How politicians ignore the real problems to perpetually mine votes

by Joe Bell, ‘25

I grew up in Harlingen, Texas, one of many border towns in the region of Texas known as the Rio Grande Valley. The bellowing gunshots and rampant criminals crawling the streets are a consistent reminder that a national crisis sits in your backyard–just kidding.

Inflammatory media has blown the border issue out of proportion with preposterous reports of people fearing for their lives. Contrary to what the media feeds you, on a hot Sunday afternoon I can drive to the border, walk across to Mexico, and enjoy some authentic Mexican food in the town of Nuevo Progreso before walking back unharmed.

The border is a multifaceted issue that has been thoroughly simplified. Beyond illegal immigration, the problems include a lack of infrastructure such as a robust processing system and detention facilities. Politicians and the media focus on illegal immigration, but sending more border patrol agents or building a wall will never stop the influx of illegal immigrants into the U.S.

With large immigration spikes such as that of 2019, the infrastructure currently used to detain illegal immigrants is inept. This led to the sprouting of “tent cities” that are used as temporary holding and processing facilities for immigrants.

One such encampment was placed right next to my grandparents’ house. I was surprised by the massive scale of these facilities and the countless buses that flowed in and out of the facility.

The logistics of this 45-acre site are complex. Even so, the camp cannot maintain the number of immigrants entering the U.S. daily.

For example, the facility struggles to cope with the amount of laundry. Since some people stay for a couple nights, laundry must be done. Dirty clothes are sent to external laundromats. Personal acquaintances who owned a contracted laundromat shared how the amount of laundry received was overwhelming.

The laundromat dilemma epitomizes the wider issues that lead to either expansion of an existing facility or the creation of a new makeshift facility. Erecting another tent is viable for the present problems, but the comfort that lies with this addition is merely a stopgap solution.

The facilities are built and serviced by outside contractors. The father of my high school friend was employed to construct the depot. He spoke of the difficulty and extensive work required to sufficiently complete the job. Creating the infrastructure needed to support immigration waves would fix the problem, yet this solution has been overlooked by policymakers.

Instead, the border problem has become a tool for politicians to gain a competitive advantage over their adversaries. Issues such as illegal immigration and eradicating the cartel’s influence are placed on politicians chopping blocks, yet these coined “crises” rest uncut at the end of the day, exacerbating the frustration of informed voters.

Presidents Obama and Trump both controlled the U.S. House and Senate during their tenures, and they both preached that they would fix the “border crisis.” Obama opted to send more border patrol agents while Trump insisted on building a wall. These attempts were both noticeably meager and ineffective.

The main driving force of their actions seemed to not be their conviction that the US-Mexico border needs fixing. Rather, their ploy roused more voters to support their campaign, gaining political collateral that helped them win the presidency. Why did they choose not to hammer down on the so-called crisis and put the nail in the coffin once and for all?

The border controversy is convenient for politicians. Candidates gain support because the border dispute elicits strong emotions amongst voters. Thus, when election cycles come around, a strong statement about fixing the border can rally voters to your side's ticket.

Now, statements such as those by President Bush in May of 2006 advocating “fair and effective immigration laws” are all but empty words.

The fix for the current infrastructure issue would be a government capital injection, ideally targeted  toward a processing system that is thorough but expedites the time it takes for immigrants to be processed. Also, expanding brick and mortar detainment centers would eradicate the need for temporary housing.

This fix requires tax-payer dollars. The tax-payer dollars already in use have gone to waste by putting up temporary sites. If the government instead concentrated our money on a rebuild, once completed, the tax money that currently flows towards a government convenience would be refocused to pressing new issues.

But political ploys always rest on real voter grievances. Thus, voter misconceptions about immigrants lie at the base of the problem. Defeating politicians' “promoted ignorance” requires voters to face a paradigm shift in perception to understand the intricacies of immigration.

In his introduction to “Americas: an Anthology,” author Mike Rosenburg states, “Our hemisphere would be well served by a greater degree of knowledge and understanding among its people.” Understanding the role that migrants and illegal immigrants play in our society is important when deciding how to deal with the border issue.

Migrant workers enter the U.S. yearly to work on farms and make a living before returning home. They are important contributors to our agricultural system yet go largely unrecognized by the general public. Many people in the Rio Grande Valley work on green cards and commute across the border daily.

The quality of work produced by immigrants both legal and illegal is high. Comparatively, the government-funded welfare program has led to an increasingly dependent society that enters the welfare trap.

When you drive around the Rio Grande Valley during the day you will see four to five cars parked outside residences and you wonder why – the welfare system has promoted a lazy lifestyle that many low-income families find more enticing than work. This leads to the welfare trap that many households face difficulties escaping.  

Illegal immigrants to the U.S. frequently work jobs that no one else will choose. Unfortunately, these immigrants are stereotyped as killer criminals and refused the opportunity to make a name for themselves. They have no right to be in the U.S., but their labor is necessary and beneficial to the national economy. The low-paying jobs they work are influential in the perspective people should take toward them compared with welfare recipients.

Legal immigrants are often quite disgruntled over the ease at which illegal immigrants can enter and work in the U.S. That shift in attitude, added to politicians’ use of illegal immigration as a political football, has caused many former Democratic strongholds along the border to turn toward a more conservative outlook.

The government's inability to handle the border situation brings into question its ability to effectively handle “crisis” level problems. If politicians promote the citizens general welfare, they should put aside their interest in power for the needs of the citizens. The roles of power are seemingly tilting to the citizens serving the politicians.

This non-democratic way of thinking is realized due to wedge issues such as the border. Instead, our representatives need to be focused on building necessary infrastructure to support the waves of immigrants that flood our borders yearly and on promoting a well educated and informed country.