Trump says that if the caravan reaches the border he will deploy the military. Can the military be used on American soil?

@Xuan12 That's why I am asking the question. The caravan would have to be legally considered as an invading force, OR we would have to seek permission from Mexico to position our troops on Mexican soil right AT the border.

@4meAndyou A more practical response would probably just be to concentrate the necessary amount of border patrol resources along with non-military auxiliary resources from state and local governments to handle it. But that doesn't make as flashy of a sound-byte.

@Xuan12 I don't think that's do-able. Border patrol is already maxed out dealing with 624 illegal aliens crossing the border per day. National guard has already been deployed just to deal with that. All the shelters are full and we don't have room for anymore. Agents assigned to transport the illegals to shelters in distant states are NOT on the border.

2000 of the caravan have been turned back in Guatamala, but that leaves 2000 still trying to crash our border.

@4meAndyou That's not a lot for them actually. They've handled more in the past. Like just last year even. They handled 832 a day last year. The year before that it was over 1,100 per day. I get the sense that some people are greatly exaggerating the situation. Hmm...I wonder why? XD

@Xuan12 It was 4000 yesterday. 2000 of them turned back, and were repelled by the Mexian police. Situations DO change from day to day. I hope that by the time the "caravan" gets here it is only a couple dozen women and kids. Then we won't need the military.

@4meAndyou I don't think it's needed at all. It's politics. In the 90s, there were nearly 4000 crossings apprehended per day without the military.

@Xuan12 Yes, but I researched the dollar figures for every illegal alien (624 per day) that we are paying each and every day out of our personal taxes for their social services. Each illegal alien family member represents $8075.00 in tax burden.

Check this article out: https://fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers

If we don't do something, we will have all of South America sitting in our laps sucking off social services and the cost will continue to rise and rise and rise.
We will be like the one boat in the middle of the ocean after a shipwreck, with room for 200, but there are 2000 in the water. If we take them all on board, we all go down. It's not a pleasant fact of life, but we have to think about our own survival sometime.

@4meAndyou I would think that's a bit of an overestimate, as many illegal workers never claim any benefits because they don't want to be detected by authorities. That aside though, there's an always overlooked and never implemented measure that could be taken, which rarely is, and doesn't involve any border complications. Punish their employers.

Although personally I don't care about it. I don't have to compete with people with poor english skills, and no papers for work. But it is more complicated than it looks. A lot of these jobs, Americans really won't do. Not because they see the work as being beneath them, but the work doesn't pay enough to sustain them. Immigrant workers can come over for a season, take a subpar, under the table wage, return home with that money and live well for the rest of the year. An American who actually has to live in the area year-round can't do that. The money has less buying power in the US, and seasonal/poorly paid work can't sustain their needs or the needs of their families.

A lot of businesses don't just want those workers, they depend on them. Why do you think nobody has ever actually done anything about it before? All this jabbering about it is political theater.

Heck, if that link you posted is right, the number of illegal immigrants in the country has actually INCREASED since Trump took office by about 2million people. A lot of stuff just isn't adding up.

@Xuan12 You are right, the number of illegal immigrants rises every single day. 624 illegal immigrants come in every day, and those are just the ones we know about. I read that the illegal immigrant population inside the US was once estimated to be about 10%, but there are at least twice that many living here. We can not count a population that has a vested interest in hiding. and that is what doesn't add up. And how many have been trafficked into slavery? Who can count what criminals don't want to have known?

I do agree that we need to go after employers but states like California prevent that, and will actually prosecute employers who go after employees because of their illegal status.

https://www.epi.org/publication/california-immigrant-labor-laws/

California estimates that 5% of their unskilled labor force are illegal immigrants.

The 5% estimate is probably accurate. I really doubt 1 out of every 5 people here is an illegal immigrant. XD