U.S. Troops Being Sent To Southern Border, Migrant Caravan
U.S. Troops Being Sent To Southern Border, Migrant Caravan.As the migrant caravan makes its way closer to the US border, albeit very slowly, escalating calls for security have come from Trump. It is reported that today officials are planning to send 800 US troops to the southern border to provide logistical support and help secure it.The caravan is bad news for democrats going into the midterms and a very strong play for Trump and republicans as working class Americans find the issue to be extremely important.
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Breaking news for those tracking the migrant caravan story.
Fox News is now reporting that U.S.
troops are on their way to provide logistical support and help secure the border.
Previously, Donald Trump said that he may actually shut down the southern border and send in the army, not the National Guard, to deal with this.
For those that aren't familiar with the story, we've got about 7,000, possibly more, possibly less, the estimates and how large it is kind of varied, but it's a very large group of migrants that are currently marching their way from Honduras to the United States.
They've made their way through Guatemala and have approached the Mexican southern border.
Donald Trump has said that he may suspend aid to these countries if they don't deal with it, but it looks like Mexico is not going to be dealing with it because they can't, and thus this caravan is inching its way forward.
This is a really powerful visual.
coming into the midterms. Many people on the right are suggesting the Democrats or the left,
or there may be some conspiracy, where they're funding this so that when the migrants make it
to the U.S., it might actually make Trump look bad. The argument is that if we don't let these
people in, it makes the Republicans in the administration look callous, and if they use
force to push back on them, the imagery will actually hurt the Republicans' chance in the
midterms. However, it's not likely this caravan is actually going to make it to the U.S.
before the midterm actually happens.
So, the rhetoric may just be supporting the Republicans at this point.
We've seen a story from the New York Times that Democrats are actually warned not to talk about immigration.
So, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to tackle the issue of the migrant caravan, look at some of the stories, and I actually want to start with a video of what it looks like when the migrant caravan storms its way through the Mexico border.
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So in order to understand what's going on, I think it would be important that you see this video from the Associated Press of what happened when these people made it to the Mexican border.
People were climbing the fences.
Eventually, they started to tear down the fences and the barricades.
And the Mexico army, law enforcement, I'm not sure which unit they have down there, were unable to stop the crowd as they stormed through.
And now you can see in this video that people are just pouring through the border and running into Mexico.
They're actually unable to stop them.
Eventually they made their way to a bridge, where they were stopped, but many people just started crossing through the water.
From Fox News, hundreds of U.S.
troops heading to the border to deal with the migrant caravan, official says.
Hundreds of U.S.
troops are set to make their way to the southern border to help Homeland Security and the National Guard as a caravan with thousands of migrants moves north, a U.S.
official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.
The official said roughly 800 soldiers will be sent to the area to offer logistical support, including providing tents and vehicles.
It's not immediately clear which units are being tasked with the mission as details are still being finalized.
Defense Secretary James Mattis could sign the deployment orders as soon as today.
There are currently 2,100 National Guard troops on the southern border right now assisting Homeland Security.
President Trump tweeted Thursday morning, quote, I am bringing out the military for this national emergency.
This will be stopped.
The migrant caravan as of Thursday is still in southern Mexico,
more than 1,000 miles away from the nearest entry port into the U.S.
Its size is estimated to be around 7,000, but many of those currently walking are suffering from
exhaustion, dehydration, and heat stroke.
Some also told Fox News they fear getting attacked if they hop on a cargo train
or getting deported if they take a bus.
They are going to walk as long as they can, said caravan member Brian Colindres, or as far as they can.
A majority of those walking say they are looking for a better life north of the border, are fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras, where the caravan originated.
They are exhausted and unaware of what will happen, but they remain optimistic.
Now I want to talk about the political ramifications of the caravan, but we should talk about more of the context so you can understand what's going on.
This Vox story has a section that says, Why are caravan members leaving their home countries?
Caravan members have given journalists a variety of answers to this question.
Some of them have pointed to concerns for their safety.
One woman told the AP's Sonia Perez-Dee that she's been in hiding after a local gang threatened to kill her because they'd mistaken a tattoo of her parents' names for a symbol of a rival gang.
Another, traveling with her husband and two sons, told the LA Times that after her 16-year-old son refused to sell drugs for a gang, they were going to kill him or kill us.
Others have cited poverty and the inability to support their families on $5 a day.
A few were trying to get back to America after having been deported, to return to their families, including U.S.
born, U.S.
citizen kids, and the lives they'd built.
Quote, I miss my PlayStation, one caravan member told Linthicum.
Quote, I miss Buffalo Wild Wings.
From NBC News, they do point out in one of their stories that the government of Mexico has received over 1,000 asylum claims from the migrant caravan already.
On a Fox News segment, Tucker Carlson asked journalist Jorge Ramos why these people weren't seeking refugee status or asylum in Mexico.
Jorge Ramos simply said that many of these people don't want to stay in Mexico.
It was brought up that Mexico has offered asylum to many of these people and they've rejected it.
Many others have actually reached out to get asylum in Mexico and aren't going to get it.
And they're scared of being deported.
So there's an argument.
Why don't these people who are fleeing Honduras stay in Guatemala or stay in Mexico?
Why must they come to the United States?
Well, the answer is really, really obvious.
The United States is substantially wealthier than many of these countries.
Admittedly, though, Mexico has been trying to secure its southern border.
People in the U.S.
often look at Mexico and they think it's really bad, but actually Mexico City is rather beautiful, and the climate's actually really nice.
There are a lot of people who are, by American standards, middle class, who live in some of the bigger cities of Mexico.
So you would think that many people coming from Honduras or Guatemala would want to stay there, but America is better, so they certainly want to come here instead.
But let's talk about the politics of this.
Because a lot of people are claiming that there are Democrats or maybe George Soros funding the caravan to make the Republicans look bad.
But it's unlikely this caravan is going to make it to the border before the midterms actually happen.
And we have the story from the New York Times I mentioned earlier where they actually warned Democrats not to talk about immigration.
From the New York Times, GOP finds an unexpectedly potent line of attack.
Immigration.
The strategy in play in a growing number of races may be working, as a tight battle for control of Congress enters its closing weeks.
Democrats have found that in politically competitive states, particularly ones that Mr. Trump carried in 2016, the attacks can easily turn crucial voting blocks against Democrats.
Sanctuary attacks pack a punch, says a four-page memorandum prepared by the Liberal Center for American Progress and the centrist think tank Third Way that has been shared at about a dozen briefings for Democrats in recent weeks.
The New York Times obtained a copy of the memo, whose findings are based on interviews and surveys conducted over the summer.
Many of the Republican attacks use misleading language and employ overblown claims about the dangers of immigrants.
But the fear-based appeal demonstrates how Mr. Trump has overcome months of negative headlines about his hard-edge immigration policies to make the issue a potentially profitable one as Republicans try to persuade their slim Senate majority and defy projections that they will lose the House.
Democrats, the strategists who prepared the memo advised, could neutralize the attacks if they responded head-on.
But they should spend as little time as possible talking about immigration itself and instead pivot to more fruitful issues for Democrats like health care and taxation.
The strategists worry that Republicans' foreboding immigration message is far more personal to voters than the more modulated position of Democrats, whose push to protect the young immigrants known as dreamers and to ensure humane treatment of undocumented people does not in many cases affect voters themselves.
To put it simply, Immigrants coming into this country will have a huge impact on the labor market and will affect American citizens.
But protecting undocumented immigrants and protecting DREAMers will have little impact on the voting bloc.
Therefore, Democrats will be hurting themselves by trying to address this.
Republicans have been pretty heavy on the immigration rhetoric because when it comes to the labor market, immigration is bad.
We often hear the joke, right?
South Park talks about how they took our jobs.
And they often mock people who complain about it.
Many people on the left say, no one's going to take your job, nobody wants to do that job in the first place, and they claim migrants are coming to do jobs that no one else wants to do.
But look, let me give you my opinion.
I think this rhetoric is extremely dangerous.
Do we want a serf class of low-paid individuals who do jobs no one wants to do?
No, we don't.
We don't want to create an underclass in our society, because that's bad, it breeds poverty, it breeds ghettos, it breeds crime.
We want people to come here and actually have a chance to flourish.
It's kind of crazy to me that some of the rhetoric has been, let them come so they can clean toilets or work in the fields.
No, that's not okay.
We want people to come and have an equal chance at the American dream like anybody else.
But that's why they have to come in legally.
When you flood the labor market, you reduce wages.
You increase competition and make it much harder for American citizens to get these low-level jobs.
People often say, yeah, but they're taking the jobs no one wants.
If no one was there to fill that job, and no one wanted it, those jobs would have to increase how much they're going to pay to Americans to make them do it.
Look, let me explain something.
There are people who work in the sewers of our cities all the time, every day, perhaps.
I actually knew a guy growing up, it was my friend's stepdad, who worked in the sewers.
And he got paid six figures to wait around in human waste.
You can say that there are jobs no one wants to do, but that's why the market offers incentives.
You get benefits, you get a higher salary.
Flooding the labor market is not good for the migrants, it's not good for the workers, that's why we have closed borders.
Closed borders doesn't mean we turn everyone away.
These people are legally allowed to ask for asylum.
But the closed border means that we screen people before they come in so we know what they're doing and why they're doing it and we can actually help improve their lives.
It's actually rather simple.
I don't understand why so many people are for open borders policies when it's the least effective thing you can do to actually help the migrants.
Many people won't make it in this country because maybe they don't have anything to offer, maybe they don't have a good enough reason.
The people who request asylum overwhelmingly get asylum.
It's estimated that around 75% of people who ask for asylum are allowed to live in the United States while they go through court for several years.
And that can be good for a lot of these people, so they will have their chance to fight for asylum.
But around 25% don't actually have a good enough reason or are found to not be in danger and are actually sent back.
Look at some of the comments we saw for why people are coming to the U.S.
One person said they missed Buffalo Wild Wings.
I can appreciate that.
Personally, Buffalo Wild Wings is amazing.
I like going there during UFC fights and having, you know, boneless wings with some parmesan garlic sauce.
I can't blame someone for saying, I want to be there.
That place is great.
America is great.
I know it's great.
Unfortunately, if you don't live here, wanting PlayStation and Buffalo Wild Wings is not a real reason to seek refugee or asylum status.
You're gonna have to come in the legal way like everyone else.
Jumping the line, entering illegally, or trying to claim asylum status because you want the luxuries of America, just, it's not a good enough reason.
Listen.
We don't have an infinite amount of space and resources.
We don't.
I mean, the planet doesn't.
And we certainly want to give everyone a shot at the American dream.
But there are real people who need asylum.
When you see a caravan like this, my immediate response is, I know many of these people are fleeing something that could be dangerous.
I know many of these people are seeking a better life.
But the people who really need asylum are those who are being threatened with death.
And we've seen that in this caravan, many of them actually exist.
We should help those people.
That's the point of asylum.
But to the people saying they miss their PlayStation and they miss their Buffalo Wild Wings, I have to wonder how many people in this caravan are just trying to come to America because it's nice.
How many of them could probably stay in Mexico, where it's nicer than Honduras, but aren't?
There are luxuries in this country, I get it.
America is a great country, I get it.
But we have to maintain a balance in our economy, otherwise we're going to cause damage to the American working class.
And this is why immigration is so potent for Republicans.
The working class in this country understands that when migrants come in, jobs become more competitive and wages go down.
And that's why people voted for Trump.
When Trump said the free trade agreements were bad, when TPP and NAFTA were bad, he attracted a lot of working class individuals who understood that these companies are moving factories to Mexico and to China.
That's a bad thing.
And that when migrants come in, they actually do displace jobs.
Whatever your opinion is, it's a fact, they do.
In the long run, they may actually bolster the economy by creating more demand, and that's true.
But that's why we have closed borders.
So when these people come in, we can place them in the most effective area, so the economy does better, and so they don't live in poverty.
When these people just come in through an open border, they form tent cities.
They suffer.
And so do we.
It's not good for anybody.
We'll see what happens if the migrant caravan actually makes it here.
While it's true they won't be able to walk here in time for the midterms, some of them have been seen riding trucks, some of them are getting on trains, so some of them might actually make it.
And the caravan is apparently growing.
So this may become a bigger issue at the start of the next year, maybe not before the midterm elections.
But either way, it's a powerful issue for Republicans, and it's really bad for Democrats.
So that's why they've been advised to avoid talking about it.
But let me know what you think in the comments below, and we'll keep the conversation going.
The crux of the story.
The U.S.
is sending troops down to the border to aid the National Guard and Homeland Security.
This is just the beginning.
It's possible this escalates even further.
Trump has threatened more action.
What do you think's gonna happen?
Again, comment below.
We'll keep conversation going.
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