Whatever happen to that caravan, anyway?

[Belsnickel]

(11-26-2018, 06:23 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I never once heard it called a "hoax", but the concerns were overblown and it was just a political ploy.  Trump blew it up to be about criminals, drug smugglers, and terrorists.

Yup. No one was doubting the existence of the caravan, but the issue was that its existence was used in efforts by some to scare people into thinking there was a mass of brown people, funded by George Soros, coming here to murder them in their sleep and take their jobs. Not that this is a mass of people that are leaving behind terrible living conditions (not just violence) and trying to seek for themselves a better life in another country: the United States.

Should all of them be eligible for asylum? I don't think so. But this situation is something that should cause us to take a hard look at ourselves and how we interact with our neighbors in the hemisphere. A lot of the conditions that these people are trying to escape have been exacerbated, if not caused outright, directly or indirectly by our foreign policy in the region. They are trying to come here because other countries, Mexico included, have gotten the shit end of the stick when it comes to this. At the same time, our country has tightened our legal immigration requirements, making it more difficult to people to come here on work VISAs from these countries in favor of immigrants from, let's be honest with ourselves, whiter countries. It used to be that an immigrant labor force from Latin America was able to legally come here with ease, but that's just not the case anymore.

Unfortunately, the people in office (and I'm not just talking about this administration) haven't been willing to take a comprehensive look at how all of this works. They haven't been willing to admit to themselves and to the people of this country that we are being shitty neighbors. Working with these countries as partners in our efforts as we try to improve the lives of all people on our landmass just seems out of the question, and then we are baffled when they try to make it to our border and improve their lives here.

Is there a humanitarian crisis south of us on par with those in Africa? The answer to that is almost certainly yes. But that is too close to home so we don't like to admit this to ourselves.