Juan Manuel Gastelum Make Tijuana Great Again
The Trump of Tijuana
A mayor's nativist rhetoric is making the caravan crisis worse.
With the midterms over, almost Americans have stopped paying attention to the migrant caravan that left Honduras in early on Oct. Merely the influx of at least two,500 migrants from the group in Tijuana has put the bustling border metropolis on edge. Migrants have been steadily arriving in Tijuana over the past few weeks with the intention of seeking asylum in the U.s.a.. With points of entry very slowly processing potential refugees, migrants have establish a clogging that volition likely go along them in the area for months, if not longer.
For Tijuana, a city of more than 1.5 million people, the large group of new arrivals (which will likely grow in the coming days) presents a complex set of challenges. Even though the city had ample time to prepare for the arrival of the caravan, local government officials at first failed to offer safe accommodation or proper services to the crowd. Many ended up walking along Tijuana's winding roads to the city's beaches, including the area around the imposing border argue. In one case there, as many as 25 men climbed the structure, straddling information technology, one leg wagging over Mexican territory, the other over Californian soil, where a group of Edge Patrol officers watched their every motility. Other migrants held hands and prayed.
Not anybody in Tijuana has reacted kindly to their presence. Residents along the city's beaches verbally confronted local authorities. "Our families come first!" a man shouted on Wednesday. "Our country comes first and and then it'due south their plow. If they come hither violently, they will leave the same way!" With tensions running high, city and land officials scrambled to turn a local sporting circuitous most the border into a large temporary encampment. Just as many had done before while passing through United mexican states Urban center, migrants slept in makeshift tents, children running effectually everywhere. The Mexican media reported that local authorities tried to persuade migrants to leave the streets and use the makeshift facilities instead. Not everyone heeded the call. Those who did received clothes and nutrient.
In the terminal few days, small groups of Tijuanenses have begun vocally protesting the chaos surrounding the caravan situation in the metropolis. On Lord's day, a group of about 300 residents marched, sometimes shoving barricades set up by local police outside the migrants' camp. News reports showed a woman wearing heavy makeup and carrying a Mexican flag shouting, "Leave, Honduran! We don't want you lot hither!" "No to the invasion," read a banner held high by a man hovering just a few anxiety from the police line.
"Mexico Commencement," said another one.
Things were tense in Tijuana before the caravan arrived. The city is wrapping up its almost violent year on record, with more than than two,000 homicides in 2018 alone. With the border effectively airtight, the situation is bad and will likely get worse. Information technology could even go tragic, in a heartbeat. This potentially nightmarish scenario requires a steady paw to soothe the community'due south fears and help migrants in whatever comes next in their grueling journey.
Instead, Tijuana'due south got Juan Manuel Gastélum.
Gastélum, the mayor since 2016, has made a tough problem considerably worse. Instead of being a vox for reason and temperance, Gastélum has gone after the caravan with nativist zeal. "Human rights are for humans who behave the right manner," he said, in an example of rhetoric that would make Stephen Miller proud. The mayor so went on to threaten the migrants with Article 33 of the Mexican Constitution, which states that the executive branch can immediately miscarry whatsoever greenhorn whose presence becomes "inconvenient": "Tijuana is a urban center of migrants, but nosotros just don't desire them this way … they are ambitious, vulgar and they bully authorities," Gastélum insisted. Non surprisingly, Mayor Gastélum quickly caught the attending of a human being very much in tune with the mayor'due south nativist ramblings. On Sunday, Donald Trump approvingly cited Gastélum in a tweet, telling the migrants to "go home!"
The problem, for men like Gastélum and Trump, is that crises rarely conclude by decree. At that place is no end in sight for the humanitarian cataclysm currently unfolding in Cardinal America's Northern Triangle. The caravan that has made its manner to Tijuana might be the most numerous in memory, only it will not be the concluding. Even if entry into the Us turns most impossible and passage through Mexico becomes even more hazardous, Primal American migrants volition go along to flock north.
The reason is simple: For many, the alternative to the hazardous and unpredictable journey is expiry. People can't be scared into turning back toward death. The solution to the crisis, so, lies not with coils of barbed wire tightly wrapped around the edge fence but in a sensitive, ambitious arroyo to the region. The only way to prevent an exodus such as this is to guarantee that life is possible in the identify people are leaving in earnest. In the meantime, Gastélum, Trump, and nativists on both sides of the border betwixt Mexico and the United States should respect the caravan's human rights. Those rights, afterward all, are for everyone, despite what the crude Gastélum might call back.
goulburnsurse1953.blogspot.com
Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/mexico-tijuana-mayor-juan-manuel-gastelum-caravan-trump.html