Some Immigration News For Your New Year

• This should end well: "More than 302,000 illegal migrants crossed into the US in December setting the record for most entries in HISTORY as Biden grapples with the fallout of his administration's policies"--Daily Mail. Reminds me of a StoneToss cartoon: "Labor Farce". From the article "Immigration: How ancient Rome dealt with barbarians at the gate":

    The Romans ignored all their usual protocols for admitting new tribes into the empire.

    For some reason, the newly arrived Thervingi were not forced to hand over their weapons, nor was the tribe broken up into smaller units to be dispersed to different regions. This may have been because the Romans allowed too many Thervingi to cross, leaving Roman military forces vastly outnumbered.

    The other Gothic tribe massed at the Danube, the Greuthungi, were in a different position. Valens had rejected their envoys’ request for admission to the empire.

    They were as desperate to cross into Roman territory as the Thervingi. Seeing that the Romans were overwhelmed, the Greuthungi crossed the Danube on their own, further to the east.

    As conditions among the Thervingi continued to deteriorate, Lupicinus made a desperate play to keep them in line: He invited their leaders, Alavivus and Fritigern, to a dinner party and promptly took them hostage.

    When the Thervingi began to riot in response, Fritigern was able to convince Lupicinus to let him go to calm the situation down.

    But having gained his freedom, Fritigern reneged on his promise to Lupicinus and mobilized the Thervingi, who then allied themselves with the Greuthungi.

    The result was a unified and massive Gothic army that was now loose and armed in Roman territory.

* * *

    Thus began six years of war that would devastate the region and leave countless dead, including the Emperor Valens, who died fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in 378.

    The eventual peace brokered with the Goths in 382 by Theodosius I allowed them to settle in Roman territory as a self-governed federation between the Danube and Balkan mountains.

    But as an independent state within Roman territory, the Goths never integrated into Roman society and remained a source of political instability.

The thrust of the article is to "prove" that managing immigration is more practical than stopping it, such as with a border wall. But the article offers no evidence of it's thesis; certainly, the Romans hadn't used a border (or no-mans land) to try and stop the Goths. The real lesson is to not let in the barbarians in the first place. And the statement by the author that "[t]his flow didn’t lead to the collapse of the empire by marauding Germans. Rather, the flow of migration transformed the Roman Empire into what became medieval society," seems of cold comfort when one considers the conditions in the Dark Ages, or even the Medieval Period, versus those under the Empire. It's like pointing to the movie "Idiocracy" and concluding "but at least the U.S. didn't collapse". 

• Thinking outside the box: "NYC-bound migrants are being dropped off at New Jersey train stations to bypass Mayor Eric Adams' executive order limiting bus arrivals from Texas"--Daily Mail. I saw a comment recently from someone (don't remember who or where) pointing out that Gov. Abbott of Texas is sending these illegals to places where they can get some form of government I.D. and allowed to vote, and this is a problem for the next presidential election. I don't believe this necessarily follows, however, because he is shipping the illegals to states that would go for the Democrat candidate anyway. That is, it won't have any impact on the outcome of the Electoral College vote which is all that matters anyway. And it might keep them from (illegally) voting in Texas.
• As California goes, so goes the nation: "California becomes first state to offer health insurance to ALL illegal migrants: Taxpayers will be forced to fork out $3.1BN PER YEAR in medical care for an extra 700,000 people"--Daily Mail. Hopefully this will act to draw illegals from red states to the formerly golden state (and now just cheap brass ... oh, someone stole it for the copper ... gold colored plastic state. Made in China, of course).
• Enjoying the cultural enrichment: "New Year's Day travel nightmare: Pro-Palestinian mob targets roads around JFK Airport causing gridlock for miserable passengers leaving NYC"--Daily Mail.