-Source-the American Conservative-
The immigration issue is going to tear America apart, and the truly damaging ripping could begin when the caravan of mostly Central American migrants, currently about 7,000 strong and making its way through Mexico at about 40 miles per day, arrives at the U.S. border in 20 days or so. What happens when they get there is difficult to predict, but it could be ugly. The country’s immigration dilemma will almost surely rise to new levels of political passion and rancor.
More than any other issue in America today, the immigration issue is definitional—hinging upon questions of what kind of country America is and what kind of country it is going to be. Huge numbers of Americans, probably close to half the population, view their government’s mass immigration policies and inability to defend U.S. borders as a threat to America’s old cultural identity, the folkways and mores handed down through generations. Another large population segment, perhaps also close to half, views mass immigration and hospitable borders as an integral part of the country’s humanitarian heritage and a fundamental element of its definition.
Many issues helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016, including the hollowing out of the country’s industrial base, the economic savaging of its working class, the promiscuous foreign policy initiatives of presidents Bush and Obama, and America’s decline as a global force. But the single most potent propellent was immigration. Trump voters were inclined to believe that the country’s elites—globalists at heart—didn’t really care about borders. They saw the elites as trying to finesse the issue to find a way to grant amnesty to some 11 million illegals already in the country while paying only lip service to the need for stopping the inflow.
Trump knows that immigration was the single most significant factor in his election. To maintain good standing with his constituency, he must stop that caravan.
But how? According to news reports, more caravans are forming up in Guatemala and other Central American countries, and the fate of the lead group is widely viewed as guidance for the others on how to proceed. As Father Mauro Verzeletti, a mission director in Guatemala City, told The Wall Street Journal, “This is a massive phenomenon. It has no precedent in the history of Central America.”
And it poses a stark dilemma for the American government. Jorge Chabat, an expert on U.S.-Mexican relations at Mexico’s University of Guadalajara, captured the reality of the situation in an interview with the Journal. “There is pressure from Trump to return the migrants,” he said, then asked, “but how do you do that with the thousands that have crossed without having an incident where somebody could get killed?” On the other hand, “if you let them all in, then tomorrow you will have four more caravans.” Read more