Caravan Crisis

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Gaybutton
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Caravan Crisis

Post by Gaybutton »

I don't know if referring to these people from Honduras as migrants is really the proper descriptive term, but no matter what they are called, they are trying, in thousands, to reach the USA.

Suppose they do manage to get as far as the USA border? Then what? What happens next? What do these people think the USA will do? What can the USA do? What should the USA do?
Jun

Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by Jun »

The US should probably make sure the border is secure and make sure the migrants do not cross the border.

Even if they are good people who will work hard and contribute to the US economy, if the US lets this lot in there will be a lot of publicity and hundreds of thousands more will follow. So action needs to be taken to stop the trickle turning into a torrent.

Europe has had a similar problem with immigrants from the the middle east & north Africa. Once word gets around that the borders are not secure, we get millions of them. The results are not good.

I suspect the chances of successful integration would be much higher with your Hondurans, however you really do not want 3000 now paving the way for 3 million next year.
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Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by Gaybutton »

Jun wrote:The US should probably make sure the border is secure and make sure the migrants do not cross the border.
I agree. I don't see how the USA has any choice but to do just that. The USA has had trouble enough with illegal immigrants trying to get in from Mexico, not to mention the numbers of illegals already in the USA.

I certainly sympathize with the reasons why these people want to get into the USA and I understand their desperation. I certainly would not want to be one of them, but the problems they have in their home countries are not the responsibility of the USA to resolve. Unfortunately, if these people want to get into the USA, they're not going about it in the right way.

It is a terrible problem, but this mass exodus attempt is not going to resolve it. It calls the world's attention to it, but a different way to help these people needs to be found. I hope there is a way, but I have no idea what it might be.

The world is in a mess. The Americas has this problem. Europe has the North African problems. Asia has the Royhingya problem. And the people in a position to do anything about it are either powerless or unwilling to deal with it in any way that actually results in significantly helping these people. Meanwhile, the lives of all these thousands upon thousands of people are being ruined.
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Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by RichLB »

Gaybutton wrote: It is a terrible problem, but this mass exodus attempt is not going to resolve it. It calls the world's attention to it, but a different way to help these people needs to be found. I hope there is a way, but I have no idea what it might be.
From what I understand the vast majority of these folks are fleeing fear of gang retaliation for not participating in the lucrative drug trade. Yeah, I know - not all, but a significant number. If this is the case one solution would be the legalization of recreational drugs in the US. This would have the effect of drying up the profits of the drug cartels and hopefully destroy them.
gera

Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by gera »

Gaybutton wrote:I don't know if referring to these people from Honduras as migrants is really the proper descriptive term, but no matter what they are called, they are trying, in thousands, to reach the USA.

Suppose they do manage to get as far as the USA border? Then what? What happens next? What do these people think the USA will do? What can the USA do? What should the USA do?
Build the wall. After all, it may be not so stupid idea 555. And, by the way, many of so-called Rohingyas are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. For those who forgot the Burmese crack down started after Muslim insurgency of so-called Rohingyas on the border with Bangladesh, where several Buddhist villages were attacked. The irony of US situation is that US needs new hands to fill simple jobs in the areas like agriculture and hospitality service.
In other words caravans is not a problem. US congress is a problem. They cannot sort out immigration rules and how to arrange legal work permits
for migrants with appropriate skills.
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Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by Gaybutton »

gera wrote:In other words caravans is not a problem. US congress is a problem.
Unfortunately, that is not going to solve the problem these people face.

Again, I sympathize with them, but in my opinion their problems need to be solved at the root - in their own country. If their government cannot take care of them, then their government ought to be asking for help instead of protecting the interests of the few fat cats in charge, who obviously couldn't care less what happens to their own people as long as they get to continue living high on the hog.

The only way I can see their entry into the USA being viable would be if there are jobs waiting for them so that they can support themselves - and then only if there is a way to make sure they take those jobs and not just disappear once they're in. Obviously there is no way to do that and now there is an estimated 5000 of them. There is no way the USA is going to say "Welcome and c'mon in."

The USA did not create their problems and is not responsible for solving their problems for them. And selfish as this may be, I don't want my tax dollars being spent to support people who have no legal right to be in the USA in the first place. However, I would not mind at all having my taxes raised by a few dollars to help these people make a decent life in their own country - provided the USA can guarantee and enforce those dollars being spent properly and not ending up in the hands of criminals and corruption.

With Trump in office, I really am expecting is for these people to be turned away, somehow sent right back to where they came from, and the USA government not giving a shit about what ends up happening to any of them.

I can't help but think if these people do manage to make it to the USA border, the outcome for them will definitely not be a happy ending.
fountainhall

Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by fountainhall »

gera wrote:And, by the way, many of so-called Rohingyas are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh
I wonder where you get that information? I can find nothing about it anywhere on the internet. Like the Indians in Malaya and Singapore, the Rohingya were almost all brought in to then Burma by their British colonial masters. It was the Brits who annexed Rakhine State and amalgamated it with Burma instead of India.

When the British in indecent haste - about 6 weeks - partitioned India, it brought in a British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, who later admitted that he had relied on out-of-date maps and census materials. India was carved into two Muslim territories - East and West Pakistan - separated by the much larger rump of what was left of mostly Hindu India. Aware of precious little of the history, religion, geography and other vital facts of the lands he was carving up, Radcliffe omitted to include Rakhine State into East Pakistan because he was told it was part of Burma, despite most of the Rohingya having come originally from Eastern Pakistan or now Bangladesh, its next door state.

With Britain bankrupt after World War 2, it soon became desperate to get rid of its colonial empire, failing to find - or perhaps more accurately, failing to bother finding - solutions to many of the vast array of problems it was to leave behind.

What is especially worrying to some commentators about the present regime led by Aung San Suu Kyi is that the Muslim Rohingya made up only about 4% of the total population of Myanmar. Christians number over 6%. The majority of these live in the hill tribe states, many bordering Thailand. The government has been waging almost constant war against these tribes for many decades. That is one reason why hundreds of thousands have fled into Thailand. Take that a little further and we end up with the stateless cave boys - but that's the subject of another thread.

As for the caravan crisis, I have as little clue as to a solution as most others. One issue that does concern me is that as others have stated earlier there are two types of refugees - those seeking to stay alive by avoiding death and persecution, and economic migrants. I believe the world has to try and do something to help the former - although how, I haven't the faintest idea. As for economic migrants, I do question what right they actually have to illegally enter another country in the expectation of earning more money and making a better life for themselves. If the people of the poorest parts of the world are given the automatic right to gravitate freely to the richer parts, is that not a recipe for a total breakdown of the world order?
fountainhall

Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by fountainhall »

Gaybutton wrote:If their government cannot take care of them, then their government ought to be asking for help instead of protecting the interests of the few fat cats in charge, who obviously couldn't care less what happens to their own people as long as they get to continue living high on the hog.
I wholeheartedly agree that governments should take are of their own citizens. The sad fact is that there are far too many which do not. In the majority, those who gain power do so for a variety of reasons - settling old scores, tribal rivalry, to become richer than Croesus, and so on. Others latch on to philosophies and systems of government that they really believe will be better than the corruption existing up to then. Power then goes to their head and in the famous words of Lord Acton, whereas "power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely . . . and the end learns to justify the means." They happily rape their own countries for their own ends, slaughter their opponents and damned be those who say they are not doing so in the best interests of their peoples.

It has been thus throughout most of recorded history. No one till now has found any answer. So the chances of present day politicians doing so are surely no higher than zero.
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Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by Gaybutton »

Maybe this answers some of my questions:
____________________________________

Migrant caravan: What happens if it reaches the U.S. border?

By Jason Silverstein, CBS News

October 23, 2018

The caravan of more than 7,000 Central American migrants continues its journey in spite of exhaustion, heat, hunger and opposition from Mexican border police. But if the thousands of migrants reach the U.S. border, a new world of problems could await them.

This is the largest known caravan of migrants to head toward the U.S. border under the Trump administration. It's unclear how many of the migrants hope to ultimately enter the U.S. or exactly what would happen upon their arrival. But the administration's severe policies so far on immigration — along with President Trump's threats to stop the caravan — give an idea of what the migrants can expect.

Their arrival at the border would only begin another arduous journey, one that seems unlikely to end with many of them obtaining asylum.

How the U.S. government would likely respond

For the best idea of what the U.S. government would do, consider what happened when a caravan of about 1,500 Central American migrants reached the U.S.-Mexico border in April 2018.

Of those 1,500, only about 250 legally remain in the U.S. pending an immigration hearing, according to Pueblos sin Fronteras, a humanitarian aid organization for migrants. Only three have been granted asylum. Some of the other migrants who arrived were kept in detention or deported.

That caravan's arrival came around the time the Trump administration began its widely-condemned practice of separating migrant families at the border as part of a "zero tolerance" policy to deter illegal immigration. Since then, the administration has issued or proposed policies that will likely make the process even harder for the migrants traveling to the border now.

Migrant caravan seeks refuge

So the next group of migrants are likely to encounter one of two outcomes: Sluggish bureaucracy or hard-line enforcement.

"A lot of the migrants are expecting to apply for asylum and for asylum to be granted," Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., told CBS News. "In reality, we have an immigration regime on the southern border that is enforcement-first."

The asylum process is notoriously slow, even for migrants who arrive prepared to apply for it, and cases can sometimes take years to resolve. As part of the asylum process, applicants must pass what's called a "credible fear" test, convincing immigration officials that their lives would be in danger if they returned to their home countries.

But in June, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned an Obama-era policy and made it harder for asylum-seekers to claim gang violence, drug smuggling and domestic violence as credible fears. Applicants must now prove that they would face persecution based on their race, religion, nationality or political beliefs.

Data has not yet been released showing how that change has affected the number of successful asylum applicants. But it would almost certainly invalidate the claims of many applicants who pursued asylum to escape violence back home.

The Trump administration in July also proposed a "binary choice" policy for family separations, which would give detained immigrant parents a choice: They could either be detained with their children as their case is processed, or they could stay in custody while allowing their children to be released. Pierce called this proposal "Family Separation 2.0."

That program has not officially started, but Pierce said it's another sign of the dire options awaiting the caravan migrants.

"It's going to be really frantic," she said.

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not return requests for comment from CBS News.

What will President Trump do?

President Trump has lobbed a series of threats about what he'll do if the caravan hits the border, though he lacks the authority to carry out most of them.

He said he will turn away all migrants who don't apply for asylum in Mexico first, but the U.S. has no such arrangement with Mexico, and international laws stipulate the U.S. must at least allow migrants to submit an asylum application if they have a well-founded fear of persecution at home.

Mr. Trump also vowed to reduce or cut off foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but he would need congressional approval to do so. Likewise, his threat to mobilize the U.S. military and shut down the entire southern border would require a congressional waiver, as well as declaring a state of emergency, and any closure would take an immediate hit on trade with Mexico.

Any of these actions could also backfire and lead to more migration, since they would only add to the political and economic problems driving so many people out of those Central American countries. The Trump administration has "already implemented the most draconian policies," Pierce observed, and yet those "did not deter" this caravan from coming anyway.

Instead, President Trump's most direct impact could be using the caravan for political leverage to help Republicans in the midterm elections. In his rallies over the past week, Trump has baselessly accused Democrats of somehow organizing the caravan. He has claimed gang members and Middle Easterners are lurking among the migrants, though he acknowledged, "There's no proof of anything." And he's used the caravan as a rallying cry for supporting Republicans and stricter immigration laws, including funding for his long-promised border wall.

He has repeatedly told crowds at his rallies, "This is the election of the caravan."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrant-ca ... us-border/
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Re: Caravan Crisis

Post by Pattayamale »

This issue is more racially charged out of fear and media driven. It is Trump at his best and America at its worst. But when we look at the numbers, how much sense does all this make? In my view, it is like putting out a burning match with a fire hose.

7000 in a caravan where historically over 70% will drop out and try to get asylum in Mexico or stay. Even if 3000 reach the border, by law they are legally allowed to apply for asylum. They must pass a fear test which most can not. If they are gay, or transsexual they may be admitted under different regulations. If they are denied admittance they are turned away or deported.

The USA has a population of about 350,000,000 people. If even 1500 make it through the process, or sneak in, that number as a percentage of the population is very, very small. .0000004285714. In fact there are more people leaving the USA (as expats).

Right now the USA workforce is shrinking. We have more workers retiring than entering. Most of the USA rural areas or towns are dying because people are moving into urban areas The USA fertility rate is dropping because people are putting off having children until later in life and there are many more women in the workforce.

Unfortunately, the USA can have a few more weather related storms, which will kill more people than those trying to cross the southern border.

The real opposition is racial!! In about 15 - 20 years the USA will no longer be a majority white population. There are not enough white babies being born. Even though they may not admit it.

I agree every country needs to have sensible immigration policies and control. The US Congress is way behind other countries in doing this. To me this is the biggest question and concern. The solution is not spending billions for a wall on one border, having ICE put up roadblocks 100s of miles inland and knock down doors in full military armour to find a person who has been working 30 years honestly in the country for 30 years.

As inconvenient as it is in Thailand to do the 90 day reporting, present a passport at a hotel to check in (as it is in Europe), get a resident letter to buy a car; these are effective tools and controls. Thai citizens have a national ID card. They use that. The USA argument that a National Id card is a bad thing or a privacy issue in today’s use of technology is stupid. Earlier this year I received a new medicare card. The reason is that the old one contained my social security number plus an alpha letter. Someone decided all cards needed new numbers. The cost of this change had to be incredible.

So yes, there certainly must be controls. Laws are already in place at the borders. They need to be followed and improved. But this distraction and overkill by Trump and the news media is not warranted. Push Congress.
Pattayamale
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