What you're not supposed to know

Fortunately, some people and institutions dig around, find, and publish, solid information to measure the full scope of the crisis at U.S. borders now, where thousands of people are pouring in from all over the world, with no end in sight. 

Statistics are hard going to read and think about, but they do exist.  The Center for Immigration Studies deals with them routinely.  Here’s one of their reports, with information you’re not likely to see in the general media, nor hear from your Congressperson: 

Revealing Numbers from DOJ and DHS; Quantifying the scope of the border disaster, and its effects, by Andrew R. Arthur, July 21, 2019.

In his article, Arthur describes how figures in official releases “quantify the scope of the disaster that has been unfolding over the last few months on the border, the reasons for that disaster, and its effects on our immigration system.” He highlights the most important figures, for example:  "Recent initiatives to track family unit [FMU] cases revealed that close to 82 percent of completed cases have resulted in an in absentia order of removal." This means that 82% of the refugee or asylum claims among this group of migrants are bogus.

He quotes from a DHS report:  “The many cases that lack merit occupy a large portion of limited docket time and absorb scarce government resources, exacerbating the immigration-court backlog and diverting attention from other meritorious cases. Indeed, despite DOJ deploying the largest number of immigration judges in history and completing historic numbers of cases, a significant backlog remains. There are more than 900,000 pending cases in immigration courts, at least 436,000 of which include an asylum application [Emphasis added].”

Arthur concludes:

The situation at the Southwest border is bad and getting worse, as the figures in the IFR demonstrate. It is not only an issue for our overburdened immigration courts, and DHS employees and resources, but it also imposes a tragic toll on the migrants themselves, who are subject to abuse and exploitation on the way to the United States (as I noted in my last post).

Notwithstanding these facts, Congress has failed to act to plug the loopholes that are being exploited by smugglers and migrants alike. Instead, it simply holds hearings purporting to examine how the administration has acted "inhumanely" with respect to the flood of migrants with which it must contend, or its members send out sanctimonious tweets exploiting the human tragedy that is occurring on its watch and largely because of its inaction. As a former staffer, I can assure you that legislating is hard. The figures in the IFR demonstrate, however, that it is necessary, now more than ever.   [END]

And what do we hear from Oregon’s Congressional delegation?  Mostly wailing about the poor migrants and no concern for the effects of massive immigration on U.S. citizens.  Check out Oregon delegates’ voting records, tracked by NumbersUSA at: https://www.numbersusa.com/content/my/tools/grades/list/0/CONGRESS/or/A/Grade/Active.  For the current Congress, 6 of the 7 get F-. Senator Merkley and all 5 Representatives are up for reelection in 2020, Senator Wyden in 2022.