Trump and Obama, the same stone in the shoe
Time heals everything. In politics, it erases everything. The current president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, faces one of the most serious problems during his administration so far. The conflicts beyond borders have been resolved mostly; however, domestically, there is still much to be done. Emigration is the hot issue these days that caused the White House’s West Wing not to stop having meetings to find solutions. Yet, it is not the first time that a US administration suffers a similar crisis; four years ago Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize and the first African-American to lead the destiny of the northern nation faced an identical situation.
The current administration is once again fighting with Central American immigrants who flee in terror of the violence that exists in their nations, caused mainly by criminal gangs that, in addition to the drug, control human trafficking and are expanding their tentacles towards the border regions with Mexico.
Several journalists estimate that such gangs as the MS-13 are even responsible for executing members of other gangs. Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are among the most affected nations.
Obama, like his successor, had to handle the migration crisis caused by the actions of the gang members. At that time an average of 60,000 families (parents-children) arrived at the border in 2014. At the end of Obama's administration, the figures exceeded the 70,000 ones. At that time, Barack also had to face similar court cases and just as Trump began arresting mothers and their children in detention centers: a 100-bed facility in Pennsylvania and two larger ones in Texas that began operating in 2014, about thousands of beds in total.
However, time passed by and the Nobel Prize managed to join the families and gave the opportunity to these family units to appear in the courts. The differences regarding the current crisis lay on the vision on the migration issue and the beliefs and values of the two leaders.
On the one hand, Obama has emigrant (African) descent, while Trump is openly anti-migrant and xenophobic. Obama's crisis have no strong humanitarian repercussions while Trump has been attacked by the multiple images of detention centers in which families, especially children, are under subhuman living conditions.
Paradoxically, there is a 1997 agreement to which activists appealed during Obama’s administration to call for the good treatment of migrant children. At the time, Barack heard the demands of the humanitarian groups and a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that the children could not remain in detention. But, now, Trump is deaf and indolently has kept thousands of children isolated from their parents.
The zero tolerance policy and the obsession with fulfilling his promise regarding emigration have led the current president to succumb to the crisis, a situation that media has took advantage of cunningly to attack him once again. And if he was able to defend himself against a first onslaught when some photos of the Obama years were published now the images of the detention centers he has created are cruder.
Nevertheless, the president Donald Trump has said on multiple occasions that without that measure the number of emigrants who would enter the country would have been greater. Using the "zero tolerance" policy immigrant adults are arrested for illegally getting to the country and prosecuted, which increases the number of split families.
In addition, the business of private detention centers is bringing great dividends and more and more private entrepreneurs join the business. Thomas Homan himself, former Chief of ICE, wants to get involved in the lucrative prison business. In fact, the possibility of creating new detention facilities with the private sector has been handled.
In the current migratory crisis, it worsens the situation the fact that the federal government needs time to process political asylum requests and to obtain evidence from the respective countries. On the other hand, and compared to Barack Obama’s government, he had not around 1500 children off ICE’s radar, admitted by Donald Trump's administration itself.
The New York mogul will have a lot of work to do if he wants to improve the Obama’s legacy. Now, he has the unparalleled opportunity to give a more humanitarian and viable solution to the migratory crisis similar to that of his predecessor. Let's see if he has the capacity, as a statesman, to reverse it and make his image better.