The Crisis on the
Border
No one who wants to help has authority, and no
one with authority is helping.
By Peggy Noonan of the
Wall Street Journal and published in Real Clear Politics
What is happening at
the southern border is a true and actual crisis. News accounts justly use words
like chaos, collapse and breakdown. They feature images of children—toddlers,
4- and 5-year-olds—being shuffled to warehouse holding centers, sleeping
crowded at night on what look like pallets, covered only in Mylar blankets.
"I never thought we'd have refugee camps in America," said Texas Sen.
John Cornyn, "but that's what it's appearing."
All this gives normal
people a feeling of besiegement and foreboding. Is a nation without borders a
nation? Washington's leaders seem to recognize what's happening as a political
problem, not a real problem. That is, they betray no honest alarm. They just
sort of stand in clusters and say things.
There seem only two
groups that view the situation with appropriate alarm.
One is the children
themselves, dragged through deserts to be deposited here. To them, everything
is a swirl of lights, color and clamor, and shouting and clanking. A reporter
touring a detainment center in Texas noted a blank, lost look among some of the
younger children. Every mother knows what that suggests. Children who cry and
wail anticipate comfort: That's why they're crying, to alert those who care for
them that something is wrong. But little children who are blank, withdrawn, who
don't show or at some point know what they're feeling—those children are in
trouble.
The other group
feeling a proper alarm is normal Americans, who are seeing all this on TV and
who judge they are witnessing a level of lawlessness that has terrible
implications for the country.
This is how I think
normal people are experiencing what is happening:
It's like you live in
a house that's falling apart. The roof needs to be patched and there are
squirrels in the attic, a hornet's nest in the eaves. The basement's wet. The
walkway to the front door is cracked with grass growing through it. The old
boiler is making funny sounds. On top of that it's always on your mind that you
could lose your job tomorrow and must live within strict confines so you can
meet the mortgage and pay the electric bill. You can't keep the place up and
you're equal parts anxious, ashamed and angry. And then one morning you look
outside and see . . . all these people standing on your
property, looking at you, making some mute demand. Little children looking
lost—no one's taking care of them. Older ones settling in the garage, or
working a window to the cellar. You call the cops. At first they don't come.
Then they come and shout through a bull horn and take some of the kids and put
them in a shelter a few blocks away. But more kids keep coming! You call your
alderman and he says there's nothing he can do. Then he says wait, we're going
to pass a bill and get more money to handle the crisis. You ask, "Does
that mean the kids will go home?" He says no, but it may make things feel
more orderly. You call the local TV station and they come do a report on your
stoop and then they're gone, because really, what can they do, and after a few
days it's getting to be an old story.
No one's in charge! No
one is taking responsibility. No one who wants to help has authority, and no
one with authority is helping.
America is the house
that is both falling apart and under new stress. Those living within it, those
most upset by what they're seeing, know America has big problems—unemployment,
low workforce participation, a rickety physical infrastructure, an unsound
culture, poor public education. And of course discord of all sorts—a lot of mad
squirrels running around the attic. They know America can't pay its bills. They
fear we're living on the fumes of greatness. They want us to be strong again.
Watching our border collapse doesn't look like a harbinger of progress.
Here it must be said
that those who live comfortable lives can afford to roll with the historical
punches. But people who are not affluent live closer to the ground, and closer
to the country's deterioration. The rougher America becomes, the more they feel
the abrasion. They're not protected.
And they know no one
wants to be in charge, wants to seize this thing and take responsibility. The
mind-boggling fact is that everyone in charge more or less suggests they're
powerless to do anything. And the children keep coming.
***
The president of
course has rushed to the scene—to go, as always, to fundraisers. This is at the
moment a scandal, but why? Clever people say it's an unforced error. He has to
show he cares! He ought to journey to an overwhelmed border area, stand there
and point to the middle distance as a local official in a hopefully picturesque
hat briefs him. It's almost touching how much the press wants to see this. But
why? Why do they want to see the president enact a degree of alarm he clearly
does not feel?
For a quarter-century
I have been puzzled by the press's emphasis on "optics," their stupid
word—actually it is a consultants' word they've lamely adopted—for how things
look as opposed to how they are. Their criticism comes down to a
complaint they're not being manipulated well enough. It is a strange complaint.
Give the president
points for honesty. He doesn't want to enact an "I care and am aware"
photo-op. He will pay a political price, but it is clearly a price he is
willing to pay. He never has to face a voter again.
The latest border
surge has been going on for at least two years. Children and others are coming
because they believe that under the president's leadership, if they get here
they'll get a pass to stay. (They're probably right.) This was predictable. Two
years ago Texas Gov. Rick Perry wrote the president that the number of
unaccompanied children was spiking sharply. He warned that unless the
government moves, other minors would attempt the journey and find themselves in
"extremely dangerous situations." The generally agreed-upon number of
those who've come so far this year is 50,000. Now government estimates are
rising to at least 90,000 by year's end.
***
Meanwhile some in the
conservative press call the president incapable, unable to handle the
situation. But he is not so stupid he doesn't know this is a crisis. He knows
his poll numbers are going to go even lower next month because of it. He
scrambled Wednesday to hold a news conference to control a little of the
damage, but said nothing new.
There is every sign he
let the crisis on the border build to put heat on Republicans and make them
pass his idea of good immigration reform. It would be
"comprehensive," meaning huge, impenetrable and probably full of
mischief. His base wants it. It would no doubt benefit the Democratic Party in the
long term.
The little children in
great danger, holding hands, staring blankly ahead, are pawns in a larger game.
That game is run by adults. How cold do you have to be to use children in this
way?
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