A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
The “security crisis” at the United States-Mexico border is a political creation that played a big part in President Donald Trump’s election victory, and continues to energise his base — particularly through the constant coverage Fox News gives the issue and serious crime carried out by illegal immigrants.
Facts don’t
matter here so much as emotion, grievance and political advantage. While the morality and effectiveness of a wall can be debated, the numbers crossing the border argue strongly against there being a crisis now. In the year 2000 more than 1.6 million migrants were apprehended on the US-Mexico border; the last year when more than 1 million were intercepted was 2006; numbers then fell steadily over the next five years to about 330,000, and have hovered below or around 400,000 since then.
Studies also indicate immigrants are more likely to be victims of crime and less likely to commit crime (including violent crime) than native-born US citizens.
Yesterday, in his first television address to the nation from the Oval Office, Trump correctly said leading Democrats have supported a physical barrier in the past (the Secure Fence Act of 2006, a $1.4 billion border security package).
He also said 300 US citizens die each week from heroin, “90 percent of which floods across from our sourthern border”. While nearly all heroin in the US does come from Mexico, the US Drug Enforcement Administration says only “a small percentage” is seized between the legal entry points through which most of it is smuggled.
