Can Individuals have a not-racist dialog about border safety?

by LZ Granderson

I don’t perceive the stripe of Individuals whose first response to Hamas’ latest assault on Israel is “yeah, however ….” Lots of of attendees at a music competition murdered. Kids and aged individuals taken hostage. Civilians shot lifeless within the streets. On the subject of warfare there are not any angels, however there are demons, and what Hamas did final Saturday represents the latter — full cease.

Nevertheless, I do perceive the various Individuals who see what Hamas did and take into consideration the hazard at our southern border — the Individuals who’re genuinely fearful in regards to the drug cartels’ rising affect in border cities and past. I do perceive the a part of America who noticed Saturday’s horror and puzzled how susceptible we’re to infiltration and assault, given the surge of asylum seekers and the U.S.’s insufficient methods for processing them.

I don’t agree with Nikki Haley, the GOP presidential candidate and former ambassador to the U.N., on a lot. Nevertheless, I discovered quite a lot of reality in her feedback final Sunday.

“I’ve been terribly fearful about the truth that Iran has mentioned the simplest approach to get into America is thru the southern border,” she mentioned on “Meet the Press.” “Persons are coming by way of; they’re not being vetted. … Israel is the entrance line of protection for the Iranian regime and terrorists that wish to harm us and wish to harm our buddies, and we should be sincere with the American individuals about that.”

She’s proper. This level is one cause conservatives are capable of get elected by campaigning on immigration and border safety regardless of offensive language. Pragmatism. They’re taking severely the Individuals who’re motivated not by racism or xenophobia however by well-founded fears of a harmful world.

In any case, it wasn’t simply Israel’s intelligence that missed what Hamas was planning. U.S. intelligence apparently missed it as nicely. It’s solely pragmatic to ask what else we could also be overlooking — and the place. We simply don’t have a terrific historical past of having the ability to reply that query with out racism.

Incarcerating Japanese Individuals after Pearl Harbor. Rampant Islamophobia after 9/11, persevering with proper up by way of former President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. Shameful chapters of wrongheaded overreaction. Can we present now that we’ve realized from these errors? The wave of migrants coming to the U.S. will take a look at that.

This summer season we noticed Democrats throughout the nation, significantly Mayor Eric Adams of New York, being important of the Biden administration’s dealing with of asylum seekers. After asserting in August that town had cared for greater than 100,000 since April 2022, Adams mentioned the problem “will destroy New York Metropolis.” Possibly that’s political theater. Nevertheless, I discovered his feedback in regards to the longevity of the disaster to be uncomfortably sincere: “I don’t see an ending to this.” America’s demand for medicine and warfare on medicine maintain “this” thriving.

Final month, the mayor of El Paso, a border city accustomed to receiving 2,000 migrants a day, mentioned town had reached a “breaking level” and couldn’t proceed to pay for shelter house and different companies. Having obtained 8,000 migrants in a two-week interval just lately, San Diego County was equally overwhelmed and declared a humanitarian disaster for asylum seekers late final month.

Determined civilians in Central America and Mexico take nice dangers to flee the drug cartel violence swirling throughout them, very like Iraqis and Syrians who fled Islamic State and different destabilizing teams in recent times — which is why Republicans within the Home and Senate introduced payments this 12 months to designate cartels as terrorist organizations. The backers of the payments have been warfare hawks largely, and among the proposed responses comparable to bombing Mexico are downright reckless. However the chaos of cartel violence, comparable to Hamas-style public kidnappings, appears to be like acquainted as a result of it’s. It’s terrorism.

That’s why Haley’s feedback ring true for lots of people, together with me. Whether or not or not she makes use of her presidential marketing campaign to information a considerate dialog about border safety stays to be seen. However I do know one must occur.

LZ Granderson is an op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Occasions.