We frequently receive columns and statements from the politicians who represent the area. More often than not, they are complaining about what the ‘other’ side of the political spectrum is up to. This week, an email from Rep. Terry Stier, R-Belle Plaine, reached the in-box.
Unlike the area’s other state lawmakers, Rep. Stier has done little to keep his constituents informed on what he has done during his first term. But he did send us a statement complaining about the $430,000 Gov. Tim Walz reportedly spent on legal advice preparing to be questioned, perhaps grilled would be more apropos, by the highly-partisan, Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
For a state facing a looming budget crunch, $430,000 is a ridiculous amount of money for the DFL governor to spend on so-called legal advice. The governor ought not need a high-powered team of private-sector lawyers to advise him what to say, or not say, about public policy when the state employs a bevy of barristers whose job it is to help create, enforce and defend state law.
But rather than work on workable solutions, the committee challenged Democratic governors to defend their policies for sanctuary cities. Committee member Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minnesota) accused Walz of signing laws too friendly to undocumented immigrants (i.e.: laws Emmer disagrees with) and accused Walz without offering any proof of turning Minnesota into “a magnet for illegals. You have opened up our communities to dangerous criminals including known terrorists, gang members, murderers, and child predators,” according to published reports.
The hostile atmosphere was more about gotcha questions and political points than getting to the root of Minnesota’s apparent willingness to welcome and provide sanctuary to people, most who want the same kind of better life our grandparents and great-grandparents sought in the 1840s through 1890s when the greatest number of German, Irish and Czech immigrants came to the United States. They came seeking a better life and freedoms they did not enjoy in their homelands.
Entering the United States illegally is, by definition, a crime. But, according to the American Immigration Council (AIC), migrants coming here are overwhelmingly not criminals fleeing other countries as some have suggested. The AIC compared crime data to demographic data from 1980 to 2022, the most recent data available. The data showed as the immigrant share of the population grew, the crime rate declined.
In 1980, immigrants made up 6.2% of the U.S. population, and the total crime rate was 5,900 crimes per 100,000 people. By 2022, the share of immigrants had more than doubled, to 13.9%, while the total crime rate had dropped by 60.4%, to 2,335 crimes per 100,000 people. Specifically, the violent crime rate fell by 34.5% and the property crime rate fell by 63.3%.
Do we need to keep our borders secure? Of course. But many of the bad things coming into our country arrive through ports of entry. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents must continue to fight the arrival of illegal products and illicit drugs, like fentanyl.
Rather than focus solely on undocumented aliens entering the country illegally, wouldn’t it make sense to find ways to make citizenship for law-abiding people easier to attain? Attaining citizenship is a long and oftentimes difficult process that can take years to complete, according to Citizen Path, an organization helping educate people on the steps to citizenship. No, this isn’t to say we should accept criminals from other countries and non-residents should be deported for certain crimes, but only after receiving the due process guaranteed by the Constitution.
Even the president is open to the possibility of allowing undocumented farmworkers and hospitality-industry workers remain here. Though the U.S. immigration system remains broken, immigrants are crucial to growing the labor force and supporting economic output, according to the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee in December of 2024. Immigrants have helped expand the labor supply, pay nearly $580 billion a year in taxes, possess a spending power of $1.6 trillion a year, and just last year contributed close to $50 billion each in personal income and consumer spending.
The system needs to be fixed. Worrying about ‘gotcha’ points isn’t helpful.