South African mobs are going door to door to kick out migrants. Socialism drives their xenophobia
South Africa is one of the most xenophobic societies in the world.For the past few weeks, anti-immigrant South Africans have been holding protests, and some have gone door to door, demanding that any illegal immigrants on the premises be deported.When I related these facts to some friends in San Francisco, they looked at each other and asked me: How is that any different from what is happening here?The answer: American border enforcement, unlike South African vigilantism, reinforces the rule of law.The US has immigration laws.It is completely within the power and capability of the federal government to enforce them.One party (the Democrats) has chosen not to enforce them, hoping to reap future political gains if migrants become citizens.The other party (the Republicans) is split, with a business constituency that favors open borders for cheap labor, and a border security faction that wants laws enforced.The border security faction was marginalized for many years, but is now — against all odds — in charge of the country, through the presidency of Donald Trump.
Trump is enforcing laws on the books, often in the face of strident opposition.But note what is not happening: American citizens are not taking the law into their own hands.Even at the height of the Minuteman Project, a volunteer organization founded in 2004 as an “neighborhood watch” for immigration, the most civilians did was station observers at the southern border.South Africa has similar migration problems.For decades, it had a closed northern border.
The closure went both ways: apartheid South Africa was (justifiably) a pariah, and few African states wanted anything to do with it.But after 1994, the exiled opposition came back, and the new government relaxed the border controls.Suddenly, there was an influx of migrants — and no wonder: South Africa was (and remains) sub-Saharan Africa’s richest nation.Yet at the same time, there was a massive crime wave in South Africa, one that has continu...