An outside observer might be forgiven for presuming that Donald Trump has already taken office. World leaders are dropping in to talk with him, and his proposed policies are already bearing fruit. Reuters, predictably, notes that Trump's border policies are already making a difference — but gets the main point in the illegal immigration debate completely wrong.
Yes, the incoming Trump administration has made their intentions known, and they are already having an effect. Not least of those effects are President-elect Trump's appointment of border bulldog Tom Homan and the incoming Trump administration's stated immigration policies. Now, some immigrants are mulling over a return to their home countries, aware of the fact that there's a new sheriff in town north of the border.
Every day, Nidia Montenegro spends hours checking her cellphone, hoping to receive a long-awaited appointment with U.S. border officials to seek asylum in the United States.
The 52-year-old Venezuelan migrant in Mexico says she fears her appointment will not come before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, when he has vowed to scrap a slew of programs that have allowed migrants to enter the U.S. legally - including the government app that Montenegro is using to try and get her appointment.
That could leave thousands of migrants like Montenegro in limbo and facing the choice of trying to cross into the U.S. illegally, staying in Mexico, or returning home.
Given those options, Montenegro says she would return home, more fearful of the violence she has encountered while traveling through Mexico than the hardship she left behind in Venezuela.
Some credit to Nadia Montenegro for at least trying to enter legally under the asylum system, but many more do not, and even she is considering crossing illegally before Donald Trump assumes office.
But the asylum system, obviously, is being abused. Immigrants are almost certainly coached on precisely the right words to say when seeking entry under the asylum system. Yes, in all candor these people should return home and undergo the recognized, legal immigration process, as millions of today's Americans have done before them.
But this piece misses the main point entirely. Reuters, being what they are, casts a sympathetic eye on illegal immigrants, and they take care to find a sympathetic figure in the form of Nadia Montenegro to frame the immigration debate. But that's not the problem the United States faces on our southern border; there are far greater concerns. Like national security issues.
The Reuters piece does admit:
Organized crime has established extensive human trafficking networks across Mexico, making the journey north through the country treacherous. Mexico is plagued by violence, with around 30,000 people murdered a year and over 100,000 people officially registered as missing.
Many migrants are extorted, beaten, raped, forced to commit crimes, and even killed. Mexican government attempts to slow the arrival of migrants at the U.S. border, by busing and flying non-Mexican migrants to the country's south, add to the risk.
Ay, there's the rub. The cartels who are smuggling people into the United States are the same ones who are smuggling cocaine and fentanyl into the United States. They are the same ones who are abandoning toddlers at the border. They are the ones who are smuggling in invaders who are on terror watch lists.
For every Nadia Montenegro who is seeking to enter the United States, there is another who is part of one of those organized crime groups, like the ones who have taken over apartment buildings in Colorado, like the ones who raped and murdered Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Riley. There are more who are on one or more terror watch lists who we know are now in the United States, but we don't know precisely where they are right now or what they are doing.
And there are at least five figures of Chinese nationals in the country illegally, right now, and we do know what some of them are up to.
That's what Reuters misses. Accidentally — or deliberately?
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