Solving the immigration crisis: hits and misses

      According to the Department of Customs and Border Protection, there are now well over 100,000 people PER MONTH attempting to cross the southwestern border of our Nation of Immigrants, and that number continues to swell.  A sizable chunk of them are families with children seeking asylum.  These huge numbers have totally overwhelmed our immigration system, strained resources, and caused massive backlogs.  It is indeed a crisis, in many ways.

      What to do?  Well, if you are Donald Trump or one of his adoring, fawning, cheering supporters, you stubbornly cling to the notion that the solution is a "big, beautiful wall" spanning the entire 2,000 mile border.  Oh and by the way, we were promised that Mexico would pay for it.

      There are so many problems with this nutty "wall" idea that it's hard to say where to start.  A partial list of cons would include:  the enormous cost, the environmental damage, the violation of property rights, and even the aesthetics (a wall ain't "beautiful", no matter how you spin it).  

       But the aspect of the whole immigration crises that no one wants to talk about is its CAUSE.  The vast majority of the immigrants are refugee families from Central American nations that are fleeing from violence, oppression, and poverty.  These are very, very desperate people who are leaving their entire world behind them and making unimaginably long, perilous journeys because they have absolutely no other options.  Many of them tell heartbreaking stories of friends and family members who have been murdered, raped, or tortured; of losing everything they own to criminal gangs while their worthless, corrupt government does absolutely nothing.  These are our fellow human beings, and they have endured hardships that we comfortable Americans (and descendants of immigrants, all) cannot even imagine.  

      The immigrant refugees are not the bad guys here; rather, they are the victims.  The bad guys are the violent gangs and the corrupt, incompetent government officials.

      A wall, no matter how big, does not solve these problems.  So far, Trump has NOT been successful in securing taxpayer money to build his wall in any sizable portion, despite screaming tweets, government shutdowns, threats of total border closure, and other acts of desperation.  But the battle rages on.  

      Meanwhile, his loyal supporters are not taking this setback lying down.  A group called "We Build the Wall" has formed.  The founder is a military veteran who lost three limbs in some war someplace far away.  They have, as of this writing, raised nearly $24 Million dollars from private donors, and have built about a half-mile of wall in New Mexico.  Their goal is to raise $1 Billion.   (Update:  the construction has run into some legal snafus.  See their website for details.)

      What a fruitless, misguided waste of resources.  It's a band-aid on cancer that addresses only a symptom of the disease and totally ignores the root cause.  

      What truly needs to happen in these Central American hellholes is that the real bad guys need to be taken out.  Then real business and commerce will have the opportunity to grow, and peace and prosperity will flourish.  But these things require money and dedicated advocates.  And sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to corrupt, incompetent, tyrannical governments of such countries is NEVER the solution.  

      But privately-raised funds are a different matter.  Donors can observe the results of their contributions and decide whether or not it was a wise investment.  The "We Build the Wall" movement clearly proves that Americans are more than willing to open their wallets and donate if they feel the cause is worthwhile.

The Guardian Angels

      Therefore, I propose that the group described above change their name to: "We Send in Vigilantes".  Many Americans, gun-owning or otherwise, would surely love to go fight this kind of war, or donate to the cause.  This is not a unique concept.  A group called the Guardian Angels has been protecting citizens in crime-ridden parts of New York City since 1979.  

      American citizens can certainly help restore peace and stability to Central America.  The immigration crisis would be solved without spending a dime of taxpayer money, or a single brick laid for some pointless, wasteful, environment-wrecking wall.