At the time when the new president of the United States is sworn in on January 20, the border wall between the United States and Mexico will also face a “big test”. Thousands of illegal immigrants to the United States have set out from the assembly of northern Honduras in Central America.
With the end of the Trump administration era, will the border wall, which is the most direct and important embodiment of his immigration policy, continue to be built?
At the same time, the era of the new president is about to begin, including the relationship between the United States and Mexico and what kind of immigration policy the United States will adopt, which are important issues of intense attention from the outside world.
The “U.S.-Mexico Border Wall Examination” is approaching. The army of Central American immigrants set out. Mexico and other three countries are busy preparing during the epidemic.
Mexico is the only country bordering the southern land of the United States. There is an ultra-long border between the two countries. All illegal immigrants who want to enter the United States from Central and South America to the north must pass through Mexico.
Because of such geographical conditions, the problem of illegal immigration has become a “pain point” that cannot be bypassed in the relationship between the United States and Mexico.
The problem of migration has existed for a long time, and the huge gap between rich and poor caused by the imbalance in economic development between the United States and Mexico, including Central and South America, is the root cause of the problem of illegal immigration.
In other words, these illegal immigrants do not yearn for the United States. Their main purpose is to escape the violence and suffering of their own countries.
The situation is worsened by the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic and the economic recession caused by the damage caused by two hurricanes such as Ita in November 2020.
Now, the border wall and the immigration policy of the United States are about to usher in a “big test”. At present, the new U.S. government’s immigration policy is still unclear. How will the United States respond when a large number of immigrants arrive at the border wall?
Of course, not only the immigration policy of the United States will be tested, but also countries such as Mexico along the way need to be forced to cope with the tests brought about by these immigration groups in the context of the epidemic.
Authorities of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras announced on January 11 local time that they were preparing relevant measures to deal with the immigration from northern Honduras to the United States.
The illegal immigrant team is called for assembly on the Internet. Since December 2020, the invitation to form a “January 15, 2021 migrant caravan team” has been circulating on social networks.
They expect the new president of the United States to relax immigration policies when he comes to power.
Some analysts point out that these immigrants have even calculated the date to take the opportunity to rush into the “quasi-vacuum period of border regulation” at the time of the transfer of power of the President of the United States to see if they can “infiltrate” into the United States.
Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala have responded to this call, saying that they will join the illegal immigration team of Honduras halfway. Launched on social networks to form an immigrant “caravan” team from northern Honduras on January 15.
Authorities in the three countries, including Mexico, said they would first determine what measures would be taken to deal with this immigration force and would also “prioritize helping unaccompanied minors and vulnerable groups”.
While “immigrants is a right,” the three governments said, migrants must also comply with cross-border regulations, particularly the need to produce a negative COVID-19 test and identification documents, including the identity documents of the minor children accompanying them.
But in fact, many immigrants can’t even produce identity documents, let alone negative tests for COVID-19. Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras also announced in a joint statement that they would support “safe, orderly and legal” migrants and strengthen the fight against “illegal migrant labor and human trafficking”.
The vast army of immigrants is on the way. What is their future like?
The insoluble “border wall complex” faces impeachment. Trump still goes to the border wall between the United States and Mexico.
Perhaps many years later, when people talk about the name Trump again, the keyword “the border wall between the United States and Mexico” is likely to be mentioned together.
From the beginning of Trump’s 2016 campaign, the “border wall” has become a concrete embodiment of Trump’s immigration policy. It has not only been one of the core issues of his campaign, but also a hot topic of news.
And after his official election as President of the United States, Trump does not seem to have put down his “border wall complex”.
In fact, if the time is moved back to January 2017, when the new official took office, Trump first did it after taking office, was to sign the Executive Order Border Security and Improve Immigration Enforcement on January 26, 2017, formally instructing the U.S. government to build a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and claiming that Mexico would let Mexico Brother pays for the construction of the wall.
Seeing that four years have passed, as of October 2020, the Trump administration has built about 600 kilometers of border walls, most of which include repairing or rectifying the previous border barrier, which has cost billions of dollars.
However, it is worth mentioning that Mexico has not paid any fees for this. The cost of building the wall is paid by American taxpayers.
On January 12, 2021, less than 10 days of the presidency, even in the face of impeachment again, Trump insisted on going to the town of Alamo, Texas, to witness the completion of the border wall of more than 600 kilometers, highlighting the achievements of his government’s work on the border wall. Trump’s visit is his first public appearance after the impact on Congress on January 6.
Some analysts pointed out that Trump had previously ordered the construction of a wall in the world at full capacity in the last few weeks of his term, because Trump knew clearly that it was his so-called “political legacy”.
After the Capitol Hill shock on January 6, Trump chose to take the border wall as an example again in his few remaining “political legacy”.
President-elect Biden stops building the wall and will deal with the immigration wave as soon as he takes office?
In fact, Trump is well aware that U.S. President-elect Biden intends to stop the construction of the border wall as soon as he takes office, because Biden has long mentioned and repeatedly reiterated this in his campaign.
President-elect Biden would save $2.6 billion if he stopped building the wall immediately after he was sworn in, according to the Pentagon report. Because this wall will be one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in federal history in the United States.
According to analysis, the Trump administration has spent about $15 billion on the construction of the wall, one third of which comes from Congress, and the rest is misappropriated from the budgets of the Department of Defense, anti-drug programs and military accounts.
On the construction of the border wall, according to media reports, it is very likely that President-elect Biden of the United States will significantly modify Trump’s immigration policy after taking office.
If you look back at the 2018 and 2019 Central American migrant “caravan” incidents, it will be found that in response to illegal immigration, U.S. President Trump ordered increased border control measures and even deployed a large number of military personnel at the border.
And asked the Mexican government to cooperate with the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy of the United States.
In January 2019, the Trump administration began to implement the Immigration Protection Agreement and implement the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring illegal immigrants from Central America who are trying to seek asylum from the United States to stay in border cities on the Mexican side.
Waiting for the processing of asylum applications by the courts of the United States.
This policy has led to many illegal immigrants staying in Mexico, which analysts have criticized as a unilateral shirk of problems and responsibilities.
The Mexican government stressed that Mexico should not be blamed for illegal immigration flows. The Mexican Ministry of the Interior said that it would draw up a plan with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants staying in the country.
At the same time, it was said that Mexico would work with the governments of the United States, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to deal with the problem of illegal immigration.
Trump previously warned that ending his immigration policies and encouraging immigration would lead to “unseen waves of illegal immigration”.
Trump also stressed in an interview that if President-elect Biden stopped building the border wall, “it would be a dangerous policy and our country would become unsafe as a result.”
However, U.S. President-elect Biden has promised to withdraw the policy of “Remain in Mexico”.
Countries like Mexico are trying to stop this wave of caravan immigration, which may be good news for Biden, because analysts from the Biden team have said: “If Biden has a large wave of immigrants as soon as he takes office, it is really worrying.”
With just days to go before the transfer of power to the President of the United States on January 20, how U.S. President-elect Biden and his advisers will deal with the issue of the border wall and the tide of immigration, which we will continue to pay attention.
