I don’t understand the group of Americans whose first reaction to Hamas’s recent attack on Israel is: yes, but. Hundreds of visitors to a music festival murdered. Children and the elderly held hostage. Civilians were shot dead in the streets. When it comes to war, there are no angels, but there are demons, and what Hamas did on Saturday represents the final point.

However, I do understand the many Americans who see what Hamas has done and think about the danger at our southern border, the Americans who are genuinely concerned about the growing influence of the drug cartels in border cities and beyond. I understand the part of America that saw Saturday’s horror and wondered how vulnerable we are to infiltration and attack, given the surge of asylum seekers and the US’s inadequate systems to process them.

I disagree with Nikki Haley,

the GOP presidential candidate and former ambassador to the UN,

on a lot. However, I found a lot of truth in her comments

made

on Sunday.

by the Republican presidential candidate and former ambassador to the UN

“I’m terribly concerned that Iran has said the easiest way to enter America is through the southern border,” she said on Meet the Press.

We have an open border.

“People get through it; they are not vetted. Israel is the front line of defense for the Iranian regime and terrorists who want to hurt us and our friends, and we must be honest with the American people about that.

She is right. This point is one of the reasons conservatives can get elected despite offensive language by campaigning on immigration and border security. Pragmatism. They take seriously the Americans, who are not motivated by racism or xenophobia, but by well-founded fear of a dangerous world.

After all, it wasn’t just Israeli intelligence services that missed what Hamas was up to. coordinate

.

The US intelligence services apparently missed it too. It is only pragmatic to ask what else we are overlooking and where. We just don’t have a good history of answering that question without racism.

Locking up Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. The widespread Islamophobia after September 11, which will last into eternity

former

President Trump’s Muslim ban. Embarrassing chapters full of nonsensical overreactions. Can we now show that we have learned from those mistakes? The wave of migrants coming to the US will test that.

This summer we saw Democrats across the country, most notably New York Mayor Eric Adams, critical of the Biden administration’s treatment of asylum seekers. Following announcements in August that the city has sheltered more than 100,000 people since April 2022, Adams said the issue will destroy New York City. Maybe that’s political theater. However, I found his comments about the long duration of the crisis uncomfortably honest: I don’t see an end to this. America’s demand for drugs and the war on drugs keep it thriving.

Last month, the mayor of El Paso,

Tex.,

A border city used to receiving 2,000 migrants a day said the city had reached a breaking point and could not continue paying for shelter space and other services. After recently receiving 8,000 migrants in a two-week period, San Diego County was also overwhelmed and declared a humanitarian crisis

for asylum seekers

late last month.

Desperate citizens in Central America and Mexico are taking great risks to escape the drug cartel violence swirling all around them, as are Iraqis and Syrians who

to have

escaped

Islamic State ISIS

and other destabilizing groups in recent years. That’s why Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate introduced bills this year to designate cartels as terrorist organizations. The bills’ backers were mostly war hawks, and some of the proposed responses, such as bombing Mexico, are downright reckless. But the chaos of cartel violence, such as Hamas-style public kidnappings, looks familiar, because it is. It’s terrorism.

That’s why Haley’s comments ring true for many people, too

myself.

Whether or not she will use her presidential campaign to guide a thoughtful conversation about border security remains to be seen. But I do know that something has to be done.

@LZGranderson