The U.S. Border Crisis: The Deal with Mexico Works, But Can the Results Be Sustainable? (I)

The U.S. Sourthern Border BEFORE ... 

and DURING the Trump Administration

by Laura Lai/Essay

The United States has been dealing with a situation at its Southern border long before Trump Administration, but it has always been other issues that caught more the American public opinion attention: wars on terror and on terrorism, ‘zippergate’ and whether or not to impeach the president, beautiful dinner speeches flavored with Obama charm spice and so on, until the situation reached the peak of a crisis during Trump Administration.

            In February 2019, the U.S. President Donald Trump issued a national emergency declaration, in order to address both the security and the humanitarian crisis along its border with Mexico. In May 2019, the illegal immigration at the Southern border reached a record for the whole almost 100 years history of the U.S. Border Patrol. And in June 2019, a Gallup public opinion poll registered the highest number of Americans identifying immigration as the most important American problem, since Gallup records data on this issue (since 1993). After a long political struggle with the Democrats denying the crisis and refusing to increase the financial support for the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. Southern border (for a previous blog article that discusses in more detail this struggle, click here) and under the pressure of the constant growing number of apprehensions and other crimes at the Southern border, on June 7^th, 2019 the U.S. President Donald Trump signed an agreement with its Mexican counterpart to work together on this issue.

And Mexico started to respect its part of the deal right away: in a few weeks of June, Mexico sent back more illegal immigrants living in Mexico and heading towards the United States than it did in the whole month of May. Mexico also engaged to deploy 6,000 of its National Guard at its border with the United States, but it actually deploys 15,000 at its Northern Border and 10,000 of its National Guard at its Southern Border. Although Gallup public opinion poll from July showed that 27 percent of Americans named immigration as the most important problem the United States is facing, the deal with Mexico really works and the numbers of apprehensions decreased significantly until September 2019. The bipartisan agreement reached with the Democrats on July 2^nd, 2019 for a $4,6 billion in humanitarian and border assistance to facilitate the struggle of the employees and to alleviate the sufferance of the refugees (most of them unaccompanied children, abused women, raped girls, etc.) played also a vital role in dealing with this crisis. In July 2019, after the humanitarian aid was approved and after the agreement with Mexico was sealed, the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence accompanied by a group of senators paid a visit to the facilities at the Southern border, in order to assess firsthand the situation. On this occasion he declared that:

‘Everyone at both these facilities had access to food, water, hygiene items and medical care. (…) Was it a Holiday Inn with extra comfort and amenities? Absolutely not. As expected, the facility was overcrowded, but the conditions were humane, and every detainee had access to basic necessities. Let’s not forget that everyone in these detention centers chose to violate our laws, rather than seeking to enter our country legally.’

            Positive statistical results of the U.S. – Mexico agreement quoted by Politico were obvious across the entire border: If in July the apprehensions dropped with 21 percent in comparison to June and 43 percent in comparison to May, in September 2019 the numbers are down to 60 percent in comparison to the month of May. (to be continued)