Smelling a rat down south

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"You come to our border the wrong way, you get sent home. Period. Until we get smarter and fix this, the caravans will continue to come. And come. And come." 

Some friends of ours recently moved to Florida. Not that far from the Tampa Bay area. If tomorrow morning, my wife and I decided to take that 1,500 mile drive down to see them, it would result in three very tough, very long days of travel. If per chance, I was in the shape of my lifetime, and decided to make the trip on foot, it would take me two months - if at all. And that is walking 25 miles a day. 

But in that epic journey, there would be some minor logistic problems. Like, where and what to eat? Where to sleep? How many pairs of shoes would it take? Safety issues. The list could go on and on. For someone to make this 1,500 mile trip, the type of shape that person would have to be in would be beyond excellent. Are you getting where I am going with this?

I am calling BS that this mob of people magically appeared at the Guatemalan border, made it across the river into Mexico, and then grew to almost 8,000. And to do it all with barely the clothes on their backs. No way, Jose! There is a puppet master somewhere pulling the strings on this deal.

But that is not the kicker yet. They are going to try and make it to our southern border by the time our elections are held in two weeks. Huh? Make a political statement. How is that going to happen? This caravan of people, some old, some kids, would have to average 100 miles a day to make it by the election. 

Here is the rub. No matter which day they arrive, no matter what mode of transportation they use, we are going to have a big problem. If this caravan of migrants make it to our border, and then set one foot on one inch of American soil - we are screwed. It will be deja vu all over again. Our laws mandate we must give them an amnesty hearing. So here we go again. Separation of families. Kids being put in storage. Families disappearing into the wind once they get a court date. We know the drill - we have been through this dozens of times. 

However, here is our biggest problem. Even though we are getting a lot of good lip service from the Mexican government, they either can not, nor will not, stop this caravan. Some think they might even be helping the caravan. Heck, they don't want these people in Mexico either.

What I find interesting is this. If the shoe was on the other foot, and there was a mob of 8,000 Canadians trying to make it on foot to Mexico, this country would be all over it. If Mexico asked us to stop this caravan and send it back to Canada, we could do that in a heartbeat. We could stop that caravan dead in its tracks, no matter where it was in our country.

For the next few weeks, we will be watching this caravan continue to make progress to the north. It will grow. There will be hardship. Maybe even some death. We will be blamed for it. The Republicans will once again using this as an example of how broken our immigration laws are. The Democrats are licking their chops. They are seeing 8,000 more voters getting closer to the homeland. 

When will this end? It won't. That is, unless we change the board. By changing the board, I mean changing our laws. No more catch and release. No more getting a court date in the future. You come to our border the wrong way, you get sent home. Period. Until we get smarter and fix this, the caravans will continue to come. And come. And come.