Who’s the MAN in the post – HuMANitarian Crisis at the U.S. Southern Border?

by Laura Lai/ Essay

This month last year I was asking myself in a blog essay: ‘Who’s the MAN in the [southern border] HuMANitarian crisis? (to read the article click here). Although I answered my question in that essay, now I am asking myself: ‘Who’s the MAN in the post – Humanitarian crisis? I am wondering if it is still the same person… 

            The U.S. Southern border with Mexico is mainly a Normandy-barrier border meant to stop vehicles from illegally crossing into the United States. It definitely cannot stop drug smugglers, human traffickers and illegal migrants. Although this border has been illegally crossed for many decades, it is starting with 2018 that the number of crossings became growing overwhelmingly. The month of May 2019 was the third consecutive month topping 100,000 apprehensions. And it was for the first time since polls were made that 23 percent of the Americans were naming illegal immigration among the threats to the national security.

            The constantly growing number of illegal crossings had also several other implications: an overburdened Border Patrol, overstretched services and overcrowded facilities. Furthermore, many of the illegal migrants were posing as false families – kidnapping, buying, using or re-using other people’s children – in order to benefit from laws that favor families with children. According to the law, an adult with a child cannot be held in custody for more than a couple of days; then they are released into the United States and they never show up at the court hearing for asylum. What happens to the children after the ‘false family’ adult gets into the United States? Some of them are recuperated on the way, but obviously, they are a tremendously vulnerable category of people.

            It is in this context that the U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency situation at the southern border and asked the Congress to approve a $4,6 billion for humanitarian aid and border assistance. The reasons for constant delays in getting through this crisis were several: the American political system and the Democrat majority in the House of the Congress; Democrats’ preoccupation to impeach the president; their doubts that this fabulous sum of money would be used for the wall-building rather than for humanitarian and border assistance; their reluctance to accept the existence of the crisis itself, and so on. However, it was on 2^nd July 2019 that Donald Trump signed the $4,6 billion in humanitarian aid and border assistance prizing the bi-partisan victory. Therefore, the ‘man’ in the humanitarian crisis was the one constantly accused of being lacked of compassion, but actually having acted with compassion in working out this crisis: the U.S. President himself. If ‘man’ were spelled at plural as ‘men’, then the ‘men’ in the ‘humenitarian’ crisis were definitely also the Border Patrol officers, who kept doing their jobs the best they could amid politicians’ fights, and the Church organizations, which faced and helped this humanitarian crisis with little dons and great divine strength and inspiration.

Trump Administration’s approach to this migration crisis was holistic. Internally, it fought on two fronts: on the one side, to convince the U.S. Congress to approve the aid, and on the other side to change the immigration laws and the asylum system. Externally, it worked closely with the Mexican President Lopez Obrador, whose collaboration and commitment to respect Mexico’s part of the deal, played a major role in decreasing the number of illegal crossing (and, implicitly, of the sufferance (of kidnappings, of traffickers, of raping, etc.) that goes with it).  I am wondering: ‘Who’s the MAN in the post – Humanitarian Southern Border Crisis?’

            A significant decline in apprehensions was evident in the months that followed the crisis, with September 2019 at its lowest point (52,000) and October (42,000). The month of November was the sixth consecutive month when the illegal apprehensions dropped. In December the illegal crossings were 32,858 (of whom two-thirds were adults and 10 percent unaccompanied children) in comparison to the May-peak with 132,887 apprehensions, or in comparison to the 170,000 unaccompanied children that surrendered at the border, of whom more than 50 percent were under the age of 12. Although a clashing point between the Democrats and Republicans, the Border Patrol officers name firstly the building of the border wall between the United States and Mexico with spyware technology as a main factor to decrease the illegal crossings, human smuggling and assaults on the border officers. In June it was reported that other 200 miles of the border wall were built – on pace to build the 400 miles by the end of the year. And positive statistical results came with it: general illegal crossings are down to 84% from this time last year, while illegal crossings from Central America are down to 97% from this time last year; and 450,000 pounds of drugs were seized by the border officers.

These numbers translate a less burdened Border Patrol, less stretched services and less crowded facilities. And since October 2019, the Border Patrol officers have more time to conduct DNA testing that were dramatically expended, in order to identify the false families. This resulted in the identification of 238 false families and 50 adults posing as minors; other 350 people are prosecuted for false statements, illegal entry and other felonies. The illegal migrant crossings from 2019 showed that many women were raped on the way to the border and all girls above 10 years old were given pregnancy tests, let alone the illegal drugs that cost lives or put at risk youngsters and the society in general. These statistical results translate a higher number of safer children and women from dangerous and merciless gangs and traffickers.

The President of Mexico Andres Obrador paid recently a historic working visit to the White House to discuss trade, health, immigration and other issues of mutual concern. It is on this occasion that the U.S. President Donald Trump publicly declared:

 ‘I want to thank Mexico because Mexico is doing a lot right now; they have almost 20,000 soldiers between the two borders. They have 6,000 on their southern border by Guatemala. And they have about . . . 16,000 at our southern border.’

The common efforts caused a drop of illegal apprehensions from 132,856 last May to 21,475 in May 2020, but what the U.S. President Donald Trump seems to say is that he acknowledges the President of Mexico to be the ‘man’ in the post –humanitarian crisis at the border between the United States and Mexico. And dinner at the White House was included in the program in the honor of the President of Mexico.

REFERENCES:

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1182363303722569729

https://dailycaller.com/2019/10/17/ice-cbp-migrants-family-status/ 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-acting-cbp-commissioner-mark-morgan-2/?utm_source=ods&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1600d 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-court-ruling-allowing-construction-of 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/illegal-border-crossings-in-december-dropped-sharply-from-peak-in-may

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/illegal-immigrant-crossings-fall-78-once-overcrowded-cells-are-empty

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/new-border-wall-blocks-90-of-illegal-crossings-up-from-just-10

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/dhs-warns-150-000-immigrants-from-72-coronavirus-nations-at-border

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/10/trumps-decision-to-end-catch-and-release-stops-the/

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1275505341493579777

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-and-lopez-obrador-will-talk-long-term-solution-to-illegal-immigration