WhatFinger


Threatening to close the border with Mexico would be a bold step, but it’s time to stop begging Mexico to act responsibly. What’s needed now is some tough love.

A Tough Love Suggestion to End the Annual Caravan from Central America



A Tough Love Suggestion to End the Annual Caravan from Central America For the past 10 years Pueblo Sin Fronteras has been coordinating the transit of a caravan of Central Americans through Mexico into the United States. Every year as many as 1,000 men, women and children from Honduras and El Salvador have been allowed to enter the U.S. claiming asylum. They ask for asylum claiming that they are escaping from gang violence in their home countries, and they are allowed to remain in the U.S. pending a review of their petition for asylum by an immigration judge. While a few are detained pending the judicial review, most are released and instead of returning for their court date begin living in the U.S. as illegal aliens. Democrats refer to them as undocumented workers.
President Trump has made this an issue of national security. He has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to prevent this caravan, which is one of the largest ever, from entering the U.S., and he has ordered the National Guard to the Mexican border to assist DHS. He also has Tweeted that Mexico “must stop people from going through Mexico and into the U.S.” The Mexican response has been to stick a finger in the President’s eye. The Mexican foreign secretary, Luis Videgary, called Trump’s remarks “unacceptable” and said that “Mexico decides its immigration policy in a sovereign manner.” Mexico has no incentive to prevent northward migration into the United States. It doesn’t want those Central Americans to settle in Mexico, and it is happy to see Mexicans cross into the U.S. illegally. The remittances illegal Mexican aliens living in the United States send back to Mexico exceeds Mexico’s substantial oil revenues. So the flow of illegal aliens, including some number of gang members, and drug and human traffickers will continue since Congress shows no inclination to fund a border wall. There is a way to get Mexico to stem the tide of illegal migrants, but it isn’t pretty. The United States could threaten to close its border with Mexico to all traffic pending the Mexican government’s agreement to secure their northern border and make a good faith effort to prevent illegal immigration into the U.S. Mexico would howl but closing the border would hurt Mexico so badly that the threat would bring them to the table and allow us to get an agreement on border security. The Economist has snidely summarized President Trump as a man who threatens, makes a deal and then claims victory. The threats have brought North Korea to the table with the prospect of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and the end of the state of war between South and North Korea. The threats may yet result in a revised Iran deal that actually allows for unfettered, unannounced on-site inspections of all of Iran’s civilian and military nuclear facilities and an end to its ballistic missile development.

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Al Kaltman -- Bio and Archives

Al Kaltman is a political science professor who teaches a leadership studies course at George Washington University.  He is the author of Cigars, Whiskey and Winning: Leadership Lessons from General Ulysses S. Grant.


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