President Bush last week signed the Secure Fence Act in an attempt to prevent illegal immigration by constructing a 700-mile fence on the border between Mexico and the United States.
State Rep. Mike Lott said the word immigrant refers to someone from another country who enters the United States through a legal process. Immigration offices refer to those who enter the country illegally as “aliens.” The term “illegal alien” represents people from more than 100 countries with Hispanics being the largest group, Lott said.
Over 1 million illegal aliens have entered the United States unnoticed this past year alone, Lott said.
Lott said he is in favor of the Secure Fence Act but believes more border control should be taken for the sake of national security. Several smaller fences have been put up on various parts of the border already. After a fence was constructed on the border with Mexico at San Diego, the city’s crime rate went down significantly, Lott said.
“As we pull our troops from Iraq, we need to put them on the border, armed,” Lott said. “Congress needs to realize that if we can protect the borders of other countries, we should be able to protect the borders of our own country.”
The state of Mississippi holds the highest percent legal and illegal immigrant growth in the country. Since 2003, the state has experienced a 148 percent increase in legal and illegal immigrants, not counting those that came after Hurricane Katrina.
Lott is the volunteer executive director of the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement. He said the purpose of MFIRE is to educate Mississippians on what is happening with immigration in the country and in the state and urge Congress to pass state laws to prevent illegal immigration in Mississippi.
“Anyone who’s not here legally should not be welcome in our state,” Lott said. “Some people say that is racist, but I don’t believe it is.”
MSU Hispanic Student Association adviser Juan Silva said illegal immigrants do not come by choice, but because they are hungry. The vast majority are honest people in search of a future for their families, he said.
Maintaining the security of the United States border is a right Americans have, but building a wall will not lead to a more secure border, Silva said. It may lead to more deaths and increased smuggling and hardship.
“I believe the way to curb illegal immigration is to work with Mexico and other countries and develop a strategy with our agriculture, food businesses, and other businesses,” Silva said. “We also need to find a way to decrease poverty at the border and ensure we have a sound and productive labor market.”
Silva said this will be an ongoing process that will take time but it is the only way to live in harmony and coexist.
President and director of Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance Bill Chandler said the 700 mile fence will be a new form of the Berlin wall, basically meant to keep people out and grounded in anti-Hispanic racism.
“It is pure stupidity to put up a fence and force people to cross the border in more dangerous places,” Chandler said. “There does need to be some form of border control, and a more effective solution would be to change immigration laws so that people can immigrate legally and not wait 10 to 12 years.”
People have to wait so long now to immigrate that it puts hardships on their loved ones who are already in the United States, Chandler said.