The US government will never admit it, but they are being disingenuous when they claim that they are trying to reduce immigration from Central America by improving the lives of citizens there to the point that they would just as soon live there then in the United States.

But that is not close to be true. the actual truth is that they are only trying to improve their lives to the point where the advantages of living in the US don't quite make up for the disadvantages of uprooting their lives, making a dangerous trip, and enduring the hoops they will have to jump through as "illegal aliens". In other words the US is counting on "inertia" to provide the majority of the reason why people won't come here rather than help from us of a magnitude where life there is anywhere near as pleasant as here.

This above obvious fact is not mentioned partly because it would force Americans to admit that their standard of living is mainly based on the pure dumb luck of being born in the right place.

Lets be honest if the USA committed the same amount of $ they spend to stabilize the Middle East in Central America they could solve the problem
These people are fleeing violence and corruption . The gangs run these countries with many political leaders turning a blind eye and on the take

Solve the gang problem chances are you solve everything. Trump actually had that right declare all the gangs and cartels as terrorists. Neither party liked that as ones in bed with the banks and the other with guns.

The democrats solution of giving blank checks to these governments isn't going to help one bit

Is the US government even working to improve the lives of Central Americans at all? Genuine question.

Nope

American interventionism in Central America has failed miserably. I don't think anyone has the stomach for what it would take to be successful (imposing rule of law, and all that entails), and even then, you will have to deal with endless insurgencies.

Is this actually a claimed policy position of the US government?

Like sure your point that given the costs of immigration there doesn't need to be equality to prevent immigration is completely obvious and banal. But who exactly needs to be told this completely obvious point?

I agree largely with the OP but I think you must also bake in that the US, like all imperialist countries prior, knows power over other countries comes from their dependency.

An independent country can far more easily tell you to **** off.

That power allows you then to drive unequal deals in trade and for your corporations that benefit you more than them. It is a long game of trying to balance destabilization and dependency but not ruin productivity, which almost always cycles through periods of great failure and stress that leads to these mass migration waves.

It is kind of built in to the model and in the American model would 'accept' their share of migrants as a cost of doing business.

Today America wants to enjoy the spoils but social that cost (migration) to others.

It is a play out the corporate playbook were they take massive risks to enjoy reward profits knowing it will blow up with great cost eventually but they can get the gov't to socialize that cost to others.

(and the US is just following the imperialist playbook written by other prior and China is following it now)

Some truth, but too simplistic imo.

Yes I agree issues in S.America are far more solvable than those in the ME.

It would start with ending the War on Drugs and legalizing them.

Without that you will never solve the gang problem. You cannot 'beat' it simply thru war as every success drives up the market value of getting product in to the US market. Increase profit and you will find newer and better equipped gangs willing to take the risk.

The republicans solution of tighter laws and a more militarized approach will never work.

America could solve the situation with the cartels in Central America and improve the lives of the citizens there in a heartbeat. All it needs to do is...

Yeah count me in the group that's never heard the US government claim they are trying to make central america as good as the US to reduce immigration. Central America is just one of the many places the US is involved in claiming it's trying to improve the lives of citizens. Many of these places have very low immigration rates to the US.

Dounno anything much about central america but trump was trying to make some of the worst places in the world as good a place to live as the usa.

See as much as I agree in legalizing drugs Can you really legalize Meth and Fentaynyl?

If you target all gangs and cartels as Terrorists than the businesses that do business with are also terrorists. Than banks are in trouble as well as gun companies. You shut down trade or commerce with these countries and they must react. A few drone strikes on cartel leaders homes will send a message.

It would be ugly but you either incur some short term pain or I see no question the situation will get worse.

El Salvador is trying but the democrats idea of giving them money is just stupid.

I think this is obviously true, although with the caveat that immigration to the US is about more than just standard of living, but also can include other things like greater economic opportunity. That being said, I also think the stopping illegal immigration through aid to Central America line is itself mostly implausible political messaging. On some level it is true that the long-term way to stop illegal immigration to the US is to change people's calculation of how much it will benefit them to do so, and decreasing the relative gain by making the host country better is one way to attack this. But that is a very long-term solution, beyond the short-term illegal-immigration problems it is in response to and, more relevantly, there is little reason to think that the US sending more aid will have a significant impact in achieving this goal.

You cannot win a war on drugs with strength of arms.

Every time you beat down a source and put them out of business you drive up the price of the goods as the demand (US buyers) are still there and that increase in price that the drug demands makes new entrants rush in, despite the risk, to fill the demand.

You actually ensure more parties get in compete and fight over the Drug Trade as you make profits grow to massive levels.

The way to beat the drug trade is to take profit out of the equation. No one fights or dies for an item that will make them no money.

If I can get marijuana at every corner dispensary in Edmonton or Vancouver it ceases to become a lynch pin items gangs will wage turf wars over to control the supply of.

Bring back marijuana prohibition while waging a war on it and those who grow it and supply iy and instantly you will see the black market thrive and people kill to control it.

You have to legalize those hardcore drugs. There are already neighborhoods all across America where people shoot up openly on the street. There are not enough police to stop it and it would be a huge waste of money anyways.
Then you have the morons like in Indiana stopping their needle exchange programs that were enacted to reduce HIV transmission which worked and now they're going to stop a successful policy.
As for bombing the cartels, I'm sure you're aware of how brutal the cartel tactics can be. Personally I'd like to do more travel in Latin America but that probably wouldn't be possible based on American citizens becoming targets as a retaliation to US military.

Most people know the drug war is a failure but it's a gravy train for too many people.
These idiots are arguing where to get the money for infrastructure improvement in the country. Taking most of the drug war funds would be a good start.

End of the war on drugs is only one step of the process. Cartels and gang violence with respect to drugs is no different than organized crime during prohibition. Once you end prohibition, the cartels and gangs are going to adapt, much like organized crime did after prohibition. They've already started to diversify:


The decrease in prevalence of organized crime in the US actually coincided with a law called RICO, i.e. rule of law.

I agree the neocon approach isn't appropriate, and I don't think many conservatives have an appetite for militaristic interventionalism in Central America based on lessons learned from Bush. However, that doesn't erase the fact that rule of law needs to put in place and political corruption to be snuffed out in order for these countries to be successful. You can't do that with money or diplomacy, and actually trying to intervene in another country's political process has never ended well.

I don't disagree with any of that. I would just say the 'diversification' is built largely on the mass amounts of excess cash from the drug trade. Just as a marijuana seller who finds himself with excess cash can move up stream in the drug trade to the more expensive but more profitable drugs.

End the drug cash flow and the other issues are more addressable. I won't say 'easy' but 'more' is appropriate.

There's a category difference between demand driven crimes such as we have with drugs and crimes just done for profit.

The former is orders of magnitude more difficult to combat.

What? "All I wanted to be was a gangsta".

Organized crime thoroughly corrupted cities like New York City, Las Vegas, and Chicago up until RICO in the late 80's, more than 50 years after prohibition in the US ended.


Also, The French Connection.

The idea that you get rid of drugs these cartels are going to go away it's just a myth. It starts and stops with rule of law, and getting rid of corruption. Until these countries are able to install these things, their people are going to suffer immensely, irrespective of US drug policy.

What’s excessive immigration?

Maybe but difficult as it is, it can be tackled. Unlike with drugs, there's no demand that creates an effectively instant, and often worse, replacement to any criminal activity that is stopped.

It's like stamping out a really nasty infection only for the host to actively and determindly seek out a replacement infection.

They would have to be competitive with black market prices and not tax the **** out of it though.
There are rec dispensaries where I live but I don’t know anyone who buys from them because it is literally 3x more expensive then getting it off the street.