Children Separated From Families: It's Happening All Over the World
by John Lawrence, June 19, 2018
There is a migrant crisis not only on the US southern border, but in Europe as well and it's ten times worse. There migrants are fleeing war torn countries that are victims primarily of US started wars in those countries. Even though the US is directly responsible, European countries are bearing the brunt of this crisis. Boatloads of people trying to land in Italy recently were turned away. They ended up in Spain. Many have drowned in capsized boats in the Mediterranean. European countries are trying to absorb all these people but not very successfully. There is a political backlash brewing because many of these countries want to preserve their ethnic identity and not be overrun by people from a different ethnic and religious background.
One way to stem this flood of migration is to make conditions livable in the migrants' home countries. Central Americans from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are fleeing because of gang violence related to the drug and human trafficking trade. The US has no qualms about invading other countries so why doesn't it invade Central America and take out the drug gangs and cartels? They could also improve the economic conditions of peoples' lives there because poverty is a big reason why people migrate and a big reason why people join gangs. But the US is only interested in making Central America safe for corporate exploitation, not in improving peoples' lives who happen to be at or near the bottom of the economic spectrum.
The cartels in Mexico are a real threat to both Mexico and the US. If Mexico can't do anything about them, the US should step in. They are using migrants as pawns to distract the US border patrol and tie up US resources so they can smuggle in opioids now that their pot business has dried up.
The Federalist reports:
The cartels don’t just benefit from being paid by these migrant families desperate to get away from the violence in Central America. Every family group the cartels send across ties up the Border Patrol for hours. Back in 2014 when unaccompanied minors were flooding across in large groups, U.S. authorities were well aware that the cartels were taking drugs just a few miles upstream while they dealt with the minors, but there was nothing they could do about it. They were hamstrung by their own humanitarian policies.
There’s something going on here that brings to mind the ignorance of the U.S. military when it came to the early days of ISIS. It’s as if we refuse to acknowledge that the enemy reads the same media we do – that they can’t follow coverage of the issues, and understand how to manipulate the story lines to their advantage. That’s clearly what is going on here, and the Trump administration’s zero tolerance crackdown in response to this increased migration is playing into their hands.
When will the US take into account the larger picture of what is going on here? It is not enough to put these families through a review process and decide which ones should stay in the US and which ones should be sent back. If the US is concerned about what is happening in its own hemisphere, it should focus resources here not half way around the world. The US should step in and eliminate the gang and drug culture in Central America, create a safe and prosperous atmosphere for people there to live in, and then there would be no migrant crisis. Building a wall is just plain stupid. Creating prosperity and safe living conditions in Central America is the way to go.
