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Border Policy -
I keep wondering if it would be (or would have been) possible for the Trump administration simply to say "ok, we will tally all the sallaries that we are having to pay for Border Patrol and military help to the border patrol, including new hardware installation, and for court system and temporary jail for illegal immigrants, and we will find a way to "send the bill" to Mexico.
Now, if one simply says to the Mexican government, "please send us this much money" to compensate us for the extraordinary expense, then almost certainly that money won't be sent, but perhaps there would be a way to extract money via tarrifs? A problem is that technically it is Americans who would pay any tax on imports and American citizens would suffer a second-order negative impact from a tax on Mexican payments for American exports.
My point is not to discourage robust legal immigration from Latin America, nor to discourage trade, but I think from a policy analysis standpoint, it is useful and possibly instructive to ask how much does it cost to patrol such a large border that is routinely disrespected, and if we don't build a wall, then what other measures do we take? Is there a a strong argument for doing nothing about border violations? Can it be argued that this has a net benefit to the US? Do we spend money on manpower as we have been doing? Do we make an effort to send the bill to others?
If, in the end, a way were to be found, perhaps through a combination of measures, that could amount to impressing upon the Mexican Government that it is costing US taxpayers a noteworthy amount of money to leave the border un-fenced, then I wonder to what extent this would incent the Mexican government to take constructive action on stemming Northern emigration (if constructive actions can be identified?). Or, would it be a disaster, with the Mexican government becoming violent, (which would be totally inappropriate for this situation), toward those emigrating North in violation of US laws?
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2 comments
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In the end, it seems Mexico is doing more to discourage the Caravans.
[washingtonpost.com] -
I hope that US legislators do not allow Mr. Trump to get away with declaring the US "Full". I question if this is some sort of illegal usurpation as to his power as President, or at the least, perhaps it could warrant a rebuke of Mr. Trump and serve as an inducement to Congress to set matters straight and lay out increased Lat-Am refugee and other immigration numbers.
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As to concerns about the US causing refugees in the first place, I won't speak to the broad-brush sweeping claims that are made here, but sure, it would be great if Congress would also review, country by country, and identify policy changes that should be made in each case, if that's really happening.
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Agree on noting climate change as a contributing factor, such as recently called out here (I haven't read the whole thing)
[newyorker.com]
How Climate Change Is Fuelling the U.S. Border Crisis
In the western highlands of Guatemala, the question is no longer whether someone will leave but when.
By Jonathan Blitzer
Photography by Mauricio Lima
April 3, 2019
kmaz
Level 7
Apr 6, 2019
0
This is nothing more than a more articulate version of a bad argument: that Mexico is responsible for the integrity of the US border (it's not). Furthermore, it implies that all of the immigrants coming across the border are Mexican citizens (they're not).
And lastly, it acts like American intervention abroad isn't the reason that many of these immigrants are fleeing in the the first place (it is).
Dressing up a bad argument makes it no less of a bad argument. I believe it was Sarah Palin who loved to opine about lipstick on pigs.
ghettophilosopher
Level 7
Jan 10, 2019
3
Excellent analysis!
kmaz:
Thanks for this response. It seems important to you to lay out:
- The US is responsible for the integrity of the US border.
- Not all of the people coming across the border with Mexico are Mexican
- American intervention abroad is the cause of people fleeing to the US.
I agree with all of these things except on this last point I would say "sometimes". Notwithstanding those points, you haven't provided any answer (at least, not above, maybe you've laid them out elsewhere?) here to any of the harder questions. Do you think there is no issue? Do you think we should do nothing? If you think we should do something, what do you think we should do?
@kmaz I very much answered your question. You asked if we could/should "send the bill to Mexico." As I stated in the very first sentence, it's a non-starter. Under what asinine context would one state be responsible for the domestic affairs of another? Should Mexico then, pay the wages of our furloughed and unpaid federal workers? C'mon son!
kmaz:
@ghettophilosopher
Hi -
Thanks, It sounds like you are stuck on my oddball point about sending someone the bill, but, to clarify, my questions in response, to you or anyone else, become:
Do you think there is an issue (with the border, in general)?
If you do think there is an issue (with the border in general), what do you think should be done about it, if anything?
Basically, my point to you and others is that it's relatively easy to take pot-shots at others' ideas. It's harder take cognizance of an issue and try to come up with constructive ideas to address it.
@kmaz Ok. The short answer is no. It's not an issue.
The long answer? The only issue is that immigration had been made into a political football. Latin American migrants are used as a scapegoat for the very real problems that we refuse to fix. As long as we keep hiding from boogie monsters, were going to keep having the same issues and same fights that seem interminable.
kmaz:
I asked:
"....Do you think there is an issue (with the border, in general)?..."
and you responded:
"...Ok. The short answer is no. It's not an issue...."
so my response to that is:
This is an area where we disagree. I think enforcement of borders can and does serve a legitimate purpose, that there is nothing wrong with the US trying to enforce its borders, that indeed it's a good idea, and that it is costly to do this. I do think there are a lot of people who advocate for border enforcement whose only real goal is to find a pretext to prevent legal immigration and I reject those folks lock, stock, and barrel. I am for robust amounts of legal immigration. However, I am not an advocate of anarchy and anarchy is what I call it if we have no border enforcement particularly over time.
@kmaz You seem to be ignoring the most important factor that contributes to the immigration. Its US foreign policy. No nation is more responsible for a huge number of refugees in the world today than the US. The US has invaded 80 countries since world war 2. You seem to be stuck on fixing the symptoms, which is what media sensationalize, but not the cause of disease.
There are very easy ways to control migration for the US government if they do want to decrease it.
- Abandon all the trade policies like NAFTA that allows US corporations to underpay the workers of Latin America who in turn leave their countries because they don't get paid well by US corporations in their own countries. Plus it hurts small farmers and businesses in America because large corporations can sell their foreign goods made by foreign labor with a cheap price to Americans.
- Stop all the sanctions to Venezuela. The sanctions in Venezuela of US goods is the primary reason for the stagnation and inflation of the Venezuelan economy. Had they been able to sell their oil to other countries, the state economy wouldn't have collapsed.
- Do not invade Venezuela and or any other Latin America.
- Decrease your greenhouse emissions. This is going to be the primary reasons for people moving north in the future.
Unless you address these issues, your argument is not legitimate at all. By the way, if the US did have immigration problems, it would not randomly hand out its VISAS to thousands of random people through DV annually.
Republicans do not want to curtail immigration but scapegoating latin Americans by calling them illegals do earn them votes. It's a very effective way of keeping your voters happy by doing nothing for them at no cost. Scapegoating immigrants is the oldest tactic of government to control the masses for literally centuries. Most Americans don't know legal or illegal, green card or H1b, resident or non-resident. I know this because I am a non-immigrant student in US.
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