Trump and the US-Mexico Border

Within the last few days, it seems like there has been a lot of trouble involving the US-Mexico border. More and more news of chaos seems to appear every two days, and many Americans are unsure of how to react because they are unsure about what is actually happening. So what is really going on down there?

The turmoil started on Sunday, Nov. 25, when protesters from Tijuana, Mexico came to hold a peaceful protest at the southern US border. Mexican federal police attempted to restrain the protesters, but several managed to make it past police. Those protesters were able to make it to a part of the border that was merely a chain-link fence with barbed wire. They began to push the fence, at which point, US agents fired tear gas. There are reports of rocks being thrown at the US agents, although nobody was injured due to their bulletproof vests and helmets. Tear gas was used several more times during the conflict, and it was reported that some families could feel it later in the day at their own homes, due to the wind.

Mexican authorities arrested 98 migrants south of the border, and about 42 people were arrested north of the border. These 42 people included eight women and “a few children,” according to chief patrol agent of the San Diego Sector Border Control, Rodney Scott.

The same day, President Trump threatened to close down the border. Although it is not currently closed, and the idea of attempting such a thing sounds preposterous, experts say that closing the border is possible. One port entry was closed for a few hours on Sunday but has been reopened since then. It would be difficult to secure a border that is 1900 miles long and the biggest land border in the western hemisphere, but Trump could close down ports in the border to minimize access.

This, however, is exactly what the migrants were protesting in the first place. The caravan of migrants that approached the border on Sunday were protesting the long and tedious process that it takes to migrate from Mexico to the United States, as well as the increasingly small numbers that are being allowed through at all. Only 40 to 100 people are allowed across, seeking asylum, each day. But this is not nearly enough to cover the thousands upon thousands of people that travel north from and through Central America in order to find asylum in the United States.

The border itself is guarded by military force on the American side. Many of these patrols are unarmed and are only there to support the Border Patrol if things get out of hand. There are a total of 1800 troops guarding the border in California, as of Monday. US Northern Command has stated that the military provided nonlethal assistance in the protest earlier this week, that they did not engage with any of the migrants, and that they were not involved in deploying any of the tear gas, although it is unclear for what they actually were there.

Trump has said that he has “given the OK” for lethal force to be used and has tweeted that many of these migrants are “stone cold criminals,” urging Congress to “fund the WALL!”