The march of the "refugee" army ants

We're accustomed to hearing illegal aliens, attempting to enter First World nations, described as "refugees" or "victims", or words to that effect.  Their "plight" is blamed on wars, violence, crime, and other such disruptions.  It's a constant drumbeat of propaganda in much of the mainstream media.  For example, the Wall Street Journal claimed last week that criminal gang violence is a major reason behind efforts by South Americans to come to the USA.

[In El Salvador,] Politicians must ask permission of gangs to hold rallies or canvass in many neighborhoods, law-enforcement officials and prosecutors said. In San Salvador, the nation’s capital, gangs control the local distribution of consumer products, experts said, including diapers and Coca-Cola . They extort commuters, call-center employees, and restaurant and store owners. In the rural east, gangs threaten to burn sugar plantations unless farmers pay up.

They have grown so pervasive that “you don’t know where the state ends and the criminal organizations begin,” said Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde, El Salvador’s minister of justice and security, who oversees the national police force.

. . .

The plight of Salvadorans is one explanation for the steady stream of migrants north. Thousands seek to enter the U.S. each year, either by petitioning for asylum or by crossing the border illegally. Researchers found most are propelled by fear of violence. Mexico and U.S. immigration officers apprehended 335,545 Salvadoran migrants from 2014 to the end of 2017, according to government data.

As one caravan of migrants now makes its way north through Mexico, hundreds of Salvadorans this week joined a new one pointed toward the U.S.

There's more at the link.

Naturally, the rationale behind such articles is to persuade us to feel sorry for those finding themselves in that situation, and to feel more understanding towards their efforts to find a better place to live.  You'll notice that the USA's national sovereignty, constitution, laws, etc. are not mentioned anywhere in that report.  They're effectively ignored.

There are three huge problems when it comes to refugees from that background:

1. They bring their own culture with them, and all too often do not assimilate into the culture of their new home.  If their native culture was one where gang crime and violence was endemic, they will bring an acclimatization to such things with them.  Where do you think the two most violent Central American gangs got their start?  It was in Los Angeles, where El Salvadoran and Central American immigrants established MS-13 and Barrio 18.  The gangs then "exported" themselves (by way of deported members) to Central America, where according to the US Department of Justice, "These two gangs have turned the Central American northern triangle into the area with the highest homicide rate in the world."
2. Very often, the "refugees" turn out to be young men of military age, rather than families or a spread of people from all ages, economic backgrounds, and social classes.  In other words, they're economic migrants rather than refugees.  That's been noted in Mexico with 2018's "refugee caravans".  What's more, many of them are members of the same gangs that are plaguing the countries from which they came.  The US Justice Department states bluntly that "Criminal street gangs—mostly comprised of illegal immigrants—are responsible for the majority of violent crimes in the United States and are the primary distributors of most illicit drugs."  Gang members come here to continue their criminal careers, not seek a more law-abiding alternative.
3. Many illegal alien "refugees" - as opposed to lawful immigrants, who tend to work hard - come to First World countries with the active expectation of "freeloading" on welfare and entitlement programs in those nations.  That's true in Germany, and also in America.  Many appear to want their new life handed to them on a plate.
   

   Americans now spend some $57.40 billion a year to cover the costs of more than 10 million mostly low-skilled foreign nationals who have come to the U.S. in the last decade, a study by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine found. Just as many are expected to flood into the U.S. over the next decade.
   
   According to a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data in 2016, "immigrant-headed households use 41 percent more federal welfare benefits than their native-born counterparts," ... Foreign nationals and illegal aliens who sneak into the U.S. use nearly 60% more taxpayer-funded assistance than native-born Americans, the CIS study found.
   
   Harvard economist George Borjas says the cost of foreign nationals sucks money away from Americans.
   
   "Since 1965, we have admitted a lot of low-skilled immigrants, and one way to view that policy is that we were running basically the largest anti-poverty program in the world," he said in 2017.

   
   Note, too, that the figures cited above apply largely to legal immigrants. Illegal aliens aren't eligible (at least in theory) for federal benefits, but they get a lot of them from states instead - yet another drain on taxpayer dollars.

Furthermore, the actual numbers of illegal aliens in the USA appears to have been consistently - and persistently - underestimated.  As far back as 2001, the Orlando Sentinel reported:

New data suggest that the United States has nearly twice the number of undocumented immigrants that officials thought -- possibly 11 million or more, compared with earlier estimates of about 6 million. If so, then roughly one in 25 U.S. residents is an illegal immigrant.

About 40 percent of illegal immigrants live in California, far more than in any other state.

The Census Bureau itself acknowledges that it may have underestimated -- by 100 percent -- the number of people who came to the country illegally in the past decade. Although the exact size of the undercount is unclear, "we've had a major change in immigration, no matter what," said John Long, chief of the Census Bureau's population division. "It's either been a large change in our immigration, or a phenomenal change."

Again, more at the link.

Just last month, a new study by Yale University found that the illegal alien problem has grown far worse since then.

Generally accepted estimates put the population of undocumented immigrants in the United States at approximately 11.3 million. A new study, using mathematical modeling on a range of demographic and immigration operations data, suggests that the actual undocumented immigrant population may be more than 22 million ... After running 1,000,000 simulations of the model, the researchers’ 95% probability range is 16 million to 29 million, with 22.1 million as the mean.

More at the link.

We simply can't afford to take in many more "refugees", whether genuine or spurious - yet the pressure to do so from left-wing and progressive individuals and organizations is unrelenting.

We're facing a human version of the march of the army ants.  They move from place to place, eating everything edible in their path, animal or vegetable, leaving a trail of barrenness in their wake.  The unending stream of Third World refugees seeking a better life in the First World will similarly strip barren the very cornucopia from which they hope to benefit.  The refugees aren't going to stop coming, and the problem will only get worse.  What are we doing to protect ourselves?  And how can we do so without compromising our own humanity?  We can't just ignore those in need.  The Golden Rule most definitely applies to our conduct towards them.  If we can't afford to let them into our country (which we most certainly can't - that's an unavoidable economic reality), then what can we do to help them solve the problems in their own countries, so that they no longer seek to come here?

It's an unanswerable conundrum . . . but it's one that we're going to face every single day, because the "refugees", real and/or spurious, won't stop coming.  Somewhere, somehow, we have to find a workable solution - or be overwhelmed.

Peter