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Immigration is an emotional issue for many people. They imagine hordes of nonwhite people illegally entering the country through the southern border. In reality, an estimated 42% of immigrants who are here illegally actually entered the U.S. legally and then overstayed their visas.

The recent influx of unaccompanied minors at the U.S. southern border underscores the point that, first and foremost, a nation must have secure borders. This is an essential requirement that in our high-tech era can be addressed in many ways: fencing, drones, agents.

Reuters reports that, as of last Tuesday, about 9,200 unaccompanied children were in the custody of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services refugee office that manages a government shelter system for the kids the highest number since 2019.

Most are teenagers, but hundreds are under age 12.

About two-thirds of unaccompanied children caught at the border since Oct. 1, 2020, have been from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Reuters reported, noting, Mexican children make up most of the remainder.

The children who have relatives here who are willing to provide homes for them should be allowed to stay. Those who dont should be safely repatriated, which may discourage others from coming. The Biden administration also needs to talk to the Mexican government about turning these minors back at its own border. We cannot take in all of the people who would be happier in our country.

While we fixate on illegal immigration at our southern border, our vast northern border is neglected. Is it because the groups violating our northern border are more acceptable? They may also be nonwhite, but come from different places than south of the border. They could be from literally anywhere, but they may already speak English and assimilate more easily. They are breaking the law, too, but for some reason we simply arent as concerned.

Many would maintain that workers here illegally are a valuable addition, as immigrants have always been in our country. They extol the contribution that they have made and see no reason to penalize them for their attraction to a place where they may have a better life than the one they left. Shouldnt we value their aspirations as we have those of many generations of immigrants before them?

Why are we so focused on illegal immigration at the southern border and not elsewhere? Because these people broke the law and cant be allowed to profit from it? But what about the entities, many large corporations, that employ them? They broke the law, too, but suffer no consequences. Unlike their workers, their motives are purely exploitative.

Perhaps its the law itself that is broken.

The dairy industry of Vermont, for instance, depends upon such workers. Without them, this important state industry would collapse. That state has tried everything to get these necessary employees made legal but has come up against the usual roadblocks.

And many other industries throughout the country employ such workers, people who, as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson pointed out in a column published in the Feb. 21 Sunday LNP | LancasterOnline LNP, follow the rules and stay out of trouble.

They have jobs. They pay taxes. They are an integral part of the economy. They are not taking jobs away from Americans but doing jobs Americans wont do, often in places where sparse population makes their services essential. In fact, were these workers to suddenly vanish from the economy, it would suffer a severe blow.

Because they constitute a group that wishes to fly beneath the radar, we are often unaware of their presence among us and the contributions they make. Their lives have been politicized by those who fear that if they obtain voting rights, they will vote for one party exclusively. Some 11 million people are held hostage to such fears, not to mention people who made no decision to come but were brought here as children and have never known another country.

So we have a large underclass of people who arent part of the system although they have been here for many years. Their behavior is governed by fear of being deported. They are afraid to report crimes. They are unlikely to get vaccinated or to get necessary medical attention. If you have a car accident with someone driving without a valid license and uninsured, what then? Any people not incorporated into our system of laws can present a problem, one that should be rectified for all our sakes. Freed from the fears and stigma of illegality, these millions of people could become more productive citizens, able to participate in a much wider range of activities.

They should not be a political football, permanently consigned to limbo because some fear they will encourage others to come. The terms recently proposed for incorporating them into our society are rigorous. It would be a long process to achieve full citizenship, but we would all benefit from it.

Louise Barnett is professor emerita of American studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Lancaster County resident.

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We need to reform the US immigration system [column] - LNP | LancasterOnline