More looking-glass-world news coverage this week. President Trump announced that there would be some really unpleasant consequences to Mexico if a caravan of illegal immigrants from Central America were ushered politely through Mexico to the southern U.S. border, and magically, they called the march off and dumped the participants into Mexico City. Now it seems that there is an annual caravan of this type, organized by a group called "Pueblo Sin Fronteras" (People Without Borders), whose website asks for donations but doesn't give any information about where it's based or who runs it. PSF explained that the halt had nothing to do with Trump, whatever you might have assumed, but was a rational response to the fear of the dangers of an arduous train ride that normally forms the next link in this standard trek.
You might think that the news coverage would stress the fact that this is an annual organized attempt to challenge the U.S. borders and to spin up favorable news coverage for open-border enthusiasts, but instead the coverage is . . . strange. This NBC story, for instance, explains that President Trump is misleading everyone into thinking that there's a large organized group of illegal immigrants being shepherded through Mexico on their way here, because it's really an annual publicity stunt that's been going on for years, what's the big deal? Snopes takes the same strange view: you may have heard that there's a caravan, etc., but a quick look at the facts shows that it's just the usual annual, etc. What's more, no one is planning an illegal entry. Instead, they intend to ask for asylum, as usual. It's true that, in order to ask for asylum, they have to present themselves to immigration officials inside the U.S., having first crashed the border, but what's the big deal? Why is Trump being a meanie all of a sudden? The whole purpose of the annual march is to highlight the plight of people on an annual march to crash the U.S. border, and suddenly you guys want to make it harder?
I think "People Without Borders" is a better description of us than of the organization that organizes the annual caravans. PS, as the Washington Examiner points out, there is also an American organization called People Without Borders that facilitates assimilation of legal immigrants, but it is getting flak from people who have confused it with Pueblo Sin Fronteras. PSF's Facebook page is short on background but identifies itself as an "International Migrant Outreach Collective," whose "product" is "humanity."
Snopes and NBC are both untrustworthy sources for me.
ReplyDeleteThis does swing both ways, doesn't it? If it's an annual event, at about the same numbers, then they are correct that Trump and the conservative press have jumped the gun on this. However, do we know how many come every year, and why we have never heard of them? Also, if they come every year, wouldn't possible obstacles like trains have been solved years ago?
ReplyDeleteI would trust what Snopes wrote before it became a DC political cause, because they would have little motivation to slant it. Let me check. Nope. Snopes's article is within the last few weeks. Therefore, I don't trust it.
I think those who make it to the border should be given some old-style US civics lessons, some training in armed resistance, a free rifle and some ammo, and an escort back to their own country. And if that incentive brings 10,000 next year and we do the same thing, so much the better. Cheap at the price. If they fix their own country, everyone wins.
The stuff I'm seeing is that PSF began this in 2010; it's not annual, although nearly so; and PSF was surprised at this year's numbers, since their typical haul is 200-300. If that last is true, it's plausible that the relatively low numbers went unnoticed. It's more likely, in my pea brain, that the NLMSM didn't remark on it during the Obama years because it fit their narrative; they're ballyhooing it now because Trump is so loud at objecting.
ReplyDeleteAs to arming them and sending them back, maybe not so much. Mexico has been holding themselves out as this great humanitarian nation and how cruel we are to turn such persons away (never minding that they send back 150,000-200,000 illegals (by their definition) per year). Instead, we should loudly wonder why Mexico doesn't take in these unfortunates and spare them the long, arduous, and dangerous trek up the long length of their country.
Eric Hines
Thank you for the first rational explanation and the information about PSF. This story is really, really strange and the reporting has been even stranger. It’s suspicious that PSF doesn’t say where it is located and who runs the organization on its website. It’s even more suspicious that CNN, NBC and other main stream news outlets didn’t even ask them, or if they did, didn’t want to say. And, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the caravan is suddenly in the news, there’s a reason for that. Until PSF starts telling people who they are and who is funding them, and until the news media hires some actual journalists who report the 5 W’s, I am not going to question our government’s response.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I have heard PSF refer to People without/beyond borders. I am more familiar with PSF referring to Pendejos Sin Fronteras - Idiots without/beyond frontiers- to refer to foreign supporters of Hugo Chávez, or to supporters of the Chavista system of governance in Venezuela. A PSF can support Maduro, for example, as Maduro is part of the Chavista system of governance.
ReplyDeleteFrom Caracas Chronicles: The Treatment Chavismo’s Fellow Travellers Deserve.
From Las Armas del Coronel (Gustavo Coronel): Fellow travelers (Pendejos sin fronteras) become active in defense of the criminal Venezuelan regime.
All this is a play on Médecins (Physicians) Sans Frontières.