Mexico border will be the primary focus of immigration policy.
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