How about instead of building a wall at the border ...

... we work with the countries to our south to make them places they don't want to leave? It would be cheaper and more effective in the long run.

Here is the argument against that approach, and here is 3 reasons why it is wrong.

"It's their mess, we shouldn't have to be the ones to clean it up!"

1) That is only partly true. Americans have a long history intervention in the region, and anti-communist driven initiatives of the 1950s-1980s left a considerable mess. We are obligated to pay for some of the clean-up.


2) The anti-communist coups are a damaging legacy that casts a shadow over the now. But it isn't more important than now. Let's admit two facts:

i) The US war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster. It has been devastating in the US, doing far more damage than the drugs themselves ever could. But, as importantly, it puts a lot of resources in the hands of violent criminals in Latin America, making them too powerful for the weak governments there to handle.

This is a North American-made policy choice that is destroying Latin America, and driving their people north.

ii) America's love affair with guns ensures that the drug lords are well armed and capable of overwhelming countries with violence. Put simply, American gun manufacturers know that a part of their market are the drug cartels, and they produce the guns anyway.

While making this point tends to draw a lot of self-righteous noise about individual rights, the 2nd amendment begins "a well-regulated militia ..." not, "unregulated drug cartels...".

So here's a simple proposal: how about [i]not[/i] producing guns for global criminals?

Starve groups like MS-13 of resources and armament, reduce the violence in Latin America and let people stay in their homes rather than coming to the US?

Unlike a wall, it just might work ...🤔