WAPO: Oh, Noes! President Trump Has Slashed Illegal Immigration By Being Super-Scary!

By William Teach

Wouldn’t you think that reducing the flow of people entering the United States unlawfully would be a good thing? Not in the world of the Washington Post Editorial Board.

BY NOW it is clear that no big new stretch of physical wall will rise anytime soon along the Southwest border. Owing to President Trump, however, a towering wall of hostility directed at Mexico is already surely in place. And its effects, while impermanent, are nonetheless real.

Those effects are already imposing stiff costs on the United States in prestige, goodwill and moral authority, as well as more tangible expenses: International travel associations, as well as U.S. hotel executives, warn that rising nationalism, stoked by Mr. Trump, is likely to constrain the flow of tourists into the United States this year. Given that travel and tourism contribute more than 8 percent of America’s gross domestic product, amounting to some $1.5 trillion annually, the unintended business losses could be stiff.

So, refusing to allow unfettered unlawful immigration is earning the U.S. negative prestige, goodwill, and we’re losing moral authority? From doing exactly the same thing as pretty much every country in the world? And is supposedly going to maybe might possibly cause a reduction in tourism? Of course, there are two issues at play.

First, the WPEB is guilty like all the rest of the media in conflating legal with illegal immigration. Their constant fear-mongering has probably done more to help Trump slow the flow than anything Trump and his team have done.

Second, the WPEB is mixing the illegals issue with other things, per the link they offer, to proclaim that tourism might possibly we’ll see drop, in order to make their fear-mongering article complete. At the end of the day, though, we have laws that say that people who enter the country improperly/overstay their visas are unlawfully present, and, at a minimum, should be deported.

The WPEB goes on to mention the precipitous drop in illegal border drops, coming to the conclusion:

The likely main cause of that precipitous drop is the rhetoric Mr. Trump has aimed at undocumented immigrants, reinforced by media coverage of actual and threatened deportation sweeps, and expectations that the administration will assemble the bigger and more aggressive deportation force that the president promised in his campaign. For Central Americans who would enter the United States illegally, the perceived heightened risk of detention and removal has shifted their cost-benefit calculus — especially given that smugglers demand rates as high as $10,000.

The Washington Post has been as helpful to Trump as all the others. It’s nice to see that the WPEB recognizes this. It won’t stop the media from doing this, thankfully.

Stanching the flow of illegal immigration at the border is a good thing, as long as it lasts, notwithstanding the irony that it undercuts Mr. Trump’s own argument for a big wall. There is little dispute that the United States, like any country, is entitled to control its borders and demand that those who enter do so legally. How to treat unauthorized immigrants who have lived here for years, and now form part of the United States’ fabric, is a different question.

Um, didn’t they just get done telling us that it was bad for the nation’s prestige, goodwill, and moral authority? At the end, if we deport the heck out of those “unauthorized immigrants”, it’ll help reduce the future flow. So, it is not a separate question.

Mr. Trump’s success in jawboning down the flow of illegal border crossings relies on the fear he has inspired, which is likely to dissipate unless his words are backed up by sustained action, including expanded capacity in detention centers and immigration courts. The danger is that the collateral damage stemming from that fear — in ill will from the United States’ neighbors and the wider world, in addition to divided, distrustful communities at home — may outlast the temporary benefits derived from Mr. Trump’s bombast.

Why would we earn ill will from countries, such as Mexico, that themselves have tough law regarding illegal immigration? The only real ill-will involved is by the leftist supporters of illegal aliens in places like the Washington Post, because, if you legalize them, you create a new voter base for the Democrats. To heck with the notion that this hurts Democratic Party voters who are citizens now.

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