U.S. policy for Central America should look beyond a wall to addressing nations’ problems

Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited El Salvador on a fact-finding mission to seek a better understanding of the root causes of the migrant caravan crisis and how California might assist El Salvador improve its economy and the lives of its citizens.

California is home to more undocumented residents than any state in the nation. With over a half-million Central Americans now living in the Los Angeles area, and about the same number of Salvadorans living in Los Angeles County, it seems that Gov. Newsom was doing what comes natural for a governor of a state so dramatically impacted by the current migrant crisis at our southern border.

As increasing numbers of migrants from Central America arrive at our border, the taxes to pay for those settling in California will be borne by its taxpayers – in addition to federal assistance – and taxes are one of the main reasons why Californians are fleeing the state. California’s sister states and their communities will also shoulder the burden of providing legal services, affordable housing, health care, law enforcement, quality education and other provisions required by people attempting to climb out of poverty and homelessness.

The nation is deeply divided over just what to do about the migrant crisis. Over 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, more than double the number the year before, according to a New York Times report. Once President Donald Trump saw the visceral support at his rallies for the wall he proposed along the Mexican border, he hit it hard at every stop along the way. To this day, he uses his red-meat rhetoric of a wall to incite crowds. Both Republicans and Democrats have supported increased barriers at the border, but Trump’s specific call for a wall across the entire length of the Mexican border forced the two parties into an almost exclusive focus on what kind of barrier was necessary, appropriate and affordable to maintain border security.

Although a Gallup poll in February found a solid majority of Americans opposed to the wall, there is far too little attention given to how the United States, together with Central American countries, can address the root causes of the migrant caravan crisis. You will find those root causes in at least three Central American countries: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Identifying and agreeing on the underlying set of conditions creating such a massive exodus is complicated and contentious, but it must be front and center in our nation’s efforts to stem the flows into America.

President Trump threatens to halt foreign aid to those countries until their leaders do something. Yet foreign policy experts blame that very foreign aid in past years for the crisis today. With the goal of fighting communism, Congress and presidents sent appropriations south and propped up dictatorships that just exacerbated the poverty, inequality and violence in their countries. Other contributors include climate change, as drought dried up agricultural jobs and caused the collapse of the coffee market. The drug trade is another major contributor to the gangs and violence so many migrants are fleeing.

With California’s social compact under considerable financial strain, it’s refreshing to see Newsom go beyond “wall calling” and move the conversation to the root causes driving the caravans north. Newsom’s trip to El Salvador was justified as a fact-finding mission, and with poverty at the core of the breakdown of civil society in these countries, he met with officials to discuss how economic development expertise might help them. Although it may sound strange to an inland state, Newsom, a surfer himself, discussed surfing as a way to attract more tourists and offered expertise on the development of environmentally friendly coastal zones that could attract more tourism and create additional jobs for Salvadorans.

Partisans chimed in on the governor’s trip as self-promotion, as though anything a governor does is not self-promotion to some extent. As small an effort as Newsom’s visit may appear, it can serve as the beginning of a federal and state effort to help these countries improve their economies and provide more employment options for their citizens.

It must start with an understanding of our history in Central America. Where did we get it right and where did we get it wrong? Then we go about fixing what we got wrong and sorting out the good guys from the bad guys so that any future funding is not squandered, as it has been in the past.

The scope and scale of such an effort would require the kind of commitment President Lyndon Johnson made when he declared a War on Poverty, and the kind of resolve President John F. Kennedy summoned in the race to the moon. It would take a concerted bipartisan effort involving the president, Congress and the governors whose states are most dramatically affected by the steady stream of refugees traveling north.

There was a time when America could face up to crises like this and its citizens could be reassured of results. Thanks to a polarized and stalemated Congress, those days are few and far between. It’s time to double down and remind our elected officials to get focused, roll up their sleeves and address what is causing so many people to show up at our borders. That must take us beyond a wall to a new foreign policy in regard to Central America.

This story was originally published May 10, 2019 at 8:17 PM.