{"id":576282,"date":"2018-05-07T06:09:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T12:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=576282"},"modified":"2018-05-07T06:09:27","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T12:09:27","slug":"trumps-false-narrative-of-chaos-at-the-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/05\/trumps-false-narrative-of-chaos-at-the-border\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s false narrative of chaos at the border"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_401604\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-401604\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence-771x578.jpg\" alt=\"Anapra border fence\" width=\"771\" height=\"578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence-771x578.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence-336x252.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence-1170x878.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence-800x600.jpg 800w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/AnapraFence.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heather Wilson<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">An upgraded section of border fencing in Southern New Mexico approved during the Obama presidency and built during the Trump presidency.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>In 2010, back when I covered the border region for public radio, I visited a shelter for migrants, a modest building located a mile away, just south of the fence separating San Diego and Tijuana. There, recent deportees could find a bed for a few nights after Customs and Border Protection agents released them in Mexico. That\u2019s where I met 34-year-old Ver\u00f3nica Vargas, a mother of two from Los Angeles, who\u2019d been deported after a domestic violence incident. At the local jail, police checked both her and her husband\u2019s immigration status and soon after, processed both for deportation. The couple\u2019s youngest child, 7, remained under the care of their oldest, 18, back in their Los Angeles apartment.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hcn.org\/articles\/letter-from-california-trumps-false-narrative-of-chaos-at-the-border?utm_source=nmpolitics.net&amp;utm_medium=web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">High\u200b \u200bCountry\u200b \u200bNews<\/a>\u200b,\u200b \u200ba\u200b \u200bnonprofit\u200b \u200bnews\u200b \u200borganization\u200b \u200bthat\u200b \u200bcovers\u200b \u200bthe\u200b \u200bimportant\u200b \u200bissues\u200b \u200bthat define\u200b \u200bthe\u200b \u200bAmerican\u200b \u200bWest.\u200b \u200b\u200b<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcn.org\/subscribe?src=header\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Subscribe<\/a>\u200b,\u200b \u200bget\u200b \u200bthe\u200b\u200b \u200b<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcn.org\/enewsletter\/commons-email-signup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enewsletter<\/a>\u200b,\u200b \u200band\u200b \u200bfollow\u200b \u200bHCN\u200b \u200bon\u200b\u200b \u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/highcountrynews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>\u200b\u200b \u200band\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/highcountrynews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>\u200b.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s nothing I can do about it now,\u201d\u00a0Vargas told me, in a dispirited, barely audible voice. \u201cWe are here and our children are there, and they really need us.\u201d Vargas, who told me she\u2019d been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years without a criminal record, added that Tijuana was not even her home. All she could think about now, she said, was finding a way back into the States to be with her daughters. The possibility of arrest, fines or another deportation was no deterrent; she wanted to be with her children. \u201cI\u2019ll try to cross back into the U.S. tomorrow, and as many times as I\u2019ll need to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The stretch of land between Tijuana and San Diego was then \u2014 and is now \u2014 the most surveilled part of the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. Yet smuggling goes on anyway: People and drugs find new ways into the U.S., while guns cross in the opposite direction. Crossing illegally is increasingly dangerous and costly for everyone involved, but no amount of reinforcement can possibly stop this flow. Nor will political theater \u2014 including the kind that is paving the way for National Guard troops to be stationed at the border.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Defense Secretary James N.\u00a0Mattis approved deploying up to 4,000 National Guard troops to \u201cseal up our Southern Border,\u201d as President Donald Trump announced on Twitter. Troops from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas would support U.S. Customs and Border Protection \u2014 without being permitted to arrest migrants or interact with them directly \u2014 through Sept. 30, 2018, which is when, in theory, Trump will have managed to come up with the funds to finally build his border wall.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s the thing: There is no such thing as a \u201ccrisis\u201d at the border. What we are witnessing is a rise in the number of people seeking asylum in the U.S., and doing so without receiving due process. That includes the caravan of more than 1,100 Honduran migrants, most of them families with children, whose well-publicized trek to the U.S. prompted Trump\u2019s call for the National Guard. These migrants did not come to scale any walls; they came to ask for U.S. asylum at the border, as several dozen of them reportedly already have.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Illegal crossings are currently at a 46-year low \u2014 down 71 percent in May 2017 from 2014\u2019s peak, when Customs and Border Protection records show that it detained almost 69,000 people. So the extra troops are most likely unnecessary. But, as previous deployments demonstrate, they will be very expensive. In 2006, President George W. Bush stationed the National Guard at the border for two years at a cost of $1.2 billion. After the mission, Army National Guard Commander Maj. David M. Church\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/trump-ordered-national-guard-troops-to-the-border-where-do-things-stand\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>\u00a0the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, had not communicated effectively with the Guard and gave him little time for preparation. Then, in 2010, President Barack Obama ordered a similar deployment to \u201chelp reduce drug and human trafficking.\u201d That cost an estimated $110 million, and, according to the Government Accountability Office, the results did not justify the price tag.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no telling how much Trump\u2019s National Guard deployment will cost, or even what it will be able to accomplish. California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, joined the other border states\u2019 governors in pledging to send 400 troops, but he made sure to curb their role. \u201cThis will not be a mission to build a new wall,\u201d he wrote in a public letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Mattis. \u201cIt will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. And the California National Guard will not be enforcing federal immigration laws.\u201d Unlike the other border states,\u00a0California\u2019s National Guard troops won\u2019t be allowed to use equipment to report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, operate radios or provide \u201cmission support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Back in January 2017, Trump\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/executive-order-border-security-immigration-enforcement-improvements\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signed<\/a>\u00a0an executive order that promised to make good on his campaign promise to build a wall, \u201cmonitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism.\u201d This was followed by more mandates targeting refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, undocumented immigrants without criminal records, and sanctuary policies, especially California\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>More than a year since that executive order, the $18 billion needed for Trump\u2019s wall has yet to materialize. Meanwhile, we\u2019re left with an increasingly isolated nation, one that is simmering with fear and anger, and ready to expel immigrants \u2014 mothers, children, asylum-seekers, Muslims \u2014 under the false narrative of chaos at the border.<\/p>\n<p><em>High Country News contributing editor Ruxandra Guidi writes from Los Angeles, California.\u00a0Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/commentary-submissions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As asylum-seekers flee to the U.S., misguided immigration policies proliferate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":401604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[140,3307],"class_list":["post-576282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}