Day 212: Fight Crime, Not Immigration
Today on Meet the Press, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said that any congressional border security proposal should include Title 42, also called “Remain in Mexico,” because, she said, “[t]he American people are not safe.” Haley said that we’re currently in a “September 10 situation,” proposing that “it only takes one” person sneaking across the border to terrorize Americans like 9/11.
Okay, Haley and I agree on one thing: Terrorism Is Bad.
But when did immigration become equated with crime?
Inventing ‘Crimmigration’
Actually, we know the answer to that. In 1940, Congress was urging FDR to transfer the immigration services from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice to coordinate with the FBI and catch suspected Nazi spies. FDR asked DOJ lawyers to study the possible transfer.
They unequivocally recommended against it. Under the direction of then-Attorney General, later Justice Robert H. Jackson, DOJ concluded:
To transfer the immigration service [to DOJ] might well create in the public mind a confusion between immigration matters and criminal matters. Such a result would be unfortunate. It is hardly desireable, therefore, that the department which administers the criminal law should, at the same time, administer immigration laws.
FDR ignored their recommendation and transferred all immigration services to DOJ in June 1940. After 9/11, investigation, prosecution, and enforcement were transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security. (The immigration courts remained in DOJ.)
Fight Crime, Not Immigration
So Haley’s sleight-of-hand has a long history (immigrants = criminals; fighting crime = cutting off immigration).
It doesn’t take much to spot the logic error there.
By Haley’s logic, anyone who comes to my house might be an intruder. I need to keep my family safe. Therefore, I am entitled to stand on my front porch with a rifle and shoot at anyone who comes up my front walk, for any reason. (And you think the Postal Service has problems now.)
Rather than brutalizing people who come to the border with legitimate claims for asylum or other immigration relief, we could use law enforcement tools — intelligence, investigation, arrest, and prosecution — to deter and punish crime. And push back on the “unfortunate” equating of immigration with crime that goes back at least 84 years.
Obeying the Law
If Congress passes a bill refusing to let people claim asylum at the border outside of designated checkpoints (the current proposal), immigration advocates will be in court in a millisecond, since that policy would violate U.S. commitments under the U.N. Convention and Protocol on the Status of Refugees.
But we shouldn’t need to go that far. We’re capable of distinguishing between people seeking freedom and people threatening harm. It’s in our DNA. We just need to question the sleight-of-hand that equates immigration with crime.