How to Make a Terrible Situation Much, Much Worse

A caravan of about four thousand desperate migrants is making its way through Central America and heading for the U.S. border. They are native Hondurans, running from dire poverty, political repression, corruption, but mostly violence rather directly attributable to gangs and their overlords, the ever-dangerous drug cartels. Economic migrants and asylum-seekers.

As the trail of busses and on-foot escapees move northward, it is necessary to note that not only is the demand for illicit narcotics from American users the hard dollar enabler of their misery,  that our support of a repressive regime only makes it worse, but smuggled guns, purchased legally at US gun shows and private sales, insure that gangs and cartels have the best and most effective assault rifles and high-capacity handguns to ply their evil trade.

A gaggle of American reporters are tagging along, collecting stories that tug at heart strings. For most, it is a bitter economic escape. There are absolutely no jobs, no economic opportunities in their home country. For others, it is the violence. Gangs, selling “protection” to slum-dwellers with no access to cash, threaten (and often follow up on their threats) to kill children unless that extortion money is paid. Drug cartels enlist unemployed youth into shortened lives and deadly risks. Government intolerance for dissent is legendary as well. “We are not leaving because we want to” is a common refrain.

But Donald Trump’s heartless policies for such migrants, separating children from their families and creating massive makeshift “detention centers,” have already pulled mostly hardworking undocumented residents from rather normal and otherwise productive lives within the US, leaving unharvested crops rotting in the fields, construction sites undermanned, and many businesses (take slaughter houses for example) unable to find American replacements at any price. But GOP priorities – hardliners backed by Trump making sure there are no compromises, no DACA (Dreamer) relief – insure that there will be no attempt to implement a sensible immigration policy. Administration after administration has failed to implement any reasonable attempt at immigration reform.

As Trump implements the highest level of enforcement of any prior US president – his zero-tolerance policy – not only does the world see how heartless we have become, but we are even blocking visas to hi-tech, STEM workers desperately needed in the biggest good-job-creating industries, effectively cutting off our own nose to spite our face. Trump’s latest tweet-threats let Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez know that if somehow the Honduran government cannot stop that caravan – which is no longer even in Honduras – Trump will cause that government – and its people – pain.

The tweet: ““The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!”

If somehow Trump were able to make good on that threat, even the beneficial side of local police power (which relies heavily on US support) would be seriously diminished, placing local Hondurans at further risk. Hopelessness and desperation would explode to even more dire extremes. It is obvious that this “punishment” will not exactly induce more Hondurans to stay in their decreasingly tolerable homeland. It would surely make more even Hondurans want to make the trip northward. And then there are a few issues with pragmatics.

“It was unclear how Trump expected Honduras to stop the caravan. Hernandez did not immediately respond to Trump’s tweet.

“The U.S. gave Honduras more than $180 million in aid in 2017 for a range of programs designed to improve security and combat poverty and drug trafficking, according to the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. Those funds are appropriated by Congress.

“It was also unclear how Guatemala would respond to the caravan. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who is seeking U.S. support in his efforts to shut down a U.N.-backed anti-corruption body that is investigating him and several family members, has sought to curry favor with Trump…

“In April, another caravan that originated in Honduras provoked a series of tweets from Trump, who said the participants posed a threat, and he sent National Guard troops to the border in response. Many participants of that caravan, which included large numbers of women and children, eventually turned themselves over to border authorities and asked for political asylum.

“Similar caravans were organized in previous years but traveled largely without interference by authorities. The caravans are designed to help protect immigrants from the dangers of the migrant trail, which include robberies, rapes and assaults perpetrated by smugglers, cartel members and even immigration and law enforcement authorities.” Los Angeles Times, October 17^th.

Smugglers are known to be unreliable and expensive, so to many long-since contemplating the journey, a caravan is cheaper and vastly more secure. Many hope they can find opportunities en route, without having to challenge the US border and it hostile reception policies. To Hondurans, even job-plagued Mexico is a relative mecca of opportunity. Even as Mexico throws hundreds of additional forces to its border with Guatamala.

Some even point to a commonly-held belief that US interference in recent Honduran elections caused a spike in government repression, which in turn created an impetus for those subject to the crackdown to leave the country: “[One migrant interviewed] blames Trump and the U.S. government in part for the recent exodus from Honduras in connection with the contested reelection of Hernandez in November.

“Initial election results showed opposition challenger Salvador Nasralla with a 5-percentage-point lead over Hernandez. Then the electronic results system went down for hours. When it came back online, Nasralla’s lead had disappeared in favor of Hernandez, whose claim to victory set off months of opposition protests and violent crackdowns by the government.

“Despite claims of election irregularities and calls for new elections by the Organization of American States and others, the U.S. recognized Hernandez as the winner… ‘The U.S. gave the green light for this government,’ [the interviewee] said.” LA Times. Ever get the impression that our government really doesn’t know what it is doing, that their short-term compliance with sloganeering campaign promises to the base often becomes a showcase for the law of unintended consequences? What’s next in the not-so-mythical Trumpland? How about the trade war, a gift that will just keep on giving!!! Argh! Like the massive deficit from the tax cut that was supposed to pay for itself? Incompetence never ends.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is not enough that we have abandoned all pretense of adhering to moral high ground, even the New Testament pillars of evangelical faith, we have to produce polices under-deliver or create precisely the opposite result to our stated goals.