![](https://davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/guatemala-765x510.png)
![](https://davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/guatemala.png)
By Tara Abraham
In the weeks leading up to president Joe Biden’s inauguration, thousands of Hondurans, in a desperate plea to escape their poverty-stricken, violence-ridden and hurricane tormented country, attempted to make their way through Guatemalan and Mexican borders in the hopes of a better life in America.
In his presidential campaign trail, former President-elect Biden proclaimed that the United States and Central America are “bound together not just by proximity, but by our shared history and values, and the deeply rooted connections of family and friends that inextricably link our futures.” The previous administration blatantly disregarded these shared values while dehumanizing the migrants in a political ploy to garner supporters.
While the United States cannot afford to take in the thousands of migrants, especially not during a pandemic, I firmly believe the United States must help tackle the root causes that make the migrants want to flee their countries.
It is not a coincidence that thousands of migrants are making their way to the United States at the beginning of the Biden administration. People who embark on a perilous journey to America feel that they don’t have a choice but to make the dangerous trek across borders.
With a new president, migrants assume that they can be granted asylum within the first few weeks of the Biden presidency. Yet, in an NBC news report, a senior Biden transition official stresses that “There’s help on the way, but now is not the time to make the journey.”
There is a history of caravans attempting to cross the U.S. border, but hopefully, the Biden administration will break this cycle by providing the much-needed support. In a country deprived of all signs of hope, people will stop at nothing till they can find refuge. The caravans will keep on coming, but the U.S. and Central America’s combined efforts to improve these countries’ conditions could result in people staying within their own countries.
Ana Murila, one of the migrants in the recent caravan, claims, “…there are no opportunities; we are leaving because we don’t want to suffer further.” Murila joined the caravan with her children after the back to back hurricanes badly affected Honduras.
As noted by Claudio Escalon and Maria Verza in an AP article, “The hurricanes’ destruction comes on top of the economic paralysis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. And the persistent violence and lack of jobs that have driven families north from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in great numbers during recent years.” It is disheartening to think about what many migrants go through and the continual sacrifices they make to support their families.
Many Americans may disagree with providing aid to Central America when we have poverty within our own country.
But to this, I must ask whether anyone considered how much it costs to fund the border wall in Trump’s attempt to crack down on illegal immigration. According to a BBC article, the Trump administration spent a whopping 15 billion dollars building a wall across the Mexican and U.S. border. The United States should have used the insane amount of money spent on the wall towards improving Central America.
Suppose the Biden administration holds on to the promises made in the campaign trail. As described on Biden’s campaign page, they will overturn many of the Trump administration policies and commit a $4 billion regional strategy to tackle the root causes that led to the migration. This strategy would take on regional security challenges, the corruption infested governments and prioritize poverty and economic improvement.
The money and resources allocated to bettering Central America may also benefit the United States as it bolsters its security and creates new economic opportunities for U.S. businesses.
While it’s easy to dismiss the people in the caravans as a problem, we must recognize that no human life is disposable. Every person deserves the right to safety, stability and the ability to thrive. I hope that President Biden can overcome the humanitarian crises in Central America; we will all be better for it.
“The challenges ahead are formidable. But if the political will exists, there is no reason Central America cannot become the next great success story of the Western Hemisphere.”
— Then-Vice President Joe Biden
Tara Abraham is a third-year transfer student pursuing a Communications major at UC Davis. She was born and raised in the Sacramento area.
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There’s no evidence that this would work.
What would work is to take a “pathway to citizenship” for those arriving illegally off the table.
Worked out well for the St. Louis.
Don’t know what that means.
But I do know that people will continue arriving (and enduring dangerous conditions along the way), if they think that there’s a benefit for them. Leading to situations where they can be taken advantage of, etc.
Not to mention the lack of “fairness”, for those who can’t just walk into the country illegally.
As far as sending money to other countries, that’s no guarantee that things will get “better” for those who would migrate. Depends upon “who” gets the money, for example.
“Don’t know what that means.”
It means that those who don’t know and don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.
I see.
Yes – the pattern has been repeating itself for decades, now.
The St. Louis was a ship carrying Jewish refugees from Germany that was preventing from docking in the the US in 1939 because of immigration restrictions. They are forced to return to Europe. 600 of the 937 passengers who ended up deported and killed in concentration camps.
I think I did hear about that, didn’t know it’s name.
There’s people dying all over the world in wars, etc. Some of which our country has participated in. (Not even sure what the current status of that is.)
Somalia comes to mind, as a country in crisis.
Encouraging mass migration from countries at war (or in crisis) is not going to prevent wars and crises.
The purpose of my article was to emphasize the point that if the United States provided aid (not just monetary) to the Central American countries to improve their conditions, then it could prevent migrants from making the dangerous trek to U.S.
For that matter, one can probably ask how many “innocent” Germans, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Iraqi, or Afghanistan people, etc., have died in wars in which our country was involved with.
One might even ask if soldiers themselves are generally “innocent”, in a broader sense.
It means DG knows an easter egg of history that you don’t and is lording that over you.
So unfair to those Norwegian refugees with the big ocean and all.
That might be a country which keeps “us” peasants out. Along with those “privileged Canadians”. 😉 Probably the majority of countries have immigration restrictions, many of which may be more restrictive than the U.S. (Not necessarily “wealthy” countries, either.) That would probably be a good subject for an article.
But there’s entire continents (which include countries that someone might describe as “sh*tholes”) which are separated by oceans from the U.S. So, unless they’re able to board a modern-day “St. Louis”, I guess they’re out of luck. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind, I guess.
In my opinion, the U.S. needs to rethink it’s role in all of this. It is no longer a pioneer, sparsely-populated country.
Wait for it…
Someone is typing “recto ad Hitlerium” and will cowardly call out “Godwin’s Law.”
Mike Godwin should be ashamed he ever gave such a toy to the feeble minded and lazy.
Thanks Hobbs, you just called it out.
Speaking on behalf of all feeble-minded lazy cowards, we weren’t typing that, FYI.
A path to citizenship for those already here and those here legitimately seeking asylum will be part of any comprehensive immigration reform bill. The outlines of the kind of compromise bill were laid down in the 2013 bill that passed the Senate but which the House Speaker then refused to bring to the floor. It will likely be the framework for any new bill.
As this article suggests, investing in the countries of origin of those desperately seeking to migrate here, both for dire economic reasons and to flee the horrifying violence they live in there, could reduce the numbers of immigrants. $4 billion is a tiny percentage of our overall foreign aid bill and would likely be money well spent. Local corruption is a huge issue that will need to be addressed in implementing any aid package. But that isn’t an argument for doing nothing.
After watching this batted around for decades without resolve, I’m convinced neither party wants to solve immigration as not solving it benefits the corruption of both parties, or the Republicrat/Democans. I won’t even set a bet, I’ll just bring you $50 in celebration if Biden and his two houses of Dems actually concludes reform along the lines of the 2013 bill and really does something. I’m remaining pessimistic at this point.
YES and yes. A big yes on the first few words. Aid has a history of being sucked up by the very force that creating the misery in the first place, enabling the evil. And the US has a history of doing exactly the wrong thing when it gets involved in Central America. If we can truly find a way to help the needy, I’m for the $4 billion or whatever. But I am not hopeful. Fixing another countries internal rot without actually overthrowing a regime is likely doomed to failure – and overthrowing a regime may only lead to worse problems (see IRAQ).
“Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate.
Shake it off.”
Taylor Swift
If only I had any idea what this was referring to, besides a pop song.
The purpose of my response was to point out that this is not necessarily true, e.g., for the type reasons I already outlined.
“For that matter, one can probably ask how many “innocent” Germans,…”
Because in WWII there were good people on both sides.
Sounds like you’re a fan of the carpet-bombing of Germany and Japan (not to mention what occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
How do you feel about the Vietnamese, as another example? And the photo of that girl running down the road with her clothes burned off from napalm, for example?
We can probably discuss a LOT more than this, both purposeful and accidental.
As you say/cite, “haters gonna hate”.
What does that have to do with a question of US immigration policy?
In general, you can trace how conversations evolve (sometimes off-topic) by reviewing the thread of comments, themselves (and what commenters are apparently responding to). There are now 16 total here, so it shouldn’t be a difficult job.
One might ask what Ron G’s comment (regarding “hate”) has to do with the subject, as well. Or, what Hobb’s comment has to do with this.
But as they say, it’s not my blog.
But getting back to your example (the St. Louis), I don’t know if there’s a practical way to provide temporary status to those actually under attack (and able to walk into the country). I would think that it’s a possibility. Not sure if any other countries “along the way” do so, as well.
Countries don’t generally remain unstable forever, though it can last a long time.
That’s different than providing a pathway to citizenship or other perceived benefits (which would likely continue to cause illegal migration for those seeking a better life).
If I had to guess which group consists of the vast majority of illegal immigrants over the past decades, it would (by far) be the latter (those seeking a better life). Some, no doubt, believe that this should be allowed as well (without actually acknowledging it).
Yes. It’s called ‘asylum’.
I wonder how it would have “worked out” for the passengers on the St. Louis if the U.S. sent money to Germany at that time, in hopes of making it better for them.
My guess is, “not very well”.
Poignant point!
We sent the money after the war, in the form of the Marshall Plan, to rebuild Germany, the UK, France, and other nations. In today’s dollars it was more than $100 billion. The goal was pretty obvious: to restore and rebuild the countries as stable, Western-allied democracies and avoid the chaos and instability that might have strengthened the spread of communism across Europe. Investing strategically in countries with weak economies can be beneficial and, as with the Marshall Plan, the strings that are attached provide some leverage over the outcomes.
The governments of Guatemala and Mexico are actively trying to block the caravans that are moving from Honduras toward the U.S. Honduras is a mess, battered by hurricanes in November, rampant gang activity, and poor government response. We urgently need to work with those governments to dissuade the migrants, provide economic opportunities, and help with the kinds of aid that NGO’s provide in dealing with emergencies, disease, and poverty. That is where the money is needed and we are the best situated to provide the bulk of that funding.
Time matters of course. Given that the proximate cause of Nazi Germany was the economic devastation after the Versaille treaty that largely doomed the Weimar Republic, clearly money to Germany in 1939 was too late, but economic development in the 20s rather than retribution might have.
Sounds like a “do-ever” is needed, as with Germany and Japan.
No – I’m not advocating that.
Honestly, I don’t know what to think of this. But I somehow doubt that it will make much difference regarding the decades of illegal immigration that has occurred, and is (still?) occurring – from multiple countries.
The only way I can see to reduce that is to reduce the incentive (perceived benefit) to do so. If that was the case, you wouldn’t even need a “wall”.
And yet, that doesn’t seem to be part of any “plan”. (If anything, the opposite is now true.)
More art school scholarships?
(My apologies for that, in advance.)
Yes, after the war, and all those in concentration camps perished. Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……. . . . . . . -ing is everything.
I’m talking about intervening before as a way to have solved the refugee crisis using the model put forward here. It’s really irritating when you allow your propensity for sarcasm to get in the way of an interesting discussion.
I believe that myself, Alan, and Don have all touched on the same point (to some degree). It’s an actual point, especially when it comes to other countries.
Within this country, use of public funds is audited. But even then, shenanigans/misuse often occurs.
So was I, and how it doesn’t work if the money is going to a corrupt country – hence the analogy of ‘what if we sent money to Nazi Germany’ brought up by RO.
Thanks for letting me know I irritated you. Perhaps instead of being irritated, don’t allow your propensity for attacking people’s perceived propensities to get in the way of hearing what they are saying.
A question for everyone. We can’t even house everyone we have here now, including our own vets. What is the plan to house and feed the many hundreds of thousands to millions of migrants and refugees that the Biden administration is now openly inviting into our country?
” We can’t even house everyone we have here now, including our own vets.”
Of course we can, with inventory left over. We simply don’t have the will.
Exactly, “we simply don’t have the will.”
“We can end poverty in the United States. Our nation has the resources to do it.” “The question is whether the nation has the will.”
-Martin Luther King Junior
Sounds like some believe it’s the U.S.’ responsibility (and ability) to end it for the world.
What do you see as the obligation of the privileged towards the underprivileged?
Depends upon whether or not the privileged are “white”.
Sarcasm intended, as we already know that they are. (Sarcasm, again.) 😉
On a more serious note, your question is very broad, indeed. A virtual invitation to go off-topic.
But, also at the heart of many, many issues.
I’m trying to understand what your core value actually is here. You didn’t respond.
How about we take care of the people here right now before we invite the world in?
In other words, you send the St. Louis back.
I’m trying to understand the plan on how these people are going to be housed and fed?
You didn’t ask a specific question.
I will say, however, that I don’t necessarily assume that the privileged are keeping the non-privileged down.
People are highly driven to improve their lives on their own. There’s a certain level of arrogance involved, to assume that the non-privileged are dependent upon the privileged.
Regarding the St. Louis (as you added when typing this comment), the (equivalent) premise of this article is essentially that sending money to Germany at that time would have helped those folks.
I actually did ask a specific question: What do you see as the obligation of the privileged towards the underprivileged?
Perhaps the entire civilian populations of Germany, Japan and Italy should have been imported into the U.S., before we started fighting those countries (and bombing the crap out of a couple of them). (And that’s just one war.)
Of course, they’d probably put them into camps, like they did with Japanese-Americans.
Including babies, no doubt.
Your response reminds me of the person standing on the beach, all these starfish have washed up, dying. And the guy starts throwing them back into the water. A person comes up to them to ask why they are bothering, there are thousands, you can’t possibly make a difference. And the guy picks up another one, tossed it into the water and said, “made a difference to that one.” Or from the Talmud: “whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”
Again, a very broad question. Are you referring to how it relates to this article, alone? What exactly are you asking?
It’s supposed to be a very broad question. It allows you to answer it as you see fit.
Regarding the starfish, I do like it.
I’ll go out and get a saltwater tank at home, and head over to the beach. You never know what’s waiting to hunt those starfish, back in the ocean. Probably the reason that they were seeking “asylum”. 🙂
We can end poverty in the United States. Our nation has the resources to do it.” “The question is whether the nation has the will.”-Martin Luther King Junior
Tara,
I hate to break the bad news to you but we’re never going to end poverty it’s been here since the beginning of time and it will be here until the end of time. No matter what people say covid-19 is going to be here for a very very long time and we’re going to have to learn to live with it just like the flu and cold so we got to learn how to embrace this stuff ☺️
United States has power over every country in South America Central America and that includes Little old Mexico also if we really want to do something all we got to do is cut off their money and tell the village idiots to straighten out their countries and you know what they would do it because they want our money and besides if these immigrants want a better environment to live in they got to pull up out of the gutter and straighten out their own damn country without that nothing will ever happen
just one persons humble opinion
I hate to break it to you but you realize that we actually did dramatically lower poverty in this country, particularly in the 60s. May not end poverty in our lifetime, but the notion that we can’t is limiting. It was over 50 percent in 1900, in 2014, it was just under 15%.
Moreover, extreme poverty has made huge progress – https://www.vox.com/2014/12/14/7384515/extreme-poverty-decline
I really don’t think you’re informed enough on this stuff to lecture people on poverty.
Humble?
No, just Panama north.
I’m aware of what it’s called, as well as the built-in incentives to abuse it.
I’m wondering how the attorneys who assist in that process get paid, and who pays them.
“I’m trying to understand the plan on how these people are going to be housed and fed?”
Don’t strain yourself. We give them housing and food.
How many homeless are currently not housed? It’s not as easy as just saying “We give them housing and food.”
It is , in fact, just that easy.
There are at least 1.5 million vacant homes in the United States (some estimates are as high as 17 million vacant homes) and about 750,000 homeless people.
According to the USDA- In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40 percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010.
“I’m trying to understand the plan on how these people are going to be housed and fed?”
They pinch a little bit as they clean the homes and cook the food of those who have been here for a few generations.
Or they start $1.2 trillion companies like Google.
Or our government has to support them further increasing our national debt.
Tara,
Thank you for your thoughtful opinion piece, containing actual facts. Please ignore the raft of posters here who post comments to most things that David runs without a shred of knowledge, expertise or willingness to read and research. Nor much empathy or compassion for their fellow humans either, I must say. I myself ignore and rarely post comments anymore myself due to the lack of intelligent discourse that is rife here, unfortunately. I will attempt to respond to a few comments here however. First, we already have TPS (temporary protected status) as an option to provide temporary protection to those in the U.S. due to civil unrest, war, natural disasters, etc. We just have not always had the executive will, esp. in the last 4 years, to implement that statute with regard to Central Americans arriving at our borders. And yes, asylum is also temporary protection, with a path to permanent residency and eventually citizenship.
The U.S. owes Central America and Mexico a special debt due to our past (and sometimes ongoing) interference in their attempts at democratic process, as well as our extraction of enormous resources from those countries. We’ve actively supported military coups in a number of countries as well as death squads and totalitarian regimes. In Guatemala we upended the Arbenz administration at the behest of United Fruit — who opposed that democratically elected government’s policies — and for the following six decades, the country was decimated by military dictators and genocide against their largely indigenous population. I was on a human rights delegation to Guatemala in the early 1990s, sponsored by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, after a number of priests, nuns and civilians were murdered for such things as advocating for electricity and roads in their small towns. Former gov’t supported death squad members in El Salvador, post-war there, now make up a large number of armed gang members. Our military helped train death squad leaders at the School of the Americas in Georgia. MS-13, an infamous gang in Central America, that most have probably heard about, was started here in the U.S., in Los Angeles, NOT in Central America, and was “exported” to the Northern Triangle countries.
At least one of you impliedly attacked asylum attorneys as well. I can tell you that after starting out representing asylum seekers and doing so occasionally throughout my career as an immigration attorney — it is traumatic and draining. I still do it, but not to the extent of some of my incredibly amazing colleagues, who suffer secondary trauma when working with their clients at the border and here within the U.S. preparing for their hearings. How would you feel if your client had his throat slit multiple times in El Salvador by death squads and left to die, but somehow survived and made it to the U.S.? Or if your client is an elderly woman, extremely religious, always with her rosary in hand, who finally the day before her final court hearing on her asylum case, was able to finally work up the courage to explain the many hours gap in her story of being rounded up and transported by soldiers from one town to another — that she was raped multiple times and was too ashamed to tell her husband or family members. Or your client is a Guatemalan woman, a registered nurse, viewed as property by her husband and the police, who was punched multiple times in the stomach when pregnant, dragged by her hair through a cementary and threatened with death should she ever leave her husband — whose husband then renounced their first child, born with cerebral palsy, and continued to abuse his wife, with reports to the police resulting in a response that “wives must obey their husbands.” Or the gay Mexican man I represented a year ago, who was terribly abused and raped numerous times starting at the age of 9, because he was gay, and couldn’t even tell either his U.S. citizen husband or me what had happened to me until I helped him get into therapy with a wonderful UC Davis professor who is also a bi-lingual, bi-cultural psychologist. He couldn’t talk about his experiences more than 30 minutes at a time without breaking down. He cried in my office, and I cried along with him. At one point he was suicidal and I was texting him almost daily to check-in and to tell him how much he had to contribute to the world. (He is super bright, very hard working, learned English quickly and became a restaurant manager soon after obtaining a job working at the restaurant).
How would any of you feel, if you received a text message this past Saturday, from a Davis resident, and I quote: “Something terrible is happening, the 10th of January in El Salvador the gangs killed my brother and last night they threatened another of my sisters and all my family is in danger….I’m afraid that they are going to murder my entire family.” She wanted to know if the U.S. could somehow offer her siblings left in El Salvador political asylum. Her sister already received asylum and her application is pending — but she may have few family members left in the future if they are not able to escape.
One of you asked who is paying for attorneys for people applying for asylum — the reality is that over 50% of asylum seekers are self-represented, including small children. Have you not seen the news reports during the Trump era of 3 and 4 year olds sitting in court being asked questions by judges? And as for payment — I’ve been practicing immigration law for over 30 years, and for most all of that time have not made as much as a starting teacher, because most of my clients are low-income. I am still privileged — I have a roof over my head, enough to eat, was born white in this country and don’t suffer from discrimination, other than gender-based occasionally.
And finally, perhaps sit down and think and research all the contributions of immigrants to this country, both documented and undocumented. Undocumented immigrants have actually kept our social security system afloat for many years — according to the SSA, they contribute $6-7 billion a year, which goes into a “suspense” fund because they don’t have real SS#s and they are extremely unlikely themselves to ever benefit from those payments. But the rest of us benefit! Immigrants are what power our country’s creativity, new technologies, COVID vaccine research and so much more. We are an aging country, and if we don’t have more young, new immigrants here, our ability to provide our elders with a dignified life as they age will be severely compromised. Oh, but these creative immigrants are all “legal” immigrants, you say — which isn’t at all true. Many of our current health care workers, for example, are DACA recipients, which is only a “deferral” of deportation for those young immigrants that arrived here as children, either without status or who overstayed their status, and it is still under attack by the right-wing in the courts. Also consider that those who manage to travel through several countries with few resources, arrive at the U.S. border and somehow support themselves while our government forced them illegally to remain in Mexico after LEGALLY applying for asylum at our border, are some of the most resilient, hard working, resourceful people their countries produce. And they have the chutzpah and audacity to make it here to our country — not with the intent to obtain benefits from our country (and btw, people without status here are eligible for nothing more from our federal gov’t than emergency medi-cal, period), but to work, pay taxes, contribute in countless ways, and make a better life for their families and communities. They plant and harvest our food, care for our elderly and our children, clean our houses and our hospitals, encourage their children to obtain an education and work hard — and they epitomize the “family values” that so many conservatives and those ignorant about immigrants claim are priorities for our country.
Enough said — I have immigrants to work for — and am so glad I do — they are the very best people, and those of you who do not have the luck or pleasure to know immigrant Mexicans and Central Americans have truly missed out. Have a good rest of your weekend.
I resemble that remark. Alan “without a shred of knowledge, expertise or willingness to read and research nor much empathy or compassion for their fellow humans” Miller. That’s me.
Starting out the gate by insulting those with other opinions is a great way to get others to not read the rest of your opinion – which I won’t be – but a great way to get more likes on Facebook pages full of people who think like you!
a tad “over the top”, but fully agree with your last paragraph… and I may have been guilty of such transgressions, but try and will try to limit them… but that last paragraph needs to be heard… “for reals”…
Fully admit I too often ‘resemble that remark’…
I got kicked out of my comment while editing, but one more thing: As Tara suggested, the border wall has done absolutely nothing to keep people out of the U.S. It has always been purely symbolic of the racism of Trump. I personally met asylum seekers who climbed over the wall and presented themselves to border patrol within the U.S. requesting asylum. If we had taken that huge sum of money we paid (and that Trump promised we would NOT pay — Mexico, would, remember), and used it to assist in economic development and security in the Northern Triangle countries, we would have achieved a slow-down in migration to the U.S. People do NOT want to leave their families and their homes. I’ll repeat: People do NOT want to leave their families and their homes. They feel forced to flee to preserve the very lives of themselves, their families, especially their children, and/or to provide the basic necessities to survive. If they feel secure in their homes, and are able to work at jobs to feed their families, most that are now coming would never leave. We would have the most “bang” for our buck by helping to provide that development in those countries, while also complying with our international treaty obligation of accepting refugees and asylum seekers who are fleeing the conditions, that we ourselves in many cases, helped to create.
Ann: Thanks for the insight, will look it over more carefully.
I don’t believe that the vast majority of immigrants who arrive in this country illegally would qualify for asylum. And I see enormous potential for abuse of that system, by those who would not qualify.
Sorry if you don’t like that perspective, but I believe it is one that many people have, based upon reality. Seems like you mistakenly believe that this is an attack.
And frankly, it sounds like some of those situations might require a “do-over”, in terms of a government. (Rather than a payment, as suggested in this article.)
So, I guess the question always becomes, how many starfish do we “take home to the aquarium” rather than “return to the ocean” (referencing David’s comment). How much is the U.S. solely responsible for?
And how many years do those scheduled asylum hearings drag on, before they’re even heard? And, what occurs in the meantime? (Again, potential for abuse of the system.)
It probably is easier to examine this when one isn’t personally involved.
So, as long as governments cannot protect their own people (and may even persecute them), the populations of entire countries could theoretically “qualify” for asylum. (Not just limited to South America, of course.)
But again, this doesn’t seem to account for the millions already here, illegally.
The lack of a clear (and/or ever-changing) policy encourages refugees to take risks.
Liberals want to take in millions of migrants and refugees as our country nears a national debt of nearly $100,000 per every man, woman and child living in the U.S.