As Border Challenges Persist, Let's Not Confuse the Real Threats
Exaggerated claims of terrorists arriving clouds the real debate we need to have about immigration policy.
Words matter. Especially when it comes to defining national security threats.
In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its inaugural Homeland Threat Assessment, a comprehensive document that identifies the major security threats facing the United States.
The assessment listed “illegal immigration” as one of seven major threats facing the U.S., placing it alongside cyber attacks by foreign adversaries, foreign and domestic terrorists, and transnational criminal organizations. By listing illegal immigration as a major threat, DHS asserted that illegal immigration has the “potential to harm life, information operations, the environment, and/or property.”
But DHS failed to provide facts to back up this assertion and instead focused on why increased migration flows, like what we see currently at the U.S. southern border, happen. The agency did not make the case that migration actually leads to harm.
The pattern of misrepresenting immigration as a threat was repeated last week by Minority Leader McCarthy when he said, "They’re now finding people from Yemen, Iran, Turkey. People on the terrorist watch list they're catching. And they’re rushing it all at once." Axios later reported that four people have been arrested since October 1, 2020, who were on the terrorist watchlist. In the days since the claim, neither DHS nor other members of Congress that have been briefed by DHS have provided evidence that there is a “rush” of terrorists at the border. Several news outlets have fact-checked the statement as being flawed and misleading. Of course any known or suspected terrorists attempting entry should be taken seriously, but our layered security system is designed to detect and interdict such individuals.
Exaggerated claims of terrorists at the border was a familiar refrain from the Trump White House, which declared an emergency and utilized defense funds to build the wall and justify other hardline anti-immigration actions. As explained in this 2019 DHS fact sheet, the often-cited “10 terrorists a day” attempting entry are overwhelmingly individuals traveling to the U.S. by air, not via a land border, and they are usually prevented from ever boarding the plane. The reality, as explained in DHS’s own fact sheet, is the number of watchlisted individuals that attempt entry via a land border is comparatively small. To put a finer point on it, news that there may have been four individuals encountered that were on the watchlist is not an anomaly created by the Biden administration’s decision to begin receiving asylum claims of unaccompanied minors.
Why does this matter? Calling “illegal immigration” a threat implies an undocumented immigrant poses security concerns on par with North Korea, ISIS, or the Sinaloa Cartel. This kind of false narrative is a distraction and will only get in the way of Congress passing meaningful and necessary immigration reforms this session.
What the DHS assessment and Minority Leader McCarthy are pointing to is more accurately characterized as vulnerabilities in our immigration system. Vulnerabilities certainly should be considered as part of a risk calculation, along with threats and consequences. But let me make clear: Vulnerabilities are not threats. Notably, in the same assessment, DHS acknowledged that migrants themselves pose little danger, stating that “although the majority of migrants do not pose a national security or public safety threat, pathways used by migrants to travel to the United States have been exploited by threat actors.”
National security professionals agree that border security is a critical part of keeping Americans safe. There is also bipartisan agreement that the current set of laws that make up our immigration system are outdated. This failing system creates vulnerabilities that could be exploited by individuals with criminal or terrorist intent. A border wall and more enforcement agents alone cannot resolve this.
If members of Congress are concerned about our national security, then they need to put forward a good-faith effort in negotiating bipartisan immigration reforms that advance our national interests. This legislation must resolve border security vulnerabilities, support vetting and screening of noncitizens entering the United States, expedite the hearing of asylum claims, expand legal pathways for immigration, and ensure we respect the human dignity of vulnerable migrants while upholding the rule of law.
Legislation must also address the tenuous situation of undocumented immigrants, many of whom came to America as children, have immediate family members who are U.S. citizens, and have contributed to the country for years. It should be a national security priority to know who lives within our country. Most undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. are not threats to national security and would welcome the opportunity to come forward, identify themselves, and make restitution if they were able to do so without fear of deportation.
There will no doubt be differences between the parties on the nature of the reforms necessary. It would be refreshing to hear those policy arguments made in good faith. For too long, the parties have leveraged the challenges of the present immigration system for political gain. Arguments rooted in misinformation, grievance and fear are detrimental to our national security. Lawmakers from both parties must reject polarized, all-or-nothing arguments that demonize both immigrants and their own political opponents.
Our current immigration system creates security vulnerabilities and pull factors for irregular migration. Each year that passes without immigration reforms increases our security risk. Congress needs to act. Bipartisan reforms can be done in a way that upholds the rule of law, is consistent with our national security and economic interests, treats everyone with dignity, and values immigrants’ contributions to the success of our nation.
Elizabeth Neumann served as assistant secretary of counterterrorism and threat prevention at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2018 to 2020. She is a member of the Council on National Security and Immigration (CNSI) and a senior advisor at the National Immigration Forum, where she recently released a series of papers, “Insider Perspectives: National Security and Immigration.”
A long time ago I worked in the federal building in the state capital of a large Republican border state. A judge with chambers there would point out from time to time the large open air hiring space in a parking lot within a brisk walk of both the Federal building and the State Capitol. A variety of local construction and other employers would pull up in pickup trucks and pick their day laborers. The labor pool was, by almost all accounts, heavily if not entirely undocumented.
The fact it went on openly generated a great deal of resentment among certain people, some of whom weren't knee jerk nativists and instead focused on how they felt the 1986 amnesty compromise had been rendered meaningless because of the failure to enforce. The obvious counterpoint, even then, was that economics made even the politicians who spouted loud restrictionist rhetoric drive past it it quietly. There was a building boom at the time and large swathes of the business community (including small businesses and independent contractors, not just the wicked big corporations Cotton and Tucker like to demonize for this) depended on it. The solution of the GOP at the time was complaining about things sporadically and occasionally pandering to nativists but not doing anything practical in areas they controlled.
Many of the people who stood in that parking lot twenty years or so ago have established themselves in the United States, have kids and are taxpaying members of the community. They came here at a time when the message the United States was sending was very confused, and were treated with a wink and nod by authorities even in Red States. They built their lives in reliance on that. Contrary to public belief, it is extraordinarily difficult to acquire a green card or citizenship having come in as an illegal, and the normal path to a green card is far more painful than most imagine. I've been exposed to a couple of immigration matters over the years, and however you think immigration law works its harsher than you believe.
As an instinctually pro-immigration person proud of multiple hyphens in my American status, I don't think I'm alone in both being willing to accept an broad overhaul of our system to get rid of ridiculous anomalies like the lottery (which started out as an 80s program specifically designed for Irish immigrants) and belatedly provide what the 1986 compromise was supposed to -- a robust way to monitor immigration status for employment and border security that will deter both illegal entry and visa overstays better than the ludicrous wall project. Modern tech and biometrics make things possible now that weren't in 1986.
The flipside is that we also need to be fair and decent to those who came over in the last thirty years or so when American business had the welcome mat open. Mitt Romeny's "self-deportation" was ludicrous wish-casting, but at least it didn't have the callous disregard for long term non-criminal taxpayers who have lived here for years if not decades as the modern MAGA demagogues. I know and have known undocumented immigrants who are better Americans than many of those that demonize them, and mass deportation or taking away their ability to work in anything other than a clandestine labor black market outside of a proposed universal e-verify is a non starter for me.
The deal that would defuse this situation has been pretty clear for a long time, and its always been shot down by the nativist wing of the GOP. Modernize a system fundamentally unchanged since the 80s and make it more flexible for justifiable *short term* needs of business and have a broadly merit based system for future legal immigration as several other developed countries do. No border scheme will ever be perfect, but modernized programs to track visa holders and a robust program that allows for employment verification would help more that the idiotic wall. In return, an amnesty and clear path to citizenship for those in the country who can demonstrate being here for a lengthy period. The question of amnesty and refugee requests is a little bit trickier, but we can probably clarify our rules in a way that is humane but clearer and deters purely economic claims once the larger framework is in place.
Unfortunately, all of this would require politicians acting in good faith and an electorate who understands the system. The Republican party has been pandering to actual nativists and bigots and using scare rhetoric and simplistic distortions for years now. The turn towards being the party of Stephen Miller and the power of the Know-Nothing faction in Republican primaries makes it hard to see how we will get any reasonable solution. When I'm in a cynical mood, I suspect the Republican establishment no longer *wants* real immigration reform, as the current broken system allows them to keep a pool of bigots fanatically loyal while providing enough real issues to periodically mobilize other voters with scare stories (and never mind that the root of the problem lies in issues they refuse to fix).
And now, the Conservative perspective...
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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."
That is the founding statement of our country and the words in that statement were carefully chosen by our founders. The country they were founding was to be different than any other country in human history: it would be founded in **timeless principles of the nature of Man** and not some king or plot of land.
Our Founding principles state that **every person on Earth** deserves their Rights, and those Rights are endowed not by some state or some politicians, but rather by their very nature as human beings.
As such, as a nation we recognize that *all people* have Rights, even those living in slave countries like China. That we do not have the military capabilities to free those people is incidental: if we did, we would.
It also means that every person under our dominion is afforded Rights regardless of what some other (morally inferior) government might say about their status as persons.
"America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, 'You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won't become a German or a Turk.' But then he added, 'Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.'" -- Ronald Reagan, 11/7/88
*This* is the proper basis of the immigration discussion in the USA.
As to our specific policies, it is true that we are limited by practicality: we cannot free everybody on the planet **even though we are morally charged with doing so**. We try our best and weigh the Rights of the people within our borders. We have to face up to costs and other practical issues and look at the trade-offs.
But as a nation, immigrants *are* America and always will be: they emphasize our country's most core founding principle and call out the only lasting attribute that makes America exceptional.