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Nov 24, 2022·edited Nov 24, 2022Author

I'm not philosophizing. It's one of the most bizarre parts of the debate that folks are using encounters as a sign of open borders or something like that, when the large number of encounters is precisely because the government is defending its border. I don't think the public would have any idea how many encounters there were if it weren't constantly being harped on by demagoguing politicians . And that's because, for most Americans, the number of encounters itself has no effect on their day to day lives. And the larger issue isn't border encounters, it's the impact of immigration on American society. You point to low faith in our institutions, including schools, hospitals, social services, etc. There's a lot of truth in that. But we won't solve any of the real problems associated with health, education, etc by fixating on immigration.

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I understand, you are not affected by the millions of immigrants coming to our country and are very pro-immigration. But why must you insinuate, as you do in your article, that being staunchly against the current immigration policy means one is quite possibly an anti-immigrant bigot? Why insult millions of your fellow citizens? Do you personally know any of these bigots, I don't?

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With so many job openings and too few workers to fill them, we need more immigration to help our strong economy!

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I think you're being a little too philosophical here. According to the statistics at USBP, this year there been 2,378,944 encounters of the Southwest border. The strain numbers like these put on our institutions is the rub. The contempt that citizens have is towards our policymakers. The public wants a thoughtful and orderly immigration system based on the public good.

This is not that. Think of our public schools our hospitals our city's social service safety nets, etc, etc. Does the public get no say in these policies? There are so many negative consequences and you philosophize about anti-immigrant sentiment.

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