Drugs, Immigration and "Papers, Please"

There are two distinct problems –somewhat related but hardly synonymous– that accrue from our inability to control the flow of goods and services across our border with Mexico. The free market demand placed by Americans for drugs and cheaper labor frustrates even our most effective efforts to limit access into the USA. (This is not to claim that our efforts thus far are as effective as they may be; it is just that even the very best programs will never enjoy very high rates of success, ultimately.) It is the folly born of one’s refusal to recognize the raw power of the market that marks socialists, communists and ultra-nationalist xenophobes as ineffectual dreamers who would presume to bend human behavior to transform it into something more to their liking.

Those who are drawn across the border in search of a better standard of living for their families are NOT the same as the remorseless murderers who glibly administer mayhem and terror in their efforts to secure a greater market share of the U.S. recreational drug market. As we search for solutions to both of these problems, it is dishonest and immoral to conflate them. It is not yet known who killed rancher Robert Krentz in SW Arizona but it is absurd to think that he was most likely murdered by a band of wanna-be day laborers.

See Daily Kos article: “Catalyst for Hateful Arizona Law Had Little to do with Immigration Issue”