A Perfect Storm

Threats to shut the border on one side, unlikely to survive a legal challenge if Trump tries, and rumors that immigrants with children stand a better chance gaining asylum at the US border, on the other. A notion that a medieval wall is the only solution to border security, combined with a viral myth that the southern border faces a horde of approached well-armed Latino gangsters and terrorists, are gospel to Trump’s gullible base. But the real gangsters and horrific violent threats remain in those desperate Central American countries, where immediate U.S. aid could help stabilize the horrors from which these almost all-innocents are fleeing. And help stop the flood of escapees who believe only America can save them. We’ve pledged new aid (see below), but that relief may be a long time coming.

Our Constitution and our statutes are barriers to Trump’s autocratic immigration solutions, as courts at every level have ruled, but finding an overall path to true immigration reform has eluded Congress since the George W Bush administration. Right-winger hardliners are unwilling to let any compromise bill survive, even eschewing the legacy of immigration reform introduced decades ago by conservative, GOP President Ronald Reagan. So far, the optics of children separated from parents, even babies and toddlers, plus the death of two young children in ICE’s custody have alienated all but Trump’s base, who seem to believe anything he says, plus the most die-hard right-wing nationalists.

But equally obvious are the negative optics of another caravan organizing and forming to march north. The partial government shut-down drags on. The contrasting optics are further polarizing the American electorate. It is a perfect storm of conflict and irreconcilable differences between Republicans (who strongly favor that medieval wall solution to border security) and Democrats (who strongly oppose that wall but believe there are other ways to address border security).  

Is there a compromise that could end the government shut-down? Even as a small additional payment towards a “Trump wall” (call it “border security” but allow some to be used towards building that edifice) as trade-off for a path for Dreamers (those children who were brought to the US by their parents who have grown up virtually their entire life here) to stay? Perhaps, but the storm is growing again in ultra-violent Honduras. Fleeing “refugees” no longer feel safe making the trek north with expensive coyotes; they face rape, robbery, extortion and attack along the entire route north. Another Honduran caravan is forming.

Caravans are their way of trying to keep safe, but the mere optics of thousands of people marching north provides fodder for the Trump constituency’s hardline position. Someone has failed to convince too many evangelicals in that base that the New Testament’s proselytizing charity and to “love thy neighbor” is not a “whites only” admonition or restricted to those in their immediate “neighborhood.” To real Christians, Jesus Christ died for an open and giving heart – not sitting in condemning judgment of those less fortunate – and to look after those in need without administering an ethnic litmus test.

One would hope that Mexico makes good on its promise to absorb most of these refugees, but can they afford the cost? Will these caravan travelers stop in Mexico? Or will they continue to our border? Can Mexico continue to house US-asylum-seekers for the years it takes to resolve their applications as the US is now requiring?

“Another migrant caravan — this one estimated at 15,000 people — is preparing to leave Honduras on Jan. 15, according to migrant rights advocates and Spanish-language media… ‘They say they are even bigger and stronger than the last caravan,’ said Irma Garrido, a member of the migrant advocacy group Reactiva Tijuana Foundation.

“Meanwhile, thousands of Central American migrants from a caravan that left Honduras in October remain stranded at the U.S.-Mexico border and languishing in crowded Tijuana shelters while they wait out a lengthy process to file asylum requests with the U.S.

“Coordinators who helped direct the migrants on the 2,000-mile trek with bullhorns, arranging for buses and giving advice along the way, have mostly vanished. Many of the migrants say they feel abandoned and unsure where to turn next. Some are ready to return home.

“Garrido said this new, larger caravan will probably be joined by more people in El Salvador and in Guatemala, but she said they don’t plan on coming straight to the Tijuana-San Diego border, where resources are already stretched nearly to a breaking point… ‘They will stay in the south of Mexico in Chiapas and Oaxaca. Their aim is to request work there,’ she said.

“Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pledged visas and work in Mexico for Central American migrants. In his inauguration speech, he pledged public works projects such as planting 2 million trees and construction of his Maya Train, which will link cities in the three Yucatan peninsula states as well as Tabasco and Chiapas… The $8-billion project is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the southern states of Mexico.

 

“Last week, Mexico and the United States agreed to develop a plan to curb Central American migration. The plan includes a $25-billion investment from Mexico into its southern states over the next five years. The United States will contribute $4.8 billion to Mexico and $5.8 billion to the Northern Triangle of Central America, which is made up of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Most of the U.S. funding will be allocated from existing aid programs.

“El Diario de Chiapas, a newspaper for the southern state of Mexico, reported that, like the last caravan, news about the groups’ plans to leave Honduras, their numbers and which routes they would be taking is spreading mostly by social media.

“On Facebook, reaction in Chiapas to news of a second caravan was not all favorable… ‘Well, now the government does something. That work is for Mexicans that need it,’ said Anna Pérez from Palenque, Mexico, on Facebook. ‘Opportunistic people who just want to take advantage of the Mexicans.’” Los Angeles Times, December 29^th. 


There is so much hatred, so much seething anger, over these migrants. In the US. In Mexico. It only seems to be getting uglier. The drug wars in northern Mexico illustrate that the violence felt in Central America continues along the journey through Mexico as well. “Thousands [of caravan travelers] remain stuck in Tijuana, a city with more than 2,000 homicides this year, leaving the Central American migrants almost as vulnerable as they were grappling with the gang violence that caused them to flee their homelands.” LA Times.

It is American guns, many bought legally at US gun shows, smuggled southward... to supply uncontained American demand for illicit narcotics… that fuel the violence that drives so many Central Americans from the homelands. Gangs, cartels and corrupt officials making billions from their violence against their own people. Where is our responsibility for this harm? We don’t even acknowledge droughts (even here in the United States) to which American greenhouse gasses have made a major and horrible contribution.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly when will Americans actually own up to the violence and poverty they have caused?