Many police departments around the United States have adopted the motto, “To Serve and Protect,” to describe their primary missions. Police departments are almost always underfunded, suffer severe shortages in staffing and often face overwhelming challenges. The phrase, “Thin Blue Line,” sums up just how tenuous their ability is to overcome myriad challenges and protect the people who are present in their jurisdictions.
It should be a “no brainer” that our nation must do as effective a job as possible to prevent criminals and terrorists from entering the U.S. and embedding themselves in communities here. The 9/11 Commission cited the failures of the immigration system to prevent terrorists (and not only the terrorists who carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001, but others) from entering the U.S. and then hiding in plain sight as they went about their deadly preparations.
It should similarly be understood that effective border security and immigration law enforcement can prevent the entry and continued presence of transnational criminals in towns and cities across the U.S.
Incredibly, where immigration is concerned, the (false) narrative about foreign workers doing the work Americans won’t do and the need to treat illegal aliens with compassion has trumped common sense and facts.
Not unlike the slogans that for decades convinced people to take up smoking, causing so many of them to suffer and ultimately succumb to lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other terrible illnesses, the current campaign being mounted by individuals, corporations and special interest groups deceives the majority of our fellow citizens by promoting the idea that it is unfair to enforce our immigration laws. At their foundation, these laws were enacted to protect the lives and jobs of American workers.