By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The always troubled Mexican-American border
was front and centre this past summer as President Donald Trump,
in an attempt to dissuade migrants, mainly from Central America,
from entering the United States, detained -- and separated –
parents and their children.
The resultant outcry forced him to abandon
the policy, but it has done nothing to solve the seemingly
never-ending problem of poverty-stricken people escaping
violence from trying to illegally enter the U.S.
For that matter, Trump has still not shelved
the idea f building a wall to separate the two countries. Or more of a wall,
actually since there are parts of a wall there already.
The
border spans 3,66 kilometres across four states – California,
New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. There are 16 sets of
sister cities that line the border, which weaves from the
Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
In
1846, President James K. Polk had sent American troops into
Mexico, over what he claimed was an invasion – Mexican troops
were supposedly occupying disputed territory. This war was
short and defined the line.
But
the border didn’t move from an abstraction to a law until 1848
in Article V of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It was
finally mapped between 1891 and 1896. That’s the line that
exists today.
The border has been a
place of violence. In the early twentieth century, American
policy mandated that all immigrants coming across the border
be deloused with gasoline and the chemical Zyklon B.
People have always
been trekking across the line to find jobs, and just as often
deported. Every president has had to grapple with the problem
of the border.
Hundreds of thousands
of Mexicans in the United States were forcibly “repatriated”
during the Great Depression; many were actually U.S. citizens.
In 1954 President Dwight Eisenhower deported 13
million Mexicans. The program was called Operation Wetback.
In 1969, Richard Nixon
announced Operation Intercept, which mandated vehicle
inspection for every car crossing into the United States. What
was once a journey by vehicle became a journey on foot.
Bill Clinton began
building the wall in 1993. Later, the Illegal Immigration
Reform and Responsibility Act fined people for illegal entry.
This funded more of the wall and pushed immigrants to find
other ways to cross.
When he was President,
George W. Bush sent in the National Guard to the border. So
did President Barack Obama.
None of this stops the
desperate. In 2017, 303,916 people were caught crossing into
the United States illegally through the border. Most of them
were not from Mexico, but elsewhere in Central America.
Earlier
this year, the Trump administration vowed to implement a
zero-tolerance for illegal border crossings. The result was
families being separated and held in detention centres,
because children cannot be held in prison with their parents.
Infants and toddlers were shipped thousands
of miles away from their parents, to often untraceable
destinations all over the continent.
The federal government in July completed
reunifications of more than 1,800 migrant families, but the lingering effects
remain. Many children remain apart from their parents.
The people coming up from Central America
are escaping from their own culture, one that has created those
very horrors they are fleeing – but what to do?
Will the U.S. eventually have to let in every
last Central American? That’s clearly not possible. A sovereign
country needs to protect its boundaries and determine who it
allows in, based on its own needs.
Total asylum claims increased 1,700 per cent
between 2008 and 2016, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen
Nielsen told Congress in May.
“Asylum was never meant to alleviate all
problems -- even all serious problems -- that people face every
day all over the world,” Jeff Sessions, the attorney general,
said in June.
Clearly, humanitarian considerations come up
against political realities, and the latter usually prevail.
Citizens vote, while migrants have little voice.
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