An essay on immigration, foreign policy, national interests, and the principles which ought to be applied to them.
When cartels or criminals execute US citizens, or countries are so chronically corrupt or negligent of their citizens that entire armies of citizens attempt illegal entry into the USA with the hopes of humane treatment it is a chronic and severe threat to US national security.
It likely isn't an ideal foreign policy to interfere in the internal affairs of foreign countries but when and where is it appropriate to take preventive actions in defense of the USA?
In the Middle East it appears of little concern to take aggressive lethal actions when the lives of US citizens are critically altered or the threats presented by country's policies threatens critical US interests.
According to our constitution our government is intended to be very limited. The Anti-Federalist, between 1776 and 1787 argued at great length against the ideas being considered for our constitution claiming it would allow the government to become too big, centralized, and become too powerful. Obviously they lost the argument. But they did manage to keep the government reduced to a list of eighteen things our federal government should do, if they must, for the citizens of the states of the United States. These items are specifically listed in Article 1 - The Legislative Branch, Section 8 - Powers of Congress. 
I'm not going to spew my anguish about anti-constitutional elected representatives and their fundamental dysfunction. I would 