Strengthening the Border with Truth

In the rhetoric against illegal immigration, there are a number of common fallacies. One which amuses me in particular is when conservatives claim, “fentanyl is killing our kids!”

Of course I don’t mean that kids dying by fentanyl amuses me. What amuses me is the flip in agency which occurs when progressives bemoan gun violence, to which conservatives callously quip, “Guns don’t kill people… people kill people!” Somehow, somewhere… when it comes to conservative kiddos striking out on fentanyl, suddenly the instrumentality’s at fault, and the consumer is blameless.

There are numerous legitimate criticisms of illegal immigration as experienced in the USA. In my career I have raised several of them over the years, but the correlation to drug traffic is a fallacy which should be retired at the earliest, if conservatives actually care about philosophical consistency (and the jury’s still out on that verdict!). What follows is the unadorned truth about drugs which conservatives are misunderstanding.

Americans are the world’s most insatiable consumers of drugs of all forms. Methamphetamine, opioids, cocaine and derivatives amongst others, to say nothing of legal drugs like alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and to a lesser extent, cannabis. It is unfortunate, but it is the reality in a country in which people have considerable disposable income relative to world averages, and a culture uniquely geared towards consumerism’s instant gratification. Illegal immigrants may well be bringing drugs into the country now, but if they were not, then rest assured that home-grown Americans would fill that market gap in a heartbeat. In an industry which nets billions in unreported, untaxed sales, there are plenty of entrepreneurial Americans who would sell their countrymen into the perdition of drug addiction for a quick buck. Were there to be a cessation of imported drugs from more effective interdiction at the border, American ingenuity would find ways to produce domestic alternatives on scale.

Illegal immigration – by which I mean limitless and unmonitored – is a problem in the USA. Solving it will take honesty, even if we have to confront some ugly truths. Supply always follows demand, so let’s worry less about what substance may be crossing the border and worry more about our kids furtively huddled behind barns and in housing project staircases, pooling their cash to bring it in.