By The Times Editorial Board, Oct 19, 2018<\/p>\n
President Trump is proving once again that he has little awareness of, or much appreciation for, the reasons so many Central American families continue to flow northward in search of a sanctuary. The latest flash point is yet another migrant caravan<\/a> that set out a few days ago from Honduras<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Reportedly numbering about 2,000 people, the caravan has already crossed into Guatemala on its way to Mexico en route, for many of the migrants, to the United States. Such caravans, which have existed for years<\/a>, are part publicity stunt by immigration advocates and part self-defense mechanism. The overland trip from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador is arduous and dangerous, so traveling in groups offers some protection from marauding gangs, rapists and others who prey on the desperate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rather than recognizing these caravans for what they are, the president sees them as an \u201cassault on our country.\u201d He went apoplectic in April when a caravan of about 1,200 Central American migrants<\/a> moved through Mexico; government officials there dispersed most of the migrants and only about 150<\/a> reached the U.S. border. For comparison, so far this year, border agents have arrested an average of 42,651 migrants per month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The United States cannot simply close its borders to people seeking asylum, which is what most of the caravan members ultimately are seeking.<\/p>\n The caravans are a drop in the immigration bucket and pose no significant risk to the United States. Nevertheless, they provided fodder this week for another presidential Twitter tantrum meant to rile up his nativist base \u2014 \u201cGreat Midterm issue for Republicans!\u201d Trump tweeted<\/a>, later referring to the migrants, absurdly, as \u201cDemocrat Party led<\/a>.\u201d He threatened<\/a> to withhold aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if those governments didn\u2019t stop the exodus. He declared<\/a> that \u201canybody\u201d trying to cross the U.S. border will be arrested and detained. And on Thursday, he threatened<\/a> to shut the entire border<\/a> \u2014 he\u2019d disrupt supply chains and halt trade with Mexico over this? \u2014 and secure it with U.S. military forces, which is likely illegal. (The Posse Comitatus Act<\/a> bars the military from performing civilian law enforcement within the United States, although it can help the Border Patrol with surveillance and logistics.)<\/p>\n Mexico has already warned that only caravan members with proper documents, or those seeking asylum in Mexico, would be allowed into that country. So Trump appears to be flipping out over a relative handful of migrants moving on foot two countries away from a U.S. border that many of them are unlikely to reach. This is political theater, not a crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Here’s the cold hard reality that Trump and his acolytes ignore: The United States cannot simply close its borders to people seeking asylum, which is what most of the caravan members ultimately are seeking. Laws and international agreements require the federal government to give such petitioners a chance to enter and make their cases. And beyond the government\u2019s legal obligations, to deny asylum-seekers a fair hearing would be cruel and inhumane. Just because Trump doesn\u2019t like something doesn\u2019t mean he has the authority or right to unilaterally shut it down.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And threatening to withhold foreign aid to the Northern Triangle governments is foolishness. In recent years, the aid\u2019s key purpose<\/a> has been to stabilize<\/a> the countries, shore up democratic institutions, and offer economic development to address the conditions<\/a> that send the desperate<\/a> fleeing north in the first place: violence and poverty<\/a>. The way to handle caravans and unaccompanied minors and young families fleeing gang-infested neighborhoods is to beef up efforts to improve conditions in those countries, not slash them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Granted, the number of families detained as they seek asylum jumped 80% last month over July, according<\/a> to the Washington Post, reaching 16,658 family members in September. That reportedly<\/a> has White House officials contemplating a new version of the family separation policy that was so disastrously implemented this summer. It\u2019s a thorny issue that has bedeviled even competent administrations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the caravan is offering Trump a pretext to do something he was trying to do anyway. In his 2018 budget request, Trump sought<\/a> to cut aid to Latin American countries 36% and redirect the money from governance and economic growth to security programs. Congress, fortunately, didn\u2019t go along<\/a> and limited the aid cut to 4.2%<\/a>. But the administration\u2019s approach \u2014 bullying and threatening while seeking to rein in assistance \u2014 runs contrary to U.S. interests and misconstrues the nature of illegal immigration today. New immigrants who are in the United States without authorization tend to be people from Asia who enter the country legally and then overstay their visas, not desperate border-crossers from Latin America. But the latter serve as a convenient bogeyman for Trump to rile up the xenophobes among his supporters. Do not be fooled by the man behind the tweets.<\/p>\n