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Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Opponents of restrictions on immigration routinely stress the humanitarian element of the ongoing crisis. Supporters of restrictions often focus on the financial strains that massive illegal immigration imposes on the country. But a very real problem with illegal immigration is its effect on national security.

In FY 2023, 169 migrants apprehended by CBP were on the US Terrorist Watch List. Who knows how many of the 1.7 million who evaded apprehension are potential terrorists? But when it comes to illegal immigration, there is an even greater threat to US national security on the southern border: the cartels. In June of 2021, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said that the cartels dictate everything, ensuring that nothing moves (families, unaccompanied minors, single young men, women, fentanyl, heroin, cocaine) unless the cartels say so.

In this environment, the cartels have flourished. Their earnings have jumped from 500 million dollars in 2020 to an estimated 13 billion dollars last year. Much of the cartels earnings have come from the deadly opioid, fentanyl, which has killed 109,000 Americans over the last two years.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration has undermined border security. For instance, it has violatedthe Immigration and Nationality Act by releasing millions of dubious asylum seekers into the country before their claims were legally adjudicated. It has frozen all deportationsincluding those of criminal aliens guilty of manslaughter, vandalism, assault, and other offenses.

It has ended the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act of 1944, programs put into place during the Trump administration that limited the overwhelming number of migrants entering the country and temporarily eased the burden on local communities and the outnumbered border patrol. It has violated immigration law by granting mass paroles to large numbers of illegal migrants.

In response to the crisis on the southern border, the House of Representatives has passed HR 2. A companion bill has been introduced by Republicans in the Senate and is still pending. Among other provisions, this legislation would: require the Biden administration to follow current law and detain, not release, illegal migrants; tighten rules to make sure that those seeking asylum are, in fact, genuine refugees; limit the parole authority of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and protect vulnerable children from human traffickers and cartels by keeping families together during removal proceedings and reuniting children with their families back in their home countries.

HR 2 also criminalizes visa overstays, which traditionally account for about half of all illegal immigration, mandates (as required by current law) that asylum seekers have their finger-prints and DNA taken, and requires the resumption of construction on the border wall. In addition, it funds enhanced border protection infrastructure and more border patrol agents. And finally, it mandates E-Verify to insure that employers are not hiring illegal aliens.

Republicans have linked support for funding Ukraine and Israel to the Senate companion of HR 2. Opponents of what critics call the draconian nature of the immigration bill in the Senate have decried this action. But although there is a strong case to be made for US aid to Israel and Ukraine, the idea that securing the southern border is somehow less important than foreign aid is a dangerous illusion.

For most of its history, the United States has, thanks to the fact that our American neighbors have been weak and/or friendly, been able to focus on distant security threats arising from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Accordingly, we have sought to establish alliances and alignments enabling us to dominate the rimlands of Eurasia.

But we have always been vigilant regarding the possibility that our adversaries would exploit weaknesses in the Americas. France attempted to establish an American empire while the United States was involved in civil war. Germany sought support from Mexico during World War I. The Soviet Union sought to undermine US support for NATO by supporting Cuba and revolutionary movements in Latin America. China has established significant footholds in the Western Hemisphere.

Certainly, our ability to deal with crises abroad is undermined by weaknesses at home. Our inability to control our southern border is a major cause of such weaknesses, e.g. crime, drug use, economic dislocation. Regaining control of the southern border should be understood as nothing less than a major national security objective.

Mackubin Owensis a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He previously served as editor ofOrbis: FPRIs Journal of World Affairs (2008-2020).From 2015 until March of 2018, he was Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. From 1987 until 2014, he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

He is also a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, where as an infantry platoon and company commander in 1968-1969, he was wounded twice and awarded the Silver Star medal. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel in 1994.

Owens is the author of the FPRI monographAbraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime(2009) andUS Civil-Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain(Continuum Press, January 2011) and coauthor ofUS Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Rise of an Incidental Superpower(Georgetown University Press, spring 2015). He is also completing a book on the theory and practice of US civil-military relations for Lynne-Rienner. He was co-editor of the textbook,Strategy and Force Planning, for which he also wrote several chapters, including The Political Economy of National Security, Thinking About Strategy, and The Logic of Strategy and Force Planning.

Owenss articles on national security issues and American politics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, International Security, Orbis, Joint Force Quarterly, The Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Examiner, Defence Analysis, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, Comparative Strategy,National Review, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor; The Los Angeles Times,the Jerusalem Post, The Washington Times, andThe New York Post.And, he formerly wrote for the Providence Journal.

Originally posted here:
Immigration and National Security- Dr. Mackubin Owens - GoLocalProv

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