How The Central American Caravan Could Lead To A U.S. Refugee Crisis Like Europe’s

What an awful but important suggestion about the caravan — here is Edward Cindric at The Federalist:

While the encroaching caravan south of our border may seem miniscule in comparison, the mass exodus of migrants to Europe did not transpire overnight either.

The Washington Post recently published an insidious analysis comparing Trump’s caravan rhetoric to right-wing populists “making up stories” and “stoking fear” during the European refugee crisis.

The article began by disparaging what the author believes to be unsubstantiated claims that the approaching caravan from Central America is an “invasion” and “terrorism risk,” as President Trump has described. According to the author, there’s “no better way for populists to win an election than by announcing a national emergency that plays into voters’ fears.”

It’s quite startling that a journalist would completely discard the horrific events that culminated during the extended, and at times fatal, refugee crisis across Europe. In 2015 and 2016, there were more than 2.3 million illegal crossings recorded across the European Union, with Germany absorbing more than 1 million foreign citizens in 2015 alone.

While the encroaching caravan south of our border may seem miniscule in comparison, the mass exodus of people from Northern Africa and the Middle East to Europe did not transpire overnight either. The first signs of the preceding European crisis began in January 2015, after a ship abandoned by smugglers was rescued off the coast of Italy with only 360 Syrians on board.

In the following months, ships carrying anywhere between a few hundred to a thousand people were intercepted all along Mediterranean coastlines. Figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency showed that 63,000 foreign citizens arrived in Greece and 62,000 in Italy during just the first half of 2015.

In the summer of 2015, Macedonia was forced to seal its border with Greece and declare a state of emergency to help the government cope with a seemingly unending inflow of foreigners, as the numbers trying to enter Macedonia rose to more than 3,000 per day. This occurred roughly at the same time German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced “no limits on the number of asylum seekers” Germany would take in, before reversing her statement under significant public pressure two years later. At the time, her generous asylum appeal originated from the widespread assertion that most border-crossers were simply fleeing violence from war-torn homelands.

Read more: The Federalist

Image credit: www.thefederalist.com.