𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗟𝗘 𝗡𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗔 "𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗖𝗭𝗔𝗥," 𝗞𝗔𝗠𝗔𝗟𝗔 𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗦 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗗 𝗔 𝗥𝗢𝗟𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗨.𝗦. 𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗣𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗬

Downtown Brownsville

The late Carlos Cascos was the first person I heard suggest dealing with undocumented immigration by going further south than the U.S./Mexico border:

"I believe a border wall along Mexico's border with Guatemala will be much more efficient in many respects than us building & investing on a 2,200 mile border wall. along our Southern border."

More recently, Vice President Kamala Harris was assigned to identify the root causes or drivers of migration from Central America's northern triangle; Guatamala, Honduras and El Salvador, a "very hard, convoluted portfolio," according to Senator Chris Murphy of the Foreign Relations Committee.

While Trump misrepresents her role, calling her a "border czar," she was not put "in charge of the border," but given a diplomatic assignment to see what could be done to reduce poverty, violence and corruption, factors fueling migration to the U.S.

Shortly after Harris began to research those issues, migration to the U.S. began spiking from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuala.

Nicaraguans I spoke with in Matamoros seeking asylum in the U.S.

The Brownsville Observer editor spoke with a group of Nicaraguans in Matamoros who'd crossed the infamous Darien Gap on their way to seek asylum at the U.S. Border. (I'm reasonably certain that Trump's contention that insane asylums are being emptied and sent to the border is a result of confusing "seeking asylum" with an "insane asylum.")

Just as Harris began looking into conditions in the northern triangle, migration began to originate from other countries; Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Vice President Kamala Harris

Harris did engineer $4B in government aid and $5.2B in private investment to create or support 250,000 jobs in Guatamala, Honduras and El Salvador, monies some have called "too little, too late."