Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
The
DEMOCRATS have given us the weakest immigration
laws
anywhere in the World. Mexico has the strongest, &
they
make more than $100 Billion a year on the U.S.
Therefore,
CONGRESS MUST CHANGE OUR WEAK I
MMIGRATION
LAWS NOW, & Mexico must stop illegals
from
entering the U.S....
....through
their country and our Southern Border. Mexico has
for
many years made a fortune off of the U.S., far greater than
Border
Costs. If Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal
immigration
coming into the United States throug our Southern
Border,
I will be CLOSING.....
....the
Border, or large sections of the Border, next week. This
would be so easy for Mexico to do, but they
just take our money
and
“talk.” Besides, we lose so much money with them, especially
when
you add in drug trafficking etc.), that the Border closing
would
be a good thing!
Donald “Policy-by-Tweet” Trump has provoked a “now or never” litany of caravans of asylum-seekers mostly from Central America, who believe, en masse, that Trump is reshaping the U.S./Mexican border to make future passage and applications for asylum absolutely impossible. After years of diminishing undocumented border crossings, there is now a serious uptick among that one particular category: asylum seekers. Immigration courts are overwhelmed, thousands are waiting in Mexico pending asylum applications, young children are still separated from parents, and folks are dying of disease at immigration detention facilities so overcrowded that ICE is literally opening their gates to release the overflow into the United States. Donald Trump has become the master of ceremonies at the worst immigration debacle in living memory.
There are virtually no drug traffickers or
“vital American” job stealers among those asylum-seekers. Innocents seeking
refuge from civil wars, drug cartels fueled with profits from US sales and
armed with state-of-the-art assault rifles purchased at American gun shows as
wells as failed mega-corrupt failed states offering their citizens neither
safety nor hope. Trump has instructed his Department of State to cut $450
million in aid to the “triangle” of Central American nations generating those
caravans – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – a gesture that should make
those countries even less safe and even more profoundly devoid of hope…
encouraging more of their citizens to leave and head north.
As you can see from the above Tweets,
confirmed by Trump’s rather dramatically inadequate Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen
Nielsen, and his recently-anointed acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney,
Trump’s slogan-driven, base-catering and generally non-analytical mind has
produced another ill-conceived “solution” to the debacle he has created: shut
down the entire U.S./Mexican border, including all the authorized ports of
entry.
“Nielsen told reporters Friday [3/29]
… ‘If we have to close ports to take care of all of the numbers who are coming,
we will do that. So it’s on the table,’ she said… Nielsen said pulling officers
from busy crossing points would require closing some lanes that process cars
and people.
“Squeezing ports of entry almost
certainly would put more strain on the officers and Border Patrol agents who
are dealing with the crisis, however. Administration efforts to hire 15,000 new
border agents and immigration officers have largely flopped — the agencies face
thousands of vacancies instead.
“If trucks carrying farm produce and
car parts are barred from crossing the border, the economic impact would
quickly spread… Nearly $13.7 million in agricultural products move through the
port of entry at Nogales, Ariz., every day, for example, said Veronica Nigh, an
economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington. Because those
products are perishable, even a short closure could hurt farmers and consumers
on both sides.” Los Angeles Times, April 2nd.
But billions and billions of
potential losses to America business, not the shift to greater local American
production Trump suggests in his “fake news” tweets – it would take years
anyway to ramp up domestic production even if we wanted to go that way – do not
seem to deter one more version of Trump’s folly.
“When the Trump administration
abruptly shuttered the San Ysidro border crossing for five hours on the Sunday
after Thanksgiving following a skirmish with a group of migrants, holiday
traffic snarled for hours south of San Diego… Businesses on the U.S. side of
the border lost about $5.3 million in sales, local officials said. Tens of
thousands of people were temporarily stuck on both sides of the border,
creating chaos in nearby areas.
“President Trump now is threatening
to increase the scale of that disruption, vowing to indefinitely close the U.S.
border with Mexico to show his resolve — and his pique — as tens of thousands
of Central American migrants continue to jam legal entry points and unguarded
remote areas… It is probably impossible to close the entire 2,000-mile-long
border. But Trump could shut some or all of the 47 official entry ports, which
process more than 1 million people and about $1.7 billion in commerce every
day.
“Even a limited and temporary closure
would be felt from California to Texas. A longer-term closure would devastate
local businesses and ripple through regional supply chains, directly affecting
the farms and automobile manufacturers whose employees form the core of Trump’s
political base.
“It would quickly face legal
challenges and add to chronic staffing problems for already-stretched U.S.
immigration enforcement agencies. It also would require Mexico’s cooperation,
which is hardly assured… The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business
organization, warned Monday of ‘severe economic harm on American families,
workers, farmers and manufacturers across the United States’ if Trump closes
the border.
“‘I imagine they probably do have the
authority to close any particular port of entry temporarily,’ said Leon
Rodriguez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2014-17. ‘Having
said that, the political, logistical and economic consequences of doing that
are potentially devastating.’
“Even some of Trump’s immigration
allies worry about the economic impact of a border shutdown…. ‘If this were to
go on for more than a few days, you could see some American factories shutting
down temporarily until it’s over,’ said Mark Krikorian, the director of the
Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank interested in
restricting illegal immigration.
“The White House could limit the
economic impact, he said, by halting passenger, car and pedestrian border
crossings while keeping rail and truck ports open… ‘That would be one way to
send a message to Mexico without as severe of an economic impact on the U.S.,’
he said.” Los Angeles Times, April 2nd. How big would a truck have
to be to get through? How would you weed out trucks in what would undoubtedly
be the greatest traffic stall in history? Remember, produce held for days in
traffic rots fast. Avocados anyone? And our farmers ship tons and tons of
American produce the other way.
But even industries hundreds of miles
from the border could be devastated; a shutdown or even the kinds of delays
would inevitably result from any attempt to let some traffic through while
denying others would ripple through the economy. “The
North American auto industry is highly integrated, and U.S. producers rely
on over $112 billion in automotive and parts imports and nearly
$36 billion in exports that crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.
“There are few vehicles assembled in the
United States that do not rely on Mexico for at least some parts
content. Vehicle assembly is the quintessential ‘complete set’ — an
assembly plant cannot build a partial vehicle. Even if a few relatively minor
parts are missing, automakers do not make a practice of storing the
vehicles and then repairing them when the parts are ready. This repair
work alone creates the potential for quality issues. Since it is impossible to
do a partial build, the assembly plant and many of its associated supplier
plants will be idle until the automaker can obtain sufficient stock to relaunch
production.” USA Today, April 2nd
And exactly why would a left-leaning
Mexican president openly agree to cooperate with a U.S. president held in
particular disdain by his electorate, other than a few token efforts? There is
a fine line to be walked between the bully with real power in the north and the
bulk of average Mexican citizens who resent Trump and everything he stands
for. “With President Trump threatening
to shut down the southwest border because of the surging number of migrants
showing up there, his normally outspoken Mexican counterpart might be expected
to raise his voice in protest about the prospective economic damage. But he’s
not.
“‘I prefer love and peace,’ Mexican
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday [4/1] at his morning news
conference, sidestepping questions about Trump’s warnings. ‘We are not going to
get into a confrontation with the government of the United States.’… Lopez
Obrador, a leftist known for speaking his mind, has been quick to denounce
domestic critics as ‘snobs’ and recently demanded that Spain and the Vatican apologize
for the Conquest, an event that happened five centuries ago…. But he has
consistently refrained from engaging in a war of words with Trump.
“‘Lopez Obrador doesn’t want to have
problems with Trump because he knows ... that the only thing that could derail
his government and affect his project is the chief of the White House,’ wrote
columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio in El Financiero newspaper. ‘Spain and the
Vatican don’t matter.’…
“Lopez Obrador has cited the need for
‘prudence’ and said he wasn’t going to get involved in what he characterized as
U.S. ‘electoral’ polemics… ‘We are helping’ to regulate the flow of U.S.-bound
migrants, Lopez Obrador said Monday, adding that he sought ‘a policy of
friendship with the government of the United States.’
“The Mexican press reported that
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, met here privately with Lopez
Obrador and top aides on March 19 and relayed Trump’s threat not only to close
the border but also to cancel the newly negotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada free-trade
accord, a mainstay of Mexico’s economy. The White House did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.” Los Angeles Times. That said, cozying up to
Trump beyond a minimal gesture, doing what Trump demands, is an equally
dangerous political choice for any Mexican politician.
With the U.S. economy projected to
fall well-beneath Donald Trump’s targeted 3-4% GDP growth rate, a border
shutdown could have a further very negative impact on even the newer 2%+
projected numbers. Can Donald Trump stand the fallout? Does he care? Is he so
sure that the Democrats are so self-destructing that he can simply ignore the
economic and political consequences should he actually close border? A bluff?
Posturing? One of the benefits of Trump’s proclivity
to make up facts: he can pretend that his efforts have produced the desired
results, even if nothing really happened, and back off some of his most inane
statements.
“President Donald Trump eased up Tuesday [4/2]
on his threats to shut the southern border this week as officials across his
administration explored half-measures that might satisfy the president's urge
for action, like stopping only foot traffic at certain crossings…. While Trump
… did not back off the idea completely, he said he was pleased with steps
Mexico had taken in recent days and renewed his calls for Congress to make
changes he contends would solve the problem.” Associated Press, April 2nd.
Mexico actually didn’t do anything.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I sure wish that 2020
election were a whole lot closer in time.
AP, 4/7/19: "Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday amid the administration's growing frustration and bitterness over the number of Central American families crossing the southern border, two people familiar with the decision said."
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