Reynolds’ Rap

The Des Moines Register reports: “Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says she is ready to use ‘every tool at our disposal,’ including deploying the state’s National Guard and law enforcement, to carry out President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations of illegal immigrants, according to a joint statement by Republican governors.”

Reynolds and 25 other Republican governors vowed to stand behind President-elect Trump’s plans to seal the border to illegal immigrants. “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out,” said Trump at the close of his campaign, making no distinction between being undocumented and a criminal.

If Trump, Reynolds, 25 other governors, and 48% of the country, want to make the argument that immigration has to be legal and therefore illegal immigrants must be deported, then, ok. They’d still be taking a position that is not founded in reality, but at least it is a logical argument.

In reality, undocumented workers provide labor that American businesses profit from and in many cases rely on. That doesn’t change the legality of the situation but it does suggest that there are more productive ways other than mass deportation to address illegal immigration.

But that’s not the argument they making. The joint statement from Reynolds and the other red state governors was: “We understand the direct threat these criminal illegal immigrants pose to public safety and our national security, and we will do everything in our power to assist in removing them from our communities.”

Trump’s promise is to remove all illegal immigrants in 4 years (exceptions possibly for “Dreamers”) and the rhetoric to justify this is because they pose risks to our public safety and national security (and bring fetanyl into the US). They are, according to Trump, Reynolds, and the mainstream of Republicans: Dangerous criminals.

They cite incidents in Georgia and Iowa (and elsewhere) of murder committed by undocumented immigrants. They cite increased fetanyl abuse and cartels along the Mexican border confirms for them the idea that immigrants are bringing them over the border.

Logic ends there, however. Cartels invest a lot in drug smuggling and they don’t risk, at-risk, desperate asylum seekers, to protect their margins. 80% of illegal narcotics come to the US on main thoroughfares carried by US citizens. Some even from Canada. China produces 90% of fetanyl and a large percentage flies into the US directly.

Deporting illegal immigrants and closing borders more securely won’t change a behemoth industry of drug abuse from operations in the US.

The evidence conclusively shows that immigration is not linked to higher crime rates and that immigrants are less likely to be criminals and have lower incarceration and conviction rates than native-born Americans. It is illogical to think that illegal immigrants who obviously do not wish to be deported would arouse attention from committing crimes. Trump-Reynolds are playing to stereotypes, fears and prejudices about what some imagine immigrants to be.

The murder rate, or crime rate in general, will not reduce from deportation.

But immigrants hurt the economy, take jobs from citizens and bleed our taxes and welfare, right?

Nope. Data for decades shows immigrant labor contributes to economic growth. They still pay regressive taxes, provide a workforce to industries that otherwise would be short on labor, and they are consumers. A mass deportation event would cost U.S. taxpayers up to a trillion dollars and could even cause the cost of living, including food and housing, to rise.

That doesn’t change the concept that immigration should be legally documented, but it should change the perception of illegal status and of immigrants themselves. To say they pose a risk to good citizens by bringing murder, rape, robbery, crime, drugs and a security breach is not true. Those threats mostly come from US citizens themselves.

Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds is parroting fears and her promise, along with Trump and their party, will produce no positive results where drug abuse and crime are lowered. Not from deportation. None. They will, however, continue to fan racist stereotypes and dangerous white-centric nationalism.