Op-ed: The Border Catastrophe Shouldn’t Overshadow the Question of Legal Immigration Levels

By Mark Krikorian on December 5, 2023

At tomorrow night’s GOP primary debate in Alabama, immigration will undoubtedly come up. The border is still a disaster, as the Biden administration scheme to “legally” admit through ports of entry hundreds of thousands of people with no right to enter the U.S. isn’t cutting into the number jumping the border, which was the White House justification for it.

In fact, the area around Lukeville, Ariz., has become the latest epicenter of the border crisis, as thousands drawn by Biden’s catch-and-release policies are crossing through holes cut in the fence and waiting around for their Border Patrol rides.

(There’s an election angle specifically to remote Lukeville. The border crossing there has been shut down because Customs and Border Protection is all Lucy-in-the-chocolate-factory trying to deal with the illegal tsunami. This matters for Biden’s prospects in the swing state of Arizona because the Lukeville port of entry is the only practical way for voters from Phoenix to get to their condos on Mexico’s Gulf of California — a closed border-crossing means no beach vacation.)

So illegal immigration and the border will obviously be mentioned in the debate. But that won’t necessarily be very illuminating, because all the Republican candidates are opposed to Biden’s border policies and support many of the same policies.

But what about legal immigration? After all, the whole point to enforcement is to make sure that our limits and procedures for legal immigration are honored.

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[Read the rest at National Review]