It took a beating of police officers by a group of migrants in New York City’s Times Square to shine a light on Calexico, even if ever so briefly.

Calexico is the destination that four migrants — either dumped in this country while the federal government  figures out whether they can stay here by being granted asylum or else are here illegally — were given tickets by a New York City charity to escape from the Big Apple.

The charity did so unwittingly as they were provided false names by the four.

The four had been arrested for their roles in the beat down of New York City officers before being released.

The four, by the way, had all been  previously arrested and released after committing numerous other crimes ranging from robbery to assault

Prosecutors, before a video of the beating prompted frustrated New Yorkers to slam city hall and trigger a national uproar in the never-ending story of this country’s dysfunctional immigration policies — were not going to charge the four.

Now the district attorney — who is an elected official — is practically kicking down the doors of the grand jury room promising to get charges rolling.

It’s kind of high theater given the four suspects have already left Dodge.

Assuming the four are as stupid as they are violent, they should have arrived in Calexico by now.

But any criminal with half a brain would have gotten off the bus and stayed off before reaching Calexico.

Even so, the national media as well as many residents in the California border city have been pressuring Calexico Interim Police Chief Armando Orozco to see if he’s aware the four had their tickets punched to his city.

Orozco issued a press release saying he was aware of the situation.

He added if the four showed up in Calexico that the appropriate steps would be taken to protect the public.

Odds are even though you are a Californian, you’ve probably never heard of Calexico.

It is a city of 38,633 located as far south as you can be in Imperial County meaning it is nestled against the border of Mexico.

It is 122 miles east of San Diego and 62 miles west of Yuma in Arizona.

And it is across a 30-foot high border fence from Mexicali that has 689,775 residents in the city proper and 1.03 million in the metro area.

Mexicali is integral to the Calexico economy,

Based on the 2020 census, 98.6 percent of the population of Calexico identifies as being Hispanic or Latino.

It may surprise some that with such a high concentration of Hispanics at 98.6 percent that 26.17 percent of the city’s voters supported Donald Trump in 2020 compared to 71.51 percent for Joe Biden.

A bigger surprise would likely be the fact Trump did almost three times better after four years in office. The first time he ran in 2016, Trump garnered 9.71 percent of all Calexico votes cast.

Taking a wild guess, it might have something to do with political rhetoric — if not actual policies — of the choices they had surrounding immigration.

Much ado has been made about Texas getting overrun with migrants and how the state — along with many more by the federal government — have been given tickets to ride elsewhere in the country.

Clearly, Texas is No. 1 in the asylum/illegal immigrants sweepstakes with 1,254 miles of shared border with Mexico.

Arizona has 370 shared miles, New Mexico 180 miles, and California 140 miles.

Now for a bit of perspective for the fine people of New York City, especially those screaming — or complaining, as the degree of reaction seems dependent on one’s politics — about all of the migrants ending up in that city.

In the past 20 months, New York City has had more than 200,000 migrants — primarily those seeking asylum — dropped off in their city.

And almost all of them didn’t arrive via buses or planes funded by the taxpayers of Texas.

They arrived in New York City courtesy of Uncle Sam, who has somewhat shared the wealth — but not most of it — in terms of the mass of migrants flowing into this country due to current federal laws that have “secured the border.”

If the sieve that is the border gets any more secure, it will resemble a metal colander after corrosive acid is poured into it.

New York City has it good compared to Calexico.

Since December 2022 when the Border Patrol ran out of places to warehouse “migrants” awaiting asylum hearings, they took to dumping those they have no room for cities near the border and a bit farther away after issuing them notices they may one day have to appear in court.

In the past 20 months, the Border Patrol has dropped off 33,200 migrants, aka asylum seekers, in downtown Calexico.

For the first four months it was 100 to 110 a day. The average has dropped off to 60 to 75 since that initial surge.

To put the impact on Calexico in perspective, it would be the equivalent of 7 million migrants accumulatively being dumped in Times Square since December 2022.

Seven million migrants is proportionate to New York City’s overall population of 8.08 million as 33,200 migrants are to Calexico’s 38,633 residents.

In other words, 200,000 migrants in 20 months in the Big Apple is nothing proportionately compared to what Calexico is dealing with.

Factor in Calexico’s median household income of $51,667 and poverty rate of 22.6 percent compared to $82,400 and 14.5 percent for New York City.

The bigger stress, by far, from the migrant crisis is on places like Calexico and not places like New York City.

The question for those getting ready to play politics with the sensible plan that is being proposed in the U.S. Senate to take the wind out of the asylum tsunami, is this — if you do nothing, then are you willing to have asylum seeking migrants bussed to your Congressional district?

Immigration, as Texas was reminded by the courts at the behest of the Biden administration, is a federal issue and not a state or local issue.

It’s time as a nation that we start acting like it is and get our collective act together.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com