We expected better from the Christian Science Monitor. A July 27 overview of troops at the border asks: “The question now is, will this latest US crackdown be enough?”
Yet the question of “will the crackdown be enough” ignores the evidence raised in the same article: that the crackdown may be wrongheaded.
Speaking to sources from the human rights community, the CSM article reports that “The one thing that can be said of the long US effort to curtail illegal immigration, they say, is that it has made crossing the border more dangerous.”
“As illegal immigrants have channeled into rural areas, one result has been rising numbers of deaths in the desert. Arizona saw a record 473 deaths last year – and human rights groups say that statistic is probably a fraction of the actual number, because many deaths go unreported.”
So instead of posing the question in terms of “crackdown enough?” the evidence in the article suggests other frameworks, such as: “is the latest US crackdown wise?” Is it just? Is it the best use of taxpayer money when addressing the issues of economics, immigration, and human rights?
In addition we would pose the question: is the latest US crackdown legal? As far as we can tell from our documentary explorations, the legal technicalities of Operation Jump Start are a shell game of undocumented military actions.
As readers of this Review well know, missions for Operation Jump Start in Texas are supposed to be pre-approved by the Governor, but the Governor says there are no documentary records to that effect. The Governor says the mission is going according to plan and that he is commander of Texas forces, yet the commander of Texas forces doesn’t have a copy of the plan.
CSM is a production of words, and those words suggest an orientation of mind. In the face of evidence contained in the CSM article, the leading question is poorly posed. Embedded journalism has come home to roost.
Texas Civil Rights Review 