For once, an honest politician recognizes immigration reality

I mentioned last week the tragic deaths of an illegal migrant and his daughter.  Now the President of their country of origin has acknowledged the reality behind their deaths.  His words make interesting reading on this Independence Day.

The president of El Salvador said his country was to blame for the deaths of a Salvadoran man and his daughter who drowned last week while trying to cross the Rio Grande into the United States, The New York Times reports.

“People don’t flee their homes because they want to,” President Nayib Bukele said Sunday during a news conference. “They flee their homes because they feel they have to."

“We can blame any other country, but what about our blame? What country did they flee? Did they flee the United States?” Bukele said. “They fled El Salvador.”

He added: “It is our fault ... Why? Because they don’t have a job, because they are being threatened by gangs, because they don’t have basic things like water, education, health.”

There's more at the link.

Kudos to President Bukele for his candor and willingness to accept responsibility . . . but he's one leader among many in South America, most of whom actively refuse to accept their share of the blame for the problems endemic in that continent.  Unless and until more of them are willing to do that, and accept their share of the responsibility for fixing those problems, the illegal migration crisis will continue.

That must include dealing with the criminal element in the situation.  Illegal migration has become a cash cow for Mexican cartels and many other criminal gangs further south.  They've proceeded to corrupt almost every law enforcement agency, organization and individual in those nations with the money they earn from the human and drug trades.  For example, Aesop points out:

Invariably, anyone on [the Mexican] side at the border isn't there to enforce the border, or anything else, except at the wishes of, and to the benefit of, the drug/smuggling cartels, which have controlled all movement across it for 10+ years. I have photographed and listened to, from rock-throwing distance, off-duty Mexican law enforcement scouting the border for passing drug and personnel shipments over it, and calling it in to their narco-jefes. I have witnessed them deciding, in the absence of US presence, to violate US sovereignty time and again, while armed, and not up to anything good. (The technical term this goes by in State Department conference rooms is "casus belli".)

. . .

I furthermore watched in real time as two Mexican cops patrolling the fenceline (which they didn't do routinely in that area) shot at two attempted crossers, not for trying to get across, which happened in that area with tedious regularity, but for trying it on their own, without a coyote on the cartel payroll, nor paying the $1-2K cartel "fee" for such exploits, which meant those cops weren't getting their cut from them either. And there was no "Alto! Manos arriba!" Mexican Miranda pretense, either. Those cops jumped out shooting, doing full mag dumps on sight when they glimpsed the two would-be crossers. I suspect they killed them, as we didn't see them re-attempt the crossing, and never saw the Mexican po-po hauling anyone off to jail afterwards. This is not a playground, kids. Big Boy Rules apply in full force. This is just what happens there.

Enforcing cartel business is what the Mexican military and police in the border regions do, going back decades. There are honest police and military forces there. They can usually be recognized by the bullet holes in their foreheads, or the fact that their heads are not found co-located contiguous to their torsos, in about 99% of cases. There are no other honest ones within 20-50 miles of the US-Mexican border, inclusive, from Tijuana to Brownsville. Write this on your hands with laundry marker, lest ye forget. Plomo o plata is the operating rule.

Again, more at the link.

This is the reality that Democrats and other progressive and far-left groups refuse to acknowledge.  The illegal alien trade is first and foremost tied to crime, in that those seeking illegal entry to the USA could not even reach our borders, much less cross them, without criminal aid, abetting and assistance.  This is not a humanitarian issue.  It's a crime issue - and it needs to be dealt with as such.  To secure your house against criminals, you first and foremost make it difficult for them to gain entry to it, by using effective external security measures.  Why should our country be any different?

I hope and pray President Trump finds a way to finance and construct an efficient, effective, secure border barrier, whatever it may be.  The future of our nation quite literally depends on it.  The internal enemies of our nation will do, and are doing, anything and everything they can think of to block his efforts.  It's up to us to make sure they don't succeed - because nobody else will.  We can't trust our politicians or our courts to take a stand on the law and the constitution.  Only those of us prepared to step up to the plate, and take responsibility, will do so.  The President of El Salvador has just shown that some politicians, at least, can be that honest and up-front about it.  Can we - will we - do the same on our side of the border?

Peter