RE: DOXSEY COLUMN
Editor’s Note: The following letter is in response to a guest column from last week’s issue headlined “Lifting the Lamp by the Golden Door.”
Mr. Doxsey’s article largely appears to attribute the influx of undocumented immigrants on our southern border to climate change - with brief mention of “ideological and corrupt forces in their native land. I would certainly disagree with that and place most of the reason on criminal violence and corruption in their native land, and believe that is self-evident.
The author mentions that while 37 million European immigrants came to North America, he also states a likely 20 million Africans came to this country as part of a forced migration, i.e., slavery. I believe that figure is greatly inflated. For example, Henry Louis Gates jr., a black Harvard scholar, stated in a 2014 article published by the ABHM, America’s Black Holocaust Museum, that between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million Africans were shipped “to the new world,” but only 450,000 arrived in the United States, with the overwhelming majority shipped directly to the Caribbean and SOUTH America. While any number is shameful, 450,000 is a far cry from 20 million.
I agree the partisan divide has largely prevented meaningful progress on immigration policy, but also see border security as a more critical issue that can be addressed separately. We can have strict immigration policy and accept virtually no immigrants for whatever reason. We could also have open immigration where every immigrant is welcome, in any number, from whatever land. Or we could have limitations, vetting, and requirements as we do now. But border security is a separate, though related, issue. Even all but the most ardent Liberals agree that violent criminals, active gang members, and drug smugglers should not be admitted. Regardless of how strict, or open and welcoming, our immigration policy is, unless we have border security - and that is a Federal responsibility - the violent criminals and the fentanyl, will continue to come right in. Perhaps not thru the hallowed Golden Door the author mentions, but they will a half mile down the river.
Dennis Treadwell Former soldier in Vietnam, Federal bureaucrat in Rock Island (IL), Atlanta, Stuttgart, GE, and San Antonio, resides in suburban Pipe Creek