Cross-posted at dKos.

“We are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” Barack Obama has frequently said on the campaign trail and in debates. I could not agree more.  However, listening to the debate in Austin the other night through my ex-pat lenses, I found myself mildly frustrated with the discussion of the immigration issue. Solving the legal and security issues is important, but what about the larger issue of why the United States continues to have such a serious illegal immigration problem in the first place?

After 10 years of increases in border patrols, partial walls, higher budgets, and more advanced sensor technology, shouldn’t we have seen some better results? Maybe we would have, if the security measures were actually the answer to the root cause of immigration. But they aren’t.