Posted on 10/23/2018 10:14:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
"We are going to reach the United States," declares one Erasmo Duarte, as he and a couple of thousand would-be Americanos hike northward through Mexico toward the Promised Land -- with scant appreciation, I'm afraid, for the non-welcome in store for them at the Rio Grande border and points west.
The marchers say they're coming. Donald Trump says they ain't. That pretty much settles things to Trump's advantage, without settling the vexed issue of cross-border access in an age unsure how much nationalism in human affairs is just the right amount of nationalism.
The last immigration moderate still standing in America proposes to weigh in on this great matter.
That plenty of Hondurans might be sick of violence and poverty in Honduras is easy to see. The last-immigration-moderate-still-standing (hereafter, the "LIMSS") has gone on mission trips to Honduras. He sees their point.
That you can't be allowed just to cross borders because you want to and wherever you want to should be equally easy to see. Why is it not?
At least partly because of two admirable human emotions: pity and compassion. Nobody leaves a well-paying job and happy hearth to tread the path of the unwelcome stranger. Newcomers want a better life. Thus, pity and encouragement well up from Americans differently situated: well fed, well housed, well protected. In addition, with employment lower than in half a century, employers need more workers. Politicians, after the manner of their breed, have their own happy dreams: grateful, duly enfranchised newcomers electing them and their friends to Congress.
On the other hand...
Whereas refugees from political persecution normally find hospitality in free countries, self-election as a refugee, based on economic deprivation, is a non-starter. It has to be. Come one, come all -- the policy of the Honduran caravaners -- is unworkable, as anybody who gives the matter an instant's thought can plainly see.
Jurisdictional boundaries -- a part of the structure of rules protecting life and civilization -- are a necessity. Any country enjoys the right to decide, generously or otherwise, who gets to live within its borders.
Such is and always was the case, millennia before evolution and divine will -- or caprice -- gave us Trump. With Trump's off-the-wall image, the caravaners are playing games. They know he doesn't cotton to border-jumpers. They figure, nevertheless, that Democrats and liberal churchmen may put the full-court press on him, aided by social media and steaming commentary in The New York Times. Whether admitted or repulsed at the border, the caravaners must see large gains.
Their expectation may prove illusory, the LIMSS suggests. Americans barely know Honduras exists, far less that it's presently a mess. When Trump barks ultimately, "Alto! -- Halt!" that will take care of the matter; saving only the political cleanup from an affair helpful mainly to those who long for his impeachment and ouster. "Why, the big jerk! He hates the helpless!" Such is the political takeaway open borders advocates, here and south of the border, hope to manufacture -- to the general disadvantage, the LIMSS would add, of all who see the immigration wars as destructive and in grave need of settlement.
Settlement is a commodity you don't get in the absence of unpressured discussion leading to unforced concession -- freighted, as lightly as possible, with demagoguery.
There's always room in America for immigrants with needed and useful skills -- immigrants willing to play by ancient understandings that, with due room for the claims of justice, privilege a nation's own people over those from any other place.
The ancient understandings were at one time taken for common sense -- artifacts of thought, to which you said, "Well, yeah. Sure. Of course." The of-courseness, the taken-for-grantedness of the straightforward and natural, isn't precisely a feature of today's philosophical landscape. So Trump should brace for more cries than ever of "How dare you defend our borders?! " His assumed willingness to dare may do much more for his prestige and influence than many expect, far less hope.
Choice 1: Shoot bullets
Choice 2: Do nothing
Are you saying those are the only 2 choices available to Trump?
I think Trump has 3 possible courses of action here.
Option One: Close the border immediately to all traffic and to all individuals other than US passport holders. Then issue an executive order banning wire transfers of money to Mexico. When the Mexican elites feel us standing on their economic air hose, they’ll break this up.
Option Two: Deploy our high-tech crowd control devices that use microwaves and hypersonics and fire them from black helicopters over the mob. From the reported effects of these weapons they will disperse pretty quickly.
Option Three: Draw a perimeter line say 100 miles into Mexico then take out bridges and bomb crater any road north of that line.
The way the laws are written they have to be granted temporary asylum. Catch and detain is the only answer available now because of that. In order to detain temporary shelter must be provided and a tent city is the only answer at this point.
Sucks but it's the only answer for now other than catch and release. Is that what you want?
The US military should be building temporary tent city surrounded by barbed wire NOW! Make the living conditions a primitive as possible.
EMT drop from a drone when out in the middle of nowhere.
You know your Option Three is not on the table, even though it is by far the best one. As good as Trump is, I don’t think he’s got it in him to use OptionThree.
One and Two will definitely work. The question is, will Trump use them.
On your Option One, I would even go farther. Issue a proclamation: Starting November 1, the border is closed. If you are a US citizen in Mexico, you have to find your own way home after that date.
Believe it or not it look like a New York tag.
I would very much believe it. If only we could get a better view of the plate.
Looks like the load is over capacity for the truck.
They've been working on it and paying a lot toward that goal for many years.
These people deserve citizenship, but they don't make the news.
“Apparently there are long lines at a setup medical tent. Lots of blistered feet.”
I think I’ll hope for hundreds of infected feet. Would that be wrong? Should I not do that?
Why does it seem like you can see some of the license plate through the one shoe covering it?
Why aren’t these people applying for asylum in Mexico?
Who would want asylum in that hellhole?
Not our problem. Mexico is supposedly better than where they came from, isn't it?
U.S. Imports from Venezuela of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products (Thousand Barrels)
2018 Jan thru July
16,379 13,210 17,332 18,945 17,315 19,303 19,386
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSVE1&f=M
Nothing at all that I have seen here looks like desperate refugees. Assuming that the photos and videos are legitimate this is a group of people who are clean, well dressed and groomed and have not missed a meal anytime recently. I don’t think there is a legitimate desperate refugee in the bunch and legitimate desperate refugees don’t march with a big, clean flag in perfect condition representing the country they are supposedly fleeing. Any group carrying a flag of another nation and approaching our border is an invading force. They should be treated as the foreign army which they appear to be and that does not mean interviewing them and allowing them to ask for asylum.
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