How the U.S. can help caravan migrants stay home
When a caravan of Central American families seeking asylum in the United States was almost a thousand miles away, President Donald Trump called it a "national emergency" on Twitter and ordered more than 5,000 troops to protect the border.
But by the time the first group of migrants arrived at the port of entry in Tijuana, Mexico, near San Diego, a few days before Thanksgiving, the troops were told to pack up and leave.
What a difference an election makes.
The president's warnings of invading terrorists, disease, "Middle Easterners" and "criminal aliens" -- all, according to Trump, thanks to the "open borders" Democrats -- turned out mostly to be hype, just as the president's skeptical critics had predicted.
We saw similar fear-mongering from the president in April, as another migrant caravan started out with about 1,500 people in southern Mexico but dwindled to a few hundred by the time it reached the California border. Trump's tireless fear-mongering this time still failed to prevent his party's loss of its majority in the House of Representatives.
So our troops, including National Guard and regular Army, are being brought home.
After daily streams of his pre-election tweets sounded alarms about an "invasion," Trump seemed suddenly to forget about the caravan after voters handed the Democrats control of the House.
His immigration policy suffered a further setback late Monday when a federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama temporarily blocked a new Trump rule that bars asylum for immigrants who enter the United States outside of a legal checkpoint.
Trump signed the rule by proclamation on Nov. 9, invoking national security powers in response to the approaching caravan, and let it go into effect immediately without the customary period for public comment.
Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said that the policy signed by the president "irreconcilably conflicts" with immigration law and the "expressed intent of Congress."
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