The Atlantic: Beto has a way out of Trump's Immigration Trap

[crazytown]

Last edited Mon Apr 1, 2019, 10:41 AM - Edit history (1)

Trump Laid a Trap on Immigration—And Only O’Rourke Sees It



Beto O’Rourke isn’t known for his wonkish heft. But in his formal announcement for president on Sunday, the former Texas congressman offered one of the most important policy proposals of the nascent presidential campaign: He argued that to solve America’s problems at the border, America’s leaders must “help people in Central America where they are.” In so doing, he began laying a foundation to effectively rebut Donald Trump on his signature issue: immigration. (snip)

O’Rourke’s competitors are right to demand a fairer and more humane system for evaluating asylum claims. But an improved asylum system won’t reduce the number of people fleeing violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—Central America’s “Northern Triangle.” To the contrary, the better chance migrants have of gaining asylum, the more likely they are to seek it.

All of which plays into Trump’s hands. His core argument is that only by treating asylum seekers brutally—making it harder for them to apply, raising the standard of proof for their claims, and even separating them from their children—can the United States deter them from coming. By chastising Trump for his brutality without offering their own strategy for reducing migration, Democrats are walking into a trap. They’re allowing him to frame the immigration debate as a choice between harsh policies that stop Central American migration and humane policies that encourage it.

By addressing the roots of the migration problem, O’Rourke’s proposal evades Trump’s trap. The migrant “caravans” that Trump demonizes hail from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, where a brutal fight between organized-crime cartels has driven violence to levels that, according to the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, are unprecedented outside a war zone. In 2015, when the organization asked Northern Triangle migrants in Mexico why they had left their countries, 39 percent cited threats of physical harm.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/beto-orourke-has-way-out-trumps-immigration-trap/586201/

Trump’s decision to end aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is a policy which will encourage migrants and caravans. The more impoverished the people are, the more criminal gangs will proliferate, and the more people will want to get out. It is cruelty which which typical of the ‘man’.

[Cha]

1. KR!

[ExciteBike66]

2. "The may be mileage ..."

"The may be mileage in casting Trump’s decision to end aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador as a policy which will encourage migrants and caravans."

To me, the best part of this argument is that it is aimed squarely at compassion. Most people want to believe they are good and willing to help others, and making the case for foreign aid in order to solve the migrant problem has the advantage of equating that compassion with a policy solution.

It's a "win" even for the "closed-borders" types.

[crazytown]

5. Fixed.

You are right. Thank you. Helping people were they live is more than compassionate. Rather than leaving family and friends, enduring a dangerous journey to ‘El Norte’ and starting all over again, people and communities are given the opportunity to flourish at home. Aid needs to be targeted, but why not? In Trump’s case, cruelty and cynical politics.

[femmedem]

3. Beto's excellent on immigration issues.

He's right about this--people don't uproot their families and leave everything they've known unless there is something horribly wrong at home. Look at the root cause, not the end result.

Pete Buttigieg is saying the same thing:

Link to tweet

I hope all of our candidates express something similar and that it becomes part of the Democratic platform.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. Odd that separating children at border was one of

the (few) things republican voters were actually upset about. Trump doubling down on related immigration cruelties along with dumping ACA (healthcare #1 voter issue) is certainly an inexplicable multi dimensional chess move.

[crazytown]

6. It is Trump's modus operandi.

Cruelty at the border, and cruelty where desperate people are living.

[pangaia]

15. Cruelty to all he sees as less than he is.

[crazytown]

16. 'Less than he is'?

Cruelty for everyone but Ivanka. Oh wait ...

[Farmer-Rick]

7. But Traitor Trump doesn't really want to end mass migration by poverty stricken and fearful people

American citizens birthrates are dropping, as are ALL developed nations'. That's why the population average is getting older. Without mass migration of politically weak and fearful people, you can never, ever have cheap labor in the US. Cheap labor is what fuels capitalism. Without it, democracy and fairness tends to creep into our economic system.

Then dictator Trump couldn't get it off with porn stars. We can't have that, even if the naked first lady and gold digger approves. It's all about amassing more wealth and buying people. It's one of the most common features of capitalism.

[DallasNE]

8. The Problems Are Deep Rooted

The current problems resurfaced when Trump reversed policy toward Cuba. When you negatively impact one Latina nation you impact them all and it starts with the most vulnerable first. See Beto is right, you need to address the problem at its source, which is not at the border. But it also has to be broad based so I don't see that happening any time soon. And what Trump proposes will just make the problem worse because he has no clue on the problem, let alone the solution.

[c-rational]

9. My thoughts exactly. The immigrant crisis was always one of economics. People fled South

America and Mexico in years past to feed their families. Twenty years ago if you lived 30 miles south of the border why not cross illegally and in one day you could earn a months salary. Today it is not only economic but safety. If we want to project our power for good and not corporate/oil interests it would be in 'helping' these countries -Guatamala, Honduras and El Salvador, combat their terrorists within as well as combat our inane drug policies at home.

[patphil]

10. Beto has the right idea here.

Most of the immigrants would rather stay in their countries if they could be safe and make a living.
Trump's purpose in cutting aid to Central American countries is to make it more difficult for the citizens of those countries, thus increasing immigration.
This is planned!
He needs a crisis at the border, so this policy will make a bad situation worse and give Trump more cause to double down on his callous, mean spirited policies and look better in the eyes of his base.

Patrick Phillips

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. Yes, tRump starting a vicious cycle down with cutting aid to "3 mexican countries" (per Fox propagan

People are leaving due to violence and the lack of opportunities that creates it.

So tRump logic is you cut the programs that create opportunities and reduce violence. That way you get more migrants not fewer. But he doesn't see how it works because he is willfully ignorant and in any case he would do it to keep his base clinging to him.

[Mr.Bill]

11. The real problem is Trump's base would rather see

our military standing at the border shooting the immigrants as they approach it.

[Gothmog]

12. I really like Beto

Beto is correct on this issue

[defacto7]

13. Can we have multiple presidents to deal with different

aspects of our nations issues? I'm getting torn between candidates.

[IndyOp]

17. What Beto is talking about is the policy Obama developed -

Pete has said the same thing that Beto is saying.

I too would like to have multiple presidents or at least put them in cabinet roles and give them a lot of power -

Elizabeth Warren's work on consumer protections has been groundbreaking.
Jay Inslee (along with CA Govs) have been leading the way in cutting emissions.
Cory Booker is amazing re: investing in neglected communities and prison reform.
Obama on community transformation.

We need everyone. No competition or turf wards at all way too much that all needs to be done at the same time.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. Trump still racistly fixated on attempting to erase Obama. Won't work. . . . nt

[IndyOp]

20. Stunning, isn't it. No matter what the consequences - nuclear war, extreme cruelty... nt

[Dave in VA]

14. Immigrants Massed At The Border

is all a part of the orange hemorrhoid's re-election plan. He can use it to bash Dem's over not funding his wall. By cutting aid to these countries he is insuring there will be large numbers of people trying to escape from the horror thus giving the hemorrhoid the visual that he wants in 2020.

[peggysue2]

21. Immigration is Beto O'Rourke's main message

He's clear, on point and unapologetic, standing as a stark contrast to Trump playing to his vile base.

The handling of children in particular is a huge problem for the Trump Administration and turns off the majority of Americans (women in staggering numbers) and only underscores the cruelty built-in to the haphazard and reckless policy prescriptions. Now they want to deport unescorted children on a faster timeline.

It's cruel and stupid which basically sums up their entire approach.

[Gothmog]

22. Go Beto

Beto is no light weight

Link to tweet

Second, O’Rourke has adamantly refused to get sucked into the leftward scramble on issues such as health care. He’s supporting a House plan that unlike Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) Medicare-for-all wouldn’t outlaw private insurance. As CNN reported, O’Rourke told an audience in New Hampshire in late March, “What it says is, if you like your employer-sponsored insurance, you like the network that you’re in, you like the doctors that you can see, you’re happy with that, you can keep it. If you do not like your employer-based insurance and want to enroll in Medicare, you can. If you have no insurance whatsoever or if you are underinsured today, you can enroll in Medicare as well.” That sort of plan is a whole lot more popular than Sanders’s single-payer plan and it’s cheaper, too.

Third, what little he has said about foreign policy sounds reasonable. Every Democrat is going to promise to end long wars. However, he sounded cognizant of the need for U.S. international leadership. He explained in his El Paso kickoff rally Saturday that to achieve goals such as reversing climate change, the United States must “once again reassert our role on the world stage.” He then outlined a very traditional, responsible foreign policy vision

[W]e’ve got to strengthen these historic friendships and alliances, so many of them forged in sacrifice. The service of men and women who put their lives on the line and lost their lives to this country, let’s make sure that that sacrifice was not squandered. Let’s make sure that we strengthen those alliances. Let’s end these love affairs with dictators and strongmen all over the world. Let’s earn, let’s earn the respect of the people around the world, not just by how we treat those in other countries, but how we treat those within our country, and how we treat those who are at the border of our country. If we do that, we can make sure that we once again become the indispensable nation convening the other nations of this planet around some of our shared challenges like climate change, like nuclear disarmament, like ending all of these wars that we are currently engaged in, we can do for ourselves what no other country can.

In other words, democracy and our strategic needs go hand in hand. Retreating from the world, as those on the right and the far-left appear to want, won’t solve our problems. If O’Rourke can talk sense to voters and use his perch to make a case for responsible internationalism, he’ll do his party and the country a favor.