When Title 42 first became implemented, it seemed like a good plan that was working. However, I talked to my friends on the job and they were more disparaging of it. Unlike with 8 USC 1325, where an alien can get jail time for coming into the U.S. illegally, Title 42 was just shuttling them back across the border. The aliens would almost immediately try again.
Cesare Beccaria, the Italian renaissance philosopher, said that for punishment to work it needed to be swift and certain, but not necessarily overly harsh. The same principles can be used in child rearing or dog training. With Title 42, the punishment was negligible, if at all. Imagine if you get pulled over for speeding and the punishment is to go back home and try again, this time without being caught.
Likewise, the Border Patrol Agents, when they weren’t on diaper duty, found that they were arresting the same aliens over and over again till the alien made it past them. The punishment was both negligible and uncertain.
As anyone can see, the aliens have been flooding across the border even with Title 42 in place. However, the numbers do seem to be going up. Why would that be if Title 42 was relatively ineffective?
I ran across this article in American Thinker titled Is Mexico’s AMLO behind the million migrant surge into the U.S.?, by Monica Showalter, May 5, 2023.
It hypothesizes that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been holding illegal aliens back in southern Mexico and he’s about to “punish” Biden by unleashing a million illegal aliens into the United States. Supposedly, the teeming streets of El Paso are a dry run. The Cartels might control the border regions, but Mexico does still control the lower half of the country. AMLO feels betrayed by Joe Biden. Keep in mind, Mexico is getting overrun by these migrants too, and they aren’t happy about it. Although the Cartels might be because that’s where their profits are.
It reminds me of a story from way back. After the Colombian Cartels found Florida increasingly difficult to smuggle their drugs through, they decided to take their loads up through Mexico. The Colombians thought they could have their way with the Mexicans. To their surprise, they ran into something called Mexican Nationalism. It turned out the Mexican Cartels were fiercely proud of being Mexican and were willing to go to war over it. The Colombians found themselves paying out increasingly large amounts to the Mexican Cartels.
Who would have thought that Mexicans could be so proud of a nearly failed state? I suppose the Colombians made the mistake of being proud of their own country and failing to recognize that, actually, most people are proud of their nations and pretty patriotic.
The ending of Title 42 will make things worse, but it will be worse in large part because Mexico is allowing it to happen.
