[Salvavida]

From their perspective, it is the only way to ensure their survival and prosperity. Our State Department has done nothing to help these countries institute rule of law and the execution of justice.

President Maduro tried, and what was he greeted with? Condemnation by the Obama administration, Amnesty International, the OAS, and the EU. Maduro almost single handedly defeated MS-13 and all other gangs. And then we pulled the rug out from under him.

Honduras and other states suffer from a common ailment (the US suffers from it to, but to a lesser degree): the inability to execute justice. This includes but is not limited to the swift enforcement of the death penalty.

I might do an essay for FR on the whole of the issue.

[jmacusa]

They're perfectly capable of fixing their own countries. Generations of American welfare, military intervention in these countries has done nothing. Yours smacks of the bigotry of low expectation. Myself and millions of other Americans are beyond fed up with hordes of arrogant, pugnacious border jumping criminals who feel they've got a God given right to just barge in here.

[Paal Gulli]

"...Our State Department has done nothing to help these countries institute rule of law and the execution of justice...."

You mean apart from spending billions of dollars on Honduran infrastructure improvements, and having kept a military presence there (primarily at Base aérea Soto Cano, which formerly was Ollie North's Palmerola) since 1983 to stop the spread of Nicaraguan communism at the border?

They had the opportunity but squandered it, which points to the truth of the old Paul Harvey axiom, "There is no self-government without self-discipline."