Political Mayhem Thursday: Making sense of the border

Before I launch into this discussion, I want to make something really clear: I don't think that immigration is a major or important issue in the United States. I don't think that immigration at the current levels threatens safety, creates crime, or threatens the economy. In fact, I think that each of the issues I raised this past Tuesday (Guns, national debt, climate change, Russian interference in elections, income disparity, and health care) are far more important than immigration-- each of those issues threaten our country and the well-being of Americans in ways more direct, immediate and important than anything having to do with immigration. 

So, anyways... apprehensions at the southwestern border are way up of late. There can be a lot of causes of that: more people crossing, greater enforcement, and a few big incidents, for example. I'm not sure it means anything, really. If you look at the graph of the Bush era above (from the Times), big spikes are followed by big valleys, perhaps correlation with seasonal changes.

But, in the end, it is not a crisis (except, of course, for the migrants themselves-- and that should matter). There are crises going on that directly impact the well-being of many Americans-- and we need to pay attention to those rather than simply obsessing over this.