Saturday 13 May 2023

Biden can't win the migration crisis

Tens of thousands of would-be American citizen migrants are queuing up at the Mexican/US border at El Paso, hoping to be allowed in following the end of the Covid keep-out rules. This is a crisis from which Joe Biden is not going to come out well. He can't win. No president can win this one. Trump would probably just spend billions more building his wall but that wouldn't do the trick either. These are people who have already walked or been driven hundreds/thousands of miles from their countries of origin to seek a better life in America. They are not going to give up. And they obviously think the best way is to queue up legitimately at the El Paso gates because Biden has legislation in play which bans their entry if they try to enter illegally. Like climbing the wall in the dead of night. The photos of migrants neck-deep in the river to reach the other side where they face armed border patrol officers behind barbed wire fencing underline the challenge confronting the Biden administration. What can Biden do to make it look as if the United States is still a humanitarian country willing to help those in need but without having an endless stream of people demanding entry between now and the 2024 election. They will all want to get into the US before the election in case Trump wins and slams the door in their faces. This was supposed to be a crisis to be solved by Kamala Harris, the vice president. But she found, like everyone before her, that there wasn't an easy solution. If the migrants are let in to be processed they have to stay in detention centres which then get full to bursting and diseases start to spread and appalling tales of physical abuse emerge. Just like the migrant crisis the UK is facing there is no answer that will satisfy everyone. And one thing we know for sure is that this sort of crisis is going to get worse and worse as more disasters, man-made and natural, occur around the world.

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