No. of Recommendations: 6
Is every Guatemalan on some government hit list? No.
Most people at the border are here looking for economic opportunity.
Is every Guatemalan facing the arduous and dangerous crossing to America? No.
Many people at the border are legitimately seeking asylum, and too high a percentage of them obtain asylum - despite being poor and mostly unrepresented by counsel and unfamiliar with the American legal system - that it is highly unlikely that "most" of the ones who request asylum are here only looking for economic opportunity.
The issues with the border arise, in part, because we are acting as though circumstances haven't changed from the 1980's - when most people at the border were attempting to cross undetected to pursue economic opportunity. Rather than recognizing that things have changed, and we have to deal with a border characterized by large numbers of people who are fleeing persecution in their home countries.
If you keep closing your eyes to how the situation has changed, you're not going to be able to solve the border problems. Whether you prefer to solve them by improving the asylum processing system or by abrogating our treaty commitments for the humane processing of refugees, you can't solve those problems by pretending that we're still back in an era where most border crossers are adult male Mexicans working for work, rather than Central Triangle families looking to flee their home countries.
