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President Trump had vocally considered closing the southern border until a slight cut on Thursday, leaving Mexico a year to decide whether or not he would comply with his demands. His White House team probably pushed him off the edge of the field because he seems to be the only member of his own government who wants to take such a radical step.
Indeed, senior officials and Department of Homeland Security officials consider that the closing of entry points, what Trump calls a border closure, is a "last resort" method. It is not often that Trump completely turns his back on the 2 cents fact, it is usually about immigration. This is not Trump's first threat of this nature, and certainly not the last, because, as his recent backtracking shows, the President is not really serious about closing the border. . He simply wants the debate on immigration to be defined in his favor. He hopes this will be seen as a dichotomy between his pro-American immigration policy and the anti-American democrats.
It's easy to see how empty Trump's threat was: if he closed the border, the economic consequences would be terrible. An estimated $ 1.5 billion in daily trade along the southern border. At the same time, nearly 500,000 people cross the border legally every day, through the ports of Texas. With the closure of the border, shipments of vegetables and other products would be stopped, truck drivers blocked and blocked and tourists banned from all kinds of traffic. Trump loves to boast about the strength of the economy, but if he closed the border, a drop in stocks would certainly follow.
This would punish many innocent people and Trump knows it well. Following this threat as a political statement would have been extremely costly for Trump. But such a claim forces the Democrats who run for president to reveal their position on immigration, opening them to Trump's attacks.
After all, President Trump's 2016 campaign was based on Central America's concerns about immigrants taking jobs. It will probably not deviate from this strategy for the 2020 elections, a news for anyone, not even for the Democrats. But as opponents of Trump clarify their positions in response to pressure, the president hopes to fall into the trap of rhetoric by posing as border activists or "criminals" for their tolerance of illegal immigration. .
Trump has recently triggered a feature Storm Twitter Beto O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman, and Julián Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for President Barack Obama, rallied to present their own immigration plans. For his part, Castro revealed that he would not consider an immigrant entering the United States undocumented, under any circumstances, a federal crime. Trump will spend a busy day dismantling this proposal by trying to build on his "tough guy against crime" mentality, even though the electorate has moved away from this Reagan-era perspective.
O'Rourke is from El Paso, Texas, a city that is overcrowded because of the reassignment of customs officers and the Border Patrol to deal with unauthorized migrants. O & # 39; Rourke emphasized Trump's naive understanding on this subject by pointing out that immigration policy is actually closely tied to foreign policy, a reality that Trump likes to avoid, as evidenced by his recent call for cut off aid in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. would only exacerbate the flow of immigrants to our borders.
Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Another presidential candidate, has already tried to stand out from Trump by passionately pleading for the recipients of the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, known as the name of "Dreamers". She introduced a bill in Congress perhaps intended to differentiate herself from her main opponent O 'Rourke, who would allow "Dreamers" to work as staff members or interns in Congress.
The immigration debate will be at the center of the 2020 elections, which means that Democrats must refine their positions on immigration so as not to fall into Trump's rhetorical trap. But we must all remember that Trump's first two years of tough immigration stance did not really mitigate the biggest source of conservative apprehension: the rise of migration. In fact, March 2019 saw the highest rate of migrants since 2008.
Who knows, Trump could easily be pushed once again to follow through on his threat, even if his initial intention was to force Democrats to show their cards. But if he does, he will not do anything, he faces his chances in a win in 2020 – and ordinary Americans he claims to be the champion.
Natalie Dowzicky (@Nat_Dowzicky) is a researcher in a think tank in Washington, DC and a contributor to Young Voices.
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