White Pills, Real And Potential

Deterrence does work.  As does bureaucrat game.  The recent news on the budget bill was a big black pill, as was the Omnibus Bill almost a year ago.  But President Trump still has options, and some of his bureaucrat game is working, to a degree. [Even After Omnibus Rout, Trump Has Many Immigration Enforcement Options, by Federale, VDare, March 25, 2018]

One aspect of bureaucrat game is working and the New York Times is fuming.

Pushed beyond their limits by prolonged waits in dangerous and squalid conditions in parts of Northern Mexico, thousands of caravan members who had been waiting to seek asylum in the United States appear to have given up, Mexican officials said, dealing President Trump an apparent win after a humbling week for his immigration agenda.

About 6,000 asylum seekers who had traveled en masse, many of them in defiance of Mr. Trump’s demands that they turn around, arrived in Northern Mexico in late November as part of a caravan that originated in Honduras. Since then, more than 1,000 have accepted an offer to be returned home by the Mexican government, the officials said. Another 1,000 have decided to stay in Mexico, accepting work permits that were offered to them last fall, at the height of international consternation over how to deal with the growing presence of migrant caravans.

[With Trump’s Tough Deterrents, Many Asylum Seekers on the Border are Giving Up, by Jose A. Del Real, Caitlin Dickerson and Miriam Jordan, NYT, February 16, 2019]

That is the good news.  The black pill is the budget fiasco, which may not be as bad as predicted.  Check out this review in Fash The Nation.  Now your correspondent is not so sanguine about victory in the courts.  Remember it took two years almost for victory in the Muslim Ban case.  The left has their own version of bureaucrat game, in this case it is Kritarch Game.

However, there is still an option available to President Trump that does not avail itself to Kritarch Game.  Fully deploying the military might of the United States to the border.  And the military is the primary solution to the major problem at the border, the Rio Grande, especially in the lower Rio Grande Valley, the prime territory for alien smuggling.  The Rio Grande is the least amenable part of the border for fence building; property adjoining the river is primarily privately owned, owners are the most hostile to fencing, and the border counties are dominated by hostile political forces and a Brown Run Border attitude of corruption and loyalty to Mexico, not the United States.  Most of the rest of the land border with Mexico is either Federal owned property, Tribal property, or private property where the owners want a wall or fence.  That land is also most amenable to building a wall or double or triple fence.  It is mostly flat, mostly underpopulated, and close to large military bases and other infrastructure for deployment of mobile light forces for patrolling.

Your correspondent did provide a solution to the Rio Grande problem.  Deploy the riverine forces of the United States.  That is Coast Guard and Navy small boat squadrons, as well as National Guard, Army and Marine Corps riverine trained forces to deter crossing of the Rio Grande by illegal aliens and drug smugglers, as well as authorized to use warning shots to deter the same, and instructed to use deadly force against the drug cartels that control the Mexican side of the border.  We already have some experience with riverine forces in the Rio Grande, but those are State of Texas forces.

Photo by Onur Kurtic on Pexels.com

This correspondent’s greatest disappointment with the Trump Administration is that President Trump’s appointees have not supported his immigration enforcement program and worked to undermine immigration enforcement at every turn; from not giving President Trump all the available options, to those who refuse his orders, like Elaine Duke and James Nealon, to a lack of imagination; and a lack of knowledge of aggressive immigration enforcement in times past.  In fact, President Trump has many options to deal with the current crisis at the border, mostly related to effective use of his executive authority and his control of the enforcement and quasi-judicial bureaucracy that deals with immigration.

The current crisis with the caravan of illegal aliens proceeding through Mexico to the United States is a case in point.  President Trump has rightly criticized lax American immigration law when it comes to asylum, due process, the immigration courts (Executive Office for Immigration Review), and the lack of troops on the border to deter illegal aliens.  While some 4,000 National Guardsmen are in process to be deployed to the border, the Defense Department, and ill-intentioned Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have balked at deploying active duty personnel, other than a small number of advisors or U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) units to border.  Apparently there seems to be a lack of understanding of the legal and Constitutional issues of deploying the military to protect the border.  The issue being that there are no issues.  Now, while the Cult Marx leftists have decried a “militarized” border, in fact, the Mexicans militarized the border years ago.  Active duty Mexican Army and Naval personnel actively patrol the border areas, though not for Central Americans seeking to enter El Norte, but to hunt down and kill narcotrafficantes.  There would be nothing wrong with returning the U.S. Army to the border to protect us from Mexican and other invaders.  It has been done before.  In fact, the U.S. Army was the border enforcement force until the creation of the predecessor to the U.S. Border Patrol in 1924.  However, President Trump has other options for deploying the Armed Forces of the United States to the border than ordering infantry and armored forces to patrol the border in a show of force and authorizing a new Punitive Expedition to correct Mexico’s support for illegal immigration…

That is where the active duty military should come in.  Instead of, or complementing the National Guard deployment, the President, deliberately not advised of this option, should deploy riverine and small boat units of the U.S. Navy (USN), U.S. Army (USA), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to the Border Patrol Sectors covering the Rio Grande.  The Army and Navy have a long history of riverine operations, beginning with the Revolutionary War, in the Civil War with U.S. Grant’s successful campaigns down the Mississippi River using gunboats and amphibious assaults on Confederate strongholds, cities, and forts, during the Civil War, and including the famous Navy forces on the river of China.  And the hapless Senator John Kerry, who was in Vietnam, served in the Navy riverine forces in, of all places, Vietnam, which was also well known for Army riverine forces. And it is not all ancient history, the Iraq War had a large Army and Navy riverine involvement.  The skill set for active duty Army and Navy deployment to the Rio Grande would be simple as both the Army and Navy have the skill set and experience in riverine operations.  Add to this the small boat capacity of the USCG, a component of DHS and already authorized by law to enforce immigration and drug laws on the waters of the United States, and the logic of this deployment is obvious.  Add to this 4,000 National Guardsmen who can be quickly taught riverine operations, and there is a huge force multiplier for the USBP.  What is also obvious is that top Trump appointees in DHS and the DOD have not appraised the President of this option.  Another case of #DeepState sabotage of his immigration enforcement program.  Together riverine forces could shut down the Rio Grande to alien smuggling.  Why isn’t it being done? Texas already has.

[Deploy The Brown Water Navy To The Rio Grande, by Federale, Federale Fifth Columnist Blog, July 2, 2018]

Bureaucrat game is good, but has its limits.  To really end illegal immigration before the complete 2,000 mile wall is built, yes, you need all 2,000 miles, the military, including riverine forces, are an absolute necessity.  Can someone get this to President Trump?  Lady DACA surely will not.