Five Things Obama Must Do to Fix the Border Crisis

On June 20, 2014 John Cornyn posted a commentary in the opinion section of the Texas Insider entitled Five Things Obama Must Do to Fix the Border Crisis. John Cornyn’s credibility stems from the fact that he is the senior United States Senator for Texas. His intended audience is all Texans as the issue at the heart of his commentary affects all Texas citizens. Senator Cornyn begins his article by stating that tens of thousands of unaccompanied children mostly from Central American countries including Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are crossing the border from Mexico into the United States illegally. A significant number of these unaccompanied children are crossing the border into Texas creating a humanitarian crisis. The journey for these unaccompanied children from Mexico into Texas through the Rio Grande Valley is known to be very perilous due to the violence inflicted on migrants by the drug cartels. Senator Cornyn also states that many experts believe that sixty percent of female migrants are victims of sexual assault. Furthermore, Senator Cornyn believes that this humanitarian crisis is the direct result of President Obama’s immigration policies. In short, he feels that the recent wave of unaccompanied children entering illegally is being driven by their parent’s belief that they will not be deported because of President Obama’s immigration policies. To back up this claim Senator Cornyn cites some immigration numbers for the past few years along with some predictions for the future. In fiscal year 2011 over 6,500 unaccompanied alien children were caught at the border between Mexico and the United States. After President Obama signaled a change to immigration policy during a 2012 speech in the Rose Garden, the number of unaccompanied alien children caught grew to 25,000 in 2013. Predictions for the number of unaccompanied alien children caught in 2014 and 2015 are 90,000 and 142,000 respectively. To alleviate the crisis, Senator Cornyn suggests the following five actions that President Obama must undertake: 1. Publically state that current immigration policies will not apply to new children arriving at the border. 2. Publically discourage Central Americans from sending their children on the very dangerous journey to the United States. 3. Provide Texas and all other border states with the resources necessary to deal with the crisis. 4. Start enforcing ALL United States immigration policy. 5. Press Mexico to better police its border with Guatemala. Personally, I agree with Senator Cornyn. I feel badly for the foreign children caught in the middle of this crisis. However, they must enter this country legally if they want to become citizens. United States immigration policy is drastically in need of reform. Immigration policies that provide incentives for foreign nationals to enter illegally are wrong. These policies do a disservice to the foreign nationals who would come here and the United States tax payer.