Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to those who celebrate! It is hard to celebrate anything these days with all the Republican fear-mongering. In any case, Saint Patrick’s efforts to convert the Pagan Irish does not rank very highly in the life of this descendant of people who lived in North America since before the United States was a thing.

Republicans cannot help themselves about the border and immigration. After President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, Governor Kim Reynolds released a statement that included, “Three years of Joe Biden has led to an open border…” among other things. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks says in a recent social media advertisement, “The crisis at our southern border poses a serious threat to our national security.” My Republican State Senator Dawn Driscoll gave the border a mention in her most recent newsletter, saying, “Every state is a border state now.” She explained,

Immigration reform remains a critical issue that concerns many across our nation, highlighting the urgent need for effective solutions to address the challenges at our borders. These challenges have led to increased human trafficking, the spread of illegal drugs, and other crimes, affecting communities far beyond those directly on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Driscoll Dispatch by Senator Dawn Driscoll, March 8, 2024.

Scary. Driscoll is not as scary as my State Representative Brad Sherman who was working on legislation titled, “A Resolution affirming the state of Iowa’s support for the state of Texas and condemning the federal government’s immigration policies.” What a waste of time.

To counter Republican claims, the U.S. Congress, in which most responsibility for immigration reform lies, has done little to address it since the Reagan era. They recently negotiated a bipartisan immigration reform bill that was rejected out of hand by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Which is it? Open border, or lack of Republican political will to do something meaningful about it? Biden clearly pushed the Congress to do something about the southern border, and I’d wager he is not done.†

Art Cullen pointed out in his Feb. 12, 2019 column in the Washington Post, “Here in Storm Lake, Iowa, where the population is about 15,000 and unemployment is under 2 percent, Asians and Africans and Latinos are our lifeline. The only threat they pose to us is if they weren’t here.” Rural Iowa needs immigrants, he said.

The point of Republicans like Governor Reynolds is that immigrants are scary, not that we should do anything about the so-called “open border.” The duplicitous, political nature of Republican positioning is enough to make a person’s head spin. I may have to find a glass of green beer today and have some me time. Even so, I doubt that will make them stop.

We need to vote Republicans out of office at every level. Not only to work on real solutions to the immigration problem, but for everything else they do to stir up irrational fear before the November election. In this, I may have discovered why Americans favor an alcoholic drink on Saint Patrick’s Day.