Immigration & Border Security

America is a nation of immigrants—and a nation of laws. These truths are not contradictory but complementary. Immigration has strengthened America when it has been orderly, legal, and oriented toward assimilation. The current system fails on all counts, pleasing neither those who want more immigration nor those who want less.

Understanding immigration requires distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration, between humanitarian obligations and national interests, and between what we might wish and what we can realistically achieve.

National Sovereignty

Every nation has the inherent right to control its borders. This is not controversial in international law or practice. No one has an inherent right to enter another country; entry is a privilege that nations grant according to their own criteria.

Self-Determination: A nation's people have the right to decide who joins their political community. Immigration policy shapes the nation's future character, economy, and culture. These decisions belong to citizens through their elected representatives.

Security: Uncontrolled borders allow entry by those who would do harm—criminals, terrorists, hostile actors. Knowing who enters the country is a basic security function.

Rule of Law: When laws are not enforced, respect for law generally erodes. Immigration laws that exist only on paper undermine the legal system's legitimacy.

Asserting sovereignty is not xenophobia. It is the same principle every nation applies. Mexico enforces its southern border. Canada selects immigrants carefully. No nation allows unlimited entry by anyone who wishes to come.

Legal Immigration

Legal immigration has been a source of American strength. Immigrants have founded businesses, won Nobel Prizes, served in the military, and enriched American culture. The question is not whether to have immigration but how to structure it.

Current System: American immigration prioritizes family reunification, with smaller allocations for employment-based immigration and diversity. Wait times can stretch decades. The system is complex, backlogged, and often irrational.

Merit-Based Approach: Some advocate shifting toward merit-based selection, prioritizing skills, education, and economic contribution. Countries like Canada and Australia use point systems that weigh these factors.

Family Reunification: Others emphasize keeping families together, arguing that family ties promote successful integration and that family-based immigration has served America well.

Numbers: How many immigrants should America admit annually? This depends on capacity to absorb newcomers, labor market needs, and public preference. There is no objectively "correct" number—it is a policy choice.

Border Security

Effective border security requires multiple elements:

Physical Barriers: Walls and fencing are not sufficient alone but are useful components of border security, channeling crossings to monitored areas.

Technology: Sensors, cameras, drones, and other technology can detect crossings across wide areas.

Personnel: Border Patrol agents are essential for interdiction and processing. Adequate staffing enables effective enforcement.

Interior Enforcement: Border security extends beyond the border itself. Workplace enforcement, visa overstay tracking, and cooperation with local law enforcement all contribute.

Consequences: Those who cross illegally must face meaningful consequences, or the law provides no deterrent. This includes detention, expedited removal, and bars on future legal entry.

Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration undermines legal immigration, strains public resources, and creates a population living in legal limbo.

Scale: Estimates suggest over 10 million people live in the United States illegally. Hundreds of thousands more enter annually, some crossing borders, others overstaying visas.

Effects: Illegal immigration affects wages in some sectors, burdens schools and hospitals, and creates communities where people fear contact with authorities. It also includes people who have built lives here over decades.

Humanitarian Concerns: The journey to cross illegally is dangerous. Smugglers exploit migrants. Women and children are particularly vulnerable. Effective enforcement reduces these harms by deterring the journey.

Existing Population: What to do about those already here illegally is genuinely difficult. Mass deportation of millions is impractical; amnesty without enforcement invites more illegal immigration. Any solution must include effective future enforcement.

Reform Principles

Enforcement First: Any reform must demonstrate that enforcement actually works before adjusting legal immigration or addressing those here illegally. Past amnesties without enforcement produced more illegal immigration.

Orderly Process: Those who wish to immigrate should apply through legal channels. The system should be efficient enough that legal immigration is a realistic option.

National Interest: Immigration policy should serve American interests—economic, security, and social. Immigrants should be selected based on what they contribute.

Assimilation: Successful immigration requires assimilation into American civic culture. Immigrants should learn English, understand American institutions, and embrace American identity while maintaining their heritage.

Compassion and Firmness: We can treat individuals humanely while firmly enforcing laws. These are not contradictory. Consistent enforcement is ultimately more humane than policies that encourage dangerous journeys.

The Bottom Line

Immigration policy involves genuine trade-offs and legitimate disagreements. But certain principles should command broad agreement: nations have the right to control their borders; legal immigration should be orderly and serve national interests; laws should be enforced; and enforcement should be humane.

The current system fails these principles. Reform is needed—but reform that actually works, not symbolic gestures that leave the fundamental problems unaddressed.

At America's Overwatch, we believe citizens deserve honest information about immigration—its benefits and costs, what policies have worked and failed, and what realistic options exist. Only informed citizens can evaluate the competing claims and demand policies that actually serve the national interest.