Will the Last One to Leave Central America Turn Out the Lights?

September 17, 2021

By Brian Lonergan

During her gaffe-filled diplomatic mission to the Northern Triangle region of Central America earlier this year, Kamala Harris stated that the official purpose of the trip was to identify the “root causes” of why so many people from that region were coming to the United States en masse. Once those reasons were discovered, she argued, our government could work on fostering better conditions in those countries, so more of them would want to stay home, thus stemming the tide of humanity crashing into our southern border.

While a nation-building plan is costly and destined to fail, it at least sounded like a sincere wish to curb illegal immigration. Since then, virtually every action of this administration has been for the exact opposite goal: to bring as many Central American foreign nationals into the U.S. as possible, no matter the reason they may have been denied entry previously. This, like so many other decisions of this administration, goes against the best interests of America and its lawful residents. It is also extremely harmful to the feeder countries to the south, almost guaranteeing they will remain poverty-stricken narco-states.

The latest insult from the White House came with the news that its Family Reunification Task Force had hired a UN-affiliated international organization to locate deported Central Americans and bring them back to the U.S. Those located will be given a passport and any other documents to facilitate a return to America. Once here, they will receive work permits, residency for three years, and eligibility for support services.

This is a purported remedy to the Trump-era zero tolerance policy which sought to prosecute and ultimately deport all adult aliens crossing the border illegally. Open Borders Inc. and its media allies framed the policy as cruel and racist, resulting in the Biden administration’s reversal of the policy.

Lost in the hysteria is the data confirming that the policy was extremely successful at reducing the number of foreign nationals attempting to cross the border illegally. By removing any consequence to entering the U.S. illegally, Biden is incentivizing millions more to break into the country. How does that co-exist with the goal to keep those people home by addressing the “root causes?”

While the Biden White House enjoys wielding executive power when it suits their ends, they seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the powers and responsibilities of the chief executive to honor his oath to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic.

Is this administration doing anything to protect our nation and its people from the harmful effects of excessive illegal migration? They act as though the U.S. government is merely an appendage of the UN High Commission for Refugees, with a mission to move as many indigent people here as possible, the repercussions to the American people be damned.

Meanwhile, We the People must live with more job competition, crowded schools and hospitals, higher crime and more drain on our finite social services resources. Rest assured no one in this administration or their families will have to contend with these unpleasant outcomes.

Few have raised the question of the effect this pursuit will have on the nations of Central America. We are told by politicians and the media in drumbeat fashion that arrivals from those countries are more hard-working an industrious than we are. What future do those nations have when the rapacious Yanquis to the north are stealing their best and brightest?

It has also been well-documented that these states are rife with political corruption and manipulation by powerful and violent drug cartels. When people flee those countries in droves, it relieves the pressure on its politicians to enact meaningful reform or surrender power to a leadership that understands and addresses the needs of its people. If the would-be George Washingtons and Lech Walesas of Guatemala now reside in Houston, what kind of future can those left behind hope for? Seems like the brain drain and lack of bold leaders might be a “root cause” of problems there.

While this broad enterprise of moving huge swaths of people north is wrapped in a cloak of compassion for our fellow man, what is the end result? Poor countries with no future, and a wobbly America importing poverty that it can no longer easily afford as well as the myriad negative consequences of reckless migration.

The only real winners in the exercise are opportunistic politicians who reap the benefit of a new underclass of potential voters to keep them in power and create more cheap labor for corporate interests. Those coming here for a better life may be searching for a third home as America begins to resemble the dysfunctional and authoritarian failed states from which they fled.

Brian Lonergan is director of communications at the Immigration Reform Law Institute , a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Also published at: Brian Lonergan, Will the Last One to Leave Central America Turn Out the Lights?, American Greatness, September 17, 2021.