Washington Post: The Migrant Wave Is Choking Cross-Border Trade

Aerial view of cargo trucks lining up to cross to the United States near the US-Mexico bor
GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP/Getty Images
Neil Munro

The Central American migration is choking the checkpoints used by trucks and traders to cross between the United States and Mexico, according to the Washington Post.

The paper reported:

On Monday, cargo trucks waited up to two hours to cross the bridge from Mexico into Brownsville, Tex., a city that had no delays at this time last year. On El Paso’s Bridge of the Americas, cars and SUVs idled for 160 minutes, up from 45 minutes a year ago. Southern California’s Otay Mesa cargo processing section took 270 minutes to push trucks through its crossing this week, up from 50 minutes last year.

Business and political leaders are complaining about the delays, which are indirectly caused by Congress’s decisions to preserve border loopholes for Central American migrants. In March, 100,000 migrants rushed the border, and officials expect one million arrivals in the 12 months up to October.

But the business complaints are not being used to pressure Congress to fix the border loopholes  encouraging and rewarding the migrants.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security are transferring officers from trade checkpoints to rural areas where migrants are crossing the border. The transferred officers are needed to tag the migrants before they are released via the loopholes to take jobs through the United States.

“Currently each day we’re pulling approximately 40 percent of our agents on the Southwest border, and diverting them specifically for the humanitarian need, that is to care for, transport and process family units and UACs [Unaccompanied Alien Children],” Brian Hastings, an operations director at U.S. Border Patrol told Breitbart News.

The migrants are seeking the jobs and other benefits of living in the United States being offered by Congress to many millions of foreigners. The New York Times reported one pregnant Guatemalan’s rational explanation for accepting Congress’s offer:

“I didn’t want to come here at first, but then I think it’s the best thing for the baby,” M.C. said as she sat in a migrant shelter in the South Texas border city of Brownsville. “Here, he’s going to grow without crime. He can go to school.”

The Washington Post reported the business complaints about the resulting traffic jams:

The clogged checkpoints are frustrating bankers, business leaders, local residents and even Mexico’s foreign minister, who called the reassignment of hundreds of border officers to other parts of the nearly 2,000-mile boundary a “very bad idea.” The shift in enforcement efforts is overwhelming legal checkpoints and impeding the free flow of goods and services, in some cases increasing wait times about fivefold.

…

In an informal survey by the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, 42 percent of its members reported suffering delays in their shipments from Mexico to the United States. Of those companies, two-thirds said the delays reached seven to 12 hours, according to Julie Fream, the group’s president.

Amid the trade problems, congressional leaders and establishment media sites still oppose any reduction in the migration and are trying to shift the blame to President Donald Trump.

For example, the Washington Post‘s editorial board says more migrants should be allowed to live in the United States, via amnesty and an expanded asylum processing system:

If Mr. Trump were serious about a constructive compromise solution, he has chips he could play. He could offer a deal to legalize “dreamers,” the hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants brought to this country as children. He could expand legal immigration, which would make sense given historically low unemployment and worker shortages in a range of industries … Instead, the president signals he will get “tough,” as if addressing the migrant surge were a contest of wills rather than a crisis to be managed with adequate resources and effective policies.

The Washington Post‘s giveaway plan for fixing the semi-legal migration crisis would protect businesses from the predictable border crush by formally flooding the labor market with legal immigrants. The policy would force down Americans’ wages, raise real estate costs, and boost Wall Street values. It would also encourage another, larger, wave of migrants to rationally expect another establishment giveaway of Americans’ wages.

The Post editorial does not explain why ordinary American citizens would agree to change their economy and society for the benefit of investors and migrants.

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.

But the federal government then imports roughly 1.1 million legal immigrants, refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar guest workers plus roughly 500,000 blue-collar visa workers, and also tolerates about eight million illegal workers.

This federal policy of flooding the market with cheap white-collar graduates and blue-collar foreign labor is intended to boost economic growth for investors.

This policy works by shifting enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts children’s schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.

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