How Mexico and the U.S. quietly defused the caravan crisis
Serious episode of injury and death avoided at the border in
Tijuana
When
5,000 Central Americans in a “caravan” arrived in Tijuana, it seemed every
television camera in the civilized world arrived to show us the ongoing
“invasion.”
Describing
what the cameras saw were legions of reporters, mostly men, some of whom
actually spoke Spanish. I watched them all while changing channels profusely
during those hectic days last month.
They
all missed a very important fact: the main encampment of Central American
refugees was not just in Tijuana, it was less than 50 feet from the United
States.
Whenever
one of those international cameras faced north I could see something I see
almost daily — the traffic on National Highway 1D that turns inland at Playas
de Tijuana and then travels along the border with the United States. I live
just south of Tijuana, so this highway is my 18-kilometer drive back to San
Diego.
The
now empty camp (the refugees have been moved several miles away to
better circumstances) is covered in trash, empty of people. That is what I see
from my car. The distance between the former camp and the U.S. border is
exactly 42 feet. It consists of four eight-foot-wide traffic lanes, two chain
link fences and a 15-foot-high barrier built by the United States several years
ago to replace the Clinton-era military surplus steel panels.
On
November 28, during a heavy downpour, I drove by the camp for the first time.
Small dome tents covered the entire Benito Juárez soccer park. There were
thousands of men, women and children who had walked and ridden over 2,000
kilometers from Honduras and Guatemala. When I drove by again on December 2,
the tents and people had vanished.
The
border crisis with televised tear gas billowing among men, women and
children was for all intents and purposes over. Or was it just out of sight?
Most
television reports concentrated on the caravan, its people and the border
kerfuffle that ended in a cloud of tear gas. But that event was not the only
thing going on, especially on the Mexican front.
What
was Mexico to do? Act like a brutal dictatorship and tear gas and billy club
the refugees, or shoot and kill them as unlawful people on Mexican territory?
No.
What
was the United States to do? Act like a brutal dictatorship and tear gas and
billy club the refugees, or shoot and kill them as unlawful people on American
territory? No.
Instead,
both countries assembled ad hoc forces and set up new physical barriers to deal
with refugees who tried to illegally cross the border.
The
U.S. mobilized troops, laid concertina wire on top of all the fencing
along the border between Tijuana and San Diego, and shut several normal
crossing lanes through the San Ysidro port of entry.
The
Mexicans brought more Federal Police to the border and lined up 10-foot-tall
steel barriers at potential crossing points that weren’t fenced.
Luckily,
the only mob action that occurred was on November 25 when a few hundred of the
thousands tried running into the United States.
They
were held off by uniformed Customs and Border Protection officers backed up by
California Highway Patrol officers. The busiest border crossing the world was
then shut for more than five hours. No one was seriously injured. Not a
single Trump-ordered soldier or Marine was on the border.
Meanwhile,
the intelligent business people of Tijuana, a world center for flat-screen
television and medical-device manufacturing, joined with the Mexican government
to organize something no one expected.
Tijuana
businesses began interviewing the Central American refugees for over 5,000
jobs in the gigantic Tijuana industrial community. They interviewed and
hired on the spot. The newly hired refugees then took their job paperwork over
to a Mexican immigration table for a renewable “humanitarian work permit” that
is good for a year.
Some
refugees have registered to get into the proverbial “line” U.S. authorities
have created. From that list, some 100 people a day are interviewed to start
the asylum process. And some refugees decided to return home.
As I
drive by the trash-covered former refugee camp, I thank the Mexican government,
American border personnel and the bright people among them who ignored
hysterical national media and a few local Mexicans who
demonstrated against the refugees when they arrived.
The
two governments quickly mobilized to defuse what could have been a serious
episode resulting in injury and death that would certainly harm the reputation
of the United States.
Raoul
Lowery Contreras is a political consultant and author of the new
book White
Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) & Mexicans. His work has appeared in the
New American News Service of the New York Times Syndicate.
No comments:
Post a Comment