Recently I was running an errand on the Lummi Reservation when I noticed three vehicles of the US Border Patrol coming toward me. They didn’t have their lights and sirens going, but it was a bit unusual to see three together. Within the next mile, I saw two more. Border Patrol vehicles are white with a green stripe and The logo of the US Customs and Border Protection Agency on the door. They also have the words “Border Patrol” in Green letters along the side and across the back. They have light bars like other law enforcement vehicles. Around here about half of the Border Patrol vehicles are pickup trucks and the rest are SUVs. We see the vehicles quite a bit in our area. In the town of Blaine they have a large fenced area where there are a lot of the vehicles parked and there are always a lot of officers around the border itself. When we take guests to the International Peace Park at he border we usually end up talking with some of the agents on foot patrol in the park.

But Lummi is a about 15 miles by road from the border, and while it is not unusual to see a single Border Patrol vehicle anywhere around here, seeing so many got me to thinking about what might be going on. They were probably on the back roads for the same reason as I was. I had taken the back roads because construction crews are installing a new multi-lane traffic circle at the Interstate exit for the reservation and Lummi Island. I prefer to drive on the back roads to being stuck in slow moving traffic. There are a lot of reasons why Patrol Officers need to know all of the back roads and the best ways to get around the traffic snarls.

I suppose that the vehicles might have been part of a training exercise and navigating the back roads is routine, especially when official duties may require them to know how to get around traffic on the Interstate. Perhaps they had some official business with Reservation officials. I guess there are a lot of possible explanations.

I like living near the border and we have definitely become more comfortable with border crossings since we have lots of reasons to go into Canada, usually on day trips. Our preferred major airport is in Vancouver. We like to go to Point Roberts, which requires a short drive through Canada, for day hikes. There are lots of other reasons to make the trip and to interact with Border Patrol officers.

From time to time we read in the newspaper about major actions by Border Patrol officers. Not long ago they seized a semi loaded with marijuana attempting to cross the border. Marijuana is legal in Washington and in British Columbia, but it is illegal to transport it across the border in either direction. There are routine arrests for drug violations. There have even been a few stories of high speed chases with offenders.

Another reality of living on the border is that we have many friends and neighbors who belong to cross border families. Some such families were formed by someone from Canada falling in love with and marrying someone from the US. Other families have members who live on one side of the border and some on the other side because of jobs. Our neighborhood used to be a place where many Canadians owned vacation property and there are still a lot who come here for recreation. There is also a regional housing shortage that results in people crossing the border to find affordable housing.

So here is my political statement for the last month before the election: Anybody who tells you that immigration is a simple issue is either misinformed or lying. Immigration is a huge issue worldwide and there are no simple solutions. No matter how big or long or strong a wall along a border is, people will travel back and forth. The majority of illegal immigrants in the United States entered legally and their status changed when visas or other official permission expired.

I was reminded of the complexity of immigration this week when I learned from CBC radio of the emergency work that that the Canadian Embassy was doing as a second hurricane bore down on Florida. There are more than 115,000 people of Canadian birth who live in the state of Florida alone. And Florida is as far from the Canadian border as you can get in the US except for Hawaii. It isn’t just our neighborhood where Canadians live. They live all around the country. And Canadians in the US are not the victims of forced relocation. They come here voluntarily. That is a luxury that a lot of people in the world do not have. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees there are currently 117.3 million people in the world who have been forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, or events seriously disturbing public disorder. Some of those refugees are still in the country where they started, being displaced internally. However, there are 43.3 million refugees who have been forced to leave their home country.

Some of those people end up in the United States, most of them entering legally. There are 6.9 million people seeking asylum because of immediate threats to their lives. The number of asylum seekers admitted legally to the US reached a high in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic. In 2021, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, the US admitted 17,692 asylum seekers, a 43% drop from the previous year. Asylum seekers are allowed to remain in the US legally while their case is adjudicated.

Other immigrants are actively recruited to come to the US. For example our nation imports large numbers of physicians and other health care workers to staff our hospitals, nursing homes, and care centers. Our medical schools simply do not supply enough doctors to meet the health care needs of our country. My recent increase in need of specialty health care has demonstrated to me how much I personally am dependent upon doctors, nurses, and technicians who have immigrated to the US.

So if a candidate proclaims that they posses a plan for a simple solution to immigration, don’t believe them. There are no simple solutions. It will take complex thinking and multiple problem solving skills to address issues that will continue to be a part of life for decades to come. That doesn’t make for good sound bytes for campaigns, but the truth is often difficult.