While cities struggle with influx of migrants, virtue and reality collide

Every now and then I’ll be out walking a dog in a local neighborhood and encounter one of those yard signs listing the maxims of leftist virtue. There’s a good chance you have, too. On a black background, the sign bears at the top in white letters the words “IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE” followed by a list of progressive slogans, each in a different color of the rainbow: “BLACK LIVES MATTER, WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS, NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL, SCIENCE IS REAL, LOVE IS LOVE,” wrapping up with the lofty if not patronizing “KINDNESS IS EVERYTHING.”

The design came to life after a librarian in Madison, Wisconsin made a homemade sign containing all the neat little slogans to place in her yard the day after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. A stylized version was created so it could be mass-produced and sold in order to “spread the message of kindness.” Now owned by a reproductive rights nonprofit in Wisconsin, the design has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in proceeds. Slate Magazine described its popularity as “a sort of barometer for emotions among the resistance left.”

I see them more as a signaling of something I call “surface virtue,” a form of posturing over the difficult issues of our time in a manner that leaves no room for critical thinking or deeper discussion on their complexities. Nope – challenge those oversimplified platitudes and you’re a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, a climate denier, and a bigot. (But remember, kindness is everything.) It’s as if the sign that means to signify openness and acceptance is in fact a paragon of the divisiveness and dismissiveness that plagues our political rhetoric.

It boasts a bit of irony, at that – particularly in the surface-virtue buzzphrase “NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL,” a simplistic nod to the belief that a nation’s borders should be open and unrestricted and that the United States in particular should welcome with open arms anyone who comes into the country with or without authorization. The very sign that seems to disregard the purpose of a border simultaneously establishes one. The words “In this house” define an area within which the beliefs printed on the sign are embraced, and within which its legal inhabitants have the right to determine the culture and values of the household.

Presumably, the house that bears the sign has locks on its doors, and maybe fences around its yard. And there’s a decent chance that it even has doorbell cameras recording every entry and exit while surveilling the driveway and the street out front. Why? Not so someone can record the delivery guy tripping on the sidewalk and faceplanting into a flower bed. (That’s just an added benefit.) It’s to keep their homes and families safe by aiding in the prevention or prosecution of an intruder.

The United States, like any of the other 162 countries that punish or criminalize unauthorized entry by foreign nationals, is the same way. We’ve drawn borders and made laws based upon the values by which we want to exist as a nation, and we do that because of our nation’s duty to its people to uphold a safe, secure and just way of life. Maybe we should put that on a sign: “In this nation, we believe in: Establishing justice; Ensuring domestic tranquility; Providing for the common defense; Promoting the general welfare; Securing the blessings of liberty.” I’m just riffing off of some other thing I read once.

When our federal government does not carry out its constitutional duty (Oh, that’s where I’ve seen those words before!) to uphold our safe, secure and just way of life, chaos ensues.

And we’re looking at chaos, folks. Our Congress continues to fail to reform and streamline our legal immigration system. President Joe Biden and his administration continue their disgusting ignorance of our vulnerable southern border. Every month, a six-figure number of unauthorized entrants cross the southern land border into the United States, many with nowhere to go and no way to care for themselves. So far this fiscal year, those numbers include over 10,800 unauthorized entrants already convicted of crimes before they’re ever intercepted by the border patrol.

A veritable humanitarian crisis has been in full swing for years now, overwhelming the resources of border states and their counties and municipalities, not to mention jurisdictions further north tasked with accommodating a few of them. The rectitudinous left, meanwhile, shrieks at the mere idea of taking measures to stem the flow of illegal border crossing.

Some will honestly contend that a nation that has enjoyed the levels of prosperity the U.S. has seen should be able to accommodate the over 5,700,000 million unauthorized entrants who have crossed the southern border since Joe Biden took office in January 2021. They’re wrong. Democrat-controlled areas of the country that have touted their own virtue as “sanctuary” cities and states are realizing – the hard way – the strain that is placed on a community by the overwhelming influx of unauthorized migrants. Around 35,000 have been bussed in from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott under his controversial Operation Lone Star program, also known to some as Operation “Spread the Welcome.” (I actually made that name up, but surely you see my point.)

In New York City, upwards of 60,000 migrants are currently living in the city’s homeless shelters. Costs related to their accommodations are around $5 billion just this year. In May of this year, Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said that 50% of the city’s hotels were filled by migrants. Due to the significant financial strain the migrant crisis has caused the city, Adams has ordered all city agencies to make plans for a 15% reduction in their budgets by next spring.

In western New York, executives from Erie County asked for and received a halt on new migrants sent their way after two separate incidents of sexual assault, one in which a migrant from Venezuela raped his partner in front of their child, the other in which a migrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo abused a shelter worker. Shortly after the second incident, the National Guard was brought in to “act as a stabilizing presence” at the hotels.

Massachusetts, meanwhile, is the only state in the country with a “right-to-shelter” law that mandates access to shelter for all homeless families. Last month, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency over their migrant crisis, which is costing the state about $45 million per month to expand shelter space to accommodate a “surge of new arrivals” to the tune of about 10-30 new families each day. Healey went as far as to publicly ask Massachusetts residents to house migrants in their private homes.

Thus, our need to feel virtuous and noble and welcoming comes face-to-face with the stark realities presented by this crisis. It’s easy to speak up about being a welcoming community when the crisis is hundreds of miles away. It’s another thing to step up when the need is potentially significant and the risk suddenly doesn’t seem as negligible.

Over 20 years ago, while a good friend of mine was still in high school, her family decided to provide foster care to a little boy who was a special-needs student of her mother’s. Not wanting to separate the little boy from his older brother, the family brought both boys into their home. Their year-long foster experience was an act of love and care. But due to both boys’ intellectual, emotional, and hygienic deficiencies, their stay caused notable strain on the family. After a weekend spent with their biological parent as a trial run for their return to the parent’s custody, both boys were returned to their foster home having brought with them the fleas crawling on their skin and clothing.

Compassion gets a bit tricky when exercising it becomes consuming. So, if securing the southern border to shut down the market for illegal crossings facilitated by notorious criminals is just flat-out beneath your dignity, what, then, are you prepared to do to provide a welcome that doesn’t also disrupt the peace and safety of our communities? Would you be unconcerned by any potential risk to your safety and property, given that fewer than 0.5% of unauthorized entrants have documented criminal histories? Or would it bother you wondering if any of the migrants living in the vacated school building around the corner had any of the 5,126 documented convictions for anything from DUI to sexual violence to homicide?

What would you do if you had to choose between being pragmatic and being compassionate? I doubt you’ll find the answer in a splendid little platitude.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com