Between Fingernail Scissors and a Chainsaw

Immigration and the need for nuance

An Overgrown Problem

Picture before you a great overgrown shrubbery. The enormous horticultural blob has stretched into the surrounding area, perchance a walkway or a house door. Gnarly thin branches, possibly laden with thorns or poisoned leaves, harass anyone who goes by it. Rotting vines, clearly no longer viable, are visibly distasteful and possibly harming the organism itself. The arboreal creature is still largely healthy, and continues to provide much good for the property. And yet, it clearly needs to be pruned.

You are tasked with fixing the problem. It appears simple enough. Just grab some pruning shears and cut back the longer branches while snapping off those few rotting limbs. However, for some odd reason, the property owners will not give you the correct cutters. Rather, you are given two options: a pair of ordinary fingernail scissors or a high-powered chainsaw. And, by the way, you have to do it right or else.

Such is the nature of the immigration debate in the United States of America.

This is a complex issue. However, to resolve the matter, the left gives us fingernail scissors, while the right gives us a chainsaw. Both supplies are built with false assumptions about the nature of the problem, and, as such, fail to properly treat it.

The Fingernail Scissors

For far too many on the left, those crossing the border illegally are virtually all helpless innocent well-meaning refugees. They have no ill will, they do nothing but contribute positively to our society, and are mere victims of evil American foreign policy and a broken immigration system that expects too much of migrants.

If anything is wrong, it is the idea that they should not be allowed into the country. And any efforts to restrict their entry is clearly racist, being no different than the bigotry of past centuries.

To wit, many a liberal and Democrat have advocated for gutting our border enforcement even before border patrol and immigration enforcement had reached the current disturbing climate (more on that later).

Oftentimes, on this issue, as with the more disturbing aspects of Black Nationalism, Democrats have been willing to ignore or dismiss racism when it comes from nonwhite sources.

This became evident in during the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, when large numbers of Democrats voted for former state lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante.

Bustamante garnered controversy when it was revealed that, during college, he had been a part of a student group called Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, a Chicano pride organization.

MEChA had a history of advocating for the return of the American southwest to Mexico, and, for a time, had the quite troubling motto “Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada,” which translates to “For the race, everything. Outside of the race, nothing.”

While Bustamante lost to Republican challenger and famed actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, his history of ethnocentrism did not stop nearly 2.5 million people in the mostly liberal state from voting for him.

In recent years, many high-profile Democrats have called for the dismantling of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The “Abolish ICE” movement has some in it who simply want to reform the outlet, mainly to reel in its documented excesses (did I mention more on that later?).

Nevertheless, as with right-wingers who speak of wanting to abolish the IRS, many if not most on that bandwagon have presented no alternative entity. Just get rid of it, full stop.

These things reflect a growing problem within the Democrat Party: the failure to recognize the need for any improvements or proper enforcement of immigration law.

In an interview with The New Yorker that was published in March, author, journalist and political expert David Leonhardt talked about the border security problem for Democrats.

“I’ve gone back and read every Democratic Party platform on immigration in the twenty-first century, and you see this pretty radical shift between 2012 and 2020,” Leonhardt explained.

“And by 2020, there’s not a single sentence in the Democratic Party platform on immigration that is about border security. All of the mentions of deportations are essentially negative, and it repeatedly talks about the idea that we should make it easier for people to enter the country. ... It was part of this broader shift to the left of the Democratic Party between roughly 2015 and 2020 to follow the wishes of very progressive, largely affluent members.”

The results of the usage of fingernail scissors became apparent.

During the Biden administration, the United States saw a record number of illegal crossings along the southern border, with statistics from the United States Customs and Border Patrol charting over 2.37 million incidents during fiscal year 2022.

This represented a sharp rise from the approximately 1.73 million unlawful border crossings documented in fiscal year 2021 and did not include those who evaded Border Patrol agents.

This has caused a medley of harms, from environmental damage to strain on local resources to problems for those illegally entering the country, as they oftentimes face exploitation and abuse from the people bringing them into the United States.

It has also resulted in the deaths of several Americans.

This is where things get a little tricky to talk about, since research has shown that immigrants regardless of legal status have a lower violent crime rate than the general American population.

Nevertheless, the examples below show that there are deaths of people living in the United States that were perpetuated by those who entered the country illegally. Thus, these are deaths that, under more strictly enforced immigration law, could have been prevented.

In Texas in 2022, for example, 67 undocumented immigrants were convicted of homicide. To clarify, this number constituted only around 5% of all people convicted of homicide in the Lone Star State. Nevertheless, if a policy could help reduce violent crime by around 5%, wouldn’t such a policy be worth it?

When, back in May, the Trump administration listed several people killed by drunk drivers who were illegally in the United States, the examples they gave were far outnumbered by the tally of Americans killed in drunk driving incidents by legal residents.

Regardless, those are still people who would very likely still be alive were our borders patrolled more effectively, and those who unlawfully entered the country deported more swiftly.

Rachel Morin is an example of someone who would still be alive today had stricter enforcement existed during the previous administration. The Maryland resident and mother of five was murdered in 2023 by a man who had entered the United States illegally, and who would have been kicked out if an enforcement policy under Title 42 had been kept on the books.

Nursing student Laken Riley is another example, as she was murdered in 2024 by an undocumented immigrant who had been allowed to remain in the United States back in 2022.

To simply dismiss concerns about crime as mere bigotry solves nothing, and the failure to properly respond to such outrage helped contribute to the Democrat Party’s humiliating loss in the 2024 election.

The Chainsaw

For far too many on the right, those crossing the border illegally are virtually all violent criminals and gang members. They are invaders who ruin the economy, leech off of already strained social services, ruin our culture, and steal employment from natives and legal immigrants alike.

This distorted mentality was well portrayed by Donald Trump in his very first campaign speech in 2015, in which he spoke with inflammatory rhetoric about his feelings on those coming across the southern border.

“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems,” he declared. “It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.”

“They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Note the horribly inadequate disclaimer at the end. “Some.” Not “most,” not “many,” not “the majority.” Just “some.” As in, a little. A few. And best of all, it comes with an “I assume.” As in, maybe some are good people. Maybe some are not rapists. Remember: immigrants both legal and illegal have lower violent crime rates than the native-born American population. And yet, according to Trump, only “some” are maybe not violent criminals.

The xenophobic rhetoric from Trump and his cohorts has yet to end, as has been documented plenty over the years. When he ran for reelection last year, for example, he and his running mate J.D. Vance parroted claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were abducting and eating pets.

Even after such claims were debunked, the Trump campaign made no apparent concerted effort to distance themselves from the false allegations. They simply did not care if their followers thought that Haitian migrants were savages.

Stephen Miller, an influential figure in both Trump administrations, has a documented history of taking a hardline stance against both illegal immigration and diversification in general.

In 2018, Miller’s own uncle penned a column calling his high-profile nephew an “immigration hypocrite,” noting that his mother’s side likely would have been banned from the United States if policies that Miller championed had been implemented at the time.

With Trump again in power, the fingernail scissors were replaced by a chainsaw. This can be seen with the sharp decline in illegal immigration, with the CBP reporting that June saw a record low in the number of illegal border crossings.

“Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border recorded just over 6,000 apprehensions of migrants who entered the country without authorization, the lowest monthly tally ever reported by the agency,” explained CBS News.

“The numbers stand in stark contrast to the record levels of apprehensions made by Border Patrol under the Biden administration … During many months of former President Joe Biden's tenure, Border Patrol recorded more than 6,000 apprehensions each day. At their peak in late 2023, daily illegal crossings at the southern border topped 10,000 on some days.”

While the stricter enforcement has its upsides, such as the precipitous decline in illegal crossings and the deporting of many violent criminals, it has also seen its share of disturbing cruelty toward the vulnerable.

One sees it with the reckless nature of many ICE raids, in which masked men with guns abduct people without giving proper identification, as though they were cartel traffickers or domestic terrorists. Oftentimes, it is a raid-first, ask questions later approach.

A case study in this overbearing onslaught can be seen with the approximately 240 Venezuelans who were recently rounded up and sent to a prison in El Salvador. According to one investigation, around 50 of them had actually come to the United States legally.

There is a callous mercilessness to the whole agenda, as seen with well-meaning undocumented immigrants who were actually trying to work within the system to become legal residents being among the punished.

One example is Maurilio Ambrocio, a pastor and father of five who was living in Florida. Since entering the country illegally, Ambrocio had reached out to authorities. In return, he had been allowed to remain provided that he was employed, avoided criminal behavior, and met annually with ICE officials, all of which he achieved.

However, that was not good enough for the new administration, which detained him in April and then deported him to Guatemala in July.

There was Josué Aguilar Valle, a 26-year-old Honduran man who had entered the United States illegally with his family when he was a minor. As an adult, he had married an American citizen and was on the verge of becoming a legal citizen, being gainfully employed and without a criminal record.

Again, that was not enough to be safe, as ICE agents detained him in April just as he had secured a legal path to citizenship. Apparently, there was to be no forgiveness, no redemption. Only punishment for a crime he was not even technically responsible for.

In their drive to punish the guilty, even the repentant guilty, the administration has thought little of violating one of the longest standing legal precedents in western civilization: the sanctuary status of churches.

The right of even convicted criminals to be given shelter from law enforcement by requesting sanctuary in a church has existed since the days of the Roman Empire.

And yet, the Trump administration opted to brush that aside, with the Department of Homeland Security announcing earlier this year that they were rescinding a policy enacted in 2011 during the Obama administration that barred immigration law enforcement operations in "sensitive" areas, including churches and schools.

An administration that claims to support religious liberty apparently holds no objection to violating the sanctity of church property, to trample in hallowed ground for the purpose of preying upon the nonviolent.

Yes, not every illegal alien is a saint. Indeed, little evidence exists that churches that do house undocumented individuals seeking sanctuary require any sort of screening, thus possibly allowing vile predators inside their buildings.

Still, thus far, confirmed incidents of agents grabbing people who are on sacred properties or within the walls of churches have seldom if ever involved apprehending a violent criminal.

As they continue to assault a mostly nonviolent portion of the population, the government has shown a willingness to skirt such time-honored American traditions as due process, religious freedom, and freedom from fear. One can only imagine how many other rights will be softened or worse if this is allowed to accelerate.

Are there any pruning shears?

It is not as though there have never been pruning shears, as attempts had been made by various figures to champion measures that would advance both judgment and mercy, enforcement and clemency.

While president, George W. Bush attempted such a middle ground, calling on Congress to pass legislation that would strengthen border security and immigration enforcement while allowing a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants who are willing to adhere to certain standards.

Unfortunately, his efforts failed when brought before Congress, both when the Republicans controlled it and after the Democrats took over. Apparently, neither party wanted Bush’s vision to become a reality.

President Barack Obama likewise attempted centrism, accelerating deportations of illegal immigrants while also creating programs like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allowed those brought illegally across the border as minors to remain in the country under certain conditions. Again, though, his efforts faced stiff resistance by both sides and were quickly undone by later administrations.

As the nation continues to endure a deeply polarized political climate, any hint of compromise on the issue, any concession made with an earnest hope to finally resolve the issue, any attempt to work across partisan lines leads to vilification.

Paranoia is rampant, with rightwing activists seeing only the boogeyman of “amnesty” for those who consider mercy for the undocumented, while leftwing activists see only “white Christian nationalism” for those who are justifiably outraged by crimes that could have been easily prevented.

Meanwhile, those stuck in the middle continue to suffer. Under the fingernail scissors, there is border chaos, preventable crimes, narcotrafficking, and worker exploitation. Under the chainsaw, there are broken families, curbs to civil liberties, glorified kidnappers roaming the streets, and racial profiling.

We as a nation need a solution. We need something that balances rule of law and compassion for the well-meaning guilty, policies that can tell the difference between a gang member and a pastor, measures that restore order along the boundaries of sovereign territory while not suspending self-evident human rights.

We need pruning shears, and we need them now.