#2470 (10/25) "Dodged Caravan: Dems Still Silent on Migrants"

"DODGED CARAVAN: DEMS STILL SILENT ON MIGRANTS" - October 24, 2018; Tony Perkins, Washington  Watch, https://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20181024/dodged-caravan [NOTE: Guatamela officials have announced that they have apprehended 100 members of ISIS among those in the caravan! (Notice whether the mainstream media reports this.) ALSO, note the excerpt from article referenced afterwards.]

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     To some people, it's a mile-long crowd in the middle of Mexico, slowly snaking toward the U.S. border. To others, it's the perfect GOP campaign ad -- a living, breathing picture of where the Left's lawlessness has led. Regardless of which side you're on, the visual is daunting. Thousands of men, women, and children making their way northward, carrying flags, knapsacks, infants. They're determined to cross into the United States by whatever means necessary. And President Trump is just as determined to stop them.

   For all the talk of who's behind the caravan, the plight of many of these migrants is real. A lot of them are fleeing truly desperate situations of poverty and corruption at home. Others are running for their lives. For them, the risk of being turned away at the border is greater than whatever horrors they left behind. But as much sympathy as the administration may have for their situation, America isn't just a nation of feelings. It's a nation of laws too. "To those who want to come here, come here legally," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged. "Legal immigration is the surest way to obtain the better life you're looking for here in the United States of America."

  That's quite a contrast to Barack Obama, who treated U.S. immigration policy with the same disregard he had for every law that hindered his makeover of America. Under the previous administration, it was an open secret that claiming asylum was the surest way to get into the country, even illegally. That's exactly why President Trump wants to build a border wall, Dino Teppara points out in the Washington Examiner. "He knows that all someone has to do is get to the southern border, say the magic word 'asylum,' and they will essentially be given a free pass to the promised land. He also knows that with the way our court system treats asylum applicants once they are here, the odds are high that law enforcement and immigration personnel will never see that person again."

The caravan is a real-life snapshot of how broken our immigration system is. "For the most part," David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times, "Democrats have tried to avoid the issue." That's all but impossible now with more than 7,000 people marching toward our southern border. Some, the Department of Homeland Security just confirmed, with "significant criminal histories." For the Left, the options are not ideal. They can either agree to work with Republicans on a solution or admit what most of us have suspected all along: what they really want is to do away with immigration laws altogether.

"The smarter approach for Democrats," Leonhardt insists, "would be a few simple statements of the obvious, meant to display both realism and decency, along the lines of: This is a country of laws. We are not going to admit thousands of undocumented immigrants traveling in a caravan. We do not have open borders. But we are and have always been a country of compassion as well, and we are working with Mexican authorities to protect the safety of these men, women and children."

    Instead, the voice voters hear is President Trump's, promising that "full efforts are being made to stop the onslaught of illegal aliens from crossing our Southern Border. People have to apply for asylum in Mexico first, and if they fail to do that, the U.S. will turn them away..." If Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador won't step in, "we will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid." That's leadership. And it's what at stake in this election. We can either be a nation ruled by laws -- or a nation ruled by mobs.

   After eight years of Barack Obama, the world thinks America doesn't mean what it says. Now we have an administration committed to cleaning up the mess his lax enforcement left behind. As I've said before, lawlessness -- whether on our southern border or in the bathrooms of our children's schools -- threatens our safety and wellbeing. We know which side embraces the law and which side embraces the mob. So when you see the pictures of the caravan, think about what it represents -- and "Remember the midterms!"

[italics and colored emphasis mine]
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"The Caravan to Nowhere" - By The WSJ Editorial Board, 
Oct. 22, 2018; https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-caravan-to-nowhere-1540250858
     "...Though the details are murky, we do know that former Honduran congressman Bartolo Fuentes of the left-wing Libre Party has admitted to organizing this caravan...Mr. Fuentes, who was detained in Guatemala last week and returned to Honduras, has said he did not expect the caravan to grow so large, which raises the question of where the financing for the marchers is coming from. Criminal organizations and governments like Venezuela would benefit from chaos at the U.S. border that embarrasses the Trump Administration before the election. Many nongovernmental organizations on the left also support the migrants’ “right” to the American dream." 
   "The reality is that bowing to this migration blackmail would produce an American political backlash that would damage the cause of legal immigration and a humane refugee policy. Think of Germany’s Angela Merkel and the 2015 flood of Middle Eastern migrants. Mr. Trump is right to seek Mexican cooperation to make clear to the migrants that, whatever their plight, they cannot stampede over America’s southern border."

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